Dear families,
We hope that your children have felt this was a positive return to school after the two week half term.
Updated extra & co-curricular enrichment programme
The updated copy of our enrichment programme, which includes additional activities to extend and support learning, is attached and is always available on our website at www.tgschool.net/enrichment. Students are rewarded with merits for attending activities that they have chosen to attend, and students completing activities outside of school can also record this on sheets available form student services.
For co-curricular, if teachers contact you to discuss that your child attends co-curricular subject sessions, then please consider this as a very important activity that is required to support their academic success.
Trips & Visits
We have recently had a very successful fully immersive trip to Normandy for 50 Year 9 students. This is in addition to numerous day visits for other subjects. We have also had students visit us from Städtisches Von-Müller-Gymnasium in Regensburg, Germany, developing their language skills and the cultural awareness of our students.
Students in other year groups will have recently information about these trips:
Year 7 Pantomime Trip - December 2023
Year 7 Bushcraft Residential Trip - July 2024
Year 8 Shropshire Residential Activity Trip - May 2024
Letters for all of these can be found on our website: www.tgschool.net/trips
Big Wild Walk & Sixth Form Fundraising for Macmillan
Students have been contributing to a whole range of charity events over the half term, including recording Big Wild Walks of over 800 km and Sixth Formers Jake and Freddie who have so far raised more than £3600 for Macmillan by having their heads shaved. If you would like to support these events you are very welcome to add your donation online. Also thank you to Arthur who played the last post for our time of Remembrance today and the students who represented their cadet groups and
helped in selling poppies.
Y11 Event & Revision & Sixth Form Open Evening
To support students as they prepare for exams, especially the mocks in January, we have a range of resources and events planned. On Tuesday evening we have our next subject evening for Y11 families, who will have received information earlier this week. Final details will be shared on Monday, including a printed copy of planned appointments for students. We also have a range of revision information for students at https://www.tgschool.net/revision and https://tgschool.net/sixthform/revision including the provision of Up Learn for some Sixth Form subjects and the Decide, Commit, Succeed programme for Y11 students.
Students in Year 11, and their families will already be aware about our Sixth Form Open Evening on Tuesday 21 November from 5 to 8 pm, you can find out more about the event and our Sixth Form at www.tgschool.net/sixth-form.
Support for wellbeing
There is always support for students physical and emotional wellbeing through our PSHE, tutorial and enrichment programmes as well as from specialist staff, including visiting school nurses and other agencies. We also support national initiatives which inform decisions about healthy choices for young people. The “stop before they start” campaign to create a Smoke Free Generation, including the dangers of vaping, are seeking views from families. You can find out more at https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/10/12/creating-a-smokefree-generation-andtackling-youth-vaping-what-you-need-to-know/
We also regularly speak to students about the importance of healthy sleep. If you or your children would like advice and resources to help improve sleep then we recommend the https://thesleepcharity.org.uk/national-sleep-helpline/
Sport & Languages
Well done to the students who took part in competitive fixtures this week. The under 12 girls football team never gave up this week showing real resilience. They played well, but we were up against an outstanding footballer, and unfortunately lost 6-1. The Under 16 boys rugby team gave a great performances in terrible conditions, making handling difficult. The team never gave up, winning 2 games and losing 3 at their tournament. Great effort from all students.
As well as school sport and our extra-curricular clubs we are also fortunate to host the local schools games organiser. She has been able to arrange professional badminton coaching at the school. If this would interest your child you can find out more at https://help.nationalbadminton.org.uk/introductory-offer-4x-weeks-for-10/
Our final well done is to a group of Y9 STEM students who took part in the National Languages competition which is organised by GCHQ. They had to work in teams to compete against others nationwide for the NLC 2023 trophy - awarded to the winning team at the GCHQ headquarters in Cheltenham. The tasks were language-based puzzles, where they had to demonstrate quick-thinking, code-cracking and puzzle-solving skills. Our students were a credit to TGS, they enjoyed the competition and
scored hundreds of points. Well done.
Careers newsletter
Our excellent careers newsletter has been updated again this week with new activities. This includes Green Careers, creative jobs or opportunities which employers who are coming in to school over the next few weeks to share their experiences and knowledge of Engineering, Accountancy or Animal care.
We hope that everyone enjoys the weekend and we look forward to seeing students return on Monday.
Thomas Gainsborough School