Year 8 History students were involved in a variety of activities designed to enhance their knowledge and understanding of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Firstly, Emily, Karene and Maisie from the Trestle Arts base performed a shortened version of the musical ‘Yarico’ based on the story of a slave called Yarico and the relationship that she had with a white man – Thomas Inkle. This was followed with an interactive drama workshop led by our Trestle guests where the students explored the feelings of the slaves through the use of masks and actions. There was an also a storyboard activity led by History teachers which provided opportunities to use their evaluative and creative skills.

Students were asked to provide feedback about the day. Some of the comments included: “Informative, interesting, fun, exciting, involved, educational, interactive, variety, a lot to it, learning something in a different way, helped us understand what being a slave felt like”.

I asked some Year 8 students to write thank you messages to Trestle on behalf of their year group, here is an extract from one of them: “thank you for the spectacular show….it was very educational…you have put loads of work into performing it and I have definitely learnt something from it”.

Here is the full message from Maisie Jay (8S): “Thank you. I learnt a lot about Barbados. I am from Barbados it was really good to know about it. I did not realise so many slaves were from the Caribbean. You showed the story really well and your acting was great”.

Our thanks to Year 8 for their positive participation, and all the staff involved in helping to make the day such a success.

Ms Wensley, and the rest of the History Department

We were asked to be involved for the Fifth year in a row in the annual Samuel Ryder Schools’ Art Exhibition. The exhibition was a huge success with a broad range of work from many different schools. This year we chose work from Year 13 students, Conor Quinn, Jess Hall, and Megan Hodges.

Miss Finlay

To celebrate Science week in school, our GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition students spent time making an ‘infomercial’ to help them and others understand key concepts in Food Science. Here they are on their digital video shoot, presenting to camera their explanations and demonstrations showing coagulation, dextrinisation, aeration and enzymic browning to name just a few! In food and film terms, ‘that’s a wrap’!

Mrs Johnston

A group of Year 13 students were recently entered into the Biology Olympiad (hats off to the few that wanted to do it, as it was during mock week!), and we received two Silver medals, two Bronze and two Highly Commended medals. This is an international competition, so to do so well is a real achievement for the students involved.

Congratulations to:

• Bronze Jack Elliot and Brendan Phelan
• Silver Simon Jones and Ellen Dean
• Highly Commended Amelia Reynolds and Ashleigh James

On Thursday 9 February, an Assessor visited the school to look at the CREST awards that our students have been working towards. There were four Year 10 students, one Year 11, and all eight of the Robot Rumble team (Year 9) who were awarded Silver CREST awards. All students had to write a report and present their work to the assessor; they were all amazing, a real credit to the school.

Congratulations to:

Emily Pidcock, Greg Harrison, Amy Cowan, Isla Pennifer, Berenice Laurent, Darius Wurzbacher, Caius Datt, Rebecca Oliver, Lucy Alexander, Jack Cato, Felix Walton, Tomas Linzell and Thomas Copper.

Dr Jones

The Parent Governor election ballot was closed on Thursday 17th November 2016.