Dear Families, Friends, Students and Staff.
Where are the weeks going?! We are now firmly into public exam season, and I would like to congratulate those Year 11 and Year 13 students who are just getting on with the job. Thanks too to staff and students who are having to teach and study in all sorts of other places to accommodate those sitting the exams. Canbury is a small building, so we have always had to be inventive with our rooming. But everyone's co-operation and calm is appreciated. Keep up the good work!
Talking of good work, we hosted a brilliant workshop for our KS3 students this week, on how to study and revise, especially in these times of constant interruptions and often noisy distractions. Students do sometimes take advice from others nearer to their age, so a third year medical student, still studying himself, seemed a great way to go!
Next week, the last before we break for the half term, we will be on our annual sponsored walk and I am thoroughly looking forward to it. Not only are we raising money for a really tremendous cause (details below), but it's also an opportunity to spend quality time together in a truly invigorating way. I can't wait!
Enjoy the weekend.
Mrs Rich – Head.
Upcoming dates for your diary.
Friday 24th May - Whole School Sponsored Walk.
Monday 27th - Friday 31st May: Half-term break.
Thursday 13th - Friday 14th June - Duke of Edinburgh overnight expedition for Y10 students.
Thursday 20th June - Y11 and Y13 Leavers Dinner.
Friday 21st June - NCS Life Skills, part II, at Canbury for Y11, 12, 13.
Wednesday 26th June - Canbury Garden Party 5.30pm to 8.30pm. All welcome.
Monday 1st July - School Talent Show, in school in the morning.
Monday 1st July - Sports Day, 12 - 3pm, Kingsmeadow. All welcome.
Wednesday 3rd July - Whole School Activity Day - Choice of Thorpe Park or Richmond Park.
Friday 5th July - Prize Giving & break up for the summer holiday - 12 noon.
Students of the week.
Year 7
Sofia M and Tristan for great noticing during check-in at the wellbeing lesson.
Eloise for effort in reading when completing work! Way to go!!
Great discussion from Layla and Josef in PSHE this week - well done.
Well done to Eloise for showing resilience by staying on task and great focus in ICT.
Alex for joining in with an activity even though he didn’t feel like it at first in the group with Ms Chorayczewska.
Eloise for her perseverance with reading in English. Well done! Excellent work.
Year 8
Remi, Carl and Isla for their contribution and active participation in the group with Ms Chorazyczewska.
Lysander for excellent work in coding his mobile app in ICT.
Carl for being sociable and joining in with kite flying at lunchtime.
Harry for great listening and focus in the group with Ms Chorayczewska.
Ryan for excellent noticing and expressing his thoughts and feelings in the wellbeing lesson.
Amazing work done by Lysander, Alfie and Mason in Science.
Year 9
Well done to Francesca, Sam and Finn for writing successful formal Letters in English.
Excellent progress from Mani in creative writing.
Well done to Bethany, Mani, Sophie, Francesca and Lloyd doing a great job in Science this week.
Bethany for showing resilience and perseverance in debugging (finding the errors) in her mobile app work in ICT. Well done.
Well done to Rory for completing the design elements of his mobile app.
Year 10
Well done to Logan and Archie for showing resilience, perseverance and great work in ICT using quite complex Vlookups and IF statement formulae in Excel.
Great teamwork in Science practical experiments by students, with a particular shout out to Reenie for her work on this.
Year 11
Well done to Louis for working hard in the revision sessions in preparation for the Business GCSE exam paper 1 this week.
Sixth Form
Well done to Rhiannon for working so well remotely in all her subjects, especially ICT, where she has made excellent progress.
Well done to Flora for demonstrating impressive communication skills when playing 'Articulate' this week.
Many congratulations to Annie for starting her Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) this week.
Well done to Alannah and Matthew for sitting their Finance exam in Business and completing their final piece of coursework to a high standard.
Ready, Steady, Go!
