VH TELEGRAPH incorporating the Bulletin

Newsletter 12th October 2012


I must begin by congratulating all of our children who put on such impressive Harvest Festival Celebrations for us all to enjoy. I also thank families for providing such excellent support. It was very special to see so many people in our Hall for the Sunday Service and it shows what a committed and supportive community we have. It is no wonder that your children have such a purposeful approach to all aspects of school life. One of the most impressive things for me is the fact that they work so hard in their academic lessons whilst keeping very busy in the community. I know the Lord Mayor and his wife enjoyed the Early Years Service and then an hour later listening to the Choristers singing for the elderly residents of Jesus Hospital. I apologise for the difficulty of accessing my videos of their performance on twitter but can definitely say the children's singing was better than my tweeting!

Next week will see our children completing their second wave of assessments by taking part in a spelling and a reading task. Both of these provide an age relative score, a standardised score and have a diagnostic aspect to help us formulate an individual plan forward for each child. These scores will all be reported back to parents as soon as they are completed. This type of assessment will be undertaken each term so that progress can be measured regularly and targets for improvement set and monitored.

Congratulations to all our children that took part in the Sevenoaks Cross Country Championship. This is always a testing course and to finish smiling is a real challenge. Therefore, for our Year Five and Six boys to win the competition, which included the largest Prep Schools in Kent and East Sussex, was a significant achievement and I thank everyone who attends the after school cross country clubs for helping them achieve this.

Next Friday evening sees our Choristers taking part in a concert that is being held in the Shirley Hall, Canterbury as part of the Canterbury Festival. This is a great honour, as the whole evening comprises performances from Kent College pupils in recognition of the achievements of one of our Choral Groups. However, again I thank all the children who have supported the wide variety of musical activities over the years for helping pupils from our school gain this recognition. Tickets are still available for this prestigious occasion. This Thursday sees our choir taking part in the Canterbury Festival by performing in a lunchtime concert at St. Alphege in Canterbury. Further details are available from Mrs Spencer.

Places on the half term holiday course are still available, if you require further information please contact the office or Mr. Knowles who will be pleased to help you.

On behalf of Andrew Griffith and his family can I thank all members of the school community for their thoughts and consideration following the passing away of Sarah, his wife, after a long and brave fight with her illness.

On Saturday 20th October a group of teachers will be taking part in the Light up the City 5K run or 3K walk. We are not looking for sponsorship but if parents would like to make a donation directly to Pilgrims Hospice or send a cheque, made out to Motor Neurone Disease Association into the school office in a sealed envelope, we will send them on to the local Association. Please do not give us time challenges because our performances will remind people of a Formula One Grand Prix team. Not because of the impressive speeds achieved but because there will be team orders as to who crosses the line first!



Andrew Carter
Head Master

VH TELEGRAPH incorporating the Bulletin

Newsletter 5th October 2012

A little as happened with our Olympians this Summer, we keep raising our expectations of what the children can achieve and they carry on improving at all aspects of school life. I am delighted with all the members of our community and how positively they have responded to the increased challenges that we have put before them this term. I have enjoyed watching lessons over the last two weeks and the enthusiasm is there for all to see. The lessons are moving at such a fast pace I often wish I had a speed camera with me to measure it! If I did, teachers and children would be paying a lot of £60 fines! As it is they are just getting the points but in this case it is House Points and not Penalty Points! For schools to be successful they have to have realistic expectations of their children but these expectations must be high or the children will not feel challenged and could become bored. Learning and progressing is exciting and new experiences are to be faced positively and enjoyed. It is this that makes our school such an enjoyable and exciting place to be.

This Sunday sees our first special occasion of the year, which is our Harvest Festival. I know the children taking part have been working very hard in preparation for this celebration and it promises to be an enjoyable morning for all. I have been delighted to see the children's enthusiasm; bringing in boxes of produce, which they will be distributing to the elderly in Canterbury on Monday. All produce left over after this will then go to the homeless. Monday morning is our Early Years Harvest Festival Service and we are delighted that the Mayor is attending this event. I thank parents for their support and if your child has not yet brought in a Harvest Box, then Sunday or Monday will be fine. In preparation for their Service our Infant children visited Macknade farm shop on Thursday where they were surprised and excited to discover purple cauliflowers amongst the range of vegetables and fruits available.

