It’s been reading all the way this week to mark World Book Day. A book inspired Bake-Off enabled students to use the medium of cake to show remarkable creativity with winner Zander (Y8) representing ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ by Roald Dahl, and runners up Freya (Y8) representing Ghostbusters by John Sazaklis and Freya (Y9) representing ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’ by Holly Jackson. They were then put to a very good cause with students buying a delicious slice with funds raised going to the Read for Good charity.
Embracing the celebration, teachers across the school led two ‘drop everything and read’ sessions where they shared with students an extract from a favourite book, article or poems which was relevant to their lesson before having a discussion about why it is important to them. As you can imagine, there was great variety and the possibility of young readers being inspired to read more.
In History, Mrs. Ennis shared ‘First They Came’ by Pastor Martin Niemöller, ‘Never Shall I Forget’ by Elie Wiesel and ‘Completion’ by Vera Schaufeld as Year 9 are studying The Holocaust and these poems powerfully explore the feeling of survivors and the importance of challenging discrimination.
In Geography, Mrs. Gomersal and Year 8 and 9 read part of ‘The Explorer’ by Katherine Rundell which is a best selling children’s book about four children that crash-land into the Amazon Rainforest. Mrs. Gomersal says, ‘Although Geography related, I like the message of the book. The four children learn that although utterly alone, in order to survive they must work together and trust each other.’
Working with a similar theme, Madame Joly in French with Years 7 and 8 explored ‘Le Petit Prince’ which is a book which talks about the importance of taking care of the people important to you. Years 7 and 9 looked at ‘Voyage au Centre de la Terre’ by Jules Verne with Madame Llaurado who said ‘Jules Verne in general, and this book in particular, is good in nurturing critical thinking and stimulating understanding of other cultures.’
In the Intervention Room, Mrs. Mannion and Year 7 and 8 looked at Chapter 1 and 2 of ‘Dread Wood’ by Jennifer Killick. This had been chosen by students and is one of the books from the Book Buzz scheme that we’re part of. It’s an engaging story to encourage reading. There is also a lovely World Book Day display in the Intervention Room showing 30 students’ favourite books.
The Bible was the focus for Mr. Woodward and Year 9 in RE and, in particular, The Story of Job. Students explored the messages of ancient texts as a basis for helping people deal with suffering and tragedy in today’s world.
In Maths Year 7 read about Mr. Pent the Maths Teacher in ‘The World’s Worst Teachers’ by David Walliams, selected by Mrs. Murphy because of the love of books and the fact that we are never too old to laugh.
In DT, Year 7 and 8 looked at an extract from ‘The Wizard of Earthsea’ by Ursula Le Guin. Mr. Groves said, ‘My Primary school teacher Mr Castledine read this to me when I was 10 years old and it is still my favourite book. It is a fantasy book in the years before GOT and was written with such brilliant imagination, descriptive and emotive language that it gripped me from the first page to the last. It tells the tale of a young wizard called GED who fights and becomes possessed by an evil spirit but he eventually prevails, wounded and wiser. It encourages thoughts about resilience, perseverance and generosity of deed.’
Mrs. Broadhurst used ‘It is ok to be different: a storybook celebrating, Diversity and Acceptance’ with some Year 8 students to support them in understanding what language and verbal communication is acceptable and why.
Miss Kelly chose to share ‘Witch Child’ by Celia Rees with Year 9 which almost immediately predates the setting for ‘The Crucible’. Miss Kelly describes it as ‘Good quality young adult fiction.’ Meanwhile, with her Year 10 class she looked at an extract from ‘Shakespeare (The Man Who Pays the Rent)’ by Judi Dench which looked at her performance of Lady Macbeth and her interpretation of the character.
Miss Camy took the opportunity in Science, with Year 11, to look at the poem, ‘A birthday’ by Christina Rossetti chosen because ‘As it will soon be my birthday I was looking for a poem about birthdays. This is a poem about how it is important to have love for yourself.’
