Weekly Information - Friday 28th June 2024

Parents/Carers, please be reminded that school will not be open to pupils on Friday 5th July. 

The following students celebrated their achievements with Mrs Cochrane this week, congratulations to them all!

This morning, Mrs Cochrane celebrated the success of our pupils who have generously given their time as role models for the Year 7 Buddy Reading Intervention sessions. They all enjoyed a delicious hot chocolate and explained exactly what the Year 7 Buddy Reading Intervention is all about.

The scheme which is overseen by the LRC Manager Mr Weighall, is an initiative that pairs Year 10 and Year 7 students to help support and build their literacy skills and confidence in reading. Mr Weighall said ‘I am really proud of this group of students. The kindness and dedication they have shown to the year 7 pupils has been admirable and this shows in the progress the Year 7 have made.’

Well done to our Year 10 students; Olivia, Tilly, Anah, Evie, Charlotte, Abigail, Darcie, Chloe, Frazer, Maja, Riley, Maserah, Scarlett and Molly.

The Year 10 students said ‘the scheme is brilliant as it helps younger students find their passion for reading. It is also really pleasing to see the progress they have made over the year. We have all formed friendships with our Year 7 buddies and hope they can come to us if they have any worries or questions too.’

It was a pleasure to also have Ethan and Maddox attend the celebration as they were unable to join last week where we celebrated their success in participating in the Careers Logo Competition. To find out what this entailed, read our previous article here: John Taylor High School eNewsletter (jths.co.uk)

Mrs Cochrane enjoyed hearing what the students were enjoying over the weekend too; activities included playing in a band at a fete, preparing for DofE, relaxing after competing in a swimming gala and heading to London for the school trip to Parliament. It was a delight for Mrs Cochrane to find out more about our students hobbies and interests outside of the classroom and great to see they are continuously striving to achieve their personal excellence!

On 27^th June the sun was shining as our pupils took to the track to compete in the much-anticipated Sports Day to determine who would be crowned as House Champions.

The morning session kicked off with Shot Putt, Discuss, Long jump, Javelin, 1500m & High Jump for Year’s 7-10. There were some remarkable results and perfect techniques from the pupils! A group of students were also taken to Barton Bowls Club to compete in a friendly environment which they all thoroughly enjoyed. The opportunity to play bowls built their confidence and cemented the fact that sport is inclusive and accessible to everyone. The group got the opportunity to socialise and most importantly have lots of fun together.

Back on field after lunch it was then time for the 300m, 200m, 100m final and relay race. Mr Twynham took to the microphone as the announcer and set the tone for the afternoon events! To say the atmosphere was electric is an understatement. It was admirable to see the team-spirit, determination and sporting talent amongst the pupils as they set their eyes on the finish line. The support from the side-lines was spectacular which only added to the thrilling atmosphere.

The races finished with the traditional teachers relay which was a real spectacle for our pupils who all cheered and chanted for their chosen teachers. A special mention goes to the sixth form team who brilliantly competed in fancy dress!

The day ended on a real high. The scores were counted and the winners presentation commenced. Congratulations to:

• Marchington, who won the Sports Day Shield as overall winners.
• Marchington, who won the House Rose Bowl for having the most house merits.
• Kingstone, who won the House Cup for winning the house matches.

As well as the hive of sporting activity, there were other events taking place on the field throughout the day. We had students fundraising for multiple charities by organising games such as hook-a-duck, guess the amount of sweets, what’s in the box, a penalty shoot-out and more! Well done to you all!

We were also joined by our local elderly residents who had been invited to come and watch Sports Day and enjoy some delicious cakes, served by Mrs Berry and her team of Young Sporting Ambassadors. The residents thoroughly enjoyed their afternoon and was lovely for them to see the pupils in action. They were so thankful to have been invited and left with a handwritten letter & bookmark from the Young Sporting Ambassadors.

A huge thank you goes to everyone for making Sports Day 2024 a success. It was a wonderful and memorable day planned to perfection by Mrs Williams and the PE department!

Back in May, Mrs Cochrane recognised a group of talented students for their fantastic effort in the ‘Poetry By Heart’ competition, however the students have now received further praise by the ‘Poetry by Heart’ officials.

