Category : Headteacher’s Blog

The week began well with the excellent performance of the BTEC Performing Arts students who, on Monday evening, performed extracts from the play DNA by Dennis Kelly to showcase their work in the theatrical style of Naturalism. The play explored the lives of a group of young teenagers, and how they worked together to cover their tracks following a terrible accident; and the emotional rollercoaster as they dealt with the consequences of their actions.

The students worked tirelessly to pull together a truly dramatic and emotional performance! The performance of the play was attended by staff members and parents of the students, and was very well received by the audience. There were gasps at the twists and turns, and you could have heard a pin drop at the most tense and dramatic moments!  The students enjoyed tremendous feedback from the audience, with comments like “It was so professional”, “What a talented group of students” and “This was the best thing I’ve seen in a long time”. When the play was performed to a group of Key Stage 3 students, they were thrilled by the performance and many left saying they felt inspired to choose Drama at KS4 and follow in their footsteps.

Mr West, their Drama teacher said “I am immensely proud of what the students have achieved, they richly deserve all the positive reactions that came as result of the performance. It was so wonderful for them to finally be able to perform a play, something we have not been able to do since the start of the pandemic. It really brings home the importance of the arts and the magic of the theatre”.

Assemblies this week have covered a variety of topics. Mr Grierson explored the importance of revision with Year 10 whilst in Year 11 assembly, Mrs Godsell-Wright impressed upon students the importance of keeping fully focused in the weeks ahead as they move towards their next exam season before sharing the exciting news we’re already planning their post-exam Prom, the first in three years! Looking further ahead, Mrs Godsell-Wright talked about Apprenticeship opportunities and some Year 11 students have had careers interviews with our new Careers adviser, Mrs Morgan. Years 7, 8 and 9 were all challenged by Mrs. Godsell-Wright to think about the responsibility of being a Young Carer and how and where Young Carers can get support.

Impressing in lessons have been Miss Whiles’ Year 8s who have been using contemporary sources of A-Level and University standard to draw conclusions about British empirical rule in India, producing some really sophisticated and considered conclusions. Meanwhile, Mr Cockerill reports that Year 9 students have been writing poetry about 9/11 this week in English with many being very thought provoking and well crafted.

It’s Year 7 Parents’ Evening next Wednesday which will be online. The appointment system is live and, as usual, we’ll be sending out a follow up questionnaire. We’d really appreciate your responses as these form an important part of our self-evaluation.

Have a lovely weekend!

It’s my pleasure this week to introduce you to our Head and Deputy Head students who were elected by students and staff at the end of the Autumn Term. They have a really pivotal role in our school working with the Student Council and the Staff Team to effect change for the benefit of all at Boroughbridge High School. They have big plans of what they’d like to achieve and have already started to have an impact. Read on to find out more.

From left to right, Phoebe, Carli, Emilia and Izzy

Hey, I’m Carli, and I am proud to represent Boroughbridge High School as one of the Head Students. In this role I would like to promote equality amongst my peers, particularly by organizing an LGBTQ+ day, fundraising for a local trans youth charity. As a member of the LGBTQ family it is important to me to promote equality, providing a safe space in our school for people to be who they are. I am also looking to collaborate with other Head Students and Prefects to help boost their own ideas to help better the school. More than anything I would just like to be a role model to other students at the school, being someone others can look up to and talk to.

Hi, I’m Emilia and I am one of our Head students at Boroughbridge High School. It’s really important to me that every student here feels included, safe, and like their ideas and opinions are being heard. This is why I am looking forward to using my position to improve the school environment and to work with the prefects, head students and student council for the changes we would like to see within our school. One of my ideas for this year is to find a way to offer support to younger students on things such as how to revise; I also hope to open up an indoor space for GCSE students to revise.

Hi, my name is Izzy, and I’m Deputy Head student at Boroughbridge High School. Having recently moved to the UK from overseas, I bring world and cultural knowledge to our student team, as well as resilience and determination. I’m a keen musician and artist and I value any experiences that make me a more rounded young adult. My aim is to make sure students at this school recognise how capable they are and that it’s okay to get things wrong.

Hi, my name is Phoebe and I am one of the new Deputy Head students for this year. I love Boroughbridge High School and wanted the opportunity to help the school community as much as possible. During my time as Deputy Head Student, I hope to support and represent all students, making our school as good as I know it can be and a place where all students can feel that they are listened to and their ideas are taken on board. Personally, I would like to make sure that this year I can encourage and support the Music and Drama departments at Boroughbridge particularly, as I have been a part of them for many years and I consider them to be invaluable to our school, as well as implementing as many of the wonderful ideas that I know students from across the school to have.

