Our new students, mainly in Year 7 and 12, seem increasingly sure in their movements around school and it’s great to see lessons happening with such focus. I spent some lovely time this morning visiting lessons including maths, drama, geography, classics and English. Seeing students from all year groups, from Year 7 to Year 13 engaged in their learning so purposefully was a joy. I certainly picked up some new things, including learning Greek myths of giants with one hundred heads and reminding myself of the names of all the key mountain ranges and rivers in Britain. The school term is certainly fully underway now, and lessons bear testament to that. 

Students of the week

Another thing that makes me feel certain things are now back to normal is that we have, for the first time this term, our first nominations for Student of the Week. Here are the names of the superstar for each year group, and each has shown persistence and commitment with their learning – congratulations to each of you.

Year 7	Year 8	Year 9	Year 10	Year 11	Sixth Form
Rahma	Joel	Lleyton	Toni	Heidi	Darius / Sophia

Assemblies this week – the power of reading

One of the things I am most proud of over the last few years is how we have focused on reading in our school. I strongly believe that reading builds knowledge, and that increasing a person’s language capacity increases their power. Having a wider vocabulary broadens our understanding of a range of ideas and words. Reading also helps us to develop our empathy, increasing our understanding of others around us and the many parts of the world we may not have travelled to.

I explained this in assemblies to our students this week and look forward to visiting the reading sessions next week. If you are interested in knowing about which books we read there is detail on our website here.

Year 7, 8, 9 curriculum and assessment webinar

We will be holding an online information session for all Year 7, 8 and 9 parents/carers on Tuesday 26th September at 5:30pm. The purpose of the evening will be to provide you with information about the curriculum and assessment structures within our school. The event should last approximately 30 minutes. Please use the following link to sign up for this event:  https://forms.gle/jungaqTcxKXUkqAT8 It would also be helpful if any questions that you may have on the evening can be added into the sign up form. We will endeavour to respond to these questions at the webinar.

Safeguarding message 

Our local Education Wellbeing Service is offering evening and lunchtime parent webinars across the year to help support teenagers' wellbeing and mental health. You can sign up to any of their free webinars here on Eventbrite. Their next webinar will be 'an introduction to Mental Health During the Teen Years' running on the 26th and 28th of September. Please click here to register your interest. 

Wishing you all the best for a restful weekend.

Nick House, Headteacher