It has been a productive start to the new term with the students settling quickly into their learning. For our Year 11 students the countdown to the summer is well underway. They had an assembly detailing the run up to their exams which begin in May. On Thursday they received a letter to bring home which outlines the next two terms including an individual exam timetable and clash letter. Please read through the letter with them as it contains important information about exams dates and times, exam attendance and clashes.

A final reminder that our KS3 students have their Order assessments next week. These Maths and Science assessments take place on Monday (Year 7), Tuesday (Year 8) and Wednesday (Year 9). Full details of the topics covered and revision for all students has been set on Satchel 1. Students should be well on their way to having completed the tasks set; it would be very worthwhile to check on you son / daughter’s progress through the set tasks this weekend.

A note regarding uniform. We have had a proliferation of students wearing hoodies to school instead of coats. As is made clear in our uniform policy, hoodies are not allowed to be worn at school. The students were told about this in line-up this morning. From Monday, hoodies will be expected to be removed when students are on the school site. Thank you for your support with this.

On Monday our Year 10 Fine Art students visited the Oxford University Natural History & Pitt Rivers Museums as part of their Decay & Preservation Coursework project. Students enjoyed being able to get up close to some of the artefacts as introduced by the museum staff, followed by a range of observational drawing and photographic activities around the museum. Our Fine Artist were thoroughly engaged and enthused by the collections. They have already started their own development work from these resources and it will be great to see how their personal work has been inspired by the day.

This week also saw a theatre trip for Year 10 English and Year 11 Drama students to see a production of Animal Farm at the Theatre Royal in Bath. The directors and adapters of the performance chose to make it a performance involving puppets. As almost every character in the story is an animal, this involved the creation of over 30 life-sized puppets, from Boxer the horse, who needed 3 puppet operators, to little pigeons. This was a novel idea to our students who enjoyed watching the performance and were excellent ambassadors for our school during the trip.

On the sporting front this week we had another round of fixtures including:

• Year 8 football – our Year 8 B team played Gloucester Academy and won convincingly, 8-0. The boys played some lovely football and scored some excellent goals with 2 each from Jacob Winters and Dylan Barnes.
• Year 9 football – our Year 9 B team also played against the Gloucester Academy A team. They narrowly lost 4-3 against in a thrilling end-to-end match. Aiden Harris made some fabulous saves in a well-deserved man of the match performance.
• Year 11 football – our Year 11s came up against an outstanding St Peter’s team and despite some strong performances throughout the team went down 8-1.
• Year 7 netball – our A and B teams had fixtures against Newent this week. The A team won 6-0 with Kacee Parker named player of the match. The B team drew 2-2 with Erin Ash-Tighe receiving player of the match. Both were excellent fixtures with the Year 7s making excellent progress both in training and fixtures

A group of our Year 10 students will be representing Hardwicke Rangers YFC in the Semi-Final of the County Cup against Bristol side Little Stoke on Sunday at 5pm. This promises to be a spectacular event for all the lads involved especially as it is being played at Meadow Park, home of Gloucester City.  If anyone finds themselves at a loose end on a Sunday evening, then I know the boys would be very grateful for your support.  We wish them well in securing a place in the final. 

As always, I include my weekly reminder about Free School Meals eligibility. If your financial circumstances have changed, your child may be eligible for Free School Meals. If you click on this link you will find guidance on the eligibility criteria and the application process. It's a quick process and we are notified of all FSM entitlements by Gloucestershire County Council each Monday. I would urge you to take a look if you think you may benefit from financial assistance.

And finally, I would like to offer a heartfelt thank you for helping to make our annual Gloucester Foodbank donation such a success. This had to be rearranged due to Storm Eunice but the collection on Thursday was a joy to behold. It was truly humbling to see so much donated knowing the impact this will have on the recipients. We know with fuel and energy prices rising everybody is feeling the squeeze. That did not stop a real display of generosity and compassion. Thank you once again for your support.

Kind regards

Richard Johnson
Headteacher