Arnold House Annual Review 2021

ANNUALREVIEW 2021

The Annual Review focusses on three areas: Year 8 Leavers, Curriculum Development and New Educational Opportunities, and Fundraising (not this issue). The School Magazine published every autumn, provides a comprehensive account of all the boys’ exploits and achievements throughout the school year.

Farewell Year 8!

For the second year running, Year 8 boys had to contend with much uncertainty surrounding their Common Entrance and Scholarship examinations. Senior Schools adapted their processes with the vast majority thankful that prep schools stepped in, not only to invigilate, but also to mark the papers and send through the results; not dissimilar to the system of teacher assessment being used for GCSEs and A Levels this summer.

Despite this, and as we have come to expect, the boys took it all in their stride and met the standard expected of them by their chosen senior schools with a good deal to spare. We had 34 boys in the year group, the largest Year 8 for five years, which led in turn to a large contingent sitting scholarship exams: James Gavens and Barney Parker (both Westminster), Theo Fairclough (UCS), Samuel Yu (Eton) and Dariush Ghaffapour, Sebastian Jarrett, Dhiraj Lakhwani, Oscar McKinnon, Sam Mendelsohn, Ishaan Moorthy and Alex Salem (all

St. Paul’s). Otto Wojciechowski also had the honour of being put forward for an Art Scholarship to Haileybury. Particular congratulations go to Jesse Joe Stillit and Reza Sayani who were awarded scholarships to City of London and Sebastian Jarrett and Samuel Yu Music Exhibitions.

Many congratulations to all of Year 8 for upholding the school’s strong academic and all-round reputation and in doing so ensuring that they start their senior school careers on the right foot – they have bright futures ahead of them – well done boys!

Curriculum Development and New Educational Opportunities

Reports System

In September we launched our new management information system, iSAMS. One of the features we have used is the reporting module, which gave the opportunity to adapt some aspects of the way we report to parents.

• The new House point system for Industry and Citizenship is designed to give the boys rewards at regular half termly intervals which feeds into the awarding of Industry Badges and Citizenship Bars.

• Each boy’s progress in each subject is recorded in end of term reports using skills statements with grade descriptors.

• In-person Parent Evenings increased from one per year to two; one each in the autumn and spring terms.

• Lockdown meant that these meetings took place online, using the Schoolcloud platform. These proved very popular with parents (2,032 appointments in 19 parent’s evenings) and are likely to continue, in some form, in the future.

Timetable

Due to restrictions imposed by COVID, a new format for the timetable was introduced, to allow for bubbling, greater social distancing and less movement/logging on and off between lessons.

• 9 x 35 minute lessons a day replaced with a 7 x 45 minute daily schedule

• Use of Canons Park for morning lessons

The lessons at Canons Park had a different ‘feel’ to them, which brought variety to learning and the boys enjoyed the relative quiet and expansive grounds at the site. What was instituted as an emergency measure due to the pandemic actually showed itself to be a positive addition to our educational provision.

Year 8 Humanities

This was the first year when changes to the Y8 exams took place, with a move away from Common Entrance exams for History, Geography and Religious Studies in the summer of Y8, to be replaced by a skills report being sent to senior schools for those subjects instead. Exams will still play a part in allowing teachers to gather evidence that skills have been developed and demonstrated. The senior schools have shown a positive reaction to this development. The boys are becoming more familiar with the idea that skills are as important as knowledge and that their work is part of a continuous assessment.

PSHE, Mental Health and Wellbeing

The PSHE curriculum was reviewed and timetabled lessons will be introduced for Year 5 to 8 boys. The core themes have been identified as:

Y5 Health, Safety and My Future

Y6 Mental Health, Wellbeing and Dealing with change

Y7 Living and growing with the internet

Y8 Relationships and Living in the wider world

Alongside this the Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) curriculum has been comprehensively reviewed for its introduction in April 2021.

Also in order to support wellbeing, we are introducing a peer-mentoring scheme into Year 8. The boys will undergo an 8-week training programme, which will cover a wide range of topics such as recognising different types of bullying, self-esteem, empathy and confidentiality. An anonymous online support page will be set up in which younger boys can go to a Year 8 peer Mentor for help, support and advice.

PASS – Pupil attitudes to Self and School

Researched and set to start in the autumn term 2021. PASS is a 20 minute digital survey which provides a standardised measure of a boy’s feelings about learning, friendships and his broad progress and happiness in the school.

