6^th October 2023

 

Dear Parents  

Thank you for all your support of your children and of us this week.  

Again, students have had a very busy week earning 2933 merit Excellent Effort Points this week as of the end of lunchtime today. This is in addition to the 294 commendations we sent earlier this week to parents whose students engaged with and submitted with tasks from their summer subject work packs.  

If your child has not received recognition yet for their effort in class, please talk to them and encourage them to go ‘that extra mile.’ Teachers are really looking out to recognise and reward every student, where they reasonably can. 

Please encourage your daughter or son to attend a Club Activity at least once a week. They can try something new and make new friends, or even just go along to a club they already know with their existing friends. Please see clubs listed on our website. 

We offer a Homework club on Tuesday and Wednesday lunchtimes, in room 71 with Ms Donnelly.  

On Monday, Creative i-Media students travelled to the Warner Brothers Studios for what turned out to be a fabulous day. 12 Year 9 students participated in the intergenerational coffee morning at the Saltwood Lads’ Club on the same day, whilst 10 Year 13 students attended a similar event for Dementia Awareness on Thursday. Our Year 9 Boys’ footballers put in a spirited performance but lost at the North School. We know they will grow from that and push on further at the next opportunity. 

This school year, our new Student Council will push forward with charity fund raising aimed at building awareness amongst our student body of issues and hardship both ‘near’ and ‘far.’ The Brockhill community raised over £1000 through our Genes for Jeans event earlier in the term and last Friday raised £300 at our Macmillan Coffee Morning. A big thank you to the students involved and to Mrs Heaton for her support of them. 

I am very happy to publish our Performing Arts Calendar to you, setting out the performances scheduled for this academic year. Performing Arts students and their teachers have dedicated themselves to re-establishing performance as a ‘staple’ of the Brockhill experience. It takes a lot of determination and hard work for a young person to go on stage and perform to a live audience and so much confidence to do this was lost during the pandemic: - it is truly inspiring to see it re-emerge with more and more students happy to and wanting to perform! We owe so much to our ‘retired’ colleagues Jackie Mortimer and Anne Johnson: - Jackie Mortimer for her continued leadership of Instep, so vital to the lives of her Dancers and to Brockhill; and Anne Johnson for her leadership of the school choir, whose members had largely moved on to university during the pandemic! You would not know it now, as new members find delight in their own and their friends’ voices! 

Performing Arts Calendar 

Finally, I would like to thank the Crosskeys bus drivers, who last Friday morning safely and quickly moved a broken down busload of students on to other buses on the way into school on Sandling Road. The students even arrived in school on time! 

Have a lovely weekend. 

Yours sincerely  

Charles Joseph 

Principal