We look forward to welcoming our students back to school on Monday 17th April.

The production not only gave students an opportunity to perform on stage, but it also unites them to share in their enjoyment for developing new skills, collaborate to achieve a shared challenge and build new relationships. By performing to an invited audience of primary schools from Croxby, Hallgate and Westfield, Year 5 & 6 students can experience what opportunities Cottingham High School will give to them when they transition to KS3.  The school will feel familiar to them when they attend, as well as being able to recognise the familiar faces of those students they saw perform in the show.

Modeshift STARS is the Centre of Excellence for the delivery of Effective Travel Plans in Education, Business and Community settings. The scheme recognises schools, businesses and other organisations that have shown excellence in supporting cycling, walking and other forms of sustainable active travel. Further information on Modeshift can be found here.

Throughout the year, Penshurst have created, developed and implemented a range of Effective Travel Plans to bring about a change in travel behaviour and to reduce the number of single occupancy vehicle journeys to and from school. This included The Big Walk and Wheel scheme, which the school developed to encourage their pupils to be more active and to walk, bike or scoot to school.

Rocksteady Music School offer in-school rock and pop band sessions to make learning music fun and to give children the chance to be in a band, perform songs they love and learn new skills.

The morning began with a whole school assembly. Tim, from Rocksteady, focused on demonstrating and discussing what the instruments are and how to play them. This was followed by two separate workshops involving KS2 pupils and KS1 pupils. For the first workshop with KS2 pupils, Tim had a more ‘grown-up’ approach with the children and used the well-known rock song, Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi, to teach them the basic tunes behind the song in a fun and interactive manner. For the KS1 workshop, Tim had to adapt for the younger pupils, making the tunes behind the song ‘Shotgun’ by George Ezra easier for them to learn and understand – and of course making it fun and very amusing!

Each year has a different theme to celebrate the important day, and this year’s global campaign theme is #EmbraceEquity. The campaign aims to encourage important conversations on Why equal opportunities are not enough and Why equal is not always fair.

Colleagues at the Trust shared a picture of themselves striking the IWD #EmbraceEquity pose.

Other Schools across the Trust have also 'embraced' International Women's Day, sharing images of their staff striking the #EmbraceEquity pose.

The event was first created in 1995 by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing and copywriting; World Book Day is now a worldwide celebration across more than 100 countries. The mission now, is to promote reading for pleasure, offering every child in full-time education the opportunity to have a book of their own, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Penshurst Primary were particularly focused on this, giving their students and parents the option to dress their child as either a word or a character from their favourite novel. Michelle Preston, Penshurst's Head of School, gave us her view on how the school celebrated World Book Day.

With a bright and early start on Sunday 12th February, our staff and students prepared for their trip to Leysin, Switzerland, including a very smooth coach journey from France to Leysin where they stopped for a well deserved coffee/hot chocolate with a croissant for their breakfast!

On the evening of Thursday 9 February, staff and students prepared for their trip to Iceland and headed off to Manchester International Airport to board their flight to Keflavik International Airport. Upon arrival, the team took part in a guided tour of Reykjavik and enjoyed some free time for shopping on Laekjargata Street before heading back to the hotel for a well deserved rest.

Day two included a bright and early start, sightseeing and completing the Golden Circle Tour, visiting Gullfoss Waterfall and the Great Geysir, followed by a talk at the Hellisheidi Power Station. 

On day three, students continued their exploring and visited the South Shore to see the dramatic active volcanic landscape as well as visiting the Skogafoss and Seljalandsfoss Waterfalls. The Solheimajokull Glacier was the final stop for the amazing views followed by a visit to the Reynishverfi Black Beach which overlooked incredible views of sea stacks and Dyrolaey.