We've all been trying to move a bit more this week, as part of our engagement with the Mental Health Foundation's 'Mental Health Awareness' week.
It's not rocket science, moving about makes us feel better. Who DOESN'T feel brighter after a bit of movement? Whether we're walking the dog, skimming stones, playing football, doing parkrun on a Saturday morning, feeding the ducks, skipping, playing with a ball or walking home from the park after a kick about after school, moving our body makes us feel better.
Hence students were encouraged to move about more during lessons this week, feeling how it grounds us all and actually helps. Ms Chorazyczewska kindly took photos of students moving about, as shown here. Messrs McGregor, Goodyear and Hogan meanwhile, got so involved doing some Kung Fu whilst learning about different river processes in Geography, they didn't take any photos at all. You just can't get the staff.....
For a wealth of information about how moving is good for all our mental health, have a look at: Move! (And if you get moving this weekend, send us in your photos - share your successes!).
Get ready campers!
Talking about moving, Duke of Edinburgh Award training takes place periods 1-4 this coming Thursday 23rd May. Students and parents will have received an email about this. If you haven’t, please send an email to Mr McGregor and he will help you out. We're looking forward to watching students get to grips with opening their canned food supplies and putting up their tents.....
Solid work from our Year 10s.
Doughnut Delight for the Year 7s.....
Three cheers and a very 'Happy Birthday' to our lovely Archie who treated all his Y7 classmates to a delicious doughnut today. No sooner had Mr Hogan opened the box than 'whosh' they were gobbled up before you could say 'krispy kreme'!
First things first - put away your mobile!
How on EARTH do you deal with the distractions of social media, music, TV, mobiles pinging and a myriad of other interruptions when you're trying to study?
Well you get the experts in to tell you, that's what you do! Our KS3 students had a great workshop on Monday morning, taking part in a Memory Mnemonics session which was voted as informative and great fun.
Our expert was a third year medical student, "someone young and still studying himself," remarked Ms Ridley. The only thing trickier than getting through all the work in the final years of school can be remembering it! This seminar covered simple to use techniques and strategies to help students with their memorisation and recall of information. It also demonstrated what an ineffective study environment (be that dis-organised, cluttered, in a noisy environment, too late in the day etc) does to your memory and its recall ability.
Skills covered included:
• Understanding memory and how to manipulate it
• Examination of why we forget
• How to ensure more information is retained
• Effective revision strategies
• How to minimise reliance on rote learning.
We'd love to know what your child can remember from this session. Do ask them! (We hope staff learned something too - they forgot Mrs Bate asked for photographs for the Newsletter.....!)
Canbury School Sponsored walk - and who we're raising money for this year.
We've a week to go until one of our favourite days of the year - the annual Canbury School sponsored walk. At assembly today Mr Barnes told us all about what to expect - the route, the timings, the breaks, the amount of sun protection lotion and hats needed, the full lunch boxes and water we should remember, and the ice lollies towards the end! He also reminded us that there's no such thing as bad weather - it's just you need the right clothes! The walk will go ahead, even if it's raining, so do come prepared. As usual other family members are welcome to join us, but we cannot accommodate dogs. It's birthing season in the park and we have been advised against bringing them by the park authorities.
We'll be raising money for a tiny local charity which gives free counselling to children who either live or study in Kingston and who are facing the bereavement of a parent, another close family member or a friend. Kingston Bereavement Support offers advice, help and a calm space to be for children facing such a huge challenge.
Here is the link to Kingston Bereavement Support's Saying Goodbye project.
Here is the link to our fundraising page. Thank you everyone. If you can donate, and you are a UK tax payer, please remember to Gift Aid your donation (at no extra cost to yourself). This allows the charity to claim basic tax rate of 25p on every £1 donated and you need simply tick the appropriate box during the donation process.
School days have changed since our day!
Harry got to take Benjamin to the local cafe this week as a reward for all Harry's hard work. That's a win win situation in our book. Well done Harry, and lucky student Benjamin. Don't they look pleased?