Celebrating Windrush Day

Today we celebrated Windrush Day, starting with a tutor time activity to celebrate the Windrush generation, acknowledge the contributions and sacrifices of British Caribbean communities and hear the life story of Alford Gardner. For lunch, students were treated to a special menu (including an excellent goat curry: thank you, Ms Emmerson) with a live steel pan band playing on our field.

Excellence Pathway visit to UCL

On Wednesday, our Year 9 and 10 students on our Excellence Pathway visited University College London. Their visit included a campus tour, a talk about higher education, next steps and two subject taster sessions. The first subject taster session was Positive Psychology and the second, in Biomedicine and Healthcare, exploring AI’s role in personalised medicine.

Year 10 start their journey into Year 11

Thank you to all families who attended the Year 10 into Year 11 parent information evening on Wednesday. Ms Walsh and Ms Coupland shared key information about the Year 11 additional offer, support and the upcoming PPEs. A letter summarising the key points from the talk has been sent out. If you were unable to attend the event please ensure you have read the information as it contains important information (ie changes to the timings of the school day for year 11 students). We look forward to students beginning their Year 11 journey on Monday.

St Dunstan's visit

Yesterday, Year 11 students Jonathan, Bianca, Patrick, Alicia and Andrei visited St. Dunstan's College with Ms Coupland. These five top-performing and hard-working students have been offered the exciting opportunity to explore post-16 study at the school for September. They enjoyed lunch with the prefect team, toured the school's Sixth Form facilities, and learned about the comprehensive university pathway support offered by the school.

Friends of Orchard Park

In just over a month, The Friends of Orchard Park High have already raised more than £35 through parent use of the easyfundraising site: https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/friends-of-orchard-park/! This is all money that will go to support the school for the benefit of all the children who attend.

Did you know the site runs competitions for users and sometimes offers special money off voucher codes? All the main high street stores are there, including the supermarkets, e.g. Tesco will donate £1 to us each time you set up an online order via the website – even if you then go on to edit the order via your app!  So if you haven't already, please sign up and then use the site/reminder app each time you shop, so we can raise even more free donations!  

Year 9 English assessments

Finally, a huge well done to our Year 9 students who completed their English assessment in GCSE style exam conditions this week. They were impeccably behaved and worked industriously for the entire test.

Ms C Moran, Headteacher

(Image courtesy of Vecteezy.com)