It has been a busy end to the term, with a variety of events in College and lots of preparations for the final examinations, which will begin for year 11 and year 13 shortly after Easter. I hope that you and your family have a lovely Easter break, and that we continue to enjoy the spring sunshine!

Reminder: Uniform

As we look forward to the Summer term, we kindly ask for your continued support at home in reinforcing our expectations for students to be “Ready, Respectful, and Safe” while at College.

After making some adjustments to the uniform expectations last year, such as adding PE shorts and skorts, we have been so impressed with the vast majority of students who are respectfully wearing the correct uniform. Our key priorities for uniform are comfort, inclusivity, and affordability, and so based on student feedback we have decided to also allow plain black leggings and joggers in the general uniform.

Principal’s Reward

It has been lovely this week to meet with the many students selected by the House team for their hard work and demonstration of the IB Learner Profile attributes this week. In addition to the 621 hundred Praise Postcards that have been sent home this term, we hosted events in the Carnegie Room for all year groups to celebrate some of the fantastic work that students have done. The students present were nominated for a wide range of reasons, including resilience to challenges, volunteered for primary visit, participation and enthusiasm in school, extra-curricular participation, excellent leadership and engagement and many more. As always, it was a pleasure to share in their success!

Community Project Exhibitions

This week during iCAS our year 9 service learning students have been showcasing their Community Projects as part of their Community Project Exhibition. As part of the Community Project, the students have had to identify an area of focus, and then undertake research before taking part in some form of direct or indirect service: this can be creating resources, raising money, or promoting a particular idea. Students have focused on topics such as mental health, researching statistics and developing advocacy programmes, raising awareness and creating resources to promote mental health support within College. Another group ran a successful sustainability event, having learned all about sustainability and sustainable products. It has been a great opportunity for students to showcase their work to year 7 and 8 pupils, to inspire them ready for their own Community Projects next year!

CUPA Visit: Sustainability in Science

Thanks to Mx Studholme, our students had a third opportunity to visit Cambridge University Press and Assessment this week. The students took part in the Cambridge University Press & Assessment (CUPA) / Cambridge Zero: sustainability in science education convocation and listened to talks from

researchers from different climate/sustainability related disciplines. They then were asked to give a 10-minute group presentation as part of the student voice section of the day, and to give their opinions on how sustainability is taught in schools. The students did an outstanding job preparing their presentations with other members of the eco-committee, and were excellent representatives of the College.

Laser Tag: Milton Country Park

Some of our KS3 students were lucky enough at the end of last week to go on a trip to Milton Country Park for a taster session of the Zapt Laser Tag, to help develop Learner Profile attributes ‘open minded’ and ‘risk takers’, and of course- have some fun! The students had an amazing time, and were very grateful for the session being offered to the College free of charge.

Year 8 District Netball tournament

We took two teams to Netherhall to compete in the Year 8 District Netball tournament. Both our teams played really well and out of the 16 teams who took part in the tournament, both our teams won and qualified for the next round in the Regional tournament.