Ribston Roar 20th December 2017
Dates
Thursday 4th January Term begins 8.40 Week A
Friday 5th January Year 11 Mock Examinations begin
Monday 8th January Year 9 duke of Edinburgh Award Training 4 – 7pm
Wednesday 17th January In Service Training Day for Staff
Thursday 18th January Year 9 Parents Evening, 4.30 – 7pm
Thursday 25th January Year 9 Parents Information Evening, 6pm
Monday 29th January Year 11 Science visit to Colston Hall, Bristol
Wednesday 31st January Year 11 Results Afternoon
Thursday 1st February Year 8 Parents Evening 4.30 – 7pm
Staff Farewells
We say farewell to three colleagues at the end of term, Mrs Loveridge who is taking up a post at the High School for Girls; Mrs Richardson and Mrs Beard who are both off to embark on new adventures. On behalf of everyone may I wish them every happiness in the future.
Reminder – Wednesday 17th January is an In Service Day so school will be closed to students.
Library News
We are sorry to have to say that we have experienced some disrespect of the Library space and resources this term. In order to try and address this we are putting a few things in place after Christmas.
When students come back after the Christmas break there will be a ‘book amnesty’ up until Friday 12th January 2018. There are a large number of Library books that have been borrowed and not returned, and sadly school cannot afford to replace these resources. Please would you encourage your daughter / son to search through their bedroom over the Christmas holidays and return any books they may have lying around. There will be a box on reception for students to drop books into, they won’t have to return them to the library. After the amnesty overdue books will be chased with fines.
We have encountered an unprecedented number of damaged books this term, from soaking wet; ripped; no cover and pages missing. We appreciate that accidents do happen, but please could we encourage students to take care of School resources.
To deter some of the issues we are going to change the opening times for the Library from Thursday 4th January 2018. It will open 8.15am each morning, and will close at 4.30pm when the Librarian leaves.
Students still in School at 4.30pm after study club will be asked to move into the Dining Room, and, if you collect your daughter after 4.30pm please ensure she watches out for you, or can be contacted by mobile phone when you arrive, as we have no receptionist on duty after that time.
Study club will only run from Monday to Thursday.
Events
Philosophy Lectures
We were lucky enough to have Professor Stephen Law of the University of London to visit. Professor Law has had an interesting academic career: he failed his A Levels and worked for several years as a postman, before achieving a first class honours degree in Philosophy and moving on to post graduate study at both Oxford and Cambridge. It was during his time at Cambridge that Professor Law wrote his vastly influential paper ‘The Evil God Challenge’, which was the topic of his first talk. In short, The Evil God Challenge questions why an all good God is more likely than an all evil God a question the A Level Philosophy & Ethics students were happy to attempt to provide answers to!
Professor Law then moved on to talk to us about some of his more recent work in analytic philosophy. In particular, he presented his ideas on how to make people believe in something, whether that something is a God, an ideology or even just a blatant falsehood. His talk culminated in an explanation of brainwashing and a discussion about the controversial topic of faith schools. Once again, the Ribston students had plenty to say on this matter and certainly gave Professor Law some food for thought.
The younger years were not left out from this valuable day, as Professor Law kindly hosted a lunchtime session on whether there are questions that science cannot answer. In typical Ribston fashion, the girls all offered well thought out and engaging criticisms of Professor Law’s ideas, and many left with a newly discovered passion for Philosophy & Ethics.
In the afternoon, those students undertaking the Extended Project Qualification joined us for a lecture on critical thinking, with a focus on constructing sound philosophical arguments. Professor Law taught us all about the various kinds of fallacies and how to spot them. After a fun game of ‘spot the fallacy’, we then moved on to applying our new found knowledge and critical thinking schools to some of the most famous philosophical arguments out there: Descartes’ arguments for dualism. In just an hour, our student managed to spot the fallacies and the mistakes in Descartes’ logic, disproving his arguments entirely, a feat which took Western Philosophy several hundred years!
On behalf of Ribston Hall, I would like to thank Professor Stephen Law for his time and for imparting his invaluable experience and knowledge to us. I know the rest of the school will agree with me when I say that we all learnt a great deal, developing our critical thinking and also gaining useful new skills to be used throughout our life, not just in school.
Midsummer Night’s Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream was the perfect end to months of rehearsals. The cast was a true representation of all year groups and really did feel like a family all working together in the end. Everyone gave a significant amount of input whether directing, acting or designing and when an outside audience member described the event as a real evening out, we could only agree! The hall looked wonderful, festive and professional and we hope very much to show case something similar very soon.
A huge thank you to the Drama staff who masterminded the production.
Christmas Concert
A lovely concert was organised by the Music Team and involved a range of musical items from the traditional Boars Head Carol to very recent arrangements of well known carols. RHA organised the refreshments and a very festive evening was enjoyed by all. Thank you to all of those involved in the event.
Christmas Hampers
Thank you for all your support, initially for our Hoodies for Hampers Day which raised enough funds to create over 20 Christmas Hampers for families in Gloucester; and secondly, for your generosity in sending in food for the Homeless. We will distribute the latter via centres in Gloucester this week.
Thank you to everyone who has been involved in the organisation of a huge range of events over the last month. May I wish everyone a Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
Amanda Chong
Headteacher