Principal's Message

As we draw towards the end of this first term, I continue to be impressed by how determined and committed our girls are to their own education. As I walk along our corridors during lesson times, I sense real purpose and focus. This is partly due to teachers' meticulous planning to ensure that their lessons are engaging and active, but it also has a great deal to do with the girls' taking ownership of their learning, and understanding and appreciating the importance of a good education in shaping their futures.

This week STEM has engaged our Year 8 in considering how technological advances will impact future employment opportunities. Ericsson, who presented to our students, provided the girls with an opportunity to reflect on what impact the following will have on their future aspirations:

• 65% of the jobs in technology haven’t even been invented yet
• Girls are a growing part of the STEM technology sector.

With all our girls at KS3 regularly engaging in STEM activities, and a significant number at KS4 studying Computer Science and IT, it is very clear where some of our girls’ aspirations lie.

We are really excited by the fact that our personalised exercise books have finally arrived. It appears that even exercise books are not immune from interruptions in the supply chain. These exercise books will provide you with an excellent opportunity of tracking your child’s work and their progress. It is important that the girls continue to take real pride in their work. A letter has been emailed home today about these new books.

The following two weeks will also bring a great deal of festive activities. Please go through the newsletter carefully so you are aware of all the events that are coming up. I am very much looking forward to my first Christmas meal at RGS as well as our virtual Christmas concert. There is a great deal of talent at RGS, and such an event provides students with an opportunity to ‘show off’ those talents. As always, students will be dismissed at 12.00pm on the last day of term and arrangements have been made for the school buses to leave early.

Latest covid guidance

In line with the government guidance released earlier this week, please be aware of requirements relating to Covid-19 and isolation in particular:

• If you do not have COVID-19 symptoms, but you have a positive PCR test result, you must stay at home and self-isolate.
• If you live in the same household as someone with COVID-19, you must stay at home and self-isolate if you are not fully vaccinated or if they have been identified as a suspected or confirmed case of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
• If you live in the same household as someone with COVID-19 that has not been identified as a suspected or confirmed case of the Omicron variant, and you are fully vaccinated or aged under 18 years and 6 months, you are not required to self-isolate

The Chemist Tree

Coloured baubles are different pH indicators. Silver baubles were made by reducing silver nitrate to silver metal. Also featured are decorative chromatograms made by some of last year's year 8 students.

Our wonderful students talking in assembly about the Cadets and the opportunities on offer!

Caversham Bridge Garden Centre have, once again, kindly donated a real Christmas tree to RGS which adds a special touch of magic at this time of year. Our girls will be decorating it next week.

Marika Farrugia, Principal

Word of the Week

Every week in school we share a Word of the Week. Pupils are given the definition and etymology of the word, synonyms for the word and examples of sentences using the word. The aim is to expand the girls’ vocabulary and they are rewarded with a Word of the Week token if they use the word in their writing or speaking. Please do discuss this word at home...This week word of the week is.....

Ericsson introduced us to the potential of 5G

5G is the 5th generation mobile network. 5G enables a new kind of network that is designed to connect virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices. This really changes the rule book when it comes to the future of jobs and also the technology that we will be interacting with in our daily lives.

One of the pioneers in the UK technology sector is Ericsson and since 5G wireless technology is meant to deliver higher data speeds, ultra-low latency, more reliability, and massive network capacity. That means in our imaginations become the only limit and the girls learnt some great facts:

• 65% of the jobs in technology haven’t even been invented yet
• Girls are a growing part of the STEM technology sector
• 5G puts technology together in ways we have never thought of before

The presentation concluded with a challenge for the year group, which was to design a use of 5G of the future in classroom groups, present those ideas and pick the best one with the final seven being judged back in the Hall by the previous winners (Stefna, Manasvi and Stuti, now in Year 9) and the Ericsson team.

The Year 9 led the presentations by giving a brief talk about their own winning idea and to set the bar for the Year 7 teams to come.

Competition was tough! Ideas ranged from AI powered greenhouses run entirely by drones, trips to Mars and experiencing the world through a virtual reality 5G connection and many, many more.

The winners were picked from a criteria of teamwork, presentation ability and of course, the idea. The winners, Maisa, Radella, Navika and Mahalakshmi took the prize after much difficult deliberations from the judges for their idea named “Generation Alpha”. Their VR set is called Generation Alpha allows you to visit the areas where climate change has affected in the future. Experience the 5 senses of life and even visit 2070 and see different events in a completely sensory rich virtual world including touch, taste and smell!

Congratulations to the winning team and when the site is open again, the girls have won a VIP tour of the Reading Ericsson campus in the New Year. The judges were impressed by the girls’ aims:

• to raise the maximum awareness of the impact climate change will have on the next generation
• the different senses allow the person to receive a full experience of life in the future
• we hope to alarm current and near future generations to make a change
• we believe that this will make people reconsider their contribution to climate change

Maths, Geometry and Design – Design Technology in STEM

As part of technology in the STEM curriculum, our girls analyse the work of past and present professionals and others to develop and broaden their understanding of how design and technology work. We combine the learning across subjects, so the girls took ideas from geometry in mathematics and applied them in evaluating their shake proof towers in the BGSO from the previous STEM day. Teams were invited to refine their ideas and products against a specification, taking into account the properties of materials and the performance of structural elements after looking at tringles being the strongest shape.

