You may remember the weather last weekend. It wasn’t great but, whatever you were doing, you’re likely to have been warmer and drier than our Year 10/11 students out on their Duke of Edinburgh Silver Practice expedition. But, as ever, they showed remarkable resilience. Mrs. Murphy reports,
‘The 10 Silver Duke of Edinburgh participants successfully completed their practice expedition at the weekend. We travelled straight from school on Friday in the glorious sunshine, but unfortunately when we made camp in Settle it had started to rain. This changeable weather continued throughout the weekend including a very wet overnight stay in a campsite in Malham on Saturday. Mr Lough and Mr Murphy supported the groups navigating via checkpoints throughout the two days. The students did brilliantly and remained positive throughout despite the tiredness, sore feet and backs. Everyone was ready for a well-earned shower!’
Our congratulations go to our students for a successful expedition and our thanks to Mrs. Murphy, Mr. Murphy, Mrs. Macadam and Mr. Lough for making the expedition possible. We’ll look forward to the Silver Qualifying Expedition in May.
Year 9 were supporting their learning in English with a viewing of The Crucible with Mrs. Macadam on Monday evening whilst parents, carers and staff were treated to the Musical Showcase with Mr. Jackson on Tuesday.
Year 8 exams have taken place this week with students arriving well prepared and showing a clear understanding of exam room expectations. Year 7 will be having their exams on our return from the Easter break.
In Science Club this week, students made a rainbow in a burette! Adding acid and alkalis together in the same burette results in a solution with different pHs whilst adding universal indicator means they could see the pHs in different colours!
In assemblies this week, Mr. Grierson has explored how being creative and ‘The Arts’ can help our mental health and well-being. He talked about the power of mindfulness and using activities such as colouring or dancing to support positive mental health. Staying with the creative theme, in Art over the last couple of weeks, Year 8 have been looking at the illustrations of Tim Burton and layering whilst Year 9 have been exploring using acrylic paint and blending with great success.
It’s been an important week for William in Year 7 who has juvenile arthritis and was invited to be the first ever child guest speaker for Versus Arthritis at their annual Arthritis Fellows Conference. William prepared and presented his own PowerPoint describing what it is like to have juvenile arthritis at the age of 11. His audience was over 100 adults comprising of consultants, scientists, fellowship students, researchers, Versus Arthritis staff and campaigners. William described what it is like to have arthritis as a child, what his pain is like, how it affects his daily life, how he sometimes has to use crutches and the help he needs.
William explained how friends at school help him and described how singing helps relieve his pain. In fact, he is a Chorister at Ripon Cathedral and has been since he was 7 years old. There are now 70 members in the Choir of Choristers and Scholars and last term William was selected from the choir to be awarded the Dean’s medal for his leadership skills in mentoring new choristers. Excellent achievements indeed.
The Sports Leaders were involved in Primary sport on Wednesday morning and it was great to then see the next generation of leaders, the Year 9 Football activators, carrying out an assembly to Year 7. Mrs. Godsell-Wright says, ‘The leaders did fantastically well in delivering the assembly and they have inspired over 35 young people to take part and then join an after-school club after Easter.’
There is much research about the value of the natural environment in supporting positive mental health and wellbeing and, if you’ve visited the school over the last couple of weeks, you can’t fail to have noticed the beautiful blossom. Spring is certainly here!
Have a lovely weekend and Easter break!