We have been celebrating National Poetry Day with our very own Poetry Slam events. Students from across the year groups have been competing with poetry performances to gain competition points for their houses. In this house competition, students gained points for memorisation and preparation, verbal presentation and non-verbal performance. We had judges from across our houses, including teachers, support staff and our 6th Form Library Leaders. The event was hosted and organised by our librarians with fresh and funny poems that connect our students with poetry in a fun and relatable way.

We are delighted to share the incredible story of Aston Smith, 10B, and his amazing summer celebrating one of the year’s most exciting astronomical events.

Aston has always been fascinated by space, so when he heard about the solar eclipse on 12 August, he was determined to share the experience with as many people as possible. He decided to organise a special eclipse viewing party for his local estate, inviting the community to come together and safely watch this spectacular event.

Aston’s charity, UK Astronomy, generously donated hundreds of pairs of specially designed solar-viewing glasses, which Aston gave to community members attending the event.

Back in July, Eve, Year 13, was delighted to secure a last-minute call-up to represent England at the Junior Squash World Championships in Toronto, Canada. Despite the inevitable nerves, Eve had a fantastic tournament, winning 3 out of 4 matches in her pool.

Our Year 12 English Literature students took their study of Othello beyond the classroom by performing key scenes from Shakespeare's tragedy in the school's amphitheatre.

We are so proud of our Year 12 Library Leaders, Senia and Badriyah. They have been participating in the Library Leader Award Programme, supported by the School Library Association, since Year 8 and are our highest achieving leaders to date, currently at Gold Award. The training programme provides library leaders with a wealth of transferable skills and opportunities to show ambition in promoting reading, literacy and the library. Senia and Badriyah delivered their library projects as part of working towards their Platinum Award, the highest level of achievement, which is an accolade worth celebrating.