Welcome to this week's newsletter
Happy new year to you all! Welcome back to the new term. We are excited for what this term is going to bring with lots planned in the calendar as well as plenty of enrichment and extra-curricular opportunities for students to get involved in.
I wanted to provide a short update on the gas and electricity issues. The start has been a little unsettling with the issues relating to power to a small part of the school. The electricians have been working throughout the day and will continue over the weekend. As a result, we are confident that any outstanding issues will have been resolved before our return on Monday. We have also had gas engineers on site today and we will be in a position to provide an update on timescales for fixing the offending gas pipe by next week.
Have a good weekend.
Lee Towers, Head of School
Flu vaccinations
Flu vaccinations will take place for Years 7-9 on 16 January. Please complete the consent form (sent by email) by 9am on 11 January.
Student rugby referee
Harry I in Year 11 is one of the youngest qualified rugby referees in England, and he referees many games across the East Midlands region on Saturdays and Sundays; some of you may have even seen him in action. On Tuesday 3 January, Harry was invited to Twickenham Stadium where he had the chance to meet and work with the Premiership Rugby Referees, including International Referee Wayne Barnes, on one of their training and performance review days. He had a very enjoyable day and came away with some very useful hints and tips.
National Apprenticeship Week
Once again, Workpays and the ASK Programme are hosting a series of free events during National Apprenticeship Week, which is taking place between 6-12 February. There are three events running across the week, and are suitable for students and parents/carers. Please see their Eventbrite page for full details and to register.
Competitions week results
During the penultimate week before the Christmas break, we held our first competitions week. As reported in a previous edition of the newsletter, one of the events that students were able to earn house points for was by supporting the ‘I’m a teacher…. Get me out of here!’ event on the Friday, which saw Mr Cousins and Miss Walker take the crown home for Betula, fending off Mr Kelsall and Mr Mitchell-Bunce.
There were plenty of other tasks and activities happening throughout the week. Each subject area set a competition task for all students, which ranged from a mystery-solving challenge in maths, to a language spelling bee, plus lots of interesting Christmas-related competitions in other subjects too.
The English competition was to write a poem on the theme of winter, and for this we had Year 7 students Louis Y (Acer) and Kimberly L (Quercus) sharing the points; you can see their entries below.
The maths competition was a 4-part mystery solving challenge, asking students to work out what had happened to the chocolate. Year 10 student Amy McL (Acer) and Year 7 student Kimberly L (Quercus) shared the points here.
Art & Design asked students to design a Christmas decoration using reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink concepts. Year 8 students Phoebe B (Quercus) and Hollie Mould (Quercus) plus Year 7 student Sophia W (Acer) shared the points for this one.
For business & computing, students were set a quiz titled ‘when was the technology released?’ which had an amazing 94 entries in total, with the top 3 winners being Year 7 students Rueben B-C (Quercus), Andrei S (Quercus) and Theodore H (Quercus).
Also taking place throughout the week were the sports competitions which occurred during normal PE lessons and at lunchtimes. During core PE lesson time, all students participated in either rugby, netball or badminton, using the skills and knowledge they have learnt this term for these 3 activities to try to win their house the points. At lunchtime we offered dodgeball competitions for each year group, with KS5 even getting stuck in on Monday afternoon too. With all the points added up from across the week in the sports competitions, Betula came out on top, with Quercus in 2nd and Acer in 3rd.
Our next competitions week will take place in the penultimate week before the Easter break, where there will be additional subject challenges and students will be pitting their football, hockey and basketball skills and knowledge against each other in our sports competitions, alongside a bit of Kin Ball at lunchtime.
Sports leaders
Manor School has a strong legacy of sports leaders, having assisted in many events both within school and for the Northants School Sports Partnership. Whilst the students that have volunteered and supported these events have done so exceptionally well, we would like to offer the opportunity to be involved in leading to more of our students.
As of this January there will no longer be a set group of students who will form the leadership academy, but leadership opportunities will continue to exist.
Within PE lessons, part of the teaching, learning and assessment allows all students to explore different leadership roles and develop skills and qualities associated with being an effective leader. We also offer leadership opportunities via our extra-curricular programme, where students (predominantly in KS5) assist in coaching and officiating.
For upcoming events that require student leaders, the selection of these will now be based on merit and treated as a reward for all students who have shown an exceptional attitude towards PE lessons, and display leadership qualities and characteristics such as patience, communication and motivation. Students who attend the school's clubs for specific activities are also more likely to be selected to assist with sports specific events.
We have a number of opportunities on the horizon and we hope that all students will strive to be selected with supporting these.
The events include, but are not limited to:
- Primary Tag rugby festival
- Basketball primary competition
- Year 3/4 Hockey cluster competition
- Winter school games - Sports Hall Athletics
- Year 5/6 Netball cluster competition
- Year 1/2 Cricket cluster competition
Should students wish to support in a leadership capacity at any of the school's clubs, or wish to run a club with the support of a teacher, they are extremely welcome and encouraged to do so, and should speak to their PE teacher in the first instance, or speak directly to Miss Hustwait.
To all students who have been involved in the sports leadership academy so far, thank you! Your efforts and support have not been forgotten and we hope that we will continue to see you supporting future events, sincerely anticipating that you have gained some valuable experience of leading to help with your future endeavours.
Extra-curricular timetable
Don't forget that you can access your child's student details, attendance, REACH points and homework tasks via the Arbor parent portal app.