Newsletters

30th October 2018 

School News

The first academic half term of 2018/19 has gone really well with a huge amount of events taking place; we have been very busy! Things such as the Year 11 & 13 Celebration evening, the Grammar School’s Entrance test, Year 7’s visit to Croft Farm, special GCSE skills and preparation days for Year 10 & 11 as well as our Year 6 Open day and many rehearsals from our upcoming theatre production of ‘Annie’. This Ribston roar is to share as much of our first 6 weeks with you as possible. Happy reading!

Sarah Colombini, Headteacher

RHHS Consultation to increase our PAN (Pupil Admissions Number) to 150 from 2020

As you will be aware, we wrote to all of RHHS’ stakeholders at the end of the summer term to explain that the governors and I were consulting on a potential increase to our PAN in September 2020. We sent a response to consultation letter out to parents just before half term and we would like to let you know that the governors of RHHS have ratified the decision to increase our PAN to 150 in 2020. We have also decided to go over to 150 PAN for 2019.

New Deputy Head at RHHS 

After interviews in the early part of the autumn term, I am very pleased to announce that Mr Alec Waters is now RHHS’ new Academic Deputy Headteacher. Mr Waters is very experienced and we are delighted that he has accepted this position. He will be focussing on T&L at RHHS and how we can improve further our student's learning experience. 

October's Ribston Roar lion!

Mr Gareth Collins, the Curriculum lead in charge of the Design team asked students at RHHS to design a new lion for the Ribston Roar.

The very talented Jasmine Marshall in Year 8 did this spectacular drawing. The power and the presence in this picture blew us all away! 

We are looking forward to more students producing lion representations for us this year so that we can use them for the next few Ribston Roar newsletters.

Sporting and Performing Arts News

Year 8 Sports Leaders Project

A group of enthusiastic sports leaders have been trained by Mrs Stennett to lead activities in our local primary schools after half term. They will be focusing on setting personal challenges for the pupils they work with as well as helping to develop their physical literacy. The RHHS students will be acting as ambassadors for the school alongside developing their own leadership skills. The first two school to benefit from this project will be Coopers Edge and Castle Hill primary schools.

Seren Jones in Year 8 won the Gloucestershire Cross Country League on Saturday 13th Sept. Seren is now ranked 4th in the Country for the U13 Girls aged group; a fantastic achievement.

Isobel Thurlow in Year 10 attended the 2018 Dance World Cup in the Summer as part of Team England and competed in 12 dances, gaining 3 bronze medals and a gold medal for her efforts. An amazing achievement that demonstrates Izzy’s ability; we are excited to see how her dance career progresses over the coming years.

Duke of Edinburgh Silver Awards achieved in terrible weather conditions!

The following Year 11 and 12’s passed their Silver D of E awards after severe weather conditions at the beginning of October. Very well done to Katie Colwill, Beth Fowles, Katie Smith, Ellena Hunt, Meghan Riley, Madeline Websper and Hannah Brown.

Tanzania 2020 Expedition Launch 

We are very excited to announce the launch of our expedition for July 2020, which will be to Tanzania.  We will be travelling and working with Camps International, an organisation with over 15 years’ experience in running volunteer projects and school expeditions across four continents.  Their ethos is to work to solve global problems on a local scale.  They consult with locals on projects they really need and the projects are designed to have maximum, long-term impact on the communities they partner with.

Tanzania is East Africa’s largest country and for many it is the ultimate wildlife destination; National Parks and wildlife game reserves cover a large proportion of the landscape. It has a beautiful landscape mix of lush tropical forests, savannah grasslands and mountains, however, poverty is widespread in rural Tanzania; many don’t have access to clean drinking water, healthcare, education or proper sanitation. We will be undertaking community and wildlife environmental projects for 3 weeks, whilst staying with local communities, followed by a 2 day safari and a 4 day trek on Mount Meru.

We currently have a team of 17 students signed up and keen to begin their fundraising for the trip.  We will be very grateful for the support of the school community, so please look out for lots of exciting events being held over the next 18 months around school and beyond.

Subject News

Food Science –A level students attend a Summer School at Cardiff Metropolitan University

We attended a food science course that included understanding food labelling, food in industry, sensory analysis and food fraud. We were able to use our creativity and knowledge to create a new product that related to a brief. We were also able to visit a nearby factory to see for ourselves the processes that take place to make a sellable product. If you are interested in having a career in the food industry OR are just interested in food I would highly recommend this course! Written by Rhian Smith, Year 13 Food Science student.

