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Welcome to the first issue of The Rowntree Reporter

Welcome

Welcome to the first edition of the ‘Rowntree Reporter’. We hope that this new termly newsletter gives you a real sense of some of the things students have been involved in during the last term. We are always very proud of our students and how they embrace the wide variety of opportunities they are offered in school. I do hope you enjoy reading about these.

- Mr Hewitt, Head Teacher

Sixth Form students raised a fantastic £162 for Children in Need with their annual fancy dress day

Students take the initiative to help their local community

Work Together Collaboratively

Students from all year groups took part in a village wide litter pick as part of an initiative set up by our student council.

Mrs Jacobsen, head of Key Stage 4, said "this academic year the student leadership are focusing on proactively making a difference to issues that are really important to them; from campaigning for the environment, helping out in the community to celebrating diversity and inclusivity". The litter pick was the first of many events that the student leadership will run this year. Mrs Jacobsen added: "Students from different year groups have volunteered to get involved in a practical way, to make a difference to our local environment. With environmental issues being so topical with the ongoing COP26, they felt it was important not just to discuss the issues facing us but to do something active to make a positive impact in their own local community. The litter pick was a great success and very well received by the local residents. It is absolutely fantastic to see students at school stepping up and getting involved in the issues that are important to them. Not only are they showing an interest in important issues of the day but being motivated to get involved practically and making change happen. We are very proud of the proactive start they've made in running this event."

Mr Hewitt said: "We were delighted that our students wanted to make a difference to their local community. The students involved got a lot of positive feedback from members of the public and felt they had really improved the area that they were collecting litter in."

The students hard at work in the village

Remembrance Day 2021

Respect all Members of Our Community

This year we took time out of the school day to pay our respects to those lost, who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Harry Thompson in Year 7, seen below, performed as part of our Remembrance Day event that was live streamed to all classes in school. We also had readings from the student council, wonderful singing by the KS3 show choir and a live rendition of the last post, performed by Elliot Lawrence.

Our fantastic art department also created a wonderful display of almost 300 poppies at the front of school using old bottles. Thank you to all the staff and students who made this possible.

Lest we forget

Christmas Concert

Work Together Collaboratively

On Monday 13th December, members of the Vaudeville team gathered for the rehearsals and recorded performance of the 2021 Christmas Concert. Over 60 musicians and performing arts students were involved in this exciting day. Whilst a live audience was not with us for the recording, our amazing students created a hugely supportive atmosphere for each performance, ranging from Show Choir, Dance Company, The Chamber Ensemble group and a number of auditioned soloists from across all year groups in the school. It was wonderful to bring all these hard working musicians and performers together for the day to share in this experience. A positive of having the concert online is that performers can enjoy watching the performance at home with family and friends. Links to the filmed concert are still available for purchase at £2 from family ParentPay accounts. Thank you and congratulations to all involved.

Rewards and Thank You Week

Recognise Excellence

December is certainly the month for rewards and praise here at The Joseph Rowntree School. We started the festive season early with rewards breakfasts for each Key Stage 3 year group. Students invited had the top combined ATL (Attitute To Learning) and ILG (Independent Learning Grade) scores for this term. This shows both an excellent attitude and commitment to work in the classroom, but also in their independent learning and homework! Students enjoyed Bacon Sandwiches, Cheese Bagels, Drinks and Festive Songs around the Christmas Tree, waited on by Assistant Headteacher Mrs Clarke. This was followed by the Lesson Referral Pizza Lunches for each year group for students with the highest number of referrals from lessons this term! It is reported that the height of the pizza delivery each day was in excess of 1.5 metres!

We then moved on to Thank you week, where both students and staff exchange thank you messages to each other during form time. This is always a lovely week in the form time calendar. Teachers can send messages to individuals or groups, thanking them for pieces of work and good deeds in their lessons. Meanwhile students have the opportunity to write thank you notes to members of staff, which are delivered by their pastoral team.

Finally in the last week of term is the termly rewards assembly for each year group. A number of prizes are awarded to a large number of students each day in this final week. Congratulations and thank you to all students who have been a part of these celebrations.

Extra-curricular Activities

Encourage Wellbeing

Our extracurricular programme of activities continues to grow. There are opportunities for all of our students both at lunch times, before school and after school. Many of our clubs and events now have such a high number of students attending, they have to limit numbers in some sessions. Highlights this half term have been the slime session in the science club, not to mention the eye dissections in the previous week. Skittles club has created many opportunities for our young people in both KS3 and KS4 lunches, alongside Many Voices, who have worked together to highlight Black History Month and Cultural Diversity across our school community. The drama club has had to audition a number of groups for the final concert due to the large amount of students. Dance Company is now rehearsing weekly in Vaudeville, as is the Show Choir for KS3 and Vocal Harmony for Upper School. While the Chamber Ensemble can be heard serenading the school on a Wednesday morning before tutor time: that is dedication! Move to Design and we have weekly textiles groups, PE has a daily event or match, including netball, football and badminton. Our library is open for students at lunchtimes, all run by our amazing student librarian group and you can even join the book club, get a free book each term and meet up fortnightly to join in the discussion. The list does go on, check out our school website or the School Community Weduc App for up to date information. A special thanks to all the staff and student leadership teams who make all these amazing opportunities happen!

