Dear Families, Friends, Students and Staff.
With our annual assessment day this week, welcoming in prospective new students for September 2025, I was struck how far this year's new intake has already come. It never fails to amaze me how quickly our students settle in. Finding their way around the building is soon second nature, and going out of their comfort zone becomes more and more frequent. I am so proud of you all.
Talking of new students, I'm very much looking forward to welcoming our parents and carers for our new Year 7s (and a handful of parents of new students further up the school year) into school on Monday evening from 6-8pm. This is a chance for you to put faces to the names of all those staff members your child has hopefully been excitedly talking about! We do politely ask that you do not bring children along to this event.
Finally, don't be alarmed. We don't lock up our students here at Canbury. The photo above is actually showing you how they chose to spend lunch time today - making creative use of the football goals!
Enjoy the weekend.
Mrs Rich – Head.
Students of the week.
Year 7
Max for being enthusiastic and keen to get started on his Art tasks. Keep up the good work!
Fantastic work by Emerson and Brooke in the Wellbeing lesson. Well done.
Year 8:
Amazing teamwork by year 8 in Biology Practical learning about how yeast fermentation occurs.
Elizabeth, Layla and Hattie for their active participation in the group work with Ms Chorazyczewska, getting to know their inner voice.
Well done in Spanish, Olivia, independently completing the extension work.
Year 9
Lovely teamwork and support of each other from Alfie, Lysander, Eric, Mason, Remi and Benjamin whilst solving the Quadratic Factorisation Treasure Hunt in Maths on Wednesday.
Excellent participation in English from Mason and Nico this week.
Well done to Rosie and Issy for remembering all keywords in their Physics lesson.
Well done to Lysander and Mason, hearing the extra details in Spanish.
Excellent climbing from Remi, Alfie and Nico this week in Games.
Harry for the progress he has made in climbing over the last couple of weeks, especially on the auto belay.
Year 10
Excellent work from Mani, Lloyd, Sam and Sophie simplifying expressions involving positive, negative and fractional indices up to a grade 8 standard.
Great focus from Layla rearranging formulae this week.
Great work from Mani, Sam, Sophie and Lloyd on Q4 in English this week.
Well done to Layla, Sophie and Bethany for solving beta decay equations in Physics.
Excellent photography work from Sophie, Layla J, Layla H, Evan, Rory, Bethany and Finn. Keep up the good work!
Fantastic effort from Mani, Lloyd and Francesca incorporating all three tenses into their Spanish answers
Year 11
Well done to Logan and Reenie scoring 88% and 90% respectively in their recent science test. Keep up the good work.
Great work ethic from Judah with his excellent focus in English Literature.
Morgan, Logan, Reenie, Kit, Sam and Brendan for working hard on their exam preparation photography work. Well done.
Reenie, Kit, Ethan, Eliot for showing good focus and lots of creative ideas in Art. Excellent work.
Eliot for excellent bouldering in Games this week.
Logan for exploring the caves at Yellow Spider in Games.
Sixth Form
Well done to Flora for confidently touring a visitor around the Park Lane Stables in Teddington.
Frankie for doing excellent work in Art - lots of creative ideas. Well done!
Layla for being helpful and welcoming to the new students.
Excellent photography work from Layla - really great work.
Upcoming dates for your diary.
Monday 7th October - Meet the teacher for Year 7 parents/carers and parents/carers of any other student who has joined us this school year. In the School Hall, 6-8pm.
Tuesday 15th to Friday 18th October - School trip to Malaga, for those students signed up.
Friday 18th October - Break up for October half term (two weeks).
Monday 4th November - Return to school, 08.10am.
Thoughtful work from our photographers.
Mr Brinkmanis got his GCSE photography students working hard in the Art Room this week. Reenie, Brendan and Sam came up with some excellent images.
Reenie found the use of an old tea bag on these photographs, above, of Kit, and Sam & Brendan, gave them a sepia effect. Isn't it brilliant work?
Brendan, meanwhile, got creative with his angles and learned that he needed to think more about the background, in his work above. "The white balance is wrong in these images causing the white backdrop to appear colder and more blue as apposed to white," he said. Still, a (g)classy piece of work Brendan.
Clubs, clubs and more clubs for all. Take a look.
Please see below the full list of enrichment clubs and academic clinics on offer to all students. We encourage them to join in with as many as they wish to, either at lunch time or after school. With regards to homework clinic, please be aware that the Tuesday and Thursday lunch clinics are there for all but will also be used by teachers of KS4 and KS5 to support students who have not completed a homework i.e. if a student misses a GCSE homework deadline they may be asked to attend one of these to complete this work. The Thursday after school homework clinic is purely used for any student who wishes to complete homework at school, teachers will not ask students to attend this one.
What a week - we're exhausted.
Whether above ground climbing, 'underground' in the cave, or messing about on the water, our students had such a full sporting curriculum this week. There are so many opportunities for them - they really are spoilt for choice.
Will you go all red, or just have a splash?!
Charity prefect Issy is delighted to tell you that next Friday, 11th October, is Show Racism the Red Card day. You can wear mufti to school, if you wish. Your mufti can be all red, or just with a splash of red. In return we ask for a suggested £1 -2 donation to the educational charity Show Racism the Red Card. As a lucky bonus, supporters will receive a free cake! These cakes were left over from our recent Macmillan Cancer Support coffee morning, which raised the tremendous sum of £412.27! Thank you so much to everyone for getting behind our charity events. We know people are facing many calls on their money and we never take for granted any support you give.
Why write about it when you can make it?
Our new Science teacher Ms Weyman was blown away this week with homework produced by her Year 7 students. Asking them to make a thing, rather than write about it, they rose to the challenge. If that's what they can do in Year 7, then what will they be like in Year 11?!
Introducing our roving reporter Rory.
We're thrilled to introduce our new roving reporter Rory, who is going to be out and about, getting the news and views of his Canbury peers and teachers, in a new monthly feature in the Newsletter. In a fearless quest to bring us the latest news, Rory will take no prisoners. If there's stories to be told, opinions to be shared, and photos to be taken - Rory will be first to the scene to document it and share with us all. It looks like Mrs Bate is going to have competition in the Newsletter! We can't wait to see what he finds out!