Girls’ School – Year 7 Achdus Day

The Year 7, Girls’ School, Achdus Day was filled with fun, unity and a lot of laughter!

Editorial 27.01.2022

Dear Parents,

The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day which we are commemorating this week is: One Day. This can be interpreted in different ways – one day this will all be over or reflecting on the one day when everything changed. Or it can indicate endurance.

Iby Knill who is a Holocaust survivor said:
You didn’t think about yesterday, and tomorrow may not happen, it was only today that you had to cope with and you got through it as best you could.

There are important lessons for us here. The first is to value what we have as one day we could lose it. I hope none of us would be torn away forcibly from our families but illness, job loss or enforced separation are experiences we have all come close to over the past months.

The second is to live more in the moment and to make the most of each day. It can sometimes be hard to see the ordinariness of life as a gift, it is often easier to see it as a chore or series of obligations which need to be met. However, if we stop for a minute and really consider what it would be like to have everything snatched away, even the inconveniences or drudgery can become something to cherish.

So I would urge you this weekend to pause and reflect just how much we have to be grateful for.

Shabbat Shalom!

Mrs K Brice
Headteacher
Hasmoenan High School for Girls

Middlesex U13 Cricket Squad News

Rafi Quint, one of our Year 8 boys, has just been selected to be a part of the Middlesex U13 cricket squad. He has also been asked to join the pre-season U14 cricket tour to Barbados this April. It is a very special and exciting opportunity for this young man to participate in an elite sporting tour- and well worth missing the last week of term!

Good luck Rafi- you have earned your place. Not only will you be joining as a cricket player, you will also be an ambassador for your community. We all hope you have an incredible experience and enjoy every moment.

Editorial 20.01.2022

Dear Parents/Carers,

In this week’s parsha, Yisro, the concept of freedom is celebrated. Interestingly, this freedom is a result of the Torah being given, rather than the freedom following the exodus from Egypt. Many of the commentators discuss this shift in the concept of freedom: this is not freedom from oppression but a different kind of freedom which enhances personal liberties. The Torah can be viewed as providing us with a blueprint for human action and a framework to feel safe and free within carefully constructed parameters.

In a similar vein, we are welcoming the more relaxed Covid freedoms that have been announced by the Government this week. From Thursday 20th January, students no longer need to wear face coverings in our classrooms. They need to continue to wear them in the corridors and communal areas until Thursday 27th January. Please note that TFL still require students to wear face coverings on London Transport.

We are hopeful that the list of these new-found freedoms continues to grow and that soon we are able to put these past few years of the pandemic behind us.

Have a wonderful Shabbos.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs D Lebrett
Headteacher
Hasmonean High School for Boys

Tu B’Shevat at the Girls’ School

The H.I.P.E team created the most fantastic Tu B’Shevat initiative on Monday which they named #ijuiced4jews. The event opened with an inspirational talk about gratitude and giving, in order to focus the students on the ideas of the day.

Afterwards, each girl was supplied with her own squeezer and bottle for a mass orange juicing session. Over 400 students worked hard to squeeze around 2000 oranges into bottles. Each student had an apron, gloves and personalised stickers to complete the look and add to the fun. Every bottle filled by a student was added to the count for her year group. There was a competition between the year groups as to who could make the most bottles of orange juice, which was won by Year 7.

The freshly squeezed orange juice bottles were then distributed by GIFT to families who would not otherwise have access to fruit for Tu B’Shevat.

There was a fabulous atmosphere in the hall, with the scent of hundreds of oranges heralding the arrival of spring!

Tu B’Shevat at the Boys’ School

A Tu B’Shevat to remember! We had a Cereal Killer Cafe which explored the different Shivas Haminim. 4 hours of cutting fruit and it was gone in a flash! It was a fantastic event which really celebrated healthy eating in a fun way.

D.A.Y.S Reward Trip

On Wednesday 12th January, nearly 60 Year 7 boys were rewarded for attending the D.A.Y.S morning minyan every day for the whole Autumn Term.

They went to Flip Out, Brent Cross to enjoy a jolly morning of bouncing and jumping, accompanied by Rabbi Fachler (the D.A.Y.S co-ordinator) and the Minyan Monitors from the upper years. All the boys, both young (and young-at-heart) had a fun-filled and well deserved reward for their commitment to davenning.

Editorial – 13.01.2022

Dear Parent,

Klal Yisroel find themselves in dire straits in this week’s parsha. Trapped between the Egyptian army in hot pursuit and the deep blue sea, they cry out to Hashem. The Medrash tells us that only on seeing רכוש של מצרים בידם, the wealth of the Egyptians in the hands of the Jewish people, did the sea split.

This is very strange. The waters did not give way for the men, women and children of Klal Yisroel, but only for the Egyptian plunder! What does this mean?

Rabbi Pinchos Roberts explains that after decades of slavery and persecution they were suddenly free and very wealthy. But their newfound wealth did not go to their heads, it was firmly in check – it was בידם, in their hands and in their control.

The Yam Suf witnessed this remarkable self-discipline of the Jewish people and only then split its waters.

Rabbi Dovid Kaplan tells a wonderful anecdote about a girl who lost a towel on a school trip. The mother, upset at the school for their careless supervision of the property of others, called the Headteacher.

After apologising and re-assuring the mother that the school would try to locate the missing towel, she asked the mother “What did it look like?”

“It was white,” said the mother, “with ‘Holiday Inn’ written across it.”

After decades of slavery and persecution, Klal Yisroel managed to ensure that their newfound wealth did not go their heads. It was בידם, in their hands and in their control. That, says the Medrash, is what so impressed the Yam Suf that it split its waters.

Chazal (Eruvin 65b) tell us that a person’s relationship with money is a good indicator of who that person is. To have newfound wealth and still be in control is impressive indeed.

Children have a canny ability to detect honesty or the lack of it, both of their parents and teachers. Let us live our lives with honesty and use whatever resources we are blessed with wisely. Our children will notice, and it is a true indication of who we are.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi J Golker
Menahel

Editorial 06.01.2022

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope that you all enjoyed the winter break and had time to rest and relax with your families.

It is wonderful to be returning, in spite of Covid, to face-to-face education. Mrs Lebrett and Mrs Brice have outlined, in their email to you earlier this week, the measures we are putting in place to ensure the schools environments are as safe as possible. I am pleased to say that the vast majority of staff are in school and the student Covid absence rates are not as high as we were expecting.

On the Multi-Academy Trust’s website, you will find (at the bottom of the welcome page) the Trust Board’s statement of our ethos, vision and values, our strategic aims for 2020-2023 and our operational objectives for 2020-2023: https://hasmoneanmat.org.uk/welcome/

The Board has now reviewed how the MAT performed against the operational objectives last year. A copy of that review can be found here: https://hasmoneanmat.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/MAT-Objectives-Review-2020-2023.pdf I hope that you find it an interesting read.

Our Chair of Trustees will be releasing a video over the next week or so which outlines some of our most significant achievements over the last 12 months and some of the plans that we have to drive forward improvements at both schools over the coming year.

With best wishes,

Mr A McClusky
CEO, Hasmonean MAT