From the Head of Secondary 09.10.2021
The return to school has gone smoothly, with teachers keeping Google Classrooms open for those students who are not yet in physical school. Thursday was a significant day for quite a few as they headed off to get their second vaccination [many thanks to parents for keeping us informed of this] We fully expect that a very high percentage of students in these year groups will be attending physical school next week.
Interim Reports for Year 7 and New Students.
Next week we will be sending the interim reports home. These are intended to give parents an idea of how their children are managing in the new school environment. This week I have been reading all of them and I pleased to see how well the students have adapted. It is not easy to effectively start a new school online but Year 7 have, on the whole, shown remarkable resilience and determination to do the best that they can do. Teachers also are determined to make lessons exciting and inspirational and are becoming extremely proficient in using a range of very clever applications to achieve this goal. Reports for all year groups will be published at the end of this term, in December.
Assembly Thursday 14th October
On Thursday morning we will be holding our annual Student Leadership Assembly. This year there is a bit of a twist with the event being totally managed by our Head Prefects: Vadim, Qaweimah, Delia and Joseph. Parents and Guardians may be interested in attending and you would be very welcome; the zoom link will be sent before the assembly.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
This has been a very exciting week as we welcomed our examination students in Years 10 to 13 back into school. There was something a little unnerving in seeing how mature and grown-up they appeared after months of not seeing them properly. Although we know that children grow [of course they do!] we were still surprised at how long hair had grown, how faces had matured, how individuals who we thought of as ‘children’ now had their grown-up faces and statures. It was wonderful to see, and talking to them, to listen to them expressing their delight in being back in school. Interesting to note as well that they approached each other with a certain tentativeness to begin with. That will change of course as they start to get used to this new normal of being back together again.
Have a look at these photos, courtesy of Ms Service, as students made use of our Science labs again:
Years 12 and 13 enjoyed physically distanced cakes [courtesy of Mrs Colbeck] as they came together as a group to explore the Sixth Form Centre [which houses the Common Room [one great privilege] and the Study Room]. Read this account of what happened on Tuesday afternoon:
Sixth Form Buddies
During PSHE time on Tuesday this week, Year 12 and Year 13 spent time getting to know each other all over again. To begin with, Year 13 moved around the library and met three new Year 12 students each. Students then buddied up, one Year 12 with one Year 13, to be shown the Unifrog platform which we use for university applications. Year 12 students will be able to consult their Year 13 buddy on Sixth Form and university issues, which will be extremely useful as they move into new territory!
After this session, students then moved into their group leadership roles. The House Presidents and Ambassadors, Prefect Teams and Librarian Cadets met to discuss their plans for the year. The final group met to conjure up a duty rota for the Sixth Form Common Room.
Kind regards,
Margaret Renshaw
Deputy Principal / Head of Secondary