Religious Studies Day commemorating the ‘International Day of Peace’

The International Day of Peace ("Peace Day") is observed around the world each year on 21 September. Established in 1981 by unanimous United Nations resolution, Peace Day provides a globally shared date for all humanity to commit to Peace above all differences and to contribute to building a Culture of Peace. To commemorate this day the R.S. department ran a selection of activities to enable students to reflect on conflict around the world and how we can reach peace; including poetry for peace, debating famous statements about peace and conflict, and labelling places that were currently in conflict and reflecting on this. The R.S. department looks forward to running a similar lunchtime to celebrate Diwali after half term.

Modern Foreign Language Bake Off Returns!

Monday, October 15th saw the return of the famous MFL Bake Off. The two main categories were International Bakes and International Showstoppers. The overall winner was Aaminah Saleem for her topical and innovative Royal Wedding Crown. Star Baker awards were also won by Amelia Villacis, Isabel Kear, Jenaye Kelly-Smith, Sangeetha Joshy, Amelie Owen, Isabella Smith, Zaina Grainwalla, Millie Sharpe and Eve Wheaton for overall taste experience, creative design and technical excellence.

Once again the MFL Department was amazed by the high standard and the sheer volume of entries. This helped to make Open Evening a great success.  All profits from the cake sales will go to Macmillan Cancer Support and World Challenge. The MFL Department would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who contributed.

History & Art - First World War Commemoration

With the centenary of the end of the First World War approaching on November 11^th 2018, Ribston Hall History and Art Departments have recently taken part in two exciting projects.

On our Open Evening, on Monday 15^th October, the History Department invited visitors to take part in the Royal British Legion’s ‘Everyone Remembered’ campaign; a truly historic and incredibly significant act of Remembrance.  The Royal British Legion, as the UK’s national custodian of Remembrance is working with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to keep alive the memory of all those who died in the First World War by the end of the centenary in 2018.  Their objective is to ensure every fallen hero from across the Commonwealth is remembered individually by those living today.

Visitors to Ribston on Monday were invited to use the online database to search for a soldier and remember him by writing his name on a cross, which could be taken away or left as part of our remembrance display. You can still get involved, whether or not you already have someone in mind to remember. Just search for any name on the homepage and follow a couple of simple steps. You can ‘plant’ a digital poppy, write a remembrance message and even upload photos and a story if you have them.  You can also find out about other remembrance activities on the Royal British Legion website: https://www.everyoneremembered.org/about/        https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/

Remembrance poppies are available for a donation from now until November 11^th at school.  Students can also come along to the history Department and add a soldier’s name to our display.

In July 2018, the Art Department took part in the ‘Glos 100 WWI Art Competition: Winning Hearts and Minds’ in conjunction with Gloucester Guildhall.  Selected students from our current Year 9 submitted some fantastic photographs around this theme and we are delighted to announce that 3 of the students have won prizes!  We will have a visit from the competition organiser to award the prizes and give a talk about the First World War shortly.

Here are some of the photographs that were submitted.

Getting Students Prepared for GCSE – new to the PSHE programme.

Year 10 – Exam Skills and Study day

On 24^th September, we were taken off timetable to receive a selection of lessons on ‘How to make the most of Year 10’. I found this day useful. It was good to hear about different revision techniques – many people particularly enjoyed discovering whether they were a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learner. This was helpful because it enables us to tailor our revision to this in the future. We received tips on how to make the most of each lesson, including notetaking and skim reading. We also had sessions on our wellbeing and careers that were incredibly helpful and important. We were introduced to UniFrog, which is a brilliant app – I am looking forward to spending more time exploring this to help me set my goals to keep me motivated. This was an informative day that helped us to consider whether our revision strategies are working and how we can improve the way we work to make it more effective.

Written by Evie De-Gruyther, 10S

Year 11 'Preparing for your Examinations' day

On Friday 5^th October, Year 11 took part in a whole day of revision, study skills and wellbeing activities to help us prepare for our examinations.

In the morning, we had a carousel of seminars.  First, we had a talk about how Psychology can inform productive revision, followed by a seminar on different study resources, such as productive flash cards.  We also had the opportunity to learn about writing effective revision timetables that has helped some students with time management, space out workload and prioritise subjects. A seminar on English examination techniques was also helpful for many of our subjects.   Finally, in the afternoon, we had a well-deserved yoga session with Mrs Woodcock, which was a fun and relaxing way to end the day. Overall we learnt valuable revision techniques and how to properly manage our time before examinations.  Most importantly, we learnt how to relax and look after ourselves too.

Written by Izzy Charles and Iman Raja, Year 11.