Autumn 2026

18 september – NEWSLETTER

EDITION 74

Staff Welcome

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope that you are well and that your daughters (and sons if they are in the sixth form) have enjoyed the opening weeks of the academic year. Every day in our school is very special, but I must say that I particularly enjoy welcoming students back to school following the long summer holiday and it has been a real pleasure starting to get to know our excited and enthusiastic new Year 7 and Year 12 students.

Something that has really impressed me already has been the determination of students to be in school on time every day and the desire of parents to support their children in this endeavour. Last academic year our whole school attendance improved from 91.6% in 2024-25 to 94.8% because of our shared understanding that when children are in school, they are safe, learning and having fun with their friends.

Attending school every day is the foundation of what makes our school a community in which everyone enjoys academic and social success. I would like to reflect for a moment on the quite incredible academic successes enjoyed by our GCSE and A-level students over the summer. At GCSE, a remarkable 87% of students attained a grade 4 above in English and mathematics – outcomes that place the school in the top 8% nationally for attainment – and at A-level 92% of grades were awarded an A*-C, which for the second year in a row means that school is in the top 10% of sixth forms for the progress that our students make. All Year 13 students are progressing to university, with over half of them reading degrees at Russell Group universities. These students really do have the broadest of horizons and I would like to congratulate all Year 11 and 13 students, parents and teachers for these tremendous achievements and the efforts that underpinned them.

Our school has a well-deserved reputation for academic excellence, and this has drawn a large number of students from other schools to our sixth form at the start of this academic year. There is a real ‘buzz’ to our sixth form community, and it is wonderful to have so many positive role models for our younger students.

Throughout their educational journey at Highbury Fields School, we want our students to develop the characteristics of responsibility, effort, ambition, contributions and honesty, which is how our community defines social success. Over the coming weeks, our Year 8 and 9 students will be learning these attributes as they begin their community work experience programmes by supporting community lunches and enjoying a day’s work experience in our school office. A large number of students have already written their applications to be their year group’s student leaders and I am really looking forward to our student leadership team taking shape over the next half term.

I really want every student, parent and member of staff to feel welcome and valued and for our newsletter to showcase our shared values. Over the coming weeks, the newsletter will introduce you to our staff members; shine a spotlight on our students – starting this week with our Head Student Maryam – highlight what is being learnt in subject and pastoral teams and, most importantly, celebrate the efforts of all of our students. I do hope that you enjoy reading it.

Best wishes,
Tim Fox
Headteacher

wHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING THIS WEEK

cOMMUNITY cELEBRATIONS

Our students in the islington tribune

Over the summer, the Islington Tribune published an article on GCSE results in the local community and Highbury Fields is mentioned heavily. In the article, Pride and relief as exam results tell success story, it dives into the great success of some of our Year 11 students.

If you would like to read the article in full then click the button below.

Read the full article

Year 9 Big Sisters Programme

This week saw the launch of this year’s Year 9 Big Sisters Programme, with Big Sisters meeting their Year 7 groups for the first time. The opening session focused on getting to know one another, helping to build positive relationships and ensuring that our newest students feel welcomed and supported as they settle into Highbury Fields.

The Big Sisters showed great enthusiasm and maturity during the session, leading conversations and activities designed to help Year 7 students feel confident and connected to the wider school community. Over the course of the year, Big Sisters will continue to meet with their groups, offering guidance, encouragement and support.

YEAR 11 ASSEMBLY AND PSHCE

In this week’s Year 11 assembly we marked the International Day of Democracy with an exploration of fairness, equality, and what this means for our year group community as students continue their GCSE journey. We reminded ourselves of our school’s vision being for everyone to enjoy social success, and why this makes our PSHCE curriculum even more crucial at this time, both as a support for students now but also for experiences and challenges faced in adulthood.

In PSHCE this week students explored the complexities of stereotyping across gender, race and religion, sexual orientation, and disability. By examining real-life case studies, students analysed individual and societal impacts of stereotypes and explored strategies to combat prejudice.

As ever, we have been proud of how Year 11 have taken responsibility for their commitment to learning and the community and are looking forward to celebrating more of their successes.

LESSONS

the ENGLISh department

Studying Jane Eyre: a deep dive into Year 10 English

Over the first ten weeks of the academic year, Year 10 students will explore Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, examining Jane’s development as well as her struggle to establish an independent identity in a society shaped by class and gender. Through close reading, students will consider how Brontë uses language, form and structure to shape character, relationships and meaning, while exploring the novel’s Gothic elements and recurring motifs.

