Celebrating Our Students

Having received many reports of students’ excellent work and news of their activities over the Easter holiday, we thought it would be lovely to share them in a special edition of the Head’s Blog.

Fun in the Sun on the Slopes

During the Easter break 42 students across Year 7 to 12, accompanied by members of staff, travelled by coach to Pila, Italy for a week of fun on the slopes. The students learned how to ski with lessons based on their ability and all grew in confidence and progressed to skiing on the slopes, even those students who had never skied before. Experienced skiers were able to ski on the more challenging slopes.

The evenings were spent enjoying snow-tubing, hot chocolate, pizzas (where a mammoth 74 pizzas were consumed), a cable car trip to Aosta and a presentation evening.

They enjoyed amazing weather and lovely slope conditions. Mr Weymouth who accompanied the group said "the students have been superb, both on the slopes and in the hotel! In fact they were praised by the staff from another school."

History Easter Competition

Once again the students have outdone themselves on their entries into the History Department decorate an Egg as an historic character competition.

Special praise goes to Sam in Year 8 for his Communist leaders Eggheads, Jack in Year 9 for Napolegg, Fin in Year 9 for Alexander Eggs and Hamilton, Egglizabeth I by Max in Year 7 and Gegghis Khan by Matei in Year 7.

Prizes and house points were awarded to these five students.

UK Maths Trust Intermediate Maths Challenge

Arley Walker (Y10), Luke Madgett (Y11) and Tom Rickard (Y11) recently took part in the UK Maths Trust Pink Kangaroo Challenge and did really well. 

Pink Kangaroos are 60 minute, 25 multiple choice challenges open to UK students in Year 10 and Year 11. Entry is by invitation based on a qualifying Intermediate Maths Challenge score. (The name Kangaroo acknowledges the contribution made by Australia to establishing large-scale mathematics contests.)

Arley scored 75 and was awarded Bronze and Best in Year 10, Luke scored 68 and was awarded Bronze and Tom scored 79 and was awarded Silver and Best in School. Good on ya!

Please follow this link to read more about the competition.

Year 10 Religious Studies

10M/rs1 worked really hard on creating mind maps for The Existence of God and Revelation as part of last term's revision focus and preparation for their assessment. 

Medal Worthy Performance from Year 10 Diver

Oscar Westbury competed at a diving competition called the Sandwell Showdown at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre last weekend. The Sandwell Aquatics Centre was purpose-built for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 and designed to serve both the local community and elite-level aquatic sports. Oscar came 1st place on the 3m springboard and 2nd place on both the 1m springboard and the platform. He also gained two Personal Bests. It was a very good weekend for Oscar and Plymouth Diving Club. Congratulations Oscar!

Year 9 Shakespeare Creative Responses

Year 9 have been studying Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' and for homework, they were tasked with producing two creative responses to the text. Here are a few fantastic examples from their recent gallery lesson:

Year 8 Religious Studies

Year 8 students were asked to evaluate whether war can ever be justified as part of their Ethics topic. As you will see from some examples of their work which is shared below, they showed superb reasoning skills and knowledge of different perspectives before reaching their own conclusions. 

8S English

Year 8 students have been studying the poem 'Cannon-Fodder' by Alec Waugh and 'Dulce et Decorum Est' by WIlfred Owen. They wrote creative pieces in response to these poems. 8S captured the angry tone of these poems really effectively and included some amazingly powerful imagery. Well done, 8S for your brilliant creative writing.

Year 8 Digital Enterprise

Mr Scott’s Year 8 class had an exciting introduction to binary. The students learned how to convert numbers from binary to denary and vice versa, quickly picking up the logic behind this core concept of computer science. They enjoyed converting their birth dates into binary and were fascinated by how computers "think" in 1s and 0s. The highlight was a fast-paced class challenge where they worked in teams using whiteboards and tables to crack binary problems. There was a real buzz in the room as students competed and collaborated, making it a brilliant, high-energy lesson full of curiosity and enthusiasm.

Year 7 Gymnastics Sequences 

Mr Orkney would like to share these videos of some great work by Year 7 students...

7S PE

This excellent work example is submitted by Mr Winstone who had the pleasure of watching Mr Callicott's PE lesson with 7S. As part of the games making unit the students had to work in groups to plan, resource, deliver and evaluate their own game. It was a perfect example of so many of our school values: Creativity, Leadership, Collaboration to name just three. 

Student Performs with Plymouth Philharmonic Choir

Year 7 student Aiden Wu performed with the Plymouth Philharmonic Choir at St Andrews Church 5 and 6 April in a production of Mendelssohn's Elijah. Of Aiden's performance, Mary Johnson writing for the Plymouth Herald said "Aiden Wu sang the part of the Youth which involves a complex series of exchanges with the main character Elijah as a curse is lifted and the horizon is scanned for the arrival of clouds and rain."

By all accounts, it was a great performance and showcased the choir at its best! Well done Aiden.

Spanish Club

On the Wednesday of the last week of term, two of our year 12 Spanish A Level students, Nell and Esther, started a Spanish club which was attended by students in Years 7 to 10. Students learned how Easter is celebrated in Spain (very different to the UK!), they had conversations in Spanish, and they won some chocolate prizes. The club will continue on Wednesday lunchtimes this term.

Year 12 Student Samples Life at Cambridge University

Year 12 student Jonah Crawford spent three days over the Easter break enjoying an Easter Taster for Stem residential at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. Of his experience, Jonah said "the three days I spent exploring Cambridge was valuable, and was key in helping me further understand the application process, daily life in University, and how to become a University-Ready Student. The professors and application officers were all really friendly and helpful during this time, and I feel confident in applying to Cambridge for 2026".

Having read through the Information Booklet for the trip and Jonah's full report on his time away, I believe that the experience was invaluable. Good luck Jonah.

We're Finalists!

We are delighted to announce that the school has been shortlisted as a Finalist in the Transformational Use of Digital Technology category in The Pearson National Teaching Awards 2025. We will be proudly celebrating this work and all our colleagues on National Thank a Teacher Day, June 18th when all the results will be announced.

This shortlisting comes not only on top of winning 'Best Educational Initiative' for the SW Tech Awards in 2021 and last year's Global Edtech Award for 'Best School Digital Transformation' but also marks our tenth year as a Google Reference School and reflects the significant strides we've made over the past decade in becoming a pioneering school for digital technology.

Our digital strategy fosters independent learning, digital fluency, workplace readiness and equips students with the skills to excel in an increasingly tech-driven world.

We are so proud to have our community recognised for our transformative approach to education through digital technology and this nomination is a wonderful acknowledgment of the hard work of our students, staff and the support from you, our community.

Sparx Maths and Sparx Reader

Each week we celebrate our highest performers in both Sparx Maths and Sparx Reader, two of our core homework platforms. We are proud of all of our students who complete their homework each week to such a high standard but these students deserve a special mention.

Congratulations!