We have had a busy week of career opportunities: on Thursday Year 10 heard about the achievements of Mike Coupe, a previous CEO of Sainsburys. He shared his journey as a student in his local state school, to his university education and boardroom successes. We heard about the banana as a metaphor for the variety of roles within the company from farming to consumption. Mr Coupe took questions from the audience who wanted to know his regrets and whether he had a helicopter (he doesn’t). Today, Year 7 and Year 8 participated in RAF workshops learning about engineering opportunities within the organisation and watching demonstrations. It is a roadshow we have hosted before and it is always popular with the students. Thank you Mr Afriye for arranging these visitors.

On Wednesday secondary school offers were made to Year 6 children. Orchard Park is proud to have doubled its first and second choices, which also means we have a waiting list. We look forward to welcoming our new families over the next few months.

Thank you to Ms Turner and Ms Smyrk for their assembly on self esteem. They shared important messages with students about stepping away from social media, taking regular exercise and spending time being creative (off screen). Ms Turner also reminded students about The STAR building and the support available there (including time with Paddy and Betty, our wellbeing dogs).

Not content with a single day, we will be celebrating World Book Day for a whole week including book quizzes, art competitions, podcast book reviews and a visit from Carnegie-nominated author Abiola Bello (writer of the 'Emily Knight, I am' series and 'The Very Merry Murder Club'). She is looking forward to working with students from Years 7 to 10 across a series of workshops. We also have a £1 book token to give to every student from Years 7 to 11 they can exchange the token in high street bookshops on one of many specially-commissioned £1 books, or they can buy any book of their choice with a £1 discount. Thank you to Mr Douglas, Second in Charge of English, for organising our programme of events. Reading is always a priority at Orchard Park. We are very proud of our daily tutor reading programme and our reading practices within every subject. You can find out more about this here: https://www.orchardparkhigh.co.uk/page/?title=Tutor+Time+Reading&pid=124

Have a lovely weekend.

Ms Carly Moran, Headteacher