I have been delighted to hear so many positive comments from children and parents about our exciting Foreign Language programme that we have introduced, which sees children accelerating the pace of their learning, which may enable them to gain a qualification early. This will enable them to enjoy a greater breadth of study at GCSE, which has become even more important since the announcement of proposed changes to these exams in the years ahead. It is important that we are always looking ahead in the opportunities that we are providing for our children, as the world that they will be entering as adults is changing and developing at an ever increasing speed.

Saturday 13th October is our Open Morning. The morning is aimed at giving people who do not have their children here the opportunity to learn more about the exciting education that we offer. We will be asking a lot of Junior children to come in and help us and I thank them in advance for their support. This Saturday is our Senior School Open Morning and I encourage you all to attend. It promises to be an informative and fun morning for all.

I apologise if I appear slightly over proud of the next section but my congratulations to our boys and girls about their achievements on the sports fields last Saturday. All the boys in Year Five and Six were selected to play and our girls defeated St Edmunds convincingly. Our boys defeated Kings even more convincingly. However, it is the taking part, but enjoyment of, and feeling of, doing your best that is more important than the result!

Finally I continue to post my views/observations on twitter for people who feel inclined to follow. My address is @AndyCarterKentC


Andrew Carter
Head Master

VH TELEGRAPH incorporating the Bulletin

Newsletter 28th September 2012

I hope that parents find the academic information that we have sent out today interesting and informative. We are endeavouring to give all parents a clear understanding of what we will be teaching with a glimpse of how we will be putting it across to the children in their lessons. As a consequence, the Junior curriculum summary is rather a lengthy document but does show you the many ways each child will be stimulated and challenged. For parents of children in the Nursery and Reception we are inviting you in to the school to explain in detail both the curriculum and how we will be delivering it to each individual child. I am sure you will enjoy the challenge of Tuesday evening's guide and to prepare you there will be a drinks reception first!

All children in years 2,3,4,5 and 6 will be bringing home their first set of effort grades today. There is a clear explanation of the expectations for each grade in both the pupil academic diary and on the effort grade card. We ask parents to sign these and your child must bring the card back into school as their second set of grades will be issued at half term.

Children in years 3,4,5 and 6 will also bring home a sealed envelope containing the standardized scores they achieved in their verbal and non verbal reasoning assessments. There is also information regarding the meaning of these statistics.

Can I also ask parents to congratulate their children on the high number of house points that they are being awarded. It is giving a thorough assessment of my mathematical ability in Friday afternoons' celebration assemblies. I am also delighted that no minus house points have been given this term and it would be wonderful if we could get to half term without a negative point. It would definitely mean Mr Carter would pay a visit to Haribo Island!

I was delighted to receive so many positive comments about the talent and behaviour of our boys and girls on the sports tours that they all enjoyed last weekend. I certainly enjoyed it, even though I did get beaten by a nine year old at ten pin bowling! Still, I did have the consolation of being the highest scoring adult!

Next weekend sees our Years 1 to 5 Harvest Festival Service taking place on Sunday morning at 10.30 am on the 7th October. Our Early Years Family service will be on Monday 8th October at 9.30 am.

Finally, could I remind parents that we will be open for half term week and that a holiday club will run throughout the break; details of which were emailed today.


Andrew Carter
Head Master

VH TELEGRAPH incorporating the Bulletin

Newsletter 21st September 2012

Thank you for your positive comments regarding my attempts to communicate with you all by using twitter. I can be discovered at @AndyCarterKentC for those of you who would like to follow. I am going on the soccer tour this weekend and will attempt to report regularly on what is happening! Dr Lamper has become a regular 'tweeter' as well so you can also keep up to date with events in the Senior School!

With regard to our curriculum summaries they have become so comprehensive that it is proving very difficult to communicate them electronically so are investigating returning to paper on this occasion! Consequently, it is likely to be Monday before you receive the plans. I apologise for the delay but am certain that you will find them interesting and informative when you do get them. As I tweeted earlier in the week, I have been very impressed with the Junior children's approach to the assessment programme we have had in place this week. We will be reporting the results of these assessments with a full explanation of what the statistics mean to all parents as soon as possible. These scores along with previous records and statistics help inform us as how to ensure the maximum progress of each individual child.

