The National Heart and Lung Institute and the British Heart Foundation’s Centre of Research Excellence at Imperial College London offers the Annual "Science in Medicine School Teams Prize" to engage sixth form school students in the UK with science in medicine.

This year, four collaborating Year 13 teams from Kendrick took on the challenge of research and presenting an innovative idea for tackling a medical issue from one of the categories outlined below. Students were required to stretch beyond the school curriculum, think outside the bubble of traditional biomedical fields, and learn about the excitement of research. They considered how trends in science and engineering will impact on health and medicine in the future as well as understand the importance of a multidisciplinary approach and teamwork to effective research and development of improvements in public and individual health. They had to consider the importance of affordability, availability and acceptability in translating inventions towards a reduction in inequality-related poor health outcomes. Finally, students had to appreciate the importance of effective communication in rolling out scientific developments, with an emphasis on art and design.

During the first week of October, I was informed that I had achieved a place as a harpist in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain!  Across the country there are only four places available for the harp, so I’m delighted to have got a place. The audition process was long and tough. It involved preparing two contrasting solo pieces and performing orchestral excerpts set by the tutors on the audition panel. However, it was a fantastic process to go through as it helps to build resilience and strength. 

We are delighted that Kendrick School has been awarded the Sutton Trust Fair School Admissions Award at Gold level. The Sutton Trust is an educational charity in the United Kingdom which aims to improve social mobility and address educational disadvantages. The top Gold level is awarded to schools who have made significant changes to their admissions policies to ensure that there is fair access to all pupils, regardless of socio-economic background.

On 4th July, we held our mock election, which mirrored the general election, in order to give students an insight into how the electoral system works as well as into each party's political ideologies and manifestos for the 2024 general election.

The four parties involved were the Labour Party, Conservative Party, Liberal Democrats and Green Party. Each party prepared a campaign video to present to the school, outlining the policies from their manifesto and plans as the incumbent party, alongside posters put up around the school in the lead up to the election. The candidates for each party also went to form rooms and presented their manifesto to students to inform them of the upcoming election and encourage them to exercise their right to vote.

9C and their English teacher, Mr Dilley, were overjoyed to discover that they were this year's winners of the UK Literacy Association's Our Class Loves This Book award for their work on Manjeet Mann's The Crossing. This prize is awarded jointly to a class and their teacher, and Kendrick School is the first ever secondary school to have won this national competition.  

Readathon Club, which includes over 20 students from Year 7 all the way through to Year 12 along with several keen staff members, has just finished making its way through its second classic novel, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. In Terms 3 & 4 we enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, but after all the violence and bloodshed of revolutionary France, it was a relief to switch to something more civilised and genteel. Austen’s first published novel follows the sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood as they grow up and fall in love.