It’s been an exciting week for the students of Boroughbridge High School with Year 7 discovering the delights of Normandy and Year 9 taking on the outdoor challenges of  bewerley Park. From Year 9, we’ve had animated reports of activities from canoeing to caving, scrambling to skydiving and climbing to cycling. OK, I’ll admit it, one of these activities didn’t take place but I’m trying to impress Mr Cockerill with my use of alliteration.

Meanwhile, back at base, Mr James decided to train students to make both their right and left brain work by teaching Year 9 a spot of juggling. Most could master the motion of two balls and, as the lesson drew on, many more could juggle three. We’ll look forward to seeing the impact of this new brain engagement in the lessons to come!

Heather, Amara, Clarissa, Phoebe, Abi, Thomas and Adam in Year 8 were engaged in the somewhat important matter of trying to save lives by investigating natural alternatives to antibiotics. Along with Mr Inglis they’ve been preparing the presentations that they’re  delivering in a couple of weeks at the Lab Coats and Blazers Conference in the National Stem Centre in York. Whilst you may recognise the healing qualities of vinegar, tea tree oil, honey and castor oil, you may be less familiar with ellagic acid!

Over in Workskills, it was my pleasure to present Charlotte, Hannah, Archie and Joe with  their Young Leaders Service Awards to Community Service. This was for the time they’ve given to the community through activities such as the soup run, litter picking and supporting the residents of Gwendolen Court. Well done everyone.

Thanks to those parents who attended Parent Forum. We had a really good discussion about Reports and other associated matters! We’ve identified some things that we can put in place immediately to make the reports more ‘parent-friendly’ and other areas which we will consider in our longer term planning. Your next opportunity to contribute to future strategic development will be to respond to the ASPIRE questionnaire which will be coming to your Inbox soon.

And so at BHS on Monday it’s ‘Happy New Year’ as we flip our timetable forward so that Year 7 start Year 8, Year 8 move to Year 9 and so on. We started this last year and found that it helped to maintain critical focus in the final weeks of the Summer term. It also means that the new Year 10, 11 and 13 students will gain more than 20 hours of GCSE or A-Level learning time, along with the opportunity for teachers to set meaningful holiday homework over the Summer.

Should you happen to have a spare minute this weekend why not enter the competition at http://po.st/schools18. You could help us to win £5,000 of National Book Tokens for the school library and get £100 for yourself.

Have a good one!