It provides a holistic overview for pastoral support, and when combined with attainment data, can give a deeper insight into each individual boy’s needs.

Drama

Following on from the Year 3 and Year 4 musicals that take place annually, we have moved towards Theatre Studies in Year 5 and Year 6 where the boys write down their own scripts and produce and direct their finished performances. Year 7 boys take part in the annual Shakespeare Schools Festival every autumn and we plan to give boys in the top two years with a particular interest and/or talent in Drama the opportunity to extend their involvement through a set weekly slot in the Activities Programme. The opportunity to perform small pupil-led productions to the younger boys in assemblies will enable boys to keep going with drama right up to the end of Year 8.

Activities

The activities programme was significantly affected by Lockdown but also the Year Group bubbles system; boys from different bubbles would not be able to spend time together in the same shared activity. It was evident, nevertheless, that the Activities Programme would

have a positive impact on everyone’s mental wellbeing and our sense of community. If anything, the range of activities increased in Lockdown, with the boys making good use of Google Meets. Over 50 clubs took place over the year including: gymnastics, articulate, rubic racing, chess, scrabble, knitting, kid’s Lit Quiz, cricket nets, Italian, debating, ultimate frisbee, coding, Lego, yoga and global location. There was a great desire amongst the boys to explore new interests and develop their hobbies through shared activity with each other on line or when in school.

Eco Council

The Eco Council has been working behind the scenes, despite the difficulty of holding meetings to discuss the

growing use of single-use plastic worldwide. We held our first Eco Week which has an exceptional response, with over 80 boys sending in pictures of how they were doing their bit for the environment. There was plenty of recycling AND upcycling, many environmentally friendly products being used, litter-picking and awareness of saving energy in our homes by switching off lights and appliances.

As global winners of the Get Set Eco Challenge Quiz, sponsored by the WWF, Davies White – the creators of the RHS Back to Nature Garden with HRH the Duchess of Cambridge in 2019 – have planted a wild flower meadow in the garden complete with cloud gazing chair. We are now an Ambassador School for the WWF.

We have also invested in our own Air Quality Monitor which provides real time data, and partnered with Westminster City Council on its School Clean Air Programme. Furthermore, we are the first school to appoint Aklimate, a company specialising in support for businesses who wish to reduce their carbon emissions. They have spent the past year assessing our carbon footprint and will be advising us in the future on ways in which this can be reduced.

Community Partnerships

At Canons Park, discussions are underway with Whitchurch Primary School to offer some matches/sports sessions for their pupils, as well as conversations on AH boys contributing to Maths and English (particularly reading) skills as part of our growing enrichment offering. The

School has also contributed to the installation of a defibrillator at Canons Park for the local community. Further, having established closer ties with the ‘Friends of Canons Park’, the school plans to install beehives as part of a combined drive to improve the wildlife and biodiversity of the park, as well as offering learning opportunities for the boys and pupils from local schools.

Charity

Over the year, the boys staff and parents raised awareness and support for a number of charities. This was a record year for raising funds for these charities who were extremely grateful to receive the support during what has been a very challenging year for fundraising in general. In the autumn term the boys supported St John’s Hospice with a Yellow and Green Day, in the spring it was a Food theme for the London foodbank initiative City Harvest and in the summer the boys took part in a pyjama day in aid of Brain Charity UK. The total money raised was: £14,000.

The Arnold Society

During the spring term we were delighted to launch an exciting new club for AH old boys; The Arnold Society. Through this new platform, we hope to be able to encourage our old boys to remain connected to Arnold House and their prep school days. As part of the launch, a dedicated website has been created, designed to be modern, informative and interactive. As a private social media platform for our old boys, it will be an easy way to re-connect with school friends, reminisce, share information and receive updates from Arnold House School on recent news and events as well as being able to browse the school archives, join the Business Directory and benefit from career support. Life membership to The Arnold Society is automatic on leaving Arnold House School and in addition to the website; a new programme of events and a dedicated newsletter ‘Post House’ will soon be launched.

The Governors were able to secure the purchase of the Huxley Building in late November 2020. Since then there has been much to do to ensure that adjustments and some improvements to the garden and indoor spaces are completed in time for the classroom equipment to be set up in August. We start with 40 Pre-Reception (3+) and 40 Reception (4+) boys who will be cared for by a team of ten specialist Early Years staff plus two administrative support staff.