Blog week ending 14th October

Congratulations to our intrepid DofE Bronze Award students who all successfully completed the expedition element of their Award.  Special thanks go to the staff who gave up their weekend to accompany us.  Mrs Shooman-Taylor who leads our DofE Programme added “Firstly, I am super proud of the resilience of all of the girls for completing the expedition. The leaders from the external company, Ben Bullen, couldn’t have been more complimentary about our girls’ performance.  He remarked that not only were the girls polite, friendly and resourceful but also incredibly kind, fun and determined – an absolute credit to themselves and the school.”

In all, 97 students completed the expedition with many now just finishing off the last bits of the skills volunteering and physical sections before they can be awarded their Bronze Award.

We have launched the DofE with Year 9 and 70 students have already signed up with the hope of completing our training expedition in June and the qualifying expedition in September.

The DofE programme aims to develop the skills and attitudes to help students become more rounded, confident adults.  The Bronze Award has many benefits, many of which are highly valued by Universities and employers but the key benefits I have observed in our students is the amount of joy, self-achievement and confidence it has instilled! 

– Initiative and a sense of responsibility

– A real awareness of their strengths

– New talents and abilities

– The ability to plan and use time effectively

– Learning from and giving to others in the community

– Forming new friendships

– Problem solving, presentation and communication skills

– Leadership and teamworking skills.

Each month a new House Challenge is set.  Last month’s challenge was set by the English Department and generated a large number of thoughtful and powerful entries from across the school.  Mr Clayton, Head of English challenged students to write a poem on the theme of ‘Resilience’ (the ‘R’ from our school REACH values).  Judges from the English Department and beyond had the unenviable job of awarding the winning entries – and there were a great number of wonderful entries!  Special congratulations to Elin (Hepworth), Kerime (Singh) and Anna (Bader) for their winning poems.

Overall Winners – to read the poems please click on each link below

'My (school) Journey to Resilience' by Elin T-S (Hepworth) - Y7

'Resilience' by Kerime A (Singh) - Y9

'Tale of the Man on the Mountain' by Anna N (Bader) - Y8

Other Awards - to read the poems please click on each link below

'Egg Yolk' - Adeola D (Hepworth) - Most innovative - Y10

'RESILIENCE' - Uliana D (Franklin) - Best Acrostic poem - Y7

Our Year 9 Food Tech students made Gnocchi in their recent practical lesson.  Students made the sage and parmesan potato dough before then shaping the individual gnocchi and provide texture using a gnocchi paddle.

Please join me in welcoming new Head of Physics, Miss Patel who joined us at the end of last academic year. Having been a Head of Physics at a similar Grammar school previously, she is keen to bring all that experience and a fresh perspective to our Physics department.

Here at WGSG we ensure all our lessons are as immersive as possible throughout our physics curriculum in the study of energy, forces, mechanics, atomic structure and the physical universe – all of which lies at the heart of many important environmental issues we face today!   Practical lessons allow a first-hand experience of topics with opportunities to test hypothesis and learn from investigation, research and data analysis.  In this practical lesson GCSE students used the new dynamics system and dataloggers that the PFA kindly funded in order to demonstrate Newton’s laws of motion.

Our Drama and Music Departments offer a range of Clubs and extra-curricular opportunities including the forthcoming Stand Up night which Year 8 Student asmbassadors Gabriella R, Paige H, Safia H and Lottie B pictured below) are currently auditioning propective student acts for inclusion in the programme. 

Our Year 7 & 8 Glee Club is 56 members strong!  The sessions are delvered by a specialist voice coach (who also provides one-to-one singing lessons at school – a fee applies)  In todays Glee Club students have started selecting song choices to a special Christmas performance!

WG6 Year 13 physics students have been investigating specific heat capacity – in essence, measuring the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of a substance by one degree Celsius.  This is usually measured in calories or joules per gram per Celsius degree. 

Have you got any unused and unloved board games you would consider donating to our Year 7 & 8 Board Game Club?  Miss Skrine (Head of Year 7) and Mrs Rubbera (Head of Year 8) would be delighted to re-home your unwanted games!  If you have anything suitable including the below suggestions we’d be very grateful!

Herd mentality 

Jenga 

Penguin trap 

Snakes and ladders 

Operation 

Headbanz 

Connect 4 

Colourbrain  

Don’t Panic 

Logo Board Game 

Message from our new Chair of the PFA, Jayne Warrington.  “Our PFA committee, parents and carers who have assisted with PFA events over the last five years would like to offer their thanks to Catherine Goodhind.  Catherine has been the Chair of the PFA for the last five years, but as her daughter has now left the school, she has stepped down from the post.  Catherine has been friendly to everyone, professional in her planning, meticulously organised but most of all, a passionate ambassador for the school.  During her time in charge, the PFA have raised tens of thousands of pounds that have directly benefitted all children that have attended the school during that time and will continue to benefit them in years to come.   Catherine has maintained excellent supplier relationships and worked tirelessly to build new ones which have allowed us to get the absolute best value for the money we work so hard to raise.  Along with her ever supportive husband Alan she has been a wonderful asset to the PFA and the school and will be sorely missed.  We do want to wish her all the very best with all of her other endeavours and let her know how much we appreciate all she has given.  Thank you Catherine!

Catherine is pictured third from the left at our recent Year 7 Disco (which raised £750 in profit to be spent on resources for the students)

Best wishes,

Michelle Lawson

Head Teacher