Weekly Update: 24th November 2023

Published November 24, 2023

Certificate Evening

It was an absolute pleasure to welcome last year’s Year 11 back to school on Wednesday evening.  There was a lovely buzz in the canteen where everyone gathered on arrival as they were catching up with each other and letting us know how their college courses were going.  It’s brilliant to see how excited they all are and a real sense of pride to see how they continue to develop as young adults. 

Mr McParland began the evening with a prayer and a welcome and then all former Year 11s were presented with their exam certificates.  Following this, there were special awards recognising achievement, charity work and resilience amongst many others – the Salisbury Catenians were also in attendance to present their award.

We then presented Awards for each subject area to celebrate pupils’ achievements across each and every curriculum area.  It’s always one of our favourite nights of the year and brilliant to reconnect with families and ex-pupils!

Academic Assemblies

This week, we’ve been delivering academic assemblies to all year groups.  They have focused on the importance of creating a good learning environment, and the importance of working memory and long-term memory. 

We explored how teachers carefully plan their lessons to avoid cognitive overload and also why we use retrieval and recall activities at the beginning of lessons – this is all about pulling information from long-term memory so that links and connections can be made with the new information being delivered.

With Year 10 & 11 we also included the importance of taking responsibility for reviewing their work regularly to help combat the forgetting curve!

Year 11 Interventions & Revision

The Year 11 intervention programme is now in full swing with three weeks now complete.  This week, Year 11 pupils received a letter clarifying which intervention sessions they have been selected for.  If you have not seen this letter, please ask your child so that you can see it now!  The intervention programme is also shared on our website here with many other revision resources and study skills video sessions for parents.

Book Reviews

Next week, in our efforts to monitor and continually improve standards, we’ll be conducted pupil book reviews.  We are keen to monitor the presentation of books and the pride that the pupils take in their work across all curriculum areas.  Books will be selected at random and if a child’s book has been looked at, they will receive a sticker with comments to mark the review.

Coming Up Next Week

Assemblies – Advent led by RE Department and Chaplaincy Team

Monday 27th November

  • After school Intervention: MFL

Tuesday 28th November:

  • Director of Education for Wiltshire visiting school to look at site with Mr McParland 
  • HW Club – before & after school in Rm26 
  • Mrs Inglis Science Intervention Group (8:30am) 
  • Library Club after school 
  • Dance Live Rehearsals at 3:45 in the hall 
  • After School Yr7 & 8 Football Club 
  • After school rehearsal for Christmas choir on rm1 until 4.30pm 
  • After school Intervention:  RE & Art 

Wednesday 29th November

  • After School: All Years Rugby (Boys & Girls) 
  • 4B: RE Yr10 & 11 Revision Club 
  • HW Club – before & after school in Rm26 
  • After school Intervention: ICT & Music

Thursday 30th November

  • 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 (players will miss P6) 
  • After school Intervention: History 

Friday 1st December

  • After School Intervention – Science 

Achievement Points Race

  • 1st Place: Teresa House with 4,687 points
  • 2nd Place: Vincent House with 4,404 points
  • 3rd Place: Francis House with 4,042 points
  • 4th Place: Margaret House with 4,005 points

Have a lovely weekend!

Mr Rooney

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