We’ll look forward to updating you on their progress.

In other news, the Readathon is complete and, in total, we raised £412 for the ‘Read for Good’ charity. Boroughbridge High school ran its first Readathon in 1995 and since then we have completed eight readathons and raised a total of £1783.41!

In assemblies this week, Mr Grierson has been talking about internet safety and more specifically about steps that students can take to ensure that they stay safe when they’re involved in gaming and using social media sites. You may find this site useful https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/ . After half term, Mr. Grierson will be leading two sessions on how parents can keep children safe online. Please e-mail him directly at rgrierson@boroughbridgehigh.com if you’d like to join him.

Have a lovely weekend!

We were delighted to hear this week that four of our students will have their pieces of creative writing included in a Young Writers’ anthology, therefore becoming published authors. Our congratulations go to Kyla B, Lola B and Matthew D in Year 7 and Michaela P in Year 9. We’ll let you know when it’s published.

The Year 7 castle competition also came to a close this week, following hours of commitment and creativity. Finalists were Charlie B, Harry G, Neve G, Freya H, Jack S, Ewan T, Evie W and Kyla B with overall winner being Annabel H. As you can see there were some impressive entries.

In assemblies this week, Mr. Field has been exploring the themes of Resilience and Achievement, asking students to reflect on situations where they’ve shown resilience. Linking to the world of sport and, in particular, the Olympics, students found out about the amazing achievements of swimmer, Zheng Tao, who won four gold medals at the Tokyo games despite losing both arms as the result of an electric shock as a child. Closer to home, students heard about Katie Ormerod who, having narrowly missed qualifying for the 2014 Winter Olympics went on to became the first female snowboarder to land a double cork, one of the most complex manoeuvres in snowboarding which involved three rotations and two inverted flips. She started her training at XScape which many of our students have visited in the last few months. Students were challenged to take this inspiration and think about what they can do in the weeks and months ahead.

Have a lovely weekend!

With the Spring Term now well underway, Key Stage 3 students have been engaged in a variety of practical activities. In Music, Year 7 have been chair drumming again to consolidate their rhythm work so the tunes of Franz Ferdinand and Smashmouth have been ringing out around the Music block. Year 8 have been learning to play the 12-bar blues on keyboards in their jazz topic and Year 9 have mastered the James Bond themes on guitars, bass guitars, ukuleles and keyboards as part of their sound tracks topic.

In ICT, in Years 8 and 9, students have started the Relevance project which is to gather research to explore ways of engaging more girls in computing in order to increase the number of girls who go on to study it further. So far, they have been exploring the impact technology has on the wider world as well as developing skills in programming so they can make an app on the Code.org website. Year 7 have been exploring iteration in programming using Scratch. They were challenged this week to create a range of shapes using iteration blocks and the pen tool. Some were able to use nested loops to make patterns.

In PE, a wide variety of sports have been played with Year 7 boys starting their rugby league sessions, with girls starting to learn how to compose their dance. Year 8 boys have been building on their badminton learning from last year whilst Year 8 girls have been taking inspiration from the success of the England women’s football team in their football lessons. Year 9 boys have just completed their rugby union sessions having enjoyed the perfect muddy conditions whilst the Year 9 girls were perfecting their badminton prowess, developing their doubles gameplay. Students have made great progress.

In DT, Year 9 are planning in order to make cushions and looking at the characteristics of different types of fabrics.

As you’re aware, we’ve also had our Ofsted visit this week. Thanks to those who completed the questionnaire.

This afternoon our Year 11 Football Team have travelled to Clitheroe for their fourth-round match in the PlayStation Small Schools’ Cup. We wish them well.

Have a lovely weekend!

It’s been great to welcome students back to school this week. Following an efficient testing process, (thanks for your support with this), students were soon back in lessons engaged in face to face learning. Assemblies took place over the first couple of days and included a reminder of our Boroughbridge High School standards and our individual responsibility to act in a way which ensures that everyone within our school community is safe, happy and successful. We also talked about the reintroduction of face coverings in classrooms along with communal areas (which is in place nationally at least until the Government’s review of Plan B on Wednesday 26^th January) and the importance of doing everything that we can to sustain face to face teaching in the coming weeks.

Looking forward to events ahead, rehearsals start next week for School of Rock.

Have a lovely weekend!

So ‘here it is Merry Christmas’ and this week has seen the final batch of small Christmas cake gifts going home with Key Stage 3 students. After a group effort in Food Technology to make the Christmas cake, students have developed their fondant icing techniques, covering the cake smoothly before adding holly and berries then gift wrapping! We hope you’re enjoying them!

