Last month saw the return of the popular house event, House Drama. This year’s theme was based around taking a myth or legend of their choice and adapting it for a modern audience. As always, our students produced three very high-quality performances which made it rather difficult for our adjudicator, Louise Gilmour, to decide on a winner.
On Thursday 10th March, Angela Strach, the former Head of Drama at Kendrick School, visited Kendrick to speak to students about the experiences of her father, Eric Strach, and the rest of her family in relation to the Holocaust. During an Enrichment lesson, Mrs Strach spoke to all the Sixth Form, where she gave a truly moving presentation following the life of her father, which enabled us to establish a connection with the lives of those affected. Later in the day, she spoke to interested students from Years 7 - 11 and staff, going into more detail about the items she still possesses to remember her family, such as a prayer book with an inscription inside, and everyone learnt a lot about the importance of reflection and commemoration from this.
International Women’s Day is always celebrated here at Kendrick, as it is something we feel passionate about all year around. We have several displays around the school to commemorate this special day. Our monthly Inspirational Woman display in the library features four women this month.
Once again here at Kendrick we had a fabulous week celebrating World Book Day – the 25th anniversary of the event.
This year we held a Book Sale on Wednesday, selling books for the Reading branch of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups. It was so successful; we didn’t even get the chance to take a photograph of the busy event! We were sold out before the end of break and raised just over £100.00 for the local charity.
https://fcbg.org.uk/
On 14th February, the Community Committee had an opportunity to visit New Beginnings Reading to gain an insight into the work they do and discuss how we can support them in the future. We spoke with Louis, the manager of the organisation, who explained how the charity worked, which helped us develop a better understanding and appreciation of the work that he and his team have put into growing the charity and providing vital aid to many people in our community. The reality and information on the prevalence of homelessness in Reading has inspired us to work towards creating short and long term plans to support the valuable work they do.
This week is Children’s Mental Health Week and the theme this year is Growing Together.
Growing Together is about growing emotionally and finding ways to help each other grow. Challenges and setbacks can help us to grow and adapt and trying new things can help us to move beyond our comfort zone into a new realm of possibility and potential. However, emotional growth is often a gradual process that happens over time, and sometimes we might feel a bit ‘stuck’.
In Science lessons in Year 8 we cover topics in Biology, Chemistry and Physics. We aim to make the lessons fun and engaging, as well as ensuring that the students learn a lot. One of the Biology topics is Food and Digestion, and at the end of the topic the students consolidate their learning by writing 'The Journey of a Cheese Sandwich'.
We are extremely proud to announce that Sejal from Year 13 won the 2020-2021 Canterbury Tales Competition: Be Careful What You Wish For!
The organisers thanked everyone who entered their competition and reported their best ever number of entries. They also stated that the standard was extremely high, which makes it even more special that one of our Kendrick Students won the senior category for 15-18 year olds. Sejal had to write 300 words describing a character who grants wishes. Here is the winning entry:
On Saturday 29th January, Kendrick Parents Society (KPS) arranged the opening of the first uniform shop of the year in the School Conservatory.
Thanks to the generous donations of good quality second uniforms, there was plenty of stock available for those who attended the shop and items for £117.50 were sold.
Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. On this annual day of commemoration, we are urged to honour the six million Jews, victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides.
This morning Ms Kattirtzi held our first assembly of the year in person to Years 8 and 9 and remotely to the rest of the school community. We heard from our four Year 12 Holocaust Ambassadors, Izzy, Sanya, Janhavi and Eshal who talked about what they have learnt from the Lessons of Auschwitz programme they are enrolled in.
On Thursday 20th November, A Level German students took part in a study day at the British Film Institute on ‘The Legacy of East Germany in Film.’ This was the first trip the German department had run since the COVID-19 pandemic started and so was a really exciting opportunity for all the students involved.
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House Chess for Years 8 and 9 took place on Tuesday 25th January during 2nd break in the Hall.
It was very well attended with nearly 30 students taking part, all playing one or more matches against opponents from different houses. All received house points for participation and an extra point for any won games. All these points go towards the House cup. There were an equal number of participants from each house and across both year groups.