Week B - Beginning 4th July 2016
Business as usual on Tuesday 5th July 2016 despite the strike action by the NUT...all students should be in school as normal
Another fantastic week is about to unfold. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week, we welcome the Year 6 students to Hinchingbrooke for their transition days. They have a day of sports and team building, taster lessons and lots more to look forward to. This week’s theme relates to the fact that the students already here need to set the tone and show just how fantastic we are. On Wednesday evening we welcome the parents to the Taster Evening, to relay all the vital information and for them to get to meet their son/daughter’s form tutor for next academic year. Exciting times.
As the year comes to a close, the evenings fill up with all sorts of fabulous events. On 24th June the Year 11 Prom took place, and wow. The students looked fabulous and behaved impeccably. Below are a range of photos from the casino themed evening, so you can all see how amazing our students looked on the night. They really have deserved to let their hair down and some are even still in school trying to secure themselves another qualification (ECDL).
There is Glastonbrooke planned on Tuesday evening – let’s hope there is not as much mud to contend with as Glastonbury this year. We have our fantastic orators off to Eaton School (yes that one) to do debating battle in the PiXL National finals on Wednesday 6th. There is the opening of the New Energy Sports Hall by the Olympics Gymnastics Coach, Paul Hall, swiftly followed by the Sports Awards on Thursday 7th July. To round the week off there is a Year 12 Sixth Form Induction Day for the Year 11s on Friday 8th.
Woven throughout all of these events is the Year 9 Art Exam and the Year 10 MFL Speaking Controlled Assessments. We had 81 Year 10 students out on their Duke of Edinburgh adventures in Peterborough over the weekend and the Business students ran a citrus stall in Huntingdon as part of their business plan. On Monday our buddying mathematicians are off to Bletchley, no doubt to solve a few codes. Come Friday it’s the turn of the Silver Duke of Edinburgh students who are off to the wilds of Derbyshire for their main expedition. Also over the weekend the Geographers are off to Shropshire with the Year 10 students and the Science lot are off on their Dale Fort Biology Field Trip…Phew…so much going on…so many opportunities for our students to grab with both hands!
The Art Interhouse will come to an end this week (come on Pepys) and the results are in for the Reading Competition…wait for it…
1st Wylton (184 books read)
2nd Cromwell (78 books read)
3rd Vesey (72) books read)
…so a confounding, runaway win for Wylton. Well done to them. In the Golden Antlers this week it has been a resounding win for Vesey, with both 7V1 and 10V1. Again the win for 7V1 was by a country mile. So I will say again…COME ON PEPYS!!!!!!
With the opening imminent of the New Energy Sports Hall and the exam season is over, we can concentrate on developing an amazing new food court located at the Old Sports Hall site.
This will transform the dining facilities at Hinchingbrooke and be at the very heart of the school. We will more than triple our current dining capacity, there will be a more diverse menu to suit everyone’s taste buds and budget and the plan is to have all of this ready for use from the beginning of September. An ambitious plan and timescale, but one that we are confident we can achieve.
As part of the ongoing improvements, especially the need to reduce queuing times, we will be installing an updated cashless catering system. The system will function just the same as the old one, using finger image technology, but it will be faster and more reliable.
To enable us to deploy this new system there are a few things the school needs to do:
1) Reregister your child’s finger image with the system - this is the same process as when they started school with us. We will carry this out in the next few weeks before the end of term. The process will take about 10 minutes per form group so the disruption to your child’s school day will be minimal.
2) Disable the Parentmail PMX online dinner money top-ups for about 1 week during the summer holidays. This is so we can ensure that any existing cash balances are transferred correctly to your child’s account. We will inform you of the exact dates nearer the time. The system will be back online in plenty of time for you to top up your child’s dinner money account before the start of next term.
Thank you for your cooperation in this exciting new development. If you have any comments or concerns please email communications@hinchbk.cambs.sch.uk
And on that exciting note…have a fabulous week.
Anna Nightingale
Vice Principal