School was awash with colour today, with students out of uniform to raise money for Children in Need. Throughout the week, representatives from the Student Council have been selling Pudsey merchandise during tutor time. Prizes were awarded today for the best dressed in each year group.

Thank you to everyone involved and for all your donations. We will let you know how much we have raised next week.

Well done to all our Y11 students who have completed a 2 week mock exam period. They have worked hard and we are very proud of them.

What’s going on in school?

• Bikeability: We have secured 18 places for the Y7 Bikeability scheme for March 2023. There is additional capacity to add more places, if there is sufficient demand. Please complete the expression of interest form that has been emailed to you if you think this may be of interest to your young person.

• Netball and football training: These training sessions will continue after school 3.30pm - 4.30pm until the 1^st week in December (7th & 8th). The clubs will then resume in the final week back in January (23^rd & 24^th) January.  The U13 Utilitia Cup football fixture in Derby takes place on the 24^th November and Y7 & Y8 students that regularly train have been invited to sign up and collect consent forms. 

• High Peak Cross Country Trials: This takes place next Tuesday 22^nd November at Buxton. Anyone interested in running for school can sign up to be included. Leaving school approx 12.15 and returning 4,00pm. Appropriate clothing needed for weather and conditions. Students that are placed in the top 12 will be selected to run for the High Peak Team in the January Derbyshire schools' cross country event on Saturday 21^st January at Tupton Hall. 

Y9 Subject Evening

This is the start of an important period for our Year 9 students as they start to think about the courses they will study in Year 10 and 11, and their future education and career paths after they leave Hope Valley College.  This is the ‘options’ process and over the next few months we will be working with Year 9 students to help the to make the right subject choices for their future.

The first stage of this process is the Year 9 Subject Evening on Thursday 1 December.  This will take place in school and is an opportunity to talk to teachers about progress, attainment, and suitability for KS4 courses.  Once appointments have been made you will receive an email confirmation.

Parent Governor Election

Earlier this week, we emailed all parents and carers with details of how they can vote in the ballot to elect a new parent governor.  This email includes your unique voter number, which you will need to input to the online ballot form for your vote to be valid.  If you did not receive this email, please first check your email spam folder and then contact enquiries@hopevalley.chorustrust.org if you need to request a second email or a paper copy. The closing date for votes to be cast in the ballot is 5.00pm on Thursday 24 November.

Dates for your diary

Tuesday 13^th December – Festive Showcase at HVC, 6-8pm, details to follow

Thursday 15^th December – Carol Service at St Peter’s Church, Hope at 6pm. Carols performed but HVC students, an address from Reverend Petheram, followed by mince pies and hot drinks.

Scholastic Book Fair

Starting this Friday (November 18) the library will turn into a pop-up bookshop, with doors open each lunchtime next week for the sale of the brand-new books, from classics to the latest titles, and a range of stationery. Payments in cash preferred but electronic payments will be possible and items may be reserved and collected the following day. A proportion of the takings will be given back to us as free books for the library, so please support the Book Fair and support the school's library at the same time. I am happy to open the Fair to parents after school on Wednesday and Thursday by arrangement; please contact me in the library if you would like to have a select browsing session.

Job vacancy

We are currently recruiting for Exam Invigilators to work with the existing team in the running of all internal and public examinations at the school. The post would be ideally suited to applicants who have experience of working with young people, can be a role model to students and who are able to work flexible daytime hours. Full training will be provided and working hours allocated for each exam period. Details can be found on our website:  Vacancies

PTFA update

The PTFA calendar is well under way and should be available to order from the end of next week and a link will be shared in the Principal’s update and on the PTFA page of the school website: PTFA - Hope Valley College (hopevalley-chorustrust.org). Here is a sample of some of the pages from the calendar:

Thank you for reading our communication. Here are some helpful email addresses, should you need to contact us: attendance@hopevalley.chorustrust.org to report a child’s absence enquiries@hopevalley.chorustrust.org for general enquiries pastoral@hopevalley.chorustrust.org for any issue with a child’s wellbeing principal@hopevalley.chorustrust.org to contact the Principal safeguarding@hopevalley.chorustrust.org to report safeguarding concerns. If a child or any young person is in imminent danger, then please report this to the police. Kind regards

Gaynor Jones, Principal 
Hope Valley College
T: 01433 620555