The slight drop in temperature, which 5AC are recording with great enthusiasm and efficiency each day, has made me start to think about Autumn. This, combined with hearing the choir practicing enthusiastically has made me start to look forward to our Harvest Festival Service. Our Sunday service in our Sports Hall will be held on 7th October and we will endeavor to involve as many children as we can from Years 1 -6 and I thank families in advance for their support on this very special occasion for the school. Our Early Years Celebration will be held on Monday 8th October. Mr. Knowles who coordinates our charity work and the pupil council will be writing with further details so all families are fully informed as to what is involved at this special time for the children and their families.

Our children have been very busy on the sports field and it was wonderful to see so many children participating in our first running event of the academic year. It was equally pleasing to see the enthusiasm of the supporters encouraging the children as they enjoyed their completion. I also thank the staff from the school for giving their time to make the event so enjoyable and such a success, it helps us achieve the family atmosphere that we want within the school and it benefits the children's academic progress to take part in an event that has so much positive energy about it.

This weekend is a quiet one in school because all the Year Five and Six children are participating in our first sports tours of the year. The boys will be visiting Brighton whilst the girls will go to Ipswich. I am looking forward to accompanying the boys and Mrs Carter will be going with the girls. I thank all the teaching staff that have given their time to make this happen.

Our whole College photo was very exciting and brought back memories of my own school days to me. I have though resisted the temptation to search out my old flared trousers and grow my hair to a rather ridiculous length! Whilst reminiscing, I was very impressed with how well behaved and sensible our children were and I look forward to seeing a copy.

Finally my thanks to Mr Law, our Chef and his team of catering staff who provide us with excellent food at all meals. If anyone would like further details of our menus, please contact the school office for a copy of the menu. The staff work very hard to provide a wide and healthy choice

Andrew Carter
Head Master

VH TELEGRAPH incorporating the Bulletin

Newsletter 14th September 2012

I have been delighted with the attitude and approach of the children this week and feel that the atmosphere in school has been a very positive one and conducive to the children making rapid progress in their lessons. I have also been delighted with the way the children have been playing during their free play time and it has been wonderful to see the Year 1 and 2 children responding so positively to being given more choice and allowed to use a greater variety of the play equipment. I am also delighted that they have opted to join the after school clubs in such numbers and speak so positively with me about all they are doing.

Parents will be receiving their curriculum summaries for the term, which will enable you to see clearly the challenges that will be awaiting your child in all their subject areas. To help you understand our accelerated progress systems in the Junior section of the school, parents of children in Years 3, 4 , 5 and 6 will receive an overview of the curriculum for all year groups and all ability sets. You will also be receiving details of our formal assessment programme, which involves a variety of assessments during the course of the term. I still believe very strongly that an excellent teacher assesses the progress of each child every lesson and uses this information to inform their planning for the next lesson. All the Junior children will be completing verbal and non-verbal reasoning assessments next week and these results will be standardized against national levels and reported with your child's first set of effort grades.

Our gifted and talented initiative began superbly and it was a pleasure to see the children working so enthusiastically in their chosen area of excellence. During the two lessons, I visited each of the sessions and feel that this is going to raise our standards in these areas quite significantly. Parents will be receiving an overview of these opportunities but due to the individualistic nature of the programmes it will take longer for staff to plan them appropriately.

If, like me you spent time watching and enjoying the Olympic Games, I hope that you were inspired by the achievements of our athletes. It is still inspiring me to jog a few times each week and I hope that it continues to do so as the mornings grow darker, wetter and colder! All those competing had been inspired at some early stage of their life and very often that inspiration had come from a teacher who had been prepared to give a little more. They had then been thoroughly committed and well supported by a variety of people to achieve the success that they did. I found it shocking and disturbing to then hear that in primary schools last year only one in five Junior children received the opportunity to represent their school at sport. It is important that children do become involved in these activities for health and quality of life reasons as well as setting foot on the very long and very difficult path to Olympic glory. This Saturday we have our first running event of the year and we are including a short race for Early Years children before our usual programme of races for Year 1 and 2 children and relays for the Junior children. All Nursery and Infant children are welcome to come along and join in. The first race is at ten, the event will be complete by eleven thirty and it will be great to see a lot of you there.