We would like to congratulate Sophia Suddaby on some exciting political news! Sophia is our Deputy Head Girl, and also sits on the York Youth Council. She has recently been elected to be the York Member of the UK Youth Parliament for 2021-2023. This is a tremendous achievement and reflects all the hard work, time and effort Sophia has invested into the York Youth Council. Sophia will attend campaigns and conventions at the Houses of Parliament, representing York. We hope she enjoys her time at Westminster and we are very confident she will represent both York, and our school, fantastically. Congratulations Sophia!

Care Home Christmas Postcards

Respect all Members of our Community

During the lockdown of 2020, students in school wrote postcards to our neighbours in residential homes across our catchment area. These chatty and friendly messages were very well received from communities who were very limited on face to face visitors at the time. We made some wonderful links with local homes during this activity, and wanted to make contact again this Christmas. Students across Year 7, 8 and 9 have had the opportunity to write a Christmas Postcard message once again to our local community. These have been delivered and we hope they add to the Christmas cheer over the festive period.

Celebration of Achievement

Recognise Excellence

On Tuesday 7th December we held our Annual Celebration of Achievement in the Vaudeville Theatre. It was wonderful to provide the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the amazing achievements of our students in the previous academic year through subject prizes, pastoral awards, the governors awards for top results, and our main trophies. As was mentioned regularly in the speeches and citations, students across this year demonstrated huge amounts of resilience and adaptation in ever changing circumstances, and it was a privilege to celebrate their successes. Families had the opportunity to join the ceremony via a live stream. Special mentions go to the following students:

Percy Roberts Student Council Award - Emma Long

David Harry Award - Ellis Marshall

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation Trophy - Sophia Suddaby

The Chada Trophy - Callum Reeson

Congratulations to all students who took home an award!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Duke of Edinburgh Award

Teach and Learn Through Inspiration

In a year full of unprecedented challenges, our young people stepped up and played an integral role in supporting our local communities to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Students continued with their DofE activities, writing to people who felt isolated, shopping for people who were unable to face crowds and generally working hard within the community – a huge force for good, dedicating over 1000 hours of volunteering to local communities at a time when they needed it most.

Luckily restrictions were lowered during the summer term and we were able to get out and complete the expedition sections for Bronze, Silver and Gold awards. The Silver group got the added bonus of their expedition being on the hottest weekend of the year!

This autumn term we have already had a further 40 Year 9 students begin their journey on the DofE scheme so the force for good continues.

The photo shows the Silver group shading from the heat.

School House Update

Nurture Talent

After a fantastic first term back at The Joseph Rowntree School, the house competitions are in full swing. Students from across all year groups have been sending in amazing entries to represent their house. We've had our own bake off to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support, a well-being photography competition, a redesign challenge for our antibullying posters, the creation of subject specific postcards, and pledges of acceptance and tolerance from forms for Inter-Faith Week. Following Willow House's win in Half-Term 1, Oak House have been triumphant in this Christmas build-up with a non-school uniform day as a prize! Perhaps the underdogs for this Half Term, Oak house came from last place to first place, primarily due to the sheer amount of green stamps they've received in comparison to a very low number of reds as a house - a fantastic effort from the whole house!

I'm very much looking forward to everything that is in store in the new year, and I hope you all are too!

Have a very merry Christmas!

- Miss Vizard

Winning Form Acceptance Pledge - 7EB

“As a form we always try to be amazing by looking after our environment and the people around us. We support each other inside and outside of school, working in the local community. In form we stay up to date with the news to better educate ourselves with the world around us.

We also pledge that if we hear or see any discrimination, we will call it out and help those that need our support. We pledge to be the kindest and nicest form!”

Save the Date!

Nurture Talent

We are delighted to announce that Vaudeville Productions will be opening the Vaudeville Theatre once again on 22nd - 24th March 2022. We are very excited to announce that we will be staging a Jr. Production from Josef Weinberger. The focus of this production will centre on Key Stage 3 performers and will be double cast to allow for twice the opportunity to fly high or sail the seas of success (oooh are there some clues in that?!) The last major Production for Vaudeville was The Addams Family In February 2020, so we have a number of students who are yet to experience the thrill of Vaudeville and March will provide the perfect opportunity for this, before our full scale production in July. Do check out our Decade of Vaudeville celebration to see for yourself what our incredible performing arts department has achieved in past productions. Audition and Rehearsal information will be available for students in the New Year.

The Addams Family - February 2020

Thank you for taking time to read our first Rowntree Reporter, we look forward to sharing more fantastic stories with you next term. Happy Christmas!