Monday 26th January 2015

Year 9 Inter-house Update

Over the past couple of weeks the Year 9 Inter-house activities have started to gain momentum and it is great to see so many pupils taking the opportunity to take part in some healthy competition. As always the Inter-house dodge-ball saw a great turn out from all houses. After some hard fought battles it was Mr O'Neil's Queen house that came out triumphant. His passion and enthusiasm on the sidelines was reminiscent of the legendary Mrs Bisby!

More recently, the Year 9 house teams took part in the hugely anticipated soft-ball competition. After the preliminary games, I believe that the final will be between Crest and Queen this Friday. No doubt Mr Finch (Head of Crest) would like to reaffirm his grasp on the house trophy again, although the new Head of Queen, Mr O'Neil, is certainly making a big impact with his supremely competitive Year 9 team....it is sure to be an interesting game!

 

Friday 23rd January 2015

Important Dates

IGCSE Options forms have been given out this week at school and now that pupils have had their subject taster sessions, tutor time activities, career sessions and options assembly, I am confident that they have all of the information needed to make the right choices for themselves. There is one more major event before the options forms need to be returned and it is absolutely fine for pupils to hold onto these forms until after the Options PTC where each faculty will be on hand to answer questions about their subjects. Please note that it is an open PTC. This means that we do not schedule appointments but all of the Year 9 teachers and Heads of Faculty will be available for you to drop by and discuss IGCSE Option choices as well as progress in particular subjects at school. 

Tuesday 10th of February: Options PTC

Friday 13th of February: Deadline for Option forms to be handed in to form tutors.

Please do not hesitate in contacting me if you have any concerns or questions. Regards, Dr. Browning

Monday 12th of January 2015

IGCSE Options Information Booklet

Please use the link below to access the new Year 9 IGCSE subject options iBook. This should provide insight into the all of the courses available for next year and answer any questions that you might have about the process:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1I5bAMjrTiEakN6elNhVTFCTjA/view?usp=sharing

For any parents that were unable to attend the discussion evening on Thursday 8th of January the slides from the evening can be found using the following link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1I5bAMjrTiEci1DWGFZaGdmT2c/view?usp=sharing

Please contact me if you have any concerns or further questions. Regards, Dr. Browning

Friday 9th January 2015

HUMAN RIGHTS ENQUIRY

This week at school the Year 8 and 9 pupils were teamed up in house groups to research about different human rights. This is clearly a massively important topic for pupils to know about and is in line with the idea of developing empathy that is embedded in our positive education and school focus this year.

Pupils essentially had 2 days to prepare a concept and pitch to raise awareness of one particular human right. It was great to see all of the pupils really getting involved in these projects and the final products this year were very impressive. We have had professional photographers in school taking pictures this week and so plenty of great photos will become available soon. For now, here are a few from me from the free flow activity on Thursday in which pupils were learning about the right of privacy.

Tuesday 6th of January 2015

Happy New Year!

Welcome back to school! I hope everyone has had a great holiday and is well rested for a busy few weeks ahead. This week we have a Human Rights enquiry project going on. For this, Year 9 pupils will be teamed up with Year 8 pupils to choose a Huamn Right to focus on and find out about and then on Thursday and Friday the mixed Year group teams will have to present their right and ideas to advertise it to a panel of judges. More to follow on this..........

IMPORTANT GCSE Options Information:

We also have an important IGCSE options discussion evening FOR PARENTS ONLY this Thursday the 8th of January.  Mr Wellings and myself will be outlining the choices that pupils have to make and give some ideas about how parents can help their children in this process. The session will be held in the Grand Hall from 7.30-8.30pm

Activities to help pupils with their IGCSE subject options will begin next week. On Monday and Tuesday Year 9's will attend taster sessions for all of the different IGCSE subjects. Paper copies of the timetable for these taster sessions will be distributed during AM tutor time on Monday morning but you can see this now via the link below. Please note that pupils will be in tutor groups for the taster sessions and they will replace periods 3 and 4 on Monday and periods 1 and 2 on Tuesday.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16kR_U7vZO7Y2qHECt7V8i9lyxbOebK5bMjm3EKCM_aw/edit?usp=sharing

Following these sessions pupils will have an opportunity to look through the IGCSE options e-book during tutor times and they will be encouraged to think carefully about their choices by completing various activities. There will also be an options assembly for pupils in the week starting Monday 19th of January. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Kind Regards, Dr, Browning