Weekly Update: 20th November 2023

Published November 21, 2023

High Standards, High Expectations, High Aspirations

This week, the children met our interim Headteacher, Mr McParland both in assemblies and also around school! The theme of the assemblies was high standards, high expectations and high aspirations.  I’m sure we all agree that this is what we want for the children – we want them all to have standards of their appearance, uniform, and work; we want them to have high expectations of themselves and also of their teachers; we want them to have high aspirations and to realise that aiming high and aspiring to be more is a worthy goal in life!

Mr McParland has also been a very visible presence around school during break and lunchtimes as he gets to know the children but also visiting lessons and seeing the learning happening across the curriculum areas.  He’s very impressed with how the school is and is eager to help us improve further over the coming weeks and months.

Year 11 Revision Resources & Interventions

It was great to meet with Year 11 parents this week virtually for their parents’ evening – very productive and positive conversations were taking place as parents and teachers discussed how to best support the children to bring about the best possible outcomes.

The January mock exams will come around super quickly (they begin Mon 8th January) and our advice to Year 11 now is to take advantage of the intervention sessions currently running and also do lots of practise questions to get yourselves ready for these next mocks!  The more you do now (little and often) will mean that you get more time for yourself and less cramming of revision during the Christmas holidays!  Don’t forget to visit our revision webpage as well with useful tips for pupils and parents.

Year 9 Options Process

A sincere thank you to Year 9 families for your patience with the options process this year.  We want to make sure that we get things perfect for your children and that we can offer them the best possible chances for success at Key Stage 4.  Please see the latest correspondence from Mr McGuinness for an update on the options process.

Anti-Bullying Week and Odd Socks

There have been some brilliant odd socks on display this week – from pupils and staff alike!  The winners have not been decided at the time of writing, but I will update on X (Twitter) as soon as possible!  The colourful combinations have brought a smile to our faces but there is a serious message behind them – we are all different and unique and celebrating not isolating these differences is what we should be about. Mr Bartel delivered excellent assemblies to all year groups this week on anti-bullying and the different roles that exist in the bullying hierarchy.

We encourage all pupils to speak out and to make our school a happy and safe place for all our young people to enjoy and where they can thrive!

Thank You – House of Opportunity & Shoebox Appeal

A massive thank you to all of our families who have donated items for the Shoebox appeal.  The donations were delivered today and we’re sure they’re going to brighten peoples’ Christmases this year!

New Books in the Library!

Miss Clark was incredibly happy this week with the arrival of lots of new books to add to our shelves in the library!  Don’t forget to remind your child that the library is open every breaktime for them to visit, read and take out books! Also, please do check out our suggested reading lists for each year group here.

Op Sceptre

Please see this letter from Swindon & Wiltshire Police re: Op Sceptre, a week-long national campaign aimed at tackling knife crime, is running from 13th November – 17th November 2023. Wiltshire Police’s Youth and Early Intervention Team would like to raise awareness of weapons and knife crime within Swindon and Wiltshire.

Cross Country

Congratulations to our podium finishers yesterday in the Salisbury Schools Cross Country! Great achievements from the girls’ and boys’ teams!

  • Year 9 Girls Team: Bronze 
  • Jaydon Offord: Silver 
  • Ollie Wheatland: Gold
  • Tom Dewey: Silver

Coming Up Next Week

Assemblies: Academic Assemblies led by Mr Rooney:  Yr7-9 The Importance of Retrieval & Memory, Yr10&11 Study Skills 

Monday:

  • All Y11 BTEC Creative Media students are off timetable on Monday for their first session of the Component 2 Internal Assessment (NEA). It is worth 30% of their overall GCSE grade. Good luck!
  • Assembly: Yr7 The Importance of Retrieval and memory 
  • Intervention: Sociology Rm4, Geography Rm10 

Tuesday:

  • Assembly – Yr8 The Importance of Retrieval and memory 
  • HW Club – before & after school in Rm26 
  • Mrs Inglis’ Science Intervention Group (8:30) 
  • Library Club after school 
  • Dance Live Rehearsals at 3:45 in the hall 
  • After School Yr7 & 8 Football Club 
  • Yr11 Football Match P6 vs Wyvern 
  • Intervention:  English & Food Tech 

Wednesday:

  • Assembly: Yr9 The Importance of Retrieval & Memory 
  • After School: All Years Rugby (Boys & Girls) 
  • 4B: RE Yr10 & 11 Revision Club 
  • HW Club – before & after school in Rm26 
  • Intervention: Science 
  • 6pm Last Year’s Yr11 Certificate Evening 

Thursday:

  • Assembly – Year 10 Study Skills 
  • SWGS ROCstars (How to revise) programme for Year 11, 3:45 – 4:35 (Venue tbc) 
  • After School: Yr9 Football Club  
  • Yr10 Football Match vs Wyvern
  • Intervention: Maths

Friday: 

  • Assembly – Year 11 Study Skills 
  • Cake Day – Admin & Support Staff 
  • P4a- rm21 Christmas Choir rehearsal. 
  • After School: Yr9, 10 & 11 Basketball Club & After School:  
  • Intervention: PE & Dance – Rm28 

Achievement Points Race

Congratulations Teresa House!

  • 1st Place: Teresa House – 4,317 points
  • 2nd Place: Vincent House – 4,128 points
  • 3rd Place: Margaret House – 3,706 points
  • 4th Place: Francis House – 3,673 points

Have a lovely weekend!

Mr Rooney

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