Letter to New Year 7s

Dear Year 6,

"The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter.”

Our school doors open for you and are always open for you.

My favourite adventure story is J R R Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit. In it, dwarves, elves, and dragons do battle with magical creatures and friendship and swordplay. Central to the story is a door into the deep mountains where the dwarves used to live before the dragon took over!

The wizard Gandalf speaks the words that open this door. That mystical word is simply ‘friendship’. The words in elvish are "Annon edhellen, edro hi ammen" - Gate of the Elves, open now for me. We have no elves, but our doors open now for you.

We have created a space just for you, our future Year 7 students who will join us in September. We know that you are most precious and most valuable of new Year 7s in our short and new history. Friendship is key to making your move to a new school work well.

Learning at Harris Tottenham will be creative and magical; safe and exciting. But most of all we will help you and help you develop strong friendships.

This space for you is safe and is online: you can see it by clicking through our own portal door.

This space is also a very real place, 6 minutes’ walk from Tottenham Hale train station and 24 minutes’ walk from Tottenham Hotspur Football Stadium. We are surrounded by the green of Down Lane Park and the 100 acres of the Lea Valley Park marshes. Places to walk and places to explore even if the last 9 weeks have been so difficult for you.

Our aim over the next 5 weeks is to help you begin to learn about each of your teachers. We will do this by posting short informational films by teachers and students for you to learn about the school you are joining, for you to feel supported and for you to enjoy watching.

What I can say with absolute certainty is that we are very much looking forward to meeting you all and welcoming you into the HATO family and community.

Yours sincerely,

Nick Soar

Executive Principal (HF)