Students will encounter a range of critical perspectives, including feminist, psychoanalytical and Marxist readings, using these to challenge and enrich their interpretations of the text. We will also explore Victorian Britain, considering how attitudes towards women, marriage, education, poverty and social class influence both Brontë’s writing and the world we live in today.

Throughout the unit, students will explicitly develop the skills required for AQA Paper 1: selecting precise textual references (AO1), analysing language, form and structure (AO2), and integrating relevant contextual understanding (AO3). Regular extract-to-whole-text practice will build confidence for the closed-book examination while encouraging students to read Jane Eyre as a complex, challenging and deeply rewarding work of literature.

To explore the novel and its influence beyond the classroom students could read:

A contemporary novel, The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett which explores identity, social expectations and the ways society shapes individual lives.
A modern novel, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, a text which explores the past of a mysterious character from Jane Eyre
A non-fiction text: The Secret History of Jane Eyre by John Pfordresher which explores the personal struggles Brontë faced when writing and publishing the novel.

Or visit:

Haworth in Yorkshire to see where the Brontës lived and worked.

Or watch:

To Walk Invisible – a film about the life of the Brontë sisters.

A snapshot of Students’ Work – Creative Writing from Year 9

Fantastic effort! Kristina has developed the imagery of her story so I feel like I am right there with the character!

– Mr Stephens

Leen used everything she learnt about the Gothic in Year 8 to create tension and suspense in her opening paragraph. I can also see the effort that has gone into editing her work to make sure her writing is clear and accurate.

– Ms Welton

Ibtisaam has thought carefully about the questions and worked hard to embed quotations that she can alayse to justify her ideas about the text; very impressive!

– Ms Jones

India has explored Steinbeck’s language in granular detail; she has made every effort to use her knowledge of literary methods to unpack meaning behind the symbolic desciptions in this passage. Great work.

– Ms Saverino and Mr Pulman-Slater

REACHING FOR SUCCESS

Attendance

Whole School Attendance
95.87%

Here are the top performing forms for attendance last week:

Top Forms for Attendance
Year 7: 7/Ada Lovelace/Kelly Holmes/Malala Yousafzai – 100%
Year 8: 8/Rosa Parks/Winona Duke – 100%
Year 9: 9/Serena Williams – 97.92%
Year 10: 10/Barbara Hepworth – 97.4%
Year 11: 11/Kadambina Ganguly – 99.55%
Sixth Form: 12/Arundhati Roy – 100%

Student spotlight

Head Girl – Maryam

Hello, my name is Maryam, I’m a Year 13 student and I was the Head Girl for the last academic year. Being Head Student involved attending meetings with the student leaders weekly to plan assemblies, events and talks. I also worked with SLT to progress the priorities established at the beginning of year that the student leadership team created.

I enjoy my classes and learning in general as they are interesting yet challenging in slightly different ways but talking to my friends is always a great part of my day. Outside of school, I love to play music and learn music theory for fun, I play bass in a jazz fusion band so being able to understand what they are saying or how to play better is incredibly helpful.

Measuring how I contributed is a difficult thing for me, especially when I feel that the student leaders contributed much more regarding my role as head girl. My contribution to the HFS community was trying to help the student leaders achieve their goals and targets; I hope I was able to support them in the ways they needed and wanted.

Considering that the year has just started, I’ll do a brief highlight reel of last year: becoming head girl was an honour, meeting the internal students and becoming friends with so many of them, visiting an art exhibition with my history class, doing my first mocks and them going better than thought, secret Santa at the sixth form, making progress in most of my subjects, helping a group of Year 12s prepare and host the cooking club, winning tug of war with the sixth formers against the teachers and so many more little moments that happened every day that made Year 12 more enjoyable than I initially thought.

I’m looking forward to learning more and completing my courses. Not so excited for the exams that come at the end of learning but it’s par for the course. Moreover, starting university is something that really excites me, I love learning and discussing “new” ideas (they’re new to me). Meeting or hearing about the new student leadership team and what they do during their term is something I’m looking forward to – what people choose to prioritise, and address, is always exciting, whether that be school or national politics.

I wish the next head students and the next leadership team the very best of luck!

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When coping at school comes at a cost at home

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