Our sports fixtures began on Wednesday with all the boys and girls in Year 5 and 6 receiving their first cap of the term at either soccer or hockey. As I was refereeing two of the soccer games I was unable to watch the girls but Mrs Carter informs me they played very well; achieving a win and a draw. I have to say how impressed I was with the boys who played superbly to deliver three convincing wins and a narrow defeat against Kings Canterbury who are a much bigger school than us.

Next weekend sees all the Year 5 and 6 children going on their Autumn Term Residential sports tours, with the boys visiting Brighton to play two schools before going to watch Crawley play Tranmere in Division One on the way home. The girls are visiting Ipswich for fixtures against two different schools.

Wednesday is the day of the whole College photo and we will be busing all the children up to the Senior School for the group photo, which is always a fun morning! Can I ask that girls wear their winter kilts on that day for uniformity of uniform!

Finally, I would like to thank parents for being so supportive of your children and the school, so allowing us to have such an excellent start to the new academic year.



Andrew Carter
Head Master

VH TELEGRAPH incorporating the Bulletin

Newsletter 5th September 2012

It is a pleasure to welcome everyone back into school and I thank everyone for the very positive comments about the school that I have received over the last few days. It has been wonderful to see the children's enthusiasm for returning to school and to hear their excitement about all the opportunities that they are going to enjoy. I must congratulate all the staff on how impressive the school looks and thank them for the weeks of work that they have put in during the break to make sure that we are in a position to offer a challenging education in a stimulating environment.

I am delighted to welcome Mrs Race and Mrs Brown to the staff and also welcome back Mrs Brown into the Nursery! Mrs. Race is joining us as our Learning Strategies Coordinator; she is well qualified and experienced in assisting children's progress in a wide variety of ways. Mrs. Brown joins us as Hockey Coach and an After School Club Supervisor, she is an international hockey player and has experience of working in schools in the Caribbean and the United States. Both of these will add to the expertise of our staff and have settled very quickly and comfortably into our family community.

As well as working hard to make our environment so stimulating, we have been working hard developing our curriculum to further improve our academic standards.Our Maths programme is full of interesting and challenging problems and developed after studies of the European countries with the best results in developing Maths skills. I am reliably informed by Mr Buckley and Mr Corrigan that the lessons move at a pace that Usain Bolt would be impressed by. I am really looking forward to observing and joining in the classes.

Our Gifted and Talented Programme has been planned and developed and the programmes for each of the areas will be published as soon as the numbers are finalized. This is due to the individual nature of the plan with different challenges that will be appropriate for each child.

All children in Years One to Six will bring own their own personal academic diary, which is to develop further communication between school and home. This will enable our children to achieve even more with the support from these two vital areas of their lives. There is also information in the diary which parents should find helpful and informative.

I was pleased to see children using the three weeks of holiday programme this summer. We will provide an activity week during half term and also in the week after we break up for Christmas. Next year will see a further increase in these opportunities. We have been delighted to increase the number of after school activities that are available to our children. I am particularly pleased to increase the opportunities for younger children, which is something I have been keen to achieve for a number of years!

After my experiment with Twitter last term I will be returning to a longer letter this term, which will be sent out regularly by Parent Mail. However, after the success of my 'tweeting' whilst on the choir tour, I will continue to use the method of communication and can be found at AndyCarter@AndyCarterKentC.

It is ironic that after the wet start to the summer term that the weather forecasts are predicting a spell of warm weather ahead. To seize an opportunity we will be holding a BBQ in my garden at 3.30 on Saturday 8th September, immediately following the Year Five and Six hockey and soccer afternoons. All are welcome and it will be great to see people there. We will provide the sport to watch, food and a cup of tea, if you require anything stronger it will be bring your own but I hope it will be an opportunity to come in as a family to enjoy the school environment.

So in conclusion and with thanks to Boris Johnson for the idea

The classrooms are ready,
The grounds are ready,
The teachers are ready,
The car park is ready,
The curriculum is ready.

Come and join us and we will make this the best school year ever.



