Weekly Newsletters

We must not forget this is a significant time for a wide range of religious faiths. This week Ramadan begins and if a lockdown isn't hard enough, the dedication of a lockdown plus fasting from the early hours to the late hours of the day deserves mention.

This week I have held virtual meetings with a wide range of staff to address the issues of life without examinations, as well as listening to staff and students about the issues we need to address and will face, when we eventually return back to school.  Can I thank everyone (staff and students) involved, for giving up their time to share their opinions. Some of these meetings were hours long, but they did not feel like that.  It was exhilarating to hear staff and students give their views. 

I went away on Friday immensely proud of how caring and willing everyone is to get things right in the climate we face. We must not lose sight of the things we have taken for granted for so long. It is a major lesson, I and others are learning from this situation, as we continue through this moment in time.  The good news is that we are learning to adapt and the next few school days will be about actioning on the feedback received.

May I thank you for your support at this time.
 

Bryan Erwin
Principal

I hope you are managing to stay safe and got tons of Easter eggs and a bit of that sun!

We also hope that you are still taking advantage of the many resources out there and trying out some new activities

to keep you busy both mentally and physically. 

So, this week we have each chosen our 3 favourite lockdown activities for you to try!

As always keep in touch, we would love to hear about your lockdown experience and what activities you have tried.

Remember something is better than nothing.

All the best. Stay inside, stay safe and stay posted.

Heads of Year

Miss Harvey - Head of Year 11

1. Understand Nutrition
Comfort eating during lockdown is understandable, but won’t help you enter summer happier and healthier. Understanding nutrition and how food affects your body, health, and mood, will help you make better decisions for your overall wellbeing and even better use of your current food cupboard. FutureLearn’s Food as Medicine course is one of their most popular courses and has helped thousands of people better understand how what they eat affects how they think and feel. 

2. Arrange a Houseparty 
If you still want to meet with your friends – do it at a virtual Houseparty. The app allows for large group video chats so you can get together and see some friendly faces for a couple of hours. 

3. Meditate
Meditation and mindfulness doesn’t just help people stay calm – practitioners around the world rely on it to help them focus, remain present, and appreciate what they have. It’s a simple concept that can be hard to master, but you can start now, at home, and see if it works for you.

Miss Sothmann - Head of Year 10

1. Try a fitness challenge
Missing the gym? There are plenty of fitness challenges you can try out from home, so you can emerge from lockdown fitter, leaner, or stronger. 
You could try the 100 pushup challenge, squat challenge, or just doing a 30-day bodyweight workout challenge to stay healthy at home for free. 
Just make sure that you don’t push too hard early on, and warm up thoroughly before you do any exercise. 

Or join the Health & Social Care students and Child Care students in learning a new language...British Sign Language.......

2. Learn a language
Always wanted to speak Italian? Intrigued by Norwegian? Think that Mandarin will be useful for work, or perhaps German? 
Lockdown gives you plenty of time to dedicate to learning a new language, brushing up on vocabulary, and testing out pronunciation. 

Another great one, as I love food and creating new recipes........

3. Cook something new 
One good thing about being home a lot is that you can finally spend time cooking things from scratch.
You can find great recipes online, even if you’re on a limited budget. Jack Monroe’s recipes are specifically created for people on strict budgets, while Miguel Barclay is best known for his one pound meals. Maybe even try the weekly Ready Kenny Cook challenge!
 

Mr Housley - Head of Year 9

1. Paint with Bob Ross
Have any paint and brushes lying around? You’ll be pleased to know that 403 episodes of the timeless Joy of Painting have been added to YouTube so you can listen to his soothing tones while you paint happy little trees and enjoy the beauty of imperfections. 
Now, I haven’t actually ever tried to copy a Bob Ross Painting, I just watch him for the comedy value. However, we have been VERY creative with the Arts and Crafts in the Housley House as you can see.

2. Stretch out with a yoga class
If you’re trying to de-stress and stay healthy during lockdown, you’ll be pleased to know that plenty of yoga studios are now streaming online classes for you to join in with. 
A lot of studios are still running paid classes, but others, such as Digme Fitness, run free live sessions on social media. Perfect for some low-cost self-care. 
Now, this is a popular one with me. You may not know it but I love yoga and been practising it for many years. It really helps me to switch off and helps with both my physical and mental wellbeing.
  
3. Have a kitchen dance party
You can definitely have too much screen time. If workouts aren’t your thing or you just miss a good dance, put together a list of your favourite songs and dance around your kitchen. 
Don’t worry, nobody’s watching! 
Now, this one comes with a health warning. Mrs Housley and myself love music and often have a bit of a dance (much to my son's embarrassment). We had a boogy last week only to told off by our (friendly?) neighbour the following day for having the music on too loudly! WHOOPS! 


Mr Reed - Head of Year 8
Some things I have been doing whilst in isolation......

1. Come dine with me competition.  I created a menu with starter, main and desert.

2. Painted the garden fence and decking. 

3. Painted the downstairs toilet. 

4. Stripped and varnished the living room floor. 

In addition to this I have watched America’s got talent on Netflix , exercised every other day and played board games such as Yahtzee, Monopoly and Scrabble. 

Mrs Read - Head of Year  7

1. Cook something new - One thing good about spending more time at home is you have more time to cook things from scratch.  I love cooking, especially from fresh ingredients, but working so much I lost my passion a bit. I am so pleased I have found this again and cooking with my daughters has become a pleasure not a chore.  Help your parents to cook or offer to cook them a meal.  You can find great recipes online, even if you are on a limited budget like Jack Monroe’s recipes or Miguel Barclay. My favourite recipe is chicken curry.
 
2. Board games – Everyone has board games, get the family together and have some fun – I’ve done this with my girls lots, and it is such a laugh. My favourite games are Logo, What am I?, Monopoly, Battleships and The Cube, I could go on forever as my daughter just loves board games.
 
3. Go the national park – You can take a virtual tour online. I love the outdoors and really miss taking long walks but this will do for now as keeping everyone safe is far more important.
 
I hope you are all well, take some pictures of what you have been doing whilst not at school I would love to see it.

Heads of Year

It's a great time for being creative, so we hope you are enjoying the work we have set you and that you are managing to complete it to the best of your ability. We are also posting weekly challenges onto our Art Facebook page, so why not check them out and have a go.

Some of you have been emailing us images of your great work which we love to see, so we would love more. You can send us images of finished work, or work which is incomplete that you need advice on and we will get back to you. We haven't stopped awarding Connect points, so let's have a look at what you have been doing! 

We will be setting new work for most year groups from Monday 20th April so keep an eye out on Connect.
All the best, stay safe.  

The Art Team.

Although we might all be confined to our homes and doing  #geographyathome, we are asking young people to explore their wider geographical horizons by providing entries to our Young Geographer of the Year competition and explore the geography of 'The world beyond my window'.

They are interested in entries that explore the human and physical geography of places that exist beyond a young person's window, be it locally or further afield. We want to know how young people’s lives are connected to and influenced by these places - be the connections physical, digital or emotional. We also want to understand how geographical processes in the physical and human worlds have created these places and might be changing them.

The competition has four categories.

• Key Stage 3 (pupils aged 11-14)
• Key Stage 4 or GCSE (pupils aged 14-16)
• Key Stage 5 or A Level (pupils aged 16-18)

Students should enter the Key Stage category which they will be in as of 30 June 2020.
The deadline for receipt of all entries is Tuesday 30 June 2020 at 5.00pm.
For the entry forms and guidelines please visit: 

https://www.rgs.org/schools/competitions/young-geographer-of-the-year/2020-competition/

Miss J Berry
Head of Geography