Welcome to our Moving Up to The Buckingham School Transition eBulletin, which we hope you and your child find informative.

The content includes top tips from our current students, information on uniform, links to getting ready for secondary school booklets, and so much more. There's an update on our recently completed refurbishment and building works (new classrooms, science labs, dining room and toilet/changing facilities). Also, please have a look at the dedicated area on the school website under Parent section/Joining us in Year 7. Click here to take you there!

We look forward to welcoming you and your child to The Buckingham School in September, and we will be writing to you separately regarding House and Form Group allocation and first day arrangements for Friday 3 September.

Moving Up to Secondary School Induction Material

As you are aware, due to Buckinghamshire Council's guidance preventing in person Induction days throughout the County, we hope that your child managed to watch the welcome videos and carried out some of the activities set!

We have taken the opportunity to include the Induction material here. Simply click on the web links below.

Headteacher Video

Head of Year Video

Student First & Student Video

School Video

Click on the files shown below to view/download each activity:

Challenge 1: Complete the Jigsaw

Challenge 2: Can you find your way from Lesson to Lesson

Challenge 3: Transition Quiz

Challenge 4: Word Search

Challenge 5: School Virtues

Just in case you haven't read the recent Transition letter sent to Year 6 families, click here.

Top Tips for Year 6 children moving up to The Buckingham School

Starting secondary school is a significant milestone in your life. It is an exciting time, yet can be a little daunting at the same time. Our students understand it too, because they’ve been through it themselves. Here’s some student top tips and advice to help you practically, socially and emotionally.

Click here to find out what our students say.

Also, see the website for a booklet for parents and children to share and read together. Click here to explore more.

All About Me Videos

We have received so many wonderful 'All about Me' videos! They have been amazing to watch, giving us an insight into your child's likes, interests, what they are looking forward to when they start with us in September, and, it's also been lovely to see so many of pets joining in the limelight!

For those of you who have yet to record an All About Me video, please send yours to transition2021@buckinghamschool.org

Practical Challenge Grid

To help your child prepare for some of the more practical aspects of the Transition, we have put together a set of challenges which we would like your child to take part in.

The challenges are to be undertaken over the coming weeks. They may find some to be quick and easy, whereas others may be a little more demanding; all of them we hope they will find to be fun and interesting.

We would love to know how your child is getting on with the challenges set and to see what they have been doing. If you are happy to share pictures of them completing their tasks, or a picture of a completed task project, we would be delighted to see them.

To view the Practical Challenge Grid, click here.

How your new school day works

When your child starts with us in September, they will soon become familiar with our two-week timetable.

The day is divided into ‘periods’. The word ‘period’ is the same as ‘lesson’. It means you change classrooms from one ‘period’ to another. Please refer to the map on the back of this guide to help you find your way around the school.

New Building Development Completed

This is an exciting time for new Year 7 students to join The Buckingham School. The school benefits from a recently completed £2.8m property development programme, invested from the local authority to support the growing demand and pupil numbers.

The new development includes:

Four new Science Labs, we now have nine in total
More refurbished and reconfigured classrooms
Brand new staff and student toilets and changing facilities
New dining facilities
Newly landscaped recreation areas

Food Zone

The Buckingham School Foodzone is the school canteen and starts service at 8am with breakfast. Here you can buy a selection of Danish pastries, bacon or omelette rolls, and cereals; a selection of hot & cold drinks are also available. A freshly cooked bacon roll or a cup of hot chocolate are very popular.

Mid-morning break is served from 11am - 11.20am with lunch served from 1.20pm – 2.05pm. At both break and lunchtimes you can choose from filled sandwiches, wraps, baguettes, hot snacks and cakes, and there is hot food available at both times. Our main lunch menu is run on a three week cycle over a period of the full term and all drinks available comply with The Food Standard Trust. We change our menus every full term and try to incorporate ideas which the students have given us.

We operate a cashless system in the Canteen, using a biometric or keypad system for payment and top-ups are added through our ParentMail system. £2.30 will buy you a hot lunch with a pudding.

The School is very proud that our Canteen has retained its 5* Food Hygiene Award for the last twelve years.

Learning Resource Centre

Need somewhere to go for quiet study or to just chill out and read a book? Visit The Learning Resource Centre, (upper floor in the Humanities block) is a great place to go for quiet study or to just chill out and read a book.

