On Tuesday, Mr Clarke led an assembly for all year groups to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, which takes place on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. This year, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust focused commemoration on two issues, the power or words in victimising groups in society and bridging generations, an initiative to encourage younger people to understand and pass on lessons learned from genocides around the world. Thank you to all students for their respectful engagement.

On Wednesday, Mr Baksh and Ms Devane arranged for a group of 81 of our most gifted mathematicians in Years 9 and 10 to take part in the UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge. The challenge is designed to test more than mathematical ability, it encourages students to think laterally, logically and precisely. They have prepared for this with weekly homework assignments. We are incredibly proud of their hard work and look forward to sharing their results when they are released.

The tutor group round of the Big Speech event was a great success in our resource base as much as it was in the rest of the school. Every child gave their very best performance, illustrating a developed confidence and lots of effort. Papa-Kofi in Year 7 is the winner in our base having received the majority of votes. Congratulations!

Fun Friday today marked National Backwards Day. The students were challenged to a quiz in which they listened to songs played backwards and guessed both the song and the artist. We had a record turnout. Thank you to Mr Mathys for running the event.

This week, the Year 10 netball team had two matches. On Monday, they played Coloma and did really well in their first game of the season but sadly lost 8-0; congratulations to Amara, who was player of the match. After working hard to improve, we played Shirley High on Thursday where the girls showed great grit and teamwork and won 3-1. It was a very close and competitive game. Congratulations again to Amara who was player of the match. Students were Trinity, Amara, Hamila, Taliyah, Gabby, Kelly, Kayla and Keyanna.

Updated mobile phone guidance was issued to schools this week. Whilst it does not impact our rules here (we already comply with the latest guidance), Ms Ongley is sending a separate letter regarding this, mostly as a reminder of our approach.

Ms C Moran, Headteacher