Andrew Carter
Head Master

VH TELEGRAPH incorporating the Bulletin

Monday, 19th March 2012

The children continue to be very busy and it is good to see their enthusiasm for school remaining as strong as ever as we start to get close to the end of what has been a very busy term for us all. As their Head Master it is great to visit the classrooms and see them working so hard and doing so with a smile on their faces. As well as working hard in their academic lessons they continue to commit fully to all aspects of school life and the school appears as busy in the evenings and at weekends as it does during the day.

Saturday saw our U9 netball and soccer tournaments and it was wonderful to see so many children enjoying their sport. I was particularly pleased as all our Yr4 children took part and did their best. The girls played very well before losing in the quarter finals. The boys also played well with the Albion team emerging as victors of the whole competition. United also performed excellently, finishing runners up in the shield competition to the Kings first team and only losing one nil in a close game. I was very proud of all of our children that took part in these tournaments; they have worked very hard in preparation as have their teachers. Whilst on a sporting theme, I wish our U11 boys hockey players every success on Tuesday as they represent Kent in the South of England Championship. I am looking forward to watching them play.

This Thursday evening is our Spring Concert and I know the children have been working hard in preparation for this event which promises to be an enjoyable evening and I encourage you all to attend. The standards our musicians achieve are absolutely outstanding; I am certainly looking forward to my week ahead.

This Friday is our Friends of Vernon Holme Wine and Wisdom evening. As yet there have not been many entries and we will have to make a decision as to whether it goes ahead on Wednesday. To encourage attendance we are offering a bottle of wine to each team that finishes ahead of mine. This might be one of the easiest bottles of wine to win that there has ever been!

Whilst on the theme of quiz questions I thank the parent (who shall remain nameless) who pointed out to me that on certain occasions in history and at sea 1500 metres can be longer than a mile! I am sure he was right but can only feel sorry for Henry Townsend having a father like that!

Quiz Question

Which city is the capital city in France?

Andrew Carter
Head Master

VH TELEGRAPH incorporating the Bulletin

Monday, 12th March 2012

It has again been a very busy time for us all and it has been wonderful to see our children so involved in school life. I was very pleased to hear such positive reports from teachers about parents evening last week and I know they are looking forward to this weeks meetings. Year Two and Junior children received their effort grades on Friday and I hope it meant they all had an enjoyable weekend as parents will have been so pleased to hear how hard they have been working.

It seems that opportunities in the performing arts are becoming more prevalent in school as each week goes by. These are important for a number of reasons and I personally feel that these opportunities lead to an improvement in academic performance. This is not only through improved self esteem leading to increased confidence but also more directly in children's ability to express themselves both orally and on paper. The ability to give presentations with confidence is increasingly important in our rapidly developing modern world. Thursday's Year Six assembly presented how women's roles changed during the Second World War in an interesting and amusing way for us all to enjoy. They are also working hard in preparation for their annual play, which they will be performing in the summer term. This Thursday's assembly will see us being entertained by the children who will be performing their dances from expressive arts lessons and extra curricular dance sessions.

This week has also been full of sporting opportunities and I thank everyone who worked so hard on Saturday to make our cross country running event so successful. It was superb to see the efforts of the children and the enthusiasm of the spectators, I suspect that a few parents ran nearly as far as their children to support and encourage them at different parts of the course! Many of our children won medals but my personal view is that all children who took part were winners. As a reasonably regular, but very slow jogger I was in awe at the speeds all the competitors were able to achieve!

Congratulations to our U 11 boys hockey players who finished runners up in the county championships and have qualified to represent the county in the regional competition. I know they impressed the organisers of the competition with their fast free flowing play. Our U10 girls finished in third place in the Ashford School netball tournament and our U9 boys finished in the same position in the Sutton Valence hockey tournament.

Our musicians are working hard in preparation for our Spring Concert and I am looking forward to the choirs performing at the Marlowe next term and of course to our choir tour! There are however many other exciting opportunities for our children to enjoy before we reach the end of the school year.

Quiz Question

Which race is longer, the 1500 meters or the mile?


Andrew Carter
Head Master

VH TELEGRAPH incorporating the Bulletin

Monday, 27th February 2012

It never ceases to impress me, just how enthusiastic our children are for school and all it entails. It has been highlighted to me even more last week now that I have become a form tutor again! I hope that my Year Four pupils are enjoying the experience as much as I am! From my perspective it is wonderful to be working closely with a group of children but I have ensured that I have enough time to be involved with all the children in the school.