The Learning Resource Centre is open every day from 8am and closes at 4.30pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, 3.10pm Thursday and 4.00pm on Friday.

It is a light, airy and relaxed area to come and work in. There are fifteen networked computers and access to black/white and colour printing.

Everyone is welcome!

Mobile Phone Policy

Our mobile phone policy is simple: we do not allow mobile phones to be either seen or heard at any point during the school day, this includes breaktime and lunchtime.

From the time students enter the gate in the morning until they have left the gate at the end of the day, their phones must either be turned off or to silent, and stored safely either in their school bag or blazer pocket.

If a student’s phone is either seen or heard during the school day it will be confiscated.

School Uniform

As we want everyone associated with The Buckingham School to be proud of its achievements, we believe that a visual sense of belonging to a community is important, and, to this end, we require that school uniform is worn by our students. Parental support is vital in this, and we hope that the uniform is both practical and reasonable.

Here is the link to our Uniform section on the school website , from which you can see the School's full uniform standards, PE uniform and also a current price list from T King Associates.

To view the uniform list and price list, click on the button below.

Our uniform supplier, T King Associates, is open for business.
They are happy for you to visit in person, however, due to COVID guidance, they are encouraging orders to be placed online wherever possible to avoid queues at the shop. They understand that new students will probably want to try blazers on, and they are open for sizing as per normal. However, they would like customers to be aware that limited numbers of customers are allowed in the shop at any one time and therefore delays may occur during this time. If you would like to speak to a member of staff about your uniform purchase, T King Associates’ telephone number is 01280 824836.

www.tkingassociates.com
Telephone 01280 824836

Uniform List & Price List

Stationery Equipment

All students should have a school bag with them every day containing a pencil case with the following items.

School Notebook (provided by the school)
Black/Blue/Red/Green Pens
Pencils
30cm ruler
Eraser & pencil sharpener
Scientific calculator
A reading book
Maths set including compass & protractor
Glue stick & Highlighters

If you travel to and from school by a school bus…

Arriving at school

When you alight from the bus, please make your way quickly and safely to the school gates, clearing the way for the next bus to arrive. Please do not stand around outside the front of the school. If you have arranged to meet someone, meet them on the playground or, if it is raining, you will have access to a number of rooms within the main building.

Leaving school

All students travelling home by dedicated school bus must go to the MUGA where they will be supervised by our Senior Leadership Team. When their bus arrives and is ready in the lay-by at the front of the school, the students will be escorted to their bus by a member of SLT. If you catch a service bus on the London Road, teachers will be there to make sure that you cross the road safely using the traffic islands.

Bus Transport - New Bus Route 904

You may be aware that Buckinghamshire Council will cease to operate route 905 from September and Marshalls Transport are taking over the route. The update on the route has been good (50 children registered, however, they need another 20 children registered to make the route viable.

The new route (904) is for children living in Newton Longville, Whaddon, Mursley, Swanbourne, Little Horwood, Great Horwood and Nash.

Parents need to register their interest with Marshalls at https://marshalls-coaches.co.uk/services/school-travel

Further information regarding Buckinghamshire Council's School Transport can be found here.

https://www.buckinghamschool.org/page/?title=Bucks+Council+School+Transport+service&pid=404

School Houses

The Buckingham School’s House system gives a real sense of belonging, and it allows students to develop important and personal relationships. Every student is assigned a House. The House system creates competition, promotes good work and behaviour, encourages teamwork, provides opportunities to take on responsibilities and brings everyone in the school together.

Each House has its own identity and its own House colour, this is symbolised by each House having their own House tie which clearly maintains the school colours and logo, but also highlights and shows which House each student represents. Each House also has a Head of House and their brief is to instil belonging and pride in the Houses, extending our House competitions far beyond the Inter-House sport that already takes place.

To read more about each House, click here.

Our Vision underlies everything at The Buckingham School. We want children to achieve the highest possible standards, be challenged and enjoy their school experience. This underpins all that we do, whether in the classroom, on the sports field, in concert, on stage, or in the extensive range of other opportunities we offer our students at all stages of their education.

As a school, we aim to develop our students to be successful in all that life in the 21^st Century offers. Our curriculum is designed to achieve this by being broad and balanced, as well as offering students deep and rich learning and enrichment experiences that are all underpinned by our School Virtues.

