In this newsletter:
- Message from our Principal
- Living Sport colour run
- Year 7 Parents Evening
- Year 10 and 12 Mock interviews
- Letters from home for Year 11
- Speak out Session for Year 10
- Under 13 NFL flag football tournament
- Northampton Saints Rugby
- St Ives Town Success
Message from our Principal
Thank you to all our Year 7 families who attended our Parents Evening event last night – I hope you had some really useful conversations with staff. It was the first in-person event like this that the school has held since before covid. Taking inspiration from other schools who have been running face to face events for a while, we had all staff in one space, and a large clock which beeped every 4 minutes. It was a really positive evening, and we have made a list of things we would do to improve an event like this further when we do it next time. While it is always nice to speak to someone face-to-face, I am also mindful of the flexibility of online Parents Evening events for both families and staff. We will be sending out a survey shortly to gain feedback from families, on their preference for online or in-person Parents Evenings, and what yeargroup each should take place in.
I know lots of you will have read the recent publication from the Department from Education around the banning of phones from schools, and I wanted to let you know that this is now something that we will be researching due to this expectation. A variety of local schools have already taken this approach, across a range of different Trusts, and Mr Daly and I will spend some time this term looking at the various methods that these schools have employed to ensure that students do not use their phones in school. Whatever our approach, I do not plan to introduce this for a September start, as we need time to research, plan our approach and communicate with families and staff.
Finally, please be reassured that in the lovely and warm weather, we do allow students to remove their blazers. Day to day, students can always remove their blazers in lessons, but we do ask them to wear it when they move around the school to maintain smartness and uniformity across all students. We keep an eye on the weather forecast, and when it looks like it will be hot we use the morning welcome to let students know that they can remove their blazer if they want to – as we have done today.
I hope everyone has a lovely bank holiday weekend, and we will see students back on Tuesday morning.
Year 7 Living Sport Colour Run!
Yesterday, our Year 7 students had an amazing day out at Living Sport! They kicked things off in the activity village, enjoying rock climbing, inflatables, smoothie making, archery and more.
They then took part in an exciting game of laser tag against another school, and throughout the day picked up some great giveaways, with three lucky students even winning a Fitbit each!
To finish, everyone took part in a fantastic 2km colour run, ending the day covered in colourful powder paint. A brilliant day full of fun, energy and smiles!
Year 7 parents evening
We hosted our year 7 parents evening in person to reconnect with our parents/carers and students! The evening ran like speed dating and every four minutes everyone swapped! To keep younger siblings entertained we had a colouring table! The event ran smoothly and we will be welcoming feedback shortly!
Thank you to our year 9 helpers for the event, your work contributed to a very successful event!
Year 10 and 10 Mock Interviews
A busy week for the careers team as we hosted year 10 and 12 mock interviews! We invited local business professionals to spend the morning with to interview students, ask questions and provide individualised feedback about how they can improve their technique. The students and external business noted how beneficial the event was and how professional our students acted!
Well done year 10 and 12 for exceeding our expectations!
Year 11 Letters from home
This morning our year 11 students received letters from home as we reach the final countdown to exams. Highlights of this assembly were confetti exploding card, younger pictures of themselves and one student said “it gave her the confidence she needed going into her French exam today!
Thank you to parents and carers for writing a letter, it was very well received.
Speak out
This week we had Mark Kane in from Speakers Trust to deliver a workshop to about 25 of our Year 10 students to help build up their skills in regards to public speaking. This is useful for them as the skills feed into their speaking endorsement for their GCSE but also it (hopefully) has helped those students build their confidence when speaking.
The workshop was free and delivered in partnership with Anglia Ruskin University.
All of the students got stuck in. There were “games” that helped build up students’ familiarity with speaking and to help them warm up. Mark was great at pushing them to see that they had stories of their own that they can share and which other people would want to listen to.
Year 7 and 8 Flag football
Today we took our year 7 and 8 flag football mixed team to Cambridge Rugby Club to compete in the NFL tournament! For the tournament are named the Bengals, given to us by the NFL! Our students came prepped with their hats, sun cream and excitement for the day in the heat! Watch this space for mic’d up videos of the team and coach! We received our free Bengal t-shirts and we were ready to go! We played some great teams and in the final we played some excellent play with one of our own being named player of the tournament for the U13 mixed aged group! Congratulations to all our players for coming second!
Year 7 Rugby Stars Shine at Northampton Saints
Over the weekend, Year 7 St Ivo students who play for St Ives Rugby Club participated in a tournament at Northampton Saints. All the students played exceptionally well and managed to get to the semi finals of the competition. The students then stayed afterwards to watch the pro’s edge out a thrilling win against Bath. Well done to all boys involved!!”
St Ives Town Success!
Congratulations to Tom, Oliver, James, Will, Jonah and Jaydon who have won the U16’s Eastern Junior Alliance league which is the leading development league for the south of England. This goes on the back of the success of winning the Hunts FA County Cup for the fourth season in a row! Well Done again to all the boys for their hard work throughout the season.
