This week is Children’s Mental Health Week and the theme this year is ‘Express Yourself’. Expressing yourself is about finding ways to share feelings, thoughts, or ideas, through creativity. It is about finding a way to show who you are, and how you see the world, that can help you feel good about yourself.
Holocaust Memorial Day, 27th January 2021, marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. Remembering the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, we bear witness for those who endured genocide, and honour the survivors and all those whose lives were changed beyond recognition.
Physics students have continued to take part in competitions since the start of the year, despite extra logistics to running them safely.
As You Like It
Kendrick School
Appraised by Bethany Appleton
This December in the library we decided it would be more fitting to have our Window Advent Calendar revealing Acts of Kindness instead of Christmas books etc. Each morning during registration the tutors have been reading out the ‘acts’ as suggestions for us to try. They have been wide ranging from donating to charity to smiling at a stranger. It has been a reminder to us all that a very small kind gesture can make a HUGE impact on the person receiving it. Everyone deserves a little happiness!
In honour of Jane Austen's 245th birthday and the first of our school-wide literary birthday celebrations this year, Mrs Munns from the English department provided some fun and fascinating activities for students, on the attached sheet. As well as the whole school activities, GCSE and A Level students who are studying Austen’s novels also enjoyed seminars on the social and cultural contexts of Jane Austen.
On profiling day, one of our activities was to go to the library and look at some of the career’s resources. I hadn’t looked at them much before, but the library has a wide range of books about choosing careers, what qualifications you need and what careers relate to specific subjects at school.
On Thursday 10th December, Year 7 crafters got to enjoy the fun and fascinating craft of origami. We made Father Christmas decorations, which were quite easy, once we had mastered the art of sharp folds and points. But the results were very effective, and we ended up with quite a family of Father Christmases! Thank you to Mrs Glaister for sharing her skills and expertise.
Well done to all the participants of the School Council's Christmas Bake off, we received photos of some amazing bakes. There were beautifully decorated cakes, gingerbread houses, yule logs and lots more festive treats! It was delightful to see so many excellent entries, especially during these challenging times.
Thank you to everyone for entering the competition; the librarians thoroughly enjoyed reading the accounts of what our students thought the character Lyra would do if faced with a pandemic as we are now.
The standard of writing was incredible and it was a tough decision choosing a winner. With the help of Ms. Fieldsend, our Head of English, Tvishi in year 8 came out on top with her excellent narrative, imaginative ideas as well as the pace and energy of her piece of writing. Congratulations Tvishi!
In a year that has seen many cancellations and challenges, it is lovely that we can still have positive events. The annual Inter-form Dance is always a joy: the teamworking that it encourages, the fun for the students in working to the set theme and the excitement of the competition sessions. It is a privilege to be able to be involved in the judging process, although often this is quite a challenge. This year the standard has been incredible, as good as entrants in Festival Competitions who spend months preparing under the guidance of dance teachers. There were also some very good solos, duets and trios and I really commend those students on their talents and their confidence in presenting them.
On Tuesday, 1st December, 32 German GCSE students from years 10 and 11 had the unique opportunity to take part in a virtual German Poetry Workshop with World Poetry Slam Champion Harry Baker, organised and financed by the Goethe Institut. It felt like the German Department had won the lottery when the Goethe Institut told us that they would put on a special session of the workshop, just for Kendrick School, as so many of our German students were interested in taking part.