Issue 2 - 12th September 2025
Dear Families,
Well done everyone for settling into the routines of your new year group during our first full week back at school!
We believe that in order for children to fully benefit from their experiences at school—both in learning and in wider opportunities—it is vital that parents and carers are kept fully informed about what is happening and why.
For this reason, we strongly encourage you to attend our Year Group Parent Information Meetings. At these meetings, teachers will share important information about exciting school events, curriculum plans (long and medium-term), and how you can support your child at home. We will also be discussing swimming, school trips, The Climb, and our new ‘Let Grow’ initiative.
For Year 6 families, we will also provide details about Grafham and SATs.
The meetings will be held in the school hall, which can be accessed via the hall doors through the quadrant. Children and siblings are welcome to attend and creche will be available for those who wish to use it, and this will be clearly signposted from the hall.
Dates and times:
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Tuesday 16th September – Year 3 – 3.30–4.30pm
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Wednesday 17th September – Year 6 – 4.30–5.30pm (Please note: this time has been amended due to a change in staff commitments)
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Thursday 18th September – Years 4 & 5 – 3.30–4.30pm
We look forward to seeing you there!
Have a good weekend.
Emma Fordham,
Headteacher
Key Messages
School open events and key dates for secondary transfer
Moving on 2026 leaflet Information for parents with children in year 6 at primary/junior school. Further information about moving to secondary school in September 2026 will be available at www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/admissions
The timetable below gives you an idea of what will happen over the next few months.
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September and October |
Secondary and upper schools hold their open events (Details available at www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/schoolsdirectory) |
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31 October 2025 |
Deadline for applications |
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2 December 2025 |
Last date to: • submit reasons for making a late application and for that application to be considered ‘on time’ • notify us of a change of address and for that address to be taken into account for allocation day Please refer to the online admission pages for more detail about these processes. |
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30 January 2026 |
Last date to make a late application to be considered for allocation day. |
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2 March 2026 |
Allocation Day. School places are offered. |
Grafham
A quick reminder for those who haven't already, please can you complete the short form (linked below). The deadline to complete this is today.
https://forms.office.com/e/AFJSDphYSq
If there is anything else you wish to inform us of, please email year6@almondhill.herts.sch.uk
The deadline for final payments is on Thursday 18th September. Payments are now made on Arbor.
Operation Encompass
We wanted to make our new parents aware (and remind parents) of Operation Encompass which is a system in place between schools and the Police to support families. Operation Encompass is the notification to schools, prior to the start of the next school day, of incidents where and when a child or young person has experienced or been exposed to any domestic abuse.
Operation Encompass allows the Police to liaise with a trained member of school staff (DSL) so they can use the information that has been shared in confidence whilst also ensuring that the school is able to make provision for possible difficulties experienced by children, or their families, who have experienced a domestic abuse incident. We are keen to offer the best support possible to all our pupils and we believe this will be extremely beneficial for all those involved.
New Families - Transition Survey
We hope you have settled well into life at Almond Hill. We are always looking to better our processes and have been working on improving how we manage 'in year' transition to Almond Hill. As a family who has recently joined us, we are really keen to gather your feedback to help us continue to improve so would really appreciate it if you would complete the quick survey (linked below) to share your views.
Clubs
At Almond Hill, we believe in the all-round development of the children and aim to provide a wide range of clubs to encourage this. Most of our clubs are either facilitated by staff who volunteer their time or run by external providers. We already run the following clubs at lunchtime.
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Mrs. Cleaves runs a well-established choir for children in years 5 and 6.
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We have a journalist club where children create the ‘2 Cool 4 School’ newspaper supported by Mrs. Fordham and Mrs Jones for children in Years 4, 5 and 6. If your child wishes to join, please remind them to come along. This is a half termly commitment as an edition of the school newspaper is published half termly. Children are reminded of this in assemblies.
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Mrs Burgess runs a young carer’s club at lunchtime on the first Tuesday of every month.
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Miss Wase and Miss Simmons run the netball and football teams. These are offered to Years 5 and 6 and are mixed gender teams however, they are both competitive and so it is more likely that the older children will be picked for these but not definitive. Trials are held in school and parents will be informed directly if their child has been chosen for the team.
The following clubs are externally provided and therefore are chargeable. These clubs are booked directly with the provider following the links below:
WB Football on Mondays and Tuesdays: https://coaching-wb.classforkids.io/term/1
Dance and Street dance with Lindsey Pollard on Wednesdays: Children's Classes - Lindsey Pollard Dance
All clubs run from 3:15 until 4:15 unless specifically stated otherwise.
More clubs will be added over the course of the term.
Please sign your child up for a place on the Arbor Parent Portal. This will open at 9.00am on Saturday 13th September. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. Please talk to your child about whether they wish to do the club before signing them up. We expect children to attend clubs regularly and we keep an attendance register. Please inform the school office if your child is unable to attend for any reason. We will follow up with parents whose child has not attended.
A ‘how to’ guide for using clubs in Arbor can be found by following this link;
Clubs are extremely popular and therefore go very quickly. If you find you are unable to register for a club, it is likely that it is full. Please let the office know and we will add you to a waiting list.
For children in Years 5 and 6, please add your consent to Arbor (under notices) if your child is permitted to walk home independently after clubs. If this has not been completed, children will wait at school until collected. We expect all children in Year 3 and 4 to be collected promptly at 4:15pm.
All school run clubs will run from week commencing Monday 22nd September to Friday 28th November (except for those linked to teams). Clubs do not run during half term week and French club and Stop Animation will not run w/c 7th October due to Parents’ Evening.
Please log into your Arbor Parent Portal to ensure you have access before bookings open.
