With a focus on our core value of being respectful, Mr. Grierson has led assemblies getting students actively involved this week. He reports, ‘Each letter represented an important part of school life and its importance in supporting our school values. It was also linked into the 5 core British values.
R was respect for school rules which are followed on a daily basis by the overwhelming majority of our students. The letter E represented our school environment and ensuring that we keep our beautiful site clean and tidy. The letter S represented respect for ourselves, demonstrated by our exemplary school uniform standards and valuing our own personal strengths. The letter P stood for participation, encouraging our students to respect and engage in the many opportunities outside of the classroom to enrich their school lives such as our Science club, Film club, sporting enrichment and our musical and drama performances. The second letter E represented respect for equality, which has been recognised as a strength by Ofsted. C was for our Community and being respectful to our school and wider community. I mentioned the highly positive emails that we have had from the community praising our students coming in on service buses and walking to and from school for their positive behaviour. The letter T represented tolerance of individual beliefs and how it helps create a harmonious atmosphere in school. Respect for family was the letter ‘F‘ and the importance of respecting family, our traditional family and our school family. ‘U’ was for understanding others, being supportive and kind with the final letter representing liberty and respecting everybody’s right to be heard.’
It was an affirming assembly and enabled students to celebrate all that is good about our school community.

In sporting news this week, Miss Robson reports that ‘12 Year 8 girls took part in a School Games’ organised bench ball competition against Thirsk, Richmond and Queen Mary’s School. This event is all about creating a positive climate around being physically active and developing resilience that students can apply to their PE lessons and beyond. All who took part were awarded a medal, with Ella receiving a ‘thumbs up’ medal for her unwavering enthusiasm throughout the competition.’ Well done to everyone.
Meanwhile, Mr. Field reports, ‘Monday evening saw the Yr9 boys proudly take on King James’s School in the semi-final of the Harrogate & Craven District Cup. The excitement before the game was palpable as the boys could taste the prospect of representing the school in a cup final. The game was an edgy affair at the start with both sides showing nerves from the occasion. L Pitts produced some fine goalkeeping to keep the visitors’ advancing attack at bay but even his efforts couldn’t stop KJS taking a 0-3 lead into the half time break. The second half saw some tactical and personnel changes in which saw the Boroughbridge boys take the game by the scruff of the neck and forced the KJS goalkeeper to make some brave saves as the confidence grew within our team. The efforts were rewarded with a close range finish by T King, as the game drew to a close the KJS lead proved a bridge too far for the Boroughbridge boys to overcome and with more committed to the attack some gaps in defence were exposed with further goals added to their tally. The game finished 1-5 but despite the loss the Boroughbridge team held their heads high knowing that they had shown great resilience throughout the game and gave their all to achieve their ambition of reach the final. The boys will be ready to prove their worth next year and hope to take that next step in reaching a final.’
Students in Years 10 and 11 are now well into their GCSE and BTEC exams. Having had a number of Progress Exams over the last few years, they are fully aware of the routines and their approach has been impressive.
Alongside his revision, one of our Year 11 students, Ted, is in the midst of an intensive training schedule having secured a highly competitive football apprenticeship with Grimsby Town. Our congratulations go to Ted on such a fantastic achievement and we send our best wishes for his return to the academy later in the month. We’ll watch his progress with great interest.
Following on from our celebrations last week, Mrs. Ennis reports, ‘Year 8 have shown some fantastic historical skills. They have been working on a VE Day project, exploring why we should commemorate VE day and how WW2 helped to shape and preserve our British values. Students have conducted their own research including primary sources and exploring their own family history and local connections to WW2. Students presented their knowledge in a variety of ways from written essays, speeches and collages.’

Please continue to send in tombola prizes for the Friends of Boroughbridge High School stall which will be at the Lions Summer Fete on Monday 26th May. This could be chocolate, bottles, little gifts etc. All funds raised directly benefit students in school.
Next week we’re looking forward to welcoming Year 7 with their parents and carers to hear about their progress at Parent/Carer evening on Wednesday 21st May.
Have a lovely weekend!
Exams are now well underway with the GCSE Art exam, MFL speaking exams, PE moderation and BTEC Travel and Tourism exam taking place this week. Taking that into context, Sandra from the Wellbeing in Mind Team took the opportunity to have a stall in the Dining Hall at lunchtime so that she could discuss with students the strategies that they can use if they are feeling exam stress. As you’ll be aware, the Wellbeing in Mind Team are based in the Bungalow at BHS and work with young people in schools across our area.
I hope that you had a lovely Easter break and were able to make the most of the warmer weather. We returned to our own ‘Sakura’ with the site laden with cherry blossom. This natural phenomenon always marks the start of our build up to the GCSE and BTEC exams. Students in Years 10 and 11 are already fully into their revision schedule both in and outside of school. They’ve also had their Exam Expectations assembly where they’ve been re-familiarised with all of the rules and regulations that they need to be aware of as they take their exams.
Our week started with Expectations Assemblies. We revisited our expectations through our core values that we are ambitious, respectful and resilient in order to secure a smooth start to the Summer Term. We also recapped the areas of Teaching and Learning that we have been driving forward this year with our focus on Raising Achievement; questioning, feedback, retrieval and metacognition. These sit within our overall curriculum. A reminder that you can see more detail about our curriculum along with the Progression Maps for each subject so that you can track what your child will be studying throughout their time at BHS at 
Wednesday saw our annual Year 7 Rocket car challenge. Science lessons have been building up to this highly successful event where, in teams, students design and develop a rocket car before competing to see whose is the fastest. The winners this year were Ava, Libbie and Nina in Dr. Lefley’s group whose car reached 81 mph – an amazing achievement.
In sporting news, Mrs. Cheeseman reports, ‘And that’s a wrap! The Netball season is finished for the academic year. Our final fixture was on Thursday against Ripon Grammar School. Two very strong teams to play but Boroughbridge were resilient and kept their heads held high with final scores of 31-3 (Year 9) and 23-2 (Year 8). Well done to our goal scorers, Bodie C, Ruby C and Ben A. What was lovely was the amount of pupils supporting the game and several played up a year group which was very ambitious. It has been a pleasure to coach the team and I hope to see them all coming along to Summer sports in the extra-curricular programme.’

Last Wednesday we took a trip to Snozone. Mr. Field reports, ‘We saw another highly successful trip to Snozone at Xscape, Castleford, for Boroughbridge pupils to take part in skiing activities. The vast majority of the 47 attendees were involved in ski lessons on the nursery slope whilst the experienced skiers in the group honed their skills on the main slope. All of the pupils made fantastic progress and the Snozone instructors were very complimentary about the positive attitude and effort shown by those involved. The additional highlight of the trip for a lot of the pupils was the social time with friends around the Xscape complex. The food retailers were surprised but grateful for the amount of business that the pupils provided, a truly amazing feat seeing them consume so much food! We hope to organise another trip soon so that more pupils can experience skiing on real snow at this amazing facility.’

It’s been red noses all round today as the Student Council have organised our Fundraising day in aid of Comic Relief. With an impressive Bake Sale at break and lunchtime, selling of noses and non-uniform day, we’ve raised an amazing £593 in total. Thank you for your support and generous donations. 



Up in Geography, Mr. Atkinson shared with his Year 9 and Year 11 classes, a section of ‘Moving to Higher Ground’ by John Englander. The passage highlighted the importance of sustainability and resilience in order to better manage the impact of sea level rise and that
“plastics in the oceans” isn’t the entire battle. It also helped our young geographers to understand the difference between Climate Change and Ozone depletion.
