End of Term - May 2011

Friday 27 May 2011

This last term must have been one of the shortest school terms ever with a late Easter and numerous bank holidays. The GCSE exams also seem to come earlier each year and our Year 11s have already completed a significant number of their exams.

As soon as Year 11 leave us to go on study leave our thoughts turn to the next academic year and once again we will be “promoting” each Year group into their new Year when we return to school in June. Our new Year 11 (current Year 10) will also be sitting a significant number of GCSE exams this year as the new modular courses spread the exams more evenly over the two year Key Stage 4 period.

We wish all of our candidates every success in their examinations this summer and look forward to celebrating their achievements with them on Thursday 25 August when their results are released.

Once each Year group is promoted we have a gap at the younger end of school as we have no Year 7. This gap is very quickly filled however as we will be hosting potential future pupils at our Year 5 Open Mornings in the weeks commencing 13 and 20 June. Parents and prospective pupils get a chance to tour the school in the company of other parents from the same Primary school and guided by a former pupil of their child’s current school. This format proved very popular last year. We then look forward to welcoming our new Year 7 pupils for two Induction Days on 14/15 July and will welcome their parents to school on the evening of Thursday 14 July.

Excitement is also building towards Enrichment Week (or Work Experience Week for our new Year 11) which takes place in the first week of July. Passports and EHICs are being gathered, final payments being chased and risk assessments being completed. Key Stage 3 pupils will be travelling to Paris, Germany, Barcelona, the South of France and London and there are many challenging activities being organised closer to home for our new Year 8 and pupils who have opted not to go on a residential activity.

We hope you have a good break and look forward to welcoming our new Year groups on Tuesday 7 June. Their new timetables will be available in tutor time, but please ensure they come to school prepared for the new term. Pupils should be able to see their new timetables in iDeer from Monday 30 May if they want to check before returning to school on 7 June. New Year 10 pupils will require their PE kit on our first day back.