There is a lot of excitement in the air, and Year 7 are still undoubtedly full of sugar from the Christmas Disco on Friday.

What a great event, with photo booth, dance mats, sweets and a slushy machine.  Some great costumes from the students and staff alike.  Not sure I will recover from seeing the Year 7 team dressed as elves!

As you can see we have a new look website, which has been redesigned for ease of use by parents, students, staff and those enquiring about staff vacancies.  There are lots of great videos to watch and information to navigate.  Let us know what you think.  Is there anything key which is missing, or are you having trouble finding something?  All feedback is greatly welcomed and can be placed on the following feedback form:

http://www.hinchingbrookeschool.net/form/?pid=23&form=22

There is lots to look forward to this week.  Monday and Tuesday sees collapsed afternoons for Personal Development.  This time the sessions are about the EU Referendum, and we get to hold our own referendum here at Hinchingbrooke School on Tuesday afternoon.  There is the Christmas Carol Concert (Wednesday 16^th) to look forward to, the Xmas Fayre (Tuesday 15^th) and various celebrations for achievement and effort.  The first of these is on Tuesday evening when Year 13 students from last year have been invited back into school for a presentation evening.  Students in Lower and Middle School have cinema mornings to look forward to on Friday.  Approximately 110 students who have earned the most 5s (for positive attitude to learning) in lessons from each form, along with form representatives and Eco Warriors will be invited along to watch a film during the course of the morning by way of a reward.  Of course you can catch up on the goings on in the PE Department by clicking on the following link to get to the Sports Report:

http://www.hinchingbrookeschool.net/page/?title=Sports+Reports&pid=471

Perhaps most exciting of all is the Year 11 Trial Exams Results Day.  All students in Year 11 will assemble in the PAC at exactly 3pm on Thursday 17^th December.  Their Head of Year, Dan Milner will then open his own GCSE Maths results in front of his year group (brave or what?) before the students receive their trial exam results.  This is done to recreate the feeling of the real results day and to give the students motivation for the New Year and beyond to the summer exam season.  Students will also then have the opportunity to work on some of the areas identified for development in the exams over the Christmas break.

There is already a lot to look forward to in the New Year.  In January 20 Year 7 students will have a week on a numeracy programme.  The recent literacy week saw 70% of students increase by an average of 1.5 sub-levels, so we hope the same, or even better will occur with the numeracy week.  There is a study skills workshop for Y11 and Y10 in January (the second of four) and an Advanced Study Skills workshop for 25 Year 11 students on 7^th January.

This week’s winners of the Golden Antlers were 8W2 (354 ‘5s’) and 10C2 (413 ‘5s’) so well done to them.  I have heard on the grapevine that Pepys have won the house cup too, so that’s fantastic!

The Theme for this Week is all about the festive season:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on that note may I take this opportunity to wish you all a fantastic Christmas and a Happy New Year.  We look forward to starting back on Monday 4^th January 2016 (Week B).

Anna Nightingale

Vice Principal