Mr Spanswick's Words Autumn Term Week 2

It was back to reality this morning! After several days of glorious sunshine, the commute to school earlier today demonstrated how several inches of water can play havoc with our transport systems and roads. For those of you who braved the trench of water underneath the motorway bridge near our entrance, I hope both you and your cars have dried out!

We have enjoyed an exceptionally busy week, and the boys are now very much into the swing of school life. Congratulations must go to our Under 9 rugby players who played their first competitive matches for their school against Gayhurst on Tuesday. The boys showed tremendous character and displayed great sportsmanship throughout their hard fought encounters, especially with the heat making conditions very tough. Our A, B and C teams won, and D and E teams drew - well done boys, a brilliant start to the season! Our E team in fact were awarded a merit certificate this morning in assembly by Mr Denton who felt they had been exceptional from the first whistle to the last. Well done also to our Under 10 and 11 boys who took to the pitches on Wednesday. I was particularly impressed with the Under 10B team who defended and tackled with real purpose, and the Under 10A side who looked very strong during their clash with Davenies.

I hope the Curriculum Statement mornings were useful and that you have come away from them clearer on how we intend to develop your son’s skills both in and out of the classroom this year. If you have any further questions, please do contact the form tutor as the first port of call.

We already have 150 people joining us for the PTA and Sports department fundraiser on Friday 23 September. If you have not got your ticket yet and would like to come along, please contact the school office.

In our assemblies this week we discussed our first Golden Rule ‘Treat others as you would like to be treated’ and in our celebration assembly that we hold every Friday morning, there were a large number of Merit Certificates given out to boys who have been excelling this week following the Golden Rules and with their academic work. We also considered the importance of hard work and never giving up - I used the story of how Jonny Wilkinson started playing his rugby in the Under 8/9 D and E teams before he became the player we know him as today (I did have to explain to quite a few of the boys who he actually was!!).

I have been giving out a number of Gold Stars this week to our boys who have performed well in their academic studies, and Reception came to visit my office earlier this week to see where I was hiding out! If you visit our school reception hall, you will also see the brilliant Extreme Reading Project that Harry and George Watson constructed over the summer holidays. It really is impressive and is well worth a look. Mrs Davies, our librarian, was very pleased!

Over the next few weeks our boys in Year 1-6 will take part in our INCas (Interactive Cognitive Assessment) Benchmark testing. As a school, we use the data that is generated in these tests in our teacher planning to ensure that we identify areas of strength and weakness in English, Maths, Non-Verbal Reasoning , Picture Vocabulary etc for the individual pupil. Along with our end of year assessments and our formative topic/unit analysis, we keep a close track of pupil progress and development. The INCas tests are lots of fun! The boys love to sit in front of the computer and answer lots of questions - they really enjoy the challenge. For the Year 1 boys, this is more of a ‘learn how it works’ assessment rather than a critique of ability and skill, as the boys are still so young.

A big thank you from me goes out to Thor Hardvendel, Alfie Ward, Oscar Helm and Felix Oppenheimer. These boys have been especially helpful this week to the staff and to other boys in the school - I am delighted with their efforts.

Year 5 are currently enjoying the sunny climes of Marchants Hill just down the A3 where they are taking part in a PGL Outward Bound weekend. I am sure the weather will be kind to them tomorrow!

Please have a look in our photo gallery of some of the wonderful artwork that our boys in KS2 have been producing over the past week.

It leaves me to wish you all a lovely weekend.