Hi All,

Well, we’re nearly there and it seems that, with Christmas around the corner, it can’t come soon enough. The new variant of Covid seems to be taking hold and there are now several students and staff who have been affected. Like last year, the Christmas holiday will give the community an opportunity to re-group, and the break will, in effect offer an opportunity for some distancing from large groups of people while, hopefully, allowing family get-togethers to go ahead as normal.

As always, we follow all of the latest guidelines from Public Health England along with advice from the Local Authority. Please keep an eye on the school website, ParentPay and on social media for updates and further information.

The good news is that, despite the best efforts of Covid 19, we have managed to get right through to the end of term with the school fully open, while offering a full range of extra-curricular and sporting activities. Thank you, as always, for your ongoing support in these challenging times.

Whole School Celebration Evening

As you will be aware, the Whole School Celebration Evening was planned for the evening of the 2^nd December but, unfortunately, this was a step too far in light of the increase in the new, Omicron variant strain of Covid 19.

All of the nominations for those students receiving awards were agreed and trophies have been ordered. Please rest assured that, as soon as it is possible to host the event, we will do so.

Last year, we were forced to hold the awards ceremony remotely and we want to avoid this if possible. Celebration Evening is one of the most popular and well-attended events in the school calendar when we welcome a lot of parents and carers into the building to celebrate the successes of the previous year.

We will let you know the new date as soon as it is safe to hold a face to face event after Christmas.

English Department has Happy News – Literally

The English Department won ten copies of ‘The Happy News’ newspaper.

As you will be aware, most newspapers are not full of good news, so this publication approaches things from a slightly more positive angle; there are always great things happening in the world that we never get to hear about, but are well worth reporting

Access to this new resource will help to develop cultural capital, global awareness, British values and will also, hopefully, help to promote reading for pleasure amongst the student body.

Golden Tickets

This morning a select few Year 7s and 8s who were nominated by teachers for their great attitude to learning, and for going above and beyond, joined Mrs Beyer in the Diner for a treat. Congratulations to all of this week’s nominees. You deserved your hot chocolate celebration!

Advent Challenge

The Computer Science department are running an ‘Advent Challenge’ throughout December. Each day a new challenge will be revealed on the door of 201 and will be sent to tutors to show in the morning so students can complete one each day. Miss Rochell-Gill will stamp cards (in 201) each time a student has completed the challenge for that day. Students who manage to complete all of the challenges will be entered into a prize draw on the last day of term and there five prizes to be won, one for each year group. The last task will be shown on the 16th December.

We want as many people as possible to take part as we try to keep the atmosphere light during our countdown to Christmas.

Science Club

Here are some images of students enjoying Science Club with Mr Williams. Students made parachutes and had great fun testing them by dropping them from the 3rd floor. Obviously, they made sure that nobody was walking underneath.

Mini Marathon

Huge congratulations to Cheyenne, Mia, Grace, Faith and Emily Rose who all took part in the 2021 Mini London Marathon in schools. They all completed the 2.6 mile run throughout September and October.

Please feel free to join Miss Beyer’s running group every morning at 8:20am on the 3G.

See you there!

Christmas Lunch

Just a reminder that Christmas lunch for students is on Wednesday 15^th December. Kelly will be cooking up a feast so leave plenty of room to fill up.

Guaranteed to be the best school lunch of the year!

Christmas Sale and Raffle

As you will be aware the Christmas Fayre, unfortunately, had to be cancelled but we are using the wonderful, donated gifts in a Christmas Sale for students next week; thank you to those of you donated items. Students should bring cash in to school on Wednesday 15th December if they want to take advantage of the opportunity buy good quality presents for family and friends from our Christmas Sale for a very reasonable price.

Also, we are raffling a fantastic Christmas Hamper. You can buy tickets on Parent Pay or from school. The cost is £1 per strip for the festive hamper that is packed full of everything a family needs to make Christmas Day extra special. The winning tickets will be drawn on Thursday afternoon.

And finally

As we approach the last few days of term, I would like to take this opportunity to remind students to remain calm and focus on their work for just a little but longer. It is becoming increasingly difficult for everyone as more and more of the school community is affected by Covid. Let’s enjoy the last week and we’ll make sure that, as always, there are some festive activities to take part in.

We want all of you to enjoy a fantastic Christmas, so please take every opportunity to stay safe.