Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends,
Monday 22nd April was Earth Day when we are encouraged to celebrate our remarkable planet and be reminded of the importance of environmental conservation and sustainability. Students are investigating this further in the Thought for the Week this week where they are considering ways in which they can reduce their use of plastic.
We continue to strive to be more sustainable at school; every classroom has a recycling bin; we have endeavoured to reduce electricity usage and in the summer are looking forward to the installation of solar panels.
We are very fortunate that we have so much greenery, shrubbery and trees on the school grounds which do contain a variety of wildlife. It is always lovely to walk onto the school site in the morning and hear birdsong, see squirrels scampering around as well as the flowers and shoots that show summer is coming (at last).
Mrs Fairhead and a group of Year 8 students are assisting this by planting trees on the edges of the school field – they are not mature specimens like the ones pictured last week but were donated to the school as part of the ‘I dig trees’ campaign; I do hope that with the wet weather we have been having some will survive to grow to mature trees.
In geography, students learn about sustainability and their environment, last week the first two classes of Year 7 students went to Rushall Farm. They were taught about sustainability on an organic farm and discovered ways in which farmers are encouraged to help wildlife. In the morning, they studied river processes, and everyone donned waders and went into a very cold River Pang to carry out some measurements and do some river dipping. The other Year 7 classes will visit Rushall Farm in May when it will be a little warmer!
School remains busy as always, last week Mrs Salamut –Ward and Mrs Thomas took the whole of Year 12 to a UCAS discovery fair. The aim of the day was to give students opportunities to speak to ambassadors from universities across the country. The students really enjoyed speaking to students currently at university and many of them left inspired about universities they had not considered before. This event was part of our post-18 preparation throughout this year.
On Friday, Mrs Woods, Mrs Keeley and Miss Wardle took a small group of girls to a Panathlon event at Theale Green School. They all competed in some different sporting challenges against other local schools. These activities included, indoor curling, target practice, golf putting, skittles, shooting and many more. Everyone had a brilliant time and gave all the challenges their best effort. The girls’ hard work definitely paid off as they came away from the event with a superb 3rd place and bronze medals to take home. Well done! Mrs Woods, Mrs Keeley and Miss Wardle were all very proud of them.
Year 11s and 13s are really on the countdown to their public exams now, the GCSE Art exam and MLF orals started this week. Year 12 PPEs come to an end and Year 10 PPEs start on Friday.
I am very hopeful that the weather will continue to change for the better. It was lovely last week to see students sitting on the field for their lunch. This does sometimes mean an increase in litter left on the field. I hope that a reminder about Earth Day will encourage everyone to put their litter in the bins provided so that our school site can remain as valuable to wildlife as it can possibly be.
Yvonne Smith
Assistant Headteacher