In search of Christmas weather, an Xscape trip on Tuesday gave students in Years 7, 8, 9, along with one of our Head students, the opportunity to experience the joy of the slopes. At the end of the session, students replenished their energy with a burger and, as students were leaving, the manager passed a note to Mr Field which said, ‘Lovely, polite, young adults’. Well done to all.

In other sporting success, Year 10 and 11 boys had a resounding 9-0 victory in a district cup match against Nidderdale.

Meanwhile, Mrs Macadam reports that ‘In the English Department, Year 7s have been busy researching Shakespeare’s Globe theatre and a good number of the students entered a competition to build a model of the theatre in a variety of forms.

Submissions were impressive, original and highly inventive; many were incredibly accurate.  There were three delicious and beautifully presented Globe cakes, a heavy, welded Globe and a range of other cardboard versions.’

You can see their impressive work here.

Our KS3 Readathon (raising money for the Read for Good charity that buys books for children in hospital and pays for authors and storytellers to visit them too) is complete! We are still collecting money at the moment (current total is £275). A special well done goes to Harley (Year 7) who raised £195 on his own!

Mrs Godsell-Wright’s assemblies this week have looked at the different religious festivals that take place at this time of year which all have core themes of being kind and helping others. Students were encouraged to send a card to people in our community who may be spending Christmas alone. Thank you for your donations of money and food items which two of our Wellbeing Ambassadors, Bella (Year 11) and Mary (Year 8), have made into hampers to take to our local homeless shelter, food bank and Boroughbridge Community Care.

Today has been a day of celebration with students wearing Christmas jumpers in support of Save the Children and rewards being given to students with a consistently positive Attitude to Learning.

We’ve also had our usual annual Christmas door competition! The standard has been incredibly high this year with the overall winners being Mrs. Knock’s Form, 11PK and I think you can see why!

We also said farewell to Mrs Bibbings today, thanking her for the great contribution that she’s made to Boroughbridge High School and wishing her well for the future.

So, as we launch fully into the festive season, I’d like to thank you for your support throughout 2021. I hope that you and your family have a lovely restful and peaceful Christmas break and we’ll look forward to welcoming students back to school in January.

The elections for Head Student are over and the count complete and I’m delighted to announce that Year 11 students, Carli and Emilia have been elected as our Head Students with Phoebe and Izzy as Deputies. Our congratulations go to them. They will make a great team and we’re looking forward to working with them in their new roles.

On Tuesday, Year 7 had a truly magical musical experience with a visit from the Opera North Orchestra. Following a physical warm-up, students were asked to identify different instruments and were played a quick melody. They then looked more deeply into composition identifying the things that provide inspiration for composers such as experiences or paintings. Tempo and dynamics were then explored further before one of our Year 7 students conducted aspects of Grieg’s ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’. The finale was a full rendition followed by resounding applause. Our thanks go to Cundall Manor for sharing this experience with us.

We had a further musical treat last night when GCSE Music students, ‘Entropy’ and Year 8 band ‘The Firebirds’ performed a range of pieces playing a variety of instruments. This was performed to a live audience who found themselves singing along to the final Christmas number ‘Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree’.

Mrs Langford’s assemblies this week have focused on the diversity of our school community with a spotlight on our Service students who make up 7% of our school population. She shared what it’s like to be part of a Service family and finished with an inspiring story of the parent of one of our current Service students who is taking part in an incredible rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean, starting in two days’ time. The team are raising money for the Royal British Legion and you can find out more at  https://www.forceatlantic.com/

Today has been Christmas Dinner Day so our thanks go to the Catering Team not only for serving hundreds of Christmas lunches today, but also for the high-quality service that they provide for our students throughout the year.

We are collecting food items again this year to donate to homeless shelters and food banks in the local area. Donations of food items will be much appreciated or you can donate cash. (Please put it in an envelope marked ‘Homeless Project’ and hand to the Pastoral Team.) Thank you in advance for your support.

A reminder that next Friday is Christmas jumper day. We’re suggesting a donation of £1 for Save the Children which can be paid through ParentMail. School closes at 1.30pm on that day.

Have a lovely weekend.

As part of The Woodland Trust’s ‘Big Climate Fightback’ they’re hoping to get 50 million more trees in the ground to make a difference, stating that trees are the best natural climate change solution. Eager to play our part, Year 8 along with Mr Grierson, have been planting saplings along the back border of the school grounds so, in the years to come, students will have a visual reminder of the contribution that they’ve made.