Mrs Craddock, who facilitated the competition for John Taylor High School was over-joyed to learn that Juppnie, Suhavi, Maisie and Alexander had been awarded a ‘Commendation’, Felicity has been awarded ‘Highly Commended’ and Ella has remarkably been awarded ‘Best in County’.

The ‘Poetry by Heart’ competition is a nationally run poetry recital competition which is open to all year groups, sixth form and staff and the first year anyone from John Taylor High School has entered. However, it was this small group of Year 8 students who have been the real trailblazers for the initiative and set the bar high.

The students had to pick from a specific list and learn poems to recite. The focus was on both their understanding of the poem and their delivery of it. Genres included ‘romantic, friendships, beauty and fantasy.’ Mrs Craddock said ‘ I am so incredibly proud of this group of students, their perseverance and dedication was wonderful to see. They represented the school exceptionally and I am so pleased they have been recognised by the ‘Poetry by Heart’ officials. The students all agreed that they thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity and look forward to entering again next year’.

Well done to all those involved!

This morning, eight excited pupils set off to spend the morning at the local Wincanton Logistics Depot organised by Mrs Ball, Careers Lead.

Wincanton Logistics are a national supply chain company with an extremely impressive warehouse and haulage fleet meaning our students got the fantastic opportunity to have access to all areas.

Joining the students was the Managing Director, Head of Inclusion, PR Manager and other Wincanton Employees who were keen to give our students a great experience. It was wonderful for our students to get a deeper understanding of the many different career paths within one organisation and see for themselves the variety job roles available to suit different skill-sets.

As part of the visit, the group had a personalised tour, watched machinery in action and got to sit in the driver’s seat of the lorry’s. It was great for the students to have a Wincanton employee on hand to answer the many questions they had. It was clear that all the employees were extremely passionate about the industry they worked in and were great advocates for Wincanton as an employer of choice.

Thank you to all those involved and well done to the students who were a real credit to the school.

Mr Twynham would like to give a special commendation to the pupils on the Number 4 bus on Wednesday 26th June.

Unfortunately due to a situation out of the control of the driver, his bus had a tyre blow out which led to a window being smashed and glass covering the pavement. the driver's first priority was the safety of the pupils and the public where thankfully nobody was hurt.

With the help of local residents, the pupils of the Number 4 bus sprang into action to help with the clear up, sweeping the pavements and keeping spirits high. We are really proud of how the students stayed calm and showed true kindness towards their community. This underpins our school motto; 'One community striving for personal excellence'. The pupils have represented the school wonderfully and we have received lots of lovely messages from residents and parents within the community who witnessed what had happened.

Thank you and well done to all those involved. 

Over the last week, all students in years 7 to 10 have had an assembly about our focus areas for behaviour expectations for the rest of the academic year. As always, we try to link this to our school values, and this term we will be focusing on 'Integrity' and 'Kindness'

Integrity

Our school expectation linked to integrity is being 'Punctual and Prepared'. The strong focus is on students being on time to each and every lesson. Students are regularly reminded about the importance of being in their lessons ready to learn for the start of the lesson. This means that they maximise their learning and do not disturb other students. When students are late they have this recorded as a 'late mark' and this includes the amount of minutes they are late. Where possible, the teacher will then keep them after the lesson for this amount of time and to find out why they were late. Students who are persistently late may be placed onto punctuality report.

Kindness

Linked to kindness, we are focusing on 'No Physical Contact'. Some students can sometimes get over exuberant, particularly with their friends. This includes playfighting, headlocks, pushing and pulling too aggressively and is not appropriate. It has been explained to students that this may result in someone getting hurt or upset. In order to support us in this focus, students will receive a reminder if a member of staff needs to speak to them about this. If we have to issue 3 reminders then they will receive an after school detention. The system is designed to be fair and allow students to be reminded of our expectations before there is a sanction.

The after school detention system is administered by members of our pastoral support team and run by the senior leadership team. They will not know the details of the type of physical contact but just that students have received 3 reminders from members of staff. If your son or daughter does receive an after school detention, you will be informed of this at least 24 hours in advance as with uniform detentions. These pastoral staff will not be able to give you any further details of what each reminder was given for, however, students will have had this explained when they were issued.

We are grateful for the support of our families in all aspects of the school, including behaviour expectations.

The image below was used in these assemblies: