Dear Parents/Carers

This week we have been marking Children’s Mental Health Week with a variety of assemblies and form time activities.  These have enabled us to support your children as best as possible to manage the continuing lockdown and all that this brings.  I am acutely aware of the impact the curtailing of regular life, seeing friends and being able to have some freedom is having on all of us, but especially young people who have had many exciting experiences and rites of passage limited or unmarked.  At the start of the pandemic there was a view that young people would cope well because they ‘understand and use technology’ far better than their luddite parents and teachers.  However, it is clear that their lack of face-to-face socialisation is not easy.

I would like to take this opportunity to commend our students for their perseverance to continue to engage in their studies.  Those students in Years 11 and 13 who, like us, still await some certainty regarding how studies will be assessed, have shown real resilience and commitment to gaining knowledge and understanding.  I am grateful to staff who have organised guest speakers to enthuse our students and provide some alternatives to regular classes.  This week Lord Winston spoke eloquently to our Year 12s and next Thursday the author, Keren David will be speaking to Year 7 students about her new book, ‘What We’re Scared Of’ and what it is like to be a writer.

I would like to pay tribute to our Wellbeing team of Nikki Levitan, Nicki Cohen and Kirti Joshi who have worked tirelessly, not only this week, but continuously to strengthen and support the mental health and emotional wellbeing of the JFS community.

I am delighted and proud to announce that JFS has been accredited with the Optimus Education Wellbeing at Schools Award this week.  This is something towards which we have been working for over two years under the leadership of Mr Raynn Bruce, one of our Assistant Headteachers.  His guidance, together with support from Rabbi Cohen, Mr Bookatz and Miss Saffer who have all contributed to changing the narrative at JFS, means that wellbeing informs all our decisions at school whether strategically at the governing body level or day-to-day operations.

Earlier this week the Jewish world lost an important voice with the passing of Rabbi Abraham Twerski, scion of a Chassidic dynasty and also a renowned psychiatrist.  Amongst his many books he famously used the wit and wisdom of the Peanuts cartoons to help those he counselled.  This quote from Rabbi Twerski is one that I believe provides an important message for our current situation.

“Times of stress are also times that are signals for growth

and if we use adversity properly, we can grow through adversity.”

Shabbat Shalom

Rachel Fink
Headteacher