Students in Years 10 and 11 have been sitting their Progress Exams this week with final ones taking place on Monday. This has given students the real experience of sitting formal exams as well as the whole process of revision and writing within a time limit. They’ve certainly risen to this particular challenge and it’s the turn of Year 13 next week who have their own schedule of Progress Exams.

In assemblies this week, I’ve been exploring the theme of Building Resilience, reminding students of the strategies that they’ve already developed during their lifetime, as well as the things that they can do if they find themselves in a challenging situation. Key areas were that everyone has strengths that they can use and that there is always someone to help you.

Today Mr O’Hara, Head of Sixth Form at King James’s School and Mrs Town talked to Year 11 about our Federation Post-16 offer. We’ll be working closely together to secure a smooth transition from Year 11 to Year 12 for those students choosing to stay within our Federation.

With the festive season underway, we were pleased to take part in the late-night Christmas shopping event in Boroughbridge on Wednesday with the BHS choir and Mrs Skilbeck singing Christmas carols in Market Square. It was such a great event and enjoyed by all. And so, with Christmas on the horizon, the Christmas Live Lounge Concert will take place at 6.30pm on Thursday 9^th December and we’ll be having our Christmas lunch on Friday 10th.

As you’re aware, following DfE guidance, face coverings have been reintroduced in communal areas this week, as a precautionary measure. Please continue to ensure that your child has a face covering with them every day as this will support the whole community in the lead up to Christmas.

Have a lovely weekend!

Careers past, present and future have been the focus of Mr Grierson’s assemblies this week. In an ever-changing jobs market, highly influenced by technology, students reflected on jobs that no longer exist such as a lamplighter or working in a typing pool, before thinking of jobs which are increasing in demand now such as in health and social care. Students were asked to think about how jobs might change in the future. Who knows how many jobs will be generated by the ‘green’ agenda, for example?

Focusing on possible futures is a high priority for students in Years 10 and 11 who are currently preparing for their Progress Exams which begin next week. After the disruption of the last couple of years, this will give them the opportunity to develop and deepen their revision techniques and have the experience of sitting a sequence of exams.

Elections are also underway for Head Students with four Year 11 students beginning their impressive election campaign. Staff have seen election videos and letters this week to inform their votes and students will be able to get involved next week. We’ll let you know the outcome in due course.

Students from Years 9 and 10, along with the English Team, have been getting into the festive spirit with a trip to Middlesbrough Theatre last night to see ‘A Christmas Carol’. It was an excellent production with an interesting depiction of the ghosts which was enjoyed by all. Students will be studying this novella as part of their GCSE English Literature course so it was an excellent opportunity for them to experience live theatre as an introduction to the text.

Maintaining the festive theme, we’ll be Carol Singing in Boroughbridge on Wednesday evening as part of the late-night shopping event. We hope to see you there.

With wintry weather forecast, have a lovely weekend!

The week started on a very positive note with 54 students attending the Rewards Breakfast on Monday morning to celebrate their excellent effort and achievement during the first half of the Autumn Term.

Piran and Kyle, both in Year 7, were the first students to read six books this term and complete their reading loyalty card! They received a certificate and a book to add to their collections. Kyle has had his eye on this book about gymnast Simone Biles after seeing a poster with it on in

Mrs Wellock’s classroom at the start of the year. Piran was gifted a book called ‘How to Save the World with a Chicken and an Egg’ by Emma Shevah. The boys also enjoyed a hot chocolate each during their last lesson of the week.

We’re also looking forward to seeing how our Key Stage 3 students get on with the Readathon.

We’ve had sporting success with the Year 11 Football team reaching the third round of the England FA Small Schools’ Cup following an impressive 5-0 win over the team from Newcastle School for Boys. Goal scorers were Leverett (3), Burland (1) and Sellers (1). Bring on the next round!

Assemblies this week have been focused around Anti-Bullying week with Mr Grierson sharing the theme for this year ‘One Kind Word’. Students were asked to consider the five key kindness questions before identifying the difference between a bystander and an upstander and what we can all do to make sure that everyone in our school community is safe and happy.

We’ve been thinking of others today with our annual fundraising for Children in Need. Rowan (Y8) won the cake competition, Harry (Y7) won Name the Teddy and Matthew (Y8) accurately guessed the number of sweets in the jar. This, along with a non-uniform day and sponging of teachers and prefects (our thanks go to Mr Grierson, Mr Field, Amelia, Carli and Toby), has resulted in us raising a total of £614.30. Thank you very much for your kind contributions.

A reminder that it’s a Professional Development Day on Wednesday 24^th November when students do not attend school.

Have a lovely weekend!