14 June 2019
Dates for your Diary – Summer Term 2019
- Year 8 Parents' Consultation Evening, Monday 17 June 3.30 p.m. - 6.00 p.m.
- Durham Johnston Music Festival – Friday 28th June, James Hall
- Music for a Summer Evening – Friday 5th July, Atrium Café
- KS3 Celebrations Evening – Monday 8th July, James Hall
- School breaks for the summer holidays on Friday 19 July
Mr O'Sullivan Writes
The Books That You Read As A Child Stay WIth You Forever
2 + 2 = ?
We have been discussing whole school literacy and oracy recently and thinking about how we can best encourage students to read for pleasure and to be confident talking about their different subjects in class. If you think back to your own time at school, you will have had classmates that sat in terror at the thought of being asked a question, or, worse, being asked to read aloud in class. You may even have been that person. I’ve written before on the importance of reading for pleasure and how the right book can offer a different way of looking at the world or, alternatively, provide a form of escapism from difficult circumstances. 5 years ago, I was asked to speak with students about the books that had the biggest impact upon me as a child. The request came from a school initiative to encourage students to read for pleasure and I spent a happy evening sorting through a box of books that I’d kept from a shared childhood bedroom to my current home. The first book that really fired my imagination was bought for me by my Grandmother from a branch of Woolworth’s in the early 1980s. It was a compilation of short horror and suspense stories, featuring an attack on an Atlantic passenger ship by vampire bats, an idyllic late evening walk in the woods disturbed by a zombie and a werewolf attack on a couple whose car had broken down on a desolate road. The stories are interlinked in my mind with the music from Tales of the Unexpected and the horror double bills on BBC2 that I was never allowed to stay up and watch; Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes at tea time on a Friday represented my parentally imposed watershed. There were other books about football and some adventure stories that I enjoyed, but nothing that would be regarded as classic literature. Regardless of that, I loved reading and would happily read to zone out the noise generated by a busy house full of family members and neighbours.
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Change to the Date for May Day 2020
The Government has recently announced that next year, May Day will take place on Victory in Europe (VE) day to celebrate the end of World War Two. This means that the May Day bank holiday will be on Friday 8 May 2020 and not Monday 4 May 2020. The school will therefore be open as normal on Monday 4 May 2020 and will be closed on Friday 8 May 2020.
PE Department News
This should have been a very busy week but unfortunately most of the competitions have been cancelled due to the heavy rain. We have missed out on two athletics competitions, one cricket match, a cricket tournament and a tennis final. However we still have had success.
On Tuesday our Year 7 cricket team managed to travel to Washington CC to take on St Robert’s for a place in the quarter final of the County Cup. We produced an excellent bowling performance to restrict them to 50 runs. However we kept losing wickets and made hard work of chasing their total. However we passed their score with two overs to spare. We now face Castleview in the quarter final next Thursday.
Also on Tuesday our U15 boys tennis team took on Barnard Castle in the County cup final. We produced some excellent tennis to win the match 6 – 0 to become county champions. Our U15 girls were also taking part in the County finals. Unfortunately they lost a close game to a strong Barnard Castle team, eventually finishing in joint second place with Durham High.
Hopefully we will manage to get a cricket game played this afternoon as our Year 9 team take on Easington for a place in the quarter-final.
Mr Hopper, Subject Leader for PE
Word of the Week
