Dear Parents and Carers
Thank you for your support with our second lockdown practice on Monday during breaktime – apologies that the email did not arrive telling you that we had gone into lockdown, there was an issue with the system which has now been sorted. The young people and staff responded very well and we are confident they are now prepared should we need to lockdown in the future. We will continue to practice this and will keep you informed as we do this.
The production of Amelie this week has been amazing – so lovely to see our young people enjoying performing and making friendships and memories alongside entertaining us! Thank you to all of the staff who have made this happen and congratulations to the incredible cast and crew (who are all quite tired today!) who have put in so much hard work and performed so well.
Our Cycle to School week has also been a real success and lovely to see and speak to young people keen to make a difference.
Have a good Easter break and I hope that the weather enables everyone to get outside and enjoy the longer days and hopefully better weather.
Lisa Percy
Headteacher
News Items
Art Bytes
We are delighted to share that many of our Year 9 Art students have had their work accepted into the Art Bytes competition – a national celebration of art produced by Year 9 and Year 5 pupils. Please follow the link below to our online gallery – this year we have submitted ceramic work based on Childhood memories and mixed media pieces based on Street Art. A panel of judges have selected their top three – we’d really appreciate it if you could vote for your favourite! We look forward to announcing the winner later in the year, and sharing details of our own Year 9 Art Exhibition.
Hardenhuish School | Schools | Art Bytes
Resource Centre news
It has been an exceptionally busy term here with lots of literary events taking place, notably our annual Scholastic Book Fair a couple of weeks ago. Once again huge thanks to everyone who purchased items – from the latest novels to must-have journals and some very quirky stationery. Mr Southwood still can’t quite believe he sold all 50 hand-pointers in just over 24 hours – next year he is going to request 100!
We took an amazing total of £1310.12 during the course of the week, enabling us to purchase over £700 worth of new titles for the library itself. Look out for lots of these as we go through the summer months and we hope you are all enjoying your latest reads from the Fair. Hardenhuish remains one of the top secondary schools for Book Fair takings across the UK so thankyou for all your support and encouragement with this, particularly in this National Year of Reading.
Another annual tradition – the Carnegie shadowing scheme – is now well under way with a committed group of nearly 20 Year 8s and 9s meeting every Monday lunchtime to discuss the eight shortlisted books. This will continue throughout term 5 and build up towards an exciting results day full of activities on 23rd June where we will see whether the judges decision matches the Hardenhuish verdict!
Hardenhuish Book Group have also met twice during the term, this time looking at books covering the theme of empowerment. ‘Am I Normal Yet’ by Holly Bourne was the real hit from this selection, with one of our Year 8s loving how the main character “learns to accept their uniqueness” and how “it talks about serious subjects that you otherwise never get told about”. Next term we will be moving onto a selection of ‘cosy reads’, covering everything from mysteries to fantasy, so look out for more details on those titles in the next edition of Headlines.
Raspberry Pi Foundation Coding Challenge
Over the past couple of weeks, a select group of pupils from Years 7–12 took part in the Raspberry Pi Coding Challenge. Pupils who were successful in the previous round, the UK Bebras Competition, were invited to compete in this exciting nationwide event.
Participants tackled a range of problem-solving and coding challenges, testing their skills across programming languages such as Scratch and Python. The challenges were designed to stretch their thinking, and we hope all pupils found them both demanding and rewarding, especially when cracking those tougher problems!
Once all scores have been totalled, we will find out if any of our pupils have qualified for the final round, the Oxford University Computing Challenge (OUCC). In addition, internal prizes will be awarded to pupils in each year group who performed particularly well.
If you would like to learn more about the Coding Challenge, or even try some of the tasks yourself, you can find more information on the competition website below
Tim Phillips
Curriculum Leader for ICT & Computer Science
Yr 7 Art, the Second Term
Art this term has been fun. We have learned about Cubism in many ways. We sketched as well as diving into the world of drawing in a Cubist style and are currently making 3D work based off music and musical instruments. I enjoyed art this term and found it very exciting.
Here are some our Cubist style collages. They are made by combining still life drawing and collage.
We focused on Layering and creating a Range of Tones.
Cycle to School Event
A huge well done to the 35 students who consistently cycled to school during this week’s Cycle to School event. Their commitment and energy helps to create a more sustainable world. They have set a brilliant example for others and shown what dedication looks like. Well done – from Mrs Fenwick!
Year 7 Midwife Visit
Last Friday, Year 7 had a visit from a local senior midwife, Tracy Boakes, from Chippenham Birthing Clinic.
She discussed her role as a midwife and what they do to support mothers and newborn babies before and after birth. Students were impressed to hear she has delivered over 800 babies in her career, potentially even some of them!
Tracy showed the students how the baby has to maneuver its way through the pelvis during birth, and what midwifes can do to help if things don’t go to plan.
It was great to have someone so knowledgeable answer all their questions, a highlight of the week – thank you Tracy!
Vacancies – Hardenhuish School