Wow – well September flew by in the blink of an eye, my oh my!! I am rhyming for a reason by the way – Mrs McIver announced the theme for this Year’s House Poetry Competition in assembly today. Children can gain points for every entry as well as individual prizes and the first overall House prize of the academic year.

This week saw Year 7s doing their CATs tests, not to see who will be Mr Mistoffelees in a drama performance but to check cognitive progress and allow us to make targets to check their progress.  The 7 boys also played their first football match of the season, narrowly losing their English Schools’ Cup match.  The Year 8s and 6s returned to a normal curriculum after the excitement of the previous week, although some of the 8s enjoyed their first outing as Sports Leaders.  As we are in October thoughts generally turn to Hallowe’en at the end of the month and I thought Year 5 had been getting in some early practice this week, however it turns out they had been making their own blood and looking at all the different bits within.

Some of the children got to be filmed during lessons this week, not as part of the new series of either Waterloo Road or Bad Education, but as part of the OTI programme for the staff.  After the initial nerves of being on camera were overcome, things carried on as normal and the feedback from the mentor was all positive.  If you have any questions about the OTI programme then please contact me.

Next week is a busy week with author visits, sports fixtures, Year 8 Enterprise groups begin trading and the small matter of Open Evening where we open our doors to prospective parents and use our current crop of Ralphies to show off how brilliant they are.