Last week was very busy for us adults as well and I thank all of you that came in for your annual appointment with me. The evenings were very long but also very positive and there are exciting times ahead for us all. I am certain that our children are going to find school even more enjoyable and make even more progress in the years ahead. I am in my twentieth year as a Head Master and never have I felt more enthusiastic or more excited about the future.

Our Year Six children continue to take on their leadership roles with maturity and understanding and spending time with them is an absolute delight. This week sees them taking part in auditions for their annual school play which will be performed towards the end of the summer term. I also sense growing anticipation about their residential trip which this year takes in the sights of Paris; I am really looking forward to accompanying them on the trip as I find French history fascinating (whether the children will see this as a positive, I am not so certain!)

This weekend was relatively quiet but I was able to watch our U11 netballers play in a tournament on Saturday and have to congratulate them on the standard of their play. In fact, I would say that in the final game they played as well as I have ever seen U11 girls play (and in the last twenty years I have watched a lot of netball!). They finished second out of the ten teams there after making a slow start but can feel very proud of their achievement which they have worked hard for.

The next few weeks are going to be very busy for our children and their teachers with concerts, performances and sporting opportunities complementing the work the children are doing in their lessons. I thank everyone for being so supportive and ensuring that we are so successful in all we do.

Quiz Question

What happens this week that only happens every four years?



Andrew Carter
Head Master

VH TELEGRAPH incorporating the Bulletin

Monday, 5th February 2012

Five o clock, Saturday morning! My alarm rings, another exciting day ahead of me, full of challenges, full of fun and full of achievements. My first challenge is how to get up in silence without waking Mrs Carter, (she is never at her best first thing in the morning!). After successfully showering in silence, (time for singing later in the day), it was downstairs to a quiet and relaxing breakfast, well, that is until my phone rang, it was Mrs Spencer. 'What is the weather like? It snowed here and the Mercedes is struggling to get up the hill out of Kingston! Will the Choristers be able to get in? Will we get to Basingstoke? Can you get up to the senior school to be there when people arrive?'. 'It will be fine, don't worry and yes, yes, yes!'

Approximately sixteen hours later I am sitting at home and what a superb day it has been, (apart from the hour I had to spend watching 'Take me out' with Mrs Carter tonight!) I often say that I have the best job in the world and this week has fully reinforced that view in my mind. I am actually sitting at home looking back on the week with the curtains of the room open to see if it will snow so making a decision necessary as to whether we travel to Sunday's cross country running event at Tonbridge School! So what is it that makes me so fortunate and my occupation so special? Very simply it is your children, your support and the superb teachers that give so generously of their time to make each day a special adventure.

My congratulations go to our Choristers who sang so superbly to be named as children's choir of the year in the South East heat of the national Choir of the Year competition. We now have to wait to see if we are one of the four choirs selected to take part in the national final to be held in Manchester next October. Regardless of whether they are successful or not we are very proud of their outstanding achievement and look forward to hearing them sing many times before the completion of this academic year.

It is not only our children that we must congratulate for outstanding achievement, it is also our catering staff as our kitchens have recently been inspected for food hygiene and achieved the highest rating possible. It is not surprising as they produce healthy and delicious food for us on a daily basis and I can assure them that their hard work is appreciated by us all.

Hard work does lead to success in so many different areas and I am very pleased with how much enthusiasm and effort the children put into their full school day. This term I have timetabled myself to take a club from five to six every night and I am very impressed with how the children are still full of energy at the end of the school day. Their hard work is also bringing success on the sports field and I was very impressed with their hockey against St Edmunds School on Wednesday where we enjoyed a clean sweep of victories in teams that included all the boys in Years Five and Six.












As this is my final letter of the half term I would like to wish everyone an enjoyable half term. My particular best wishes go to Mrs Jennings and her family as she starts her maternity leave. I am also looking forward to returning after half term where I will spend a term and a half as form tutor for 4LJ, I hope that the children are looking forward to this as much as I am!




Quiz Question

Who will be 4LJ form tutor after half term?



Andrew Carter
Head Master
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NOTICES

Suzuki Violin Playtogether
The next Suzuki Play Together is on Tuesday 7th February at 8.30am in the Music Studio.
All are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be served in the Dining Hall afterwards.