Heads Blog - Week Ending 10th February 2012
Thank you to all of you who made the effort to meet with us on Review Day this week. It is such an important opportunity to sustain the dialogue between home and school, giving us the opportunity to reflect on what is going well and to set targets looking ahead. We are very appreciative of all the support we received on the day. If, after reflection, there are matters which you still want to talk through following Review Day, can I suggest that you contact Reception and leave a message for the member of staff you met with?
I spent lots of time in maths lessons this week and by the end of the week, I was getting quite good at ‘Perpendicular Bisectors’. I enjoyed the challenge of some difficult equations, although (embarrassingly) I got one, very publically, wrong in Mr Martin’s Year 10 lesson.
I was pleased to be asked to visit a Year 8 Science class, taught by Mrs Bolton, who had made a model of a lung. It was brilliant and what was even better is that they clearly understood, from an impromptu question and answer session, how the lung functioned and what each part of their model did and why. Great work from a lovely group.
The safety of young people on line is very important to us and during this week we have taken part in ‘Safer Internet Day’. This is an international event in which thousands of schools from all over the world take time out to reflect on their online safety. This year’s theme is ‘Connecting generations and educating each other...safely’. Recent research (from ‘EU Kids Online’) found that 53% of parents felt that they should do more to protect their children online, and the gap between children’s lives and the online world is becoming smaller every day. This was a theme developed in assemblies led my Mr Hunt, where he talked about how to keep a safe distance between our private lives and the growing online community. This was followed up in our ICT lessons in work prepared by Mr Appleyard and also in individual ‘drop ins’ with Miss Large, where young people could check their online securities and reflect on whether their use of social networking sites is safe.
If you would want to follow up what we have been doing in school it is on two web sites, www.saferinternet.org and www.thinkuknow.co.uk
On Thursday I stayed late at school, to see off the Art and Photography trip as they left for their annual European gallery visits, this year to Holland. Later on Friday, our PE Team head off with a group of young people, for winter sports in Austria, while on Tuesday of half term, our Modern Foreign Languages Team head off to Spain. Perhaps this is the best trip to be on in the circumstances, as it’s over 17 degrees in Benalmádena right now. These are three great opportunities and I am very grateful to my colleagues, who not only have given up a many hours in careful planning and preparation, but are now also giving up their own holidays to create these opportunities for our young people. I will feature news from these visits in a blog after half term.
Our links into our communities are very important, so it was good to spend an hour on Friday with Inspector Paul Dwyer from the Police, who has taken the role at Wetherby Station after the retirement of Marcus Griffiths.
The end of another half term means that the summer exams are soon upon us, something highlighted by the national publication of the 2012 exam timetable this week. At Boston Spa School this affects Years 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13. For Year 11's, the exams will start on Monday 14th May and run until Wednesday 27th June. Miss Sweeney and the Year 11 Team are putting a lot of support in place for the Year group, including quick revision guides like this one.
We have had some more sporting success to celebrate! Our Year 11 boys came 3rd in the Leeds Basketball finals and our Year 9s did even better coming 1st. The Year 9 team will now represent Leeds in the West Yorkshire Games finals on the 25th February. Both teams were superb, the Year 11s played well and were unlucky to not finish higher.
Congratulations to Peter Dobbs, Bryn Towning, Jarrod Dixon, George Davis, James Batty, Jacob Smith, Laurence Wilkinson, Connor Cameron (from Year 11) and Olly England, Hieu Moss, Tom Lightfoot, Jack Lane, Josh Wilson, James Leonard, Kavan Hirst and Jake Jackson (from Year 9). I am appreciative of the leadership that Mr Colley and Mr Lynskey have given to these boys.
Congratulations are also due to Emily Wardman, who was announced as runner up in the City of Leeds Gymnasts, ‘Gymnast of the Year Award’ at a ceremony held at Elland Road Stadium. It is a great accolade, as it was voted for by her peers!
I hope that the half term break is a great one for you and your family; school reopens at the usual time on Monday 20/02/12.
