MESSAGE FROM THE HEAD OF SECONDARY – 8th MARCH 2019

Dear Students, Parents and Colleagues,

Our hosting of the Tournament of Minds competition was a great success on Sunday. 19 schools, 63 teams and 441 students were on the T77 campus along with hundreds of parents and teachers. Up against stiff competition our Secondary teams won the Social Sciences and STEM groups whilst gaining ‘Honours’ in Social Sciences. Well done to all competitors and a huge thanks to Ms Waszczyłko for organising the whole event alongside about 20 of our staff volunteers.

A key element of ToM is problem-solving. We had to exercise the same skill today with a power cut! We were without power for one hour whilst the MEA undertook an upgrade to the local distribution system. Staff coped admirably and in many cases turned the issue into a learning experience exploring the dependence of modern society on electricity.

We had some great news on Thursday. We received the Maths early entry results for our accelerated IGSCE Y11 Maths class. I am pleased to say that all 13 students gained A* Grades. Three had 99% whilst two scored a faultless 100%! This is almost 25% of our Y11 cohort and underpins our continuing achievements at the highest levels in Mathematics and beyond. The students obviously worked hard to achieve these results but had fantastic support and teaching along the way.

Next week will be exceptionally busy with our annual Book Week and I’m looking forward to seeing how well students take to the character dress up day on Friday. Can they outdo themselves after last year? Although next week is fun, there is a very serious message behind all the planned events. A love of reading and high levels of literacy underpin excellent learning and success in life. If you want to change someone’s life next week, buy them a great book!

As well as all that reading our Student Action Team (SAT) will be finalising the preparations for the Y7/8 and Y9/10 Proms at the Marriott on Friday. They have responded to student requests for an event that gives them the opportunity to socialise at a prestigious venue. SAT have been very busy booking, planning, marketing and organising the event. Our younger students are very fortunate to have older students willing to put all this effort into ensuring they have such a great event! I’m really looking forward to seeing many of our students having a lovely time.

The exam season is not far away and parents are often asking how they can help their children. A couple of good websites that might give some useful background are  https://behaviourbuddy.co.uk/rp/ and http://www.learningscientists.org/. They explore how we learn and introduce some good methods of learning ideas and information.

Our next Parent Workshop will be on Tuesday 26th March and I hope to see many of you there. It will be primarily aimed at KS3/4 parents and will focus on the key question:

“How can I get my child into the university of their choice?”

I will be co-presenting with both our Head of Sixth Form, Ms Wilsonlock and our University Guidance Counsellor, Mrs Allen. Please keep a look out for the invitation email next week.

Have a great weekend.

Nigel Wilsonlock

Head of Secondary