Dear Parents and Carers,

As Christmas fast approaches, please see below for a summary of our school-based activities:

Christmas Candy Cane Sale 

Monday 3 to Friday 6 December, break times

Year 12 students will be selling and delivering candy cane gifts. Students will write gift tags and the Year 12 students will deliver them to the recipients. Proceeds will be donated to Door43, a local charity supporting teenage mental health and wellbeing.

Year 10 Business Fair 

Wednesday 11 December,  lunchtime

Year 10 business students will be selling their wares in the main hall.  Students are allowed to bring cash to purchase items. Students will enter the hall through the doors near reception and leave via the hall fire escape doors. 

Winter Concert

Monday 16 December

Our annual performance produced by the Music Department. Unfortunately, tickets are now sold out. Please contact enquiries@silverdale.chorustrust.org if you would like to join the waiting list.

Christmas Lunch

Wednesday 18 December, lunchtime

Christmas lunch will be served in the restaurant and will include the options of a turkey dinner (vegetarian options of Quorn grill/sausage) or a festive panini.

Year 7 students and the winning year group of the key stage 3 quiz on Tuesday will have an extended lunchtime. 

Wednesday 18 December Evening

Class of 2024 Certificate Evening 

Please join us to celebrate the achievements of last year's Year 13 students.  Guests arrive from 6pm with the formal proceedings starting at 6.30.

Friday 20 December

Festive Jumper Day (and non-uniform)

In exchange for donations of dried/ tinned goods or £1 cash for the local food bank charity.  

Friday 20 December Afternoon

Year 7 Christmas Songs Festival 

Year 7 forms have been practising their Christmas songs. They may need some support from their families with costumes and props!

Normal lessons will continue until the end of term, so please do encourage your children to maintain full attendance until the end of term.

Smartphone Consultation

Thank you to all parents and carers who engaged with the consultation about our approach to smartphones. We are considering all viewpoints and expect to be able to provide further information next term.

WhatsApp Channels

It has been brought to our attention that WhatsApp has a feature called Channels. This is being used by large organisations and businesses to allow people to follow them via WhatsApp in a manner similar to Instagram. However, individuals can also set up a Channel. Whilst this allows the owner to be the only one to post, with others being invited to ‘view’ posts, if the owner changes those following to be ‘administrators’ they can not only view but comment on posts and make posts of their own. Our concern is that these posts are then not attributed to anyone in particular just the group, meaning that derogatory, unkind or threatening posts can be made anonymously and cannot be traced. This puts our young people at increased danger of online bullying and abuse which we and you cannot act upon.

If your child uses WhatsApp, we advise that you discuss this with your child and discourage them from setting up a Channel but maintaining contact and groups via the ‘Chats’ function which allows the origin of comments to be seen.

Year 11 Post-16 applications

The post-16 application process is now open for Year 11 students to apply to providers in Sheffield through Sheffield Progress. The deadline is 28 January 2025. For support, please contact Ms Elmore at careers@silverdale.chorustrust.org.

Silverdale Website

We hope you’re enjoying our new website, which was launched on Thursday 28 November. If you haven’t looked already, the website is at www.silverdale.chorustrust.org and provides up-to-date information, organised in a simplified structure to make it easier to find what you are looking for. If, when you first visit the site, you find that it isn’t displaying correctly, this is a common issue with new websites and clearing the cache (CTRL + F5 or CMD, SHIFT + R on a Mac) on your device should rectify the situation.

Thank you for your continued support.

Best wishes

Sarah Sims
Head of Silverdale School