We’ve also been thinking about Futures this week with our Year 9 Options Taster sessions which then lead on to the full Options Evening next Wednesday. Assemblies have also focused on careers with Year 7 looking at STEM and Year 9 looking at, not only their GCSE and BTEC opportunities, but also the possibilities beyond including A levels and apprenticeships.
Year 11 have started on their second set of Progress Exams (mocks) today. We’re looking forward to seeing the Progress that they’ve made since their first set before Christmas. They’ll continue with these next week. Thanks to those parents and carers who came to the Information Evening on Thursday which focused on Wellbeing and supporting students with exams. It was, as ever, also useful to hear feedback on other aspects of school life.
Year 8 will be starting their revision preparation for their exams which begin on Monday 18th March. We have these formal exams for each year group so that they are used to the rules and routines by the time they take their GCSE exams.
Upcoming events include our Professional Development Day on Thursday 14th March when students do not attend school. We then have the Musical Showcase to look forward to during the following week.
You also, this week, have received the letter regarding the Boroughbridge Sports Village Public consultation.
We’re looking forward to the BHS Big Quiz tonight, the first event organised by the newly formed Friends of BHS. We thank them and you for your support with this and look forward to future events.
Have a lovely weekend!
The week started well with our second phase of tree planting. Mr. Woodward reports,
In preparation for World Book Day next week, in assemblies, Mr. Cockerill has been talking about the value of reading in supporting positive mental health and wellbeing before looking at some of the books which have had a significant impact such as ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.
Earlier in the week Mr. Field reports that ‘The Year 8 and Year 9 rugby teams took their chance to shine in the recent York Schools’ 9 a side rugby tournament. The boys impressed the York Knights’ staff with their resilience and positive gameplay throughout all of the games. The boys played games against King James’s, Manor, Tadcaster Grammar, York High and Joseph Rowntree. There were some positive results for the boys in some tough competitive matches against strong competition.’ We are really proud of the commitment shown by the boys and by the fact that we were the only school to field two teams in the tournament.
You’ll be aware that next Friday is our BHS Big Quiz night, the first event organised by the newly formed Friends of Boroughbridge parent/carer group. Tickets are available on Parent Mail and at Reception for £10. We hope to see you there. 
In Science Club this week, students have been testing their designed and constructed parachutes. The winning parachute was made by Cole, Ethan and Connor! Miss Camy was very pleased with their efforts commenting that ‘It worked so well due to the large surface area of the parachute slowing the fall of our plasticine models.’ Science Club takes place every Thursday lunchtime in B9 at 12.45p.m. and is open to students in Years 7, 8 and 9.
We were delighted to hear that, over half term, Alice in Year 8 who is a keen bell ringer has become a qualified member of the Yorkshire Association of Change Ringers, one of the youngest to do so. To do this she had to ring a quarter peal which took the team of six ringers 43 minutes and involved 1260 changes. A superb achievement indeed. Following this, Alice was asked to do a Radio interview with BBC Radio York on Thursday morning.
We’ve also been able to celebrate students’ success in assemblies by awarding certificates to those students who have done consistently well in their Attitude to Learning, Behaviour for Learning and Homework, as shown in their recent tracking.
With the completion of a full cycle of the timetable, we’re now fully back into routine. A continued focus for us this term is to embed our three phases of learning which, as we’ve reported, is having a positive impact on focus in lessons along with the quality of responses to questions. If you want to know what it looks like in practice then this week I’ll focus on the Group and Pair work which has been taking place in classrooms across the school over the past week. As you can see, the important factor is that students ensure that their talk is about the activity being carried out.  In English, Year 7 students talked in pairs about the best way to sequence a series of pictures into a non-fiction story about a camping trip to the woods whilst in Music they have recalled and discussed in groups the main points to a story connected to a piece of music. In Geography they discussed the impacts, positive and negative, that different weather conditions can have. Up in Science Club, students worked effectively in teams to create lava lamps!
