Headteacher's Message
The Summer Term always passes by so quickly and we are already almost at the end of this half of the term. This week has been full of wins for our Sports Teams and I encourage you to read more in our Sports Fixtures section further down but I have to share that our incredible Basketball Team smashed all their competition at the London Youth Games Junior NBA 3v3 Regional Finals and will be heading to the finals in Trafalgar Square in July! We are so proud and can’t wait to cheer them on the big stage.
We had a fascinating talk in school on Monday organised by Mr Drew, our Head of History. We welcomed the Holocaust Educational Trust to lead a workshop and give students the opportunity to ask their own questions of Holocaust survivors via pre-recorded interactive testimonies. Pupils also had the opportunity to use virtual reality technology, they were able to explore the recordings of historical sites associated with the Holocaust – all without leaving their classroom!
On Tuesday a small group of Year 8 pupils attended the Queen Elizabeth Prize Engineers Speed Mentoring Event at the Science Museum in South Kensington. Pupils met female engineers at the top of their profession who shared insights about the exciting career opportunities open to young women interested in this sector. It was a fantastic day and I am sure has inspired the attendees!
This week all of Year 8 have enjoyed visiting the Buddhapadia Thai Buddhist Temple in Wimbledon. This fascinating visit explored part of the Religious Studies curriculum, learning about the Buddhist faith and its core values. The temple is a spectacular place of worship surrounded by peaceful grounds and our pupils showed themselves to be sensible and mature with the questions they asked.
Our Year 9 Duke of Edinburgh hopefuls had their training days on Tuesday and Wednesday learning about camp cooking, pitching a tent and how to plan their route using OS maps! The groups really enjoyed their day off timetable learning something new.
Next week our Year 12s will be off timetable, with a variety of workshops and networking sessions for their enrichment and progression week. They will meet professionals from medical, veterinary, financial and media backgrounds, as well as learn about University applications and apprenticeship opportunities. A highlight of the week will be the session learning about the Extended Project Qualification. This optional qualification, equivalent to half an A level, is open to all students and is an independent project they can undertake on a topic of their choice. The week will end with an exciting trip to Thorpe Park, which I am sure they are all very much looking forward to!
Year 7 have been planning how they are going to take part in the Walk to School week challenge next week from Monday 18 to Friday 22 May. This includes walking home from school as well! We will keep a record of how many students are able to do this. Then as an additional challenge, tutor groups will be trying to calculate the distance they’ve covered over the course of the week to find out which tutor group will be crowned the Walk to School Week Champions! We hope Year 7 will try their hardest to complete this challenge the best that they can. We understand some students won’t be able to walk as far or as often as others but it’s the taking part that counts.
All of the students in Year 8 visited this week the Wimbledon Buddhist Temple where we were welcomed into the grounds and got to see the impressive architecture inside and outside of the building. The walls on the inside were covered in murals depicting Buddha and the stories of his life. We were hosted by several Monks and nuns and they gave us a great run down on the history of the religion and what all the artifacts inside the temple were and their significance to the Buddhists that visit. We then did a guided meditation with the monks and had the opportunity to visit their gardens and wildlife areas where we learnt more.
We have had another busy week and I have been visiting Year 9 students in some of their lessons. It is always so lovely to see the students enjoying their subjects and the standard of work produced is very impressive. I was particularly impressed to see the wonderful healthy and colourful stir frys being made by year 9 in their DT practical lessons and students working hard on live figure drawing in art. Year 9 have also enjoyed welcoming visitors from France, they have been joining them in lessons, offering a chance to practice their language skills and it has been lovely to see new friendships being made.
This has been a fantastic week for sports at Waldegrave. On Tuesday our Basketball Team headed to the London Youth Games Junior NBA 3v3 regional tournament in Crystal Palace. The students from Years 8 to 10 played fantastically, winning all four of their morning games and moving into the play offs for the London Secondary School Finals. They showed fantastic team spirit and beat all the competition to make it through to the London finals.
Our Rounders team also were winning this week, playing home games against Twickenham School. Our Year 7/8 team won 18 – 5 while the Year 9/10 team had a final score of 14 – 2.5. Players of the match were Imogen H, 10POR, Kalila G, 8ESU and Esha K, 8FLY. Great effort by all!
