It’s been Exam Week for Years 7, 8 and 9 and so they’ve had the experience of both being in the Exam Hall along with completing in-class assessments. We’re really impressed with the way in which students have prepared for these and also at how quickly they have demonstrated that they know how to conduct themselves in an exam situation. These exams will help us to check students’ progress and also inform our future planning and teaching. This is important at this time of the year for us as it’s the penultimate week of our 2020-2021 school year as we’ll be moving on to our new timetable on 28^th June. Doing this enables us to maximise teaching time for our Stage not Age approach at GCSE and helps everyone get fully focused for the year ahead.

With students now able to use the PE changing rooms this week, we’ve been delighted to see the standard of uniform rapidly approaching pre-Covid times. This will continue to be a focus in the coming weeks.

It was excellent to see the initiative shown by some Year 7 students, now that lunch time clubs are possible, in setting up their own band, the Firebirds. I dropped in on their Wednesday lunchtime practice and, along with Mrs Skilbeck, was impressed by their enthusiasm and performance. I’ll look forward to seeing how they develop.

It’s at this time of year that we’re preparing to welcome Year 6 students who will be joining us in September with Mrs Wilson and Mrs Langford visiting primary schools. Unfortunately, we’re unable to have face to face transition days due to Covid restrictions so, instead, we’re planning to have a menu of virtual resources so that they can still ‘meet’ us all and find out about Life in Year 7 at Boroughbridge High School. We’re also really pleased that we’re able to offer a Summer School in August.

National Citizen Service for Year 11 and 12 is well underway this week with an action-packed programme based around skill based, team building and problem solving activities including input from the Army and Fire service. Students appear to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.

A reminder that we have a Professional Development Day on Monday 5^th July when students do not attend school. We’ll be using that day to plan for our priorities for the year ahead with a focus on our core aim for students to be safe, happy and successful.

Have a lovely weekend!