We developed seven Virtues that we particularly cherish and seek to embed in our students:-

AMBITION, CONFIDENCE, RESPECT, EMPATHY, RESILIENCE, INTEGRITY AND CURIOSITY.

To learn more about our Virtues, click here.

Student First Team

The Student First Team provide an all embracing service for our students, working together to develop and maintain their social, emotional, mental health and wellbeing.

The team, all of whom have a wealth of experience in their own areas of expertise. The aim is to always put students first and offer them support and guidance, as well as providing necessary support for parents and carers. We also refer to and work with organisations who provide additional support for young people and their families when necessary.

To read the Student First Team leaflet, please click here:

Student First Team Leaflet

Communicating with parents is an important part of what we do, making sure you get the correct information about school news, activities and things that really matter is something we care about.

Our chosen communication platform is ParentMail and is used not only to communicate with you but is also the portal for purchasing items from school and paying for school trips.

Registering with ParentMail is very easy! You will have been sent either an email and/or text message from ParentMail, when you receive this please just follow the instructions in the message.

Please be assured that ParentMail is registered with the Information Commissioner and guarantees that all information you provide will be kept private and will not be passed on to any other organisation.

Once registered, if you have an Android or Apple smartphone, we would highly recommend you download the ParentMail App for the best user experience. To do this, simply search for “ParentMail” in your App store.

If you need any additional information or assistance, please visit the help site: www.parentmail.co.uk/help/parenthelp/

Who to Contact

If you have a pastoral concern regarding your child, your first port of call should be to contact their Form Tutor; by email is best as it is hard to contact teaching staff via the telephone during the working day. Arrangements can then be made for a face-to-face meeting or telephone call if necessary.

If your query cannot be sufficiently resolved through your child’s Form Tutor, please contact their Head of Year. Again, email is the most effective method of initially making contact.

If your query relates to a particular subject, please email the subject teacher. All of our staff email contact details can be found on our website www.buckinghamschool.org under Contact Us section.

If you are unsure of whom you should be contacting, please contact our Main Reception on 01280 812206 who will be happy to assist you, but please find following the responsibilities and contact details of our Senior Team:

Headteacher Mr A McGinnes aallen@buckinghamschool.org
Lead Deputy Headteacher Mr M Wardle mwardle@buckinghamschool.org
Deputy Headteacher, Teaching & Learning Mr D Fox dfox@buckinghamschool.org
Assistant Headteacher, Pastoral Mrs A Baxter abaxter@buckinghamschool.org
Assistant Headteacher, Standards Miss R Branson rbranson@buckinghamschool.org
Assistant Headteacher, Data Mr J Dunckley jdunckley@buckinghamschool.org
Assistant Headteacher, Director of Sixth Form Mrs S Pykett spykett@buckinghamschool.org
Business Manager Mrs J Young jyoung@buckinghamschool.org

Attendance

If you need to report your child’s absence, please contact the school by 9.30am either by phoning the Student Absence Line on 01280 818923, or email mwhitbread@buckinghamschool.org.

School Term Dates can be found here.

The school website has a wealth of important and useful information, so please take the opportunity to look around.

Additionally, we have created a dedicated section 'Joining us in Year 7', which includes information and resources to hopefully help with your child's transition from primary to secondary school.

Simply click here to take you there!

School Equestrian Team

The Buckingham School Equestrian team is looking for new riders for the 2021-2022 school year, to compete in Dressage, Show Jumping, Cross Country, Arena Eventing.

Membership runs from 1st September to 31st August each year.

You will need your own horse or a horse you are able to borrow and compete with. You will need to arrange your own transport for getting the horse to the various local venues. We are a great team with lots of success.
Please view the NSEA website for further information.
If your child is starting school in September or is already at The Buckingham School and you want to join please get in touch with Louise the Team Manager for further information
Info@ajscontracting.net

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LATEST NEWS: from www.buckinghamschool.org

05 Jul 2021

Charity Champions Week - 5th - 9th July 2021

This week, The Buckingham School is hosting our first ever ‘Charity Champions’ events. Each day is exclusive to each individual house as outlined below with their date, house and chosen charity: Monday 5th July - Chandos House - Alec’s Angels Tuesday 6th July - Cl...

17 Jun 2021

Staff Vacancies

It is with great pleasure I welcome you to explore the variety of teaching vacancies at The Buckingham School. This is an exciting time to join The Buckingham School. The school benefits from a recently completed £2.8m property development programme, invested from the local authority to sup...