Editorial 17th September 2020

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Dear Parents,

 

Welcome, everyone, to the new academic year – particularly to those parents who are new to the schools.

 

We’d like to start by thanking each and every one of you who helped us to exceed our fundraising target last year.

 

Following that very successful campaign, we wanted to give you an update on how the money that was raised is being used.

 

As you can see in the table above, of around £4.3m of parental donations and fundraising last year…

… approximately £3.7m is being used to meet the running costs for the last academic year and to carry urgent and essential capital works at both sites, including roof work, new boilers and a comprehensive CCTV upgrade

  • Whilst the costs of the capital work far exceeds the school’s contributions, we have achieved this through winning additional grants from the Government and CST.

 

£250k is being used to enable us to take in extra Year 7 boys this year

  • Without this investment, these children would not have had a Jewish school to attend. The funds were donated specifically for this purpose.
  • £200k will pay for building work to create new corridors, extra toilets and reconfigure rooms.
  • £50k will pay for extra pastoral support and teaching costs.

 

Whilst the above funds had to be allocated in this way, as we raised in excess of our target, we are able to make some modest, targeted investments, as follows:

 

£160k will be invested in initiatives to raise standards of achievement in the sixth form

  • Appointing a KS5 raising achievement co-ordinator to boost results across the curriculum
  • Extra tutoring in key subjects
  • Recruitment and retention initiatives to attract and retain the very best teachers
  • Augmenting classroom learning using targeted digital supplements
  • Using blended learning initiatives to preserve a broad curriculum

 

£130k will be invested in informal education

The Informal Education team has been expanded have been brought on board to help our students realise the beauty of Judaism and that Torah is not just a Toras Emes but a Toras Chaim. The programme will include:

  • Yemei Iyun – themed activities
  • Volunteering
  • Shabbatonim
  • After school activities
  • Mentoring and 1 to 1 personal spiritual support for Year 7 girls
  • Cross-departmental links

 

£100k will be invested in blended learning

Lockdown has enabled us to fully appreciate the power of technology to offer wrap-around education.  Building on this enables us to seamlessly educate children through any future lockdowns and make the best use of our resources across the two sites:

  • Staff within departments will be given the time and resources to develop digital learning and digital resources in each learning area
  • Synchronous (real time) and asynchronous (pre-prepared/recorded) teaching will be blended
  • Digital supplements for a variety of subjects will be offered to give students access to the best online resources
  • We will also be partnering with other education technology lead schools to ensure we are at the cutting edge of this area.

 

Our need this year

This year we will need to receive £4.1m to pay for the running costs of the school.  We will be reporting on how well we are performing against monthly targets so that you will be able to see the progress that is being made against them.

 

Thank you to each and every one of you for your support last year… and thank you in anticipation of your support this coming year.

 

 

Gary Swabel – Chair, Hasmonean MAT

Andrew McClusky – CEO, Hasmonean MAT