Headteacher’s Blog – 22nd September 2023

It’s been attendance all the way in assemblies this week as Mr. Grierson talked to students about the importance of high attendance in securing good outcomes and resulting life chances. With the mantra ‘Every day counts’, students were helped to understand the impact that missing a day each month can have on learning across the year. You’ll be receiving an Attendance Update soon.

Students have been embracing the extra-curricular activities on offer with Mr. Field reporting that 130 students have accessed an extra-curricular activity this week. So that’s around 28% of our students giving some of their own time to get involved in sport. Well done!

Our focus this week goes on to Year 7 as the students who have joined us most recently. This week their studies have been broad and varied. In Food Technology, they’ve been developing their culinary skills, learning how to cut safely and add flavour with herbs and spices by making potato wedges. If you ask, they’ll be able to explain the difference between a herb and a spice. In Design Technology, drawing skills are the focus with students completing a 3-D drawing in oblique of their block head toys that they will be making.

In Maths, students have been involved with directed numbers (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing) and rounding numbers. In Science, students have been looking at the effects of friction and water resistance in Science. To put it into context, they experimented with their shoes to find out which surfaces had the least amount of friction. Then they made different shapes out of plasticine to see which shape was the most streamlined. They’ve also been studying elements, compounds and mixture.

In English, students have been considering the character traits of archetypal heroes and villains whist reading Philip Pullman’s novel ‘Clockwork’.

In Geography, students have been looking at settlement locations. This has required them to think about what makes a good place to build a settlement and link this to real places around the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, in History, they’ve been looking into the Vikings asking, ‘When did they invade?’ and ‘What were they like?’ whilst also developing their historical skills including chronology and interpretations.

It was lovely to see so many parents, carers and students at the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Information Evening on Wednesday. Students need to sign up by 13th October. They can collect a form from Reception or Mrs Murphy.

A reminder that it’s our Year 5 and 6 Open Evening on Wednesday 11th October 6-8.30p.m. In order to prepare for the event, we’ll be closing school at 1.30p.m. We’ll then look forward to welcoming students back for the evening to carry out activities and share with our visitors what makes Boroughbridge High School a great place to be. We’ve already started to update our Prospectus and I thought you might like to see a couple of photos.

Have a lovely weekend!