This time, instead of many, many failures, almost every team took the learning and experience on board to make successful towers which included the all-important triangles. Building towers is just one of the variety of creative and practical activities where our girls are taught the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in an interactive process of designing and making. The girls certainly would have slept well on Tuesday night after that tiring but highly rewarding and challenging STEM day!

Celebrate reading at our Book Fair!

The Book Fair will run from Wednesday 8th December to Monday 13th December in the school library, with hundreds of new books to browse and buy. There are over 200 titles for your child to choose from, and with prices starting from only £2.99, there is sure to be a book for everyone.

This year, the Book Fair will be run slightly differently. It will be a cashless event. Your daughter will be given a Book Fair Wish List. She can browse the Book Fair shelves at an allotted time and make a note of any books she wishes to buy. She will then take the list home for you to order and pay online at bookfairs.scholastic.co.uk/pay

On the Wish List, make a note of the reference number you will be given when payment is complete. Then give the list back to your daughter who will use it to collect her chosen books from the Book Fair the following day. As the Book Fair will be collected from school by Scholastic on Tuesday 14th December, the last day which your daughter can collect her pre-ordered and pre-paid books will be Monday 13th December.

Don’t forget that every book you buy can help to get FREE BOOKS for our school library!

Holiday Activity Fund for 2021

Brighter Futures for Children is delighted to be co-ordinating the Holiday Activity Fund for 2021, funded by the Department of Education, on behalf of Reading Borough Council.

The HAF programme provides activities and lunch for children eligible for pupil premium free school meal children across Reading. The activity clubs offer a range of energetic physical activities, exciting new experiences and delicious meals too! We are happy to announce that we will be funding several HAF holiday camps this Christmas!

All of our camps will be taking place on the 20, 21, 22, & 23 of December. Click this link for holiday camps and pantomime tickets. Holiday Activity Fun (HAF) - Brighter Futures For Children

At Home Testing

As the number of Covid-19 cases continues to increase in the local community, we continue to be vigilant. We continue to request that your child takes a Laterel Flow test twice a week - every Wednesday and Sunday and report the results using the link below.

In addition, if they test positive, they are to take an immediate PCR test and they should NOT return to school while they are waiting for the test results. Returning simply increases the risk of community transmission. You will be aware that we offer our hybrid classrooms to girls at home who have to self-isolate, but only following a positive PCR result, so that they can access their lessons and join their classmates in group work.

Here is a reminder of where you can report your test result to school.

Increasing Student Participation

“Talking Tokens”

Talking Tokens are issued by the classroom teacher and/or teaching assistant to pupils who participate to questions and/or ask questions during lessons. Pupils are encouraged to write their name and year group on the back of the 'Talking Token' and place them into the relevant 'Talking Token' collection box for their year group. At the end of each term, all 'Talking Tokens' are placed together and a pupil is selected at random. The more 'Talking Tokens' a pupil collects for contributing answers to questions in class, the more chances they have to win a prize.

At the end of this week the following number of 'Talking Tokens' collected across the whole school are 367. Well done to all those who received a token for their contribution in their lessons. We are currently on a grand total of 5732.

“Has your lesson been REAL (Relevant, Engaging, Active Learning)?”

Using REAL tokens students have the opportunity to give instant feedback to staff about their experiences within the lesson.

Students are provided with a token and at the end of the lesson, are asked if their lesson has been R.E.A.L. (Relevant, Engaging, Active Learning). Students then place their token into the 'Yes' or 'No' box, which is in every teaching classroom. Staff then uses this information to make any modification to their delivery of their lesson. These tokens are then collected in at the end of every week and counted.

Results for this week:

• YES – 1267
• No – 89 tokens

Many of you will be aware that the RGS car park is busy this year and this is of course due to the continued growth of the school. Maximum speed limit is 5mph. Please ensure that you are not driving any faster than this as you enter, during and when you exit the car park. Parents who do not comply with this speed limit will be asked not to drive through the car park.

How can we all help with the congestion at the beginning and end of the school day?

• Where possible girls to walk/ cycle to school
• Parents to team up and run car shares so that less cars are coming to RGS, in addition to helping the environment!
• Any cars who do have to come to RGS will be required to TURN LEFT out of the school carpark from MONDAY 13th SEPTEMBER

A reminder also that it is not permitted to stop on the very busy Northumberland Avenue.

Stevensons - your local and online school uniform supplier

We are delighted to be launching a second-hand uniform shop at RGS. Please send in any good quality uniform you no longer need. Mrs Emmett will be awaiting your deliveries! For further information please email selliott@readinggirlsschool.net