Here at Simon Balle we ask that you please join us in thinking about the millions of people who were murdered during this horrific time.

Year 9 will be spending the day learning about the horrors with the Humanities team and students have been learning lessons from the event all week in assemblies and form activities.

We will light a Jewish remembrance candle which will be kept alight all day to help us remember the message that this teaches us, that we must ‘Speak up and Speak out’ against such atrocities and the discrimination that happens every day.

We are preparing to launch our “No Boundaries to Bullying” initiative.

We are committed to ensuring all our students feel safe and free from harm and it is to this end that we continue to adopt a firm stand against bullying behaviour.

Please could I ask that as many parents as possible complete the short online questionnaire  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/S6KSLB9 in order that we can further improve the work that we do.

For full details please click here to access more details on the Student Wellbeing page.

Please click here to access the Spring Newsletter for Chatss – parent support group for Children’s Integrated Playschemes.

Date for your diaries – the PSA Ladies Indulgence Evening is to be held on Friday 23rd March. Online booking available from Wednesday 8th February – more details to follow soon.  If you would like to run a stall please contact a.stokes111@btinternet.com for more details.

On the last 2 days of term 8JK and 8LMC created Christmas cards and wrote messages of support and hope to former Child Soldiers, who they had learnt about from Year 9′s campaigns around the school.

The Charity Peace Direct have let us know how pleased they were to receive them and that they will be taking these cards with them to the Congo when they visit this week, they even hope to bring messages back from the children to our students.

This just shows the positive effect a small action can have.

Well done Year 8!

We constantly review the type of  information we send parents and seek ways to improve.  As a consequence of updates to in-school systems, we are in the process of changing the way we notifying parents about detentions.  In the future parents will receive email notification if their son/daughter has been set a detention.  The student will also receive a copy of the notification to their school email account.

If you are unsure whether we have your current email address please email admin@simonballe.herts.sch.uk stating the name of your child/ren so we can keep our records up to date.

(Parents may find that they also receive a paper copy of the detention in the short term while we run dual systems.)

Just a quick reminder that the Emergency School Closure procedure information can be found here.

The next course of ‘Teenagers With Attitude’ Parenting programme will begin in the new year.  The classes, from 7pm – 8:30pm, will run on  the following Wednesdays:  January 4/11/18/25 and February 1/8th 2012.  If you are interested in attending please email me: brownl@simonballe.herts.sch.uk to request details and book a place.

Bullying: no tolerance, no boundaries.

Please note that due to the public exam timetable, which was published after we set our dates for the next academic year, we felt it would be better to change the date of the Year 11 evening from 12th January to Tuesday 10th January.

We hope you understand our reasoning in making this decision.

We have received many emails congratulating the high quality of performances, and how good the musicians were. It was a pleasure to lead the department in the concert where all items were performed to the highest possible standard. It is at times like this that we remember why we work in the Music Department. There is so much going on, with so many students involved. They work hard (mainly!) and are dedicated to what we do. Our team, in turn, is dedicated to getting the most from the musicians, pushing them as hard as we can. There are thrills and spills, tears and tantrums, but we get there, working to ensure everyone does their best.