Headteachers Newsletter Summer 2025

---

Dear Parents and Carers,

As we head into the break, I would like to take this moment to wish all of our families a happy, healthy, and restful summer. I hope the coming weeks provide you and your children with time to relax, recharge, and enjoy well-earned time together.

As we come to the end of another busy and successful academic year, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued and unwavering support. Parenting is undoubtedly one of the most rewarding roles in life, but we know it is not without its challenges. Your commitment to your child’s wellbeing, education, and character development is something we deeply value. The partnership between home and school is a cornerstone of our students’ success, and we are truly grateful for the trust and collaboration you bring to that relationship.

At the heart of everything we do here at Aylesford is our commitment to character. We believe that academic success, while important, must be underpinned by strong personal values, resilience, kindness, and integrity. This ethos drives our curriculum, our pastoral care, and our daily interactions — ensuring that our students leave us not only with qualifications but also as principled and confident young people ready to contribute positively to the world around them.

Trips and Visits

This year has been one of incredible activity, energy and achievement across our school. We’ve had a packed calendar of trips and visits — local, national and even international — offering our students rich learning opportunities outside of the classroom. From history explorations to science adventures, these experiences have helped our young people to grow in curiosity, confidence, and character.

Students have developed resilience, teamwork, and joy through events like sports day, and have shown compassion and unity during whole-school fundraising efforts, including our much-loved school walk. We were even thrilled to make headlines by breaking a world record in Food and Hospitality — a moment of pride for the entire school community!

If you don’t already follow us on social media, I would encourage you to visit our Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/AylesfordSchoolKent
 
It’s the best way to keep up to date with all the fantastic things happening at Aylesford and to get a real sense of daily life in our vibrant school.

Celebrating Success

At Aylesford, we are proud of the many ways in which we celebrate and recognise student success.

Most recently, our Summer Awards event honoured the achievements, progress, and contributions of students across all year groups. Earlier in the year, we hosted our inspiring Character Awards in December, celebrating students who consistently live out our values in everyday school life.

Across the year, we have also recognised excellence in individual subjects — including the PE and Sport Awards, held just recently — as well as numerous department- specific celebrations that highlight the talents and efforts of our students. These moments of recognition are an important part of school life, reinforcing the value of hard work, kindness, and ambition.

Results Day

We would like to wish the very best of luck to all students awaiting their exam results this summer. Results days are a key milestone, and we strongly encourage all students to attend in person to collect their results and receive any further guidance or support.

• Year 13 (A-Level/BTEC) – Thursday 14th August, 8:30–10:00am
• Year 11 (GCSE) – Thursday 21st August, 8:30–10:00am

Staff will be on hand to offer advice on next steps, including university placements, apprenticeships, sixth form, or college progression. These events are essential for helping students move forward confidently into the next stage of their journey.

Student Success

We are incredibly proud of all our students, who continue to demonstrate great character every day — whether through kindness, determination, leadership, or simply doing the right thing when no one is watching. While every student contributes to the positive culture at Aylesford, we would like to give special recognition to those who have gone above and beyond this year. Well done to the following students, who are have the most character strengths in their respective year groups — your consistent effort, attitude and character has not gone unnoticed. Congratulations!

Year 7

Owen P 416
Annabelle V 404
Jacob H 389
Amelia A 388
Noah N 387
Ruby K 381
Tom S 378
Ellie W 377
Brandon Y 376
Elsa M 369

Year 8

Gyan M 425
Abigail K 392
Dylan K 391
Evie T 386
Cerise K 385
Leanne W 378
Daisy F 375
Miya J 373
Dylan W 372
Chris C 368

Year 9

William P 679
Ariyan P 601
William R 548
Alfie W-W 533
Jenson M 440
Brad B 405
Teddy R 391
Ollie W 350
Rebecca E 340
Isabella M 323

Year 10

Lacey M 375
Riley-Jayne B-W 356
William S 356
Muhammad K 319
Evie P 301
Dexter K 283
Jack H 280
Imogen C G 263
Crystal G 263
Ruby T 262

Term Dates – Academic Year 2025–26

You can find full details of next year’s term dates on our website:
https://www.aylesford.kent.sch.uk/info/quicklinks/term-dates

Year 7 and 12 will return on Wednesday 3rd September 2025

All Students return on Thursday 4th September 2025

Changes to behaviour policy

As previously outlined, I want to remind you that from September 2025, Aylesford School will implement a revised Behaviour Policy aimed at ensuring a calm, respectful, and focused learning environment. The changes include clearer expectations for student conduct and the reintroduction of after-school detentions, with communication managed through Class Charts and email notifications. These updates are designed to reduce low-level disruption, promote consistency, and support all students in being Ready, Respectful, and Safe. We appreciate your continued support in reinforcing these expectations at home.

School Uniform

The school’s uniform policy remains unchanged for the 2025 – 2026 Academic year. Please refer to this when purchasing uniform for September. We expect all students to be in full uniform as per our policy when we return in Term 1
https://www.aylesford.kent.sch.uk/info/quicklinks/uniform-expectations

Staffing Changes

We are also delighted to welcome several new colleagues to our school community in September:

• Mrs Reza – Teacher of Criminology
• Mrs Ware – Attendance Assistant
• Mr Matthews – Progress Leader for Year 10 and Lead Practitioner for Literacy, Oracy and Digital Technologies
• Mrs Ingoldsby – Teacher of French
• Mr Porritt – Head of Maths
• Mr Wheeler – Teacher of Business/ICT
• Miss Friend – Teacher of PE
• Miss Smith – Head of MFL
• Mr Ichipi – Teacher of Maths

At the same time, we also say goodbye to some valued members of staff. We thank them sincerely for their service, and for the great character and commitment they have shown during their time with us:

• Mr Butterworth
• Mrs Butterworth
• Mrs Lawton
• Mr Neeve
• Mr Richards
• Mrs Abbott
• Mr South
• Mrs Gryntus

We thank them for their service at Aylesford wish all the very best in their future endeavours.
Thank you once again for your support this year. We look forward to welcoming students back in the autumn term. Until then, enjoy the summer break.

Yours sincerely,

Miss T Kelvie
Headteacher Aylesford School

Click to download in PDF format