Headteacher's Weekly Review

Dear Parents/Carers,

Congratulations to all students who participated in the Rotary Swimathon on Sunday 14th October (see below) and Year 10s smashed the event record swimming 220 lengths.

Year 7                    Year 7

1 Gemma Allen         Abu Attou

2 Olivia Mills             Rhys Lloyd

3 Bella Hornzee        Elliot Newsam

4 Sophie Nunwa       Peter Heaney

5                           Jayaram Anandam

6                           Stephen Chappidi

Lengths 176             Lengths 112

Year 8                    Year 9

1 Joseph Robertson   Chithru Tennakoon

2 Daniel Baldwin       Zak Whitting

3 Lucille Trojonovich  Rachel Golding

4 Hrishikesh Urankar

5 Eloise Thompson

6 Alfie Perry

Lengths 153             Lengths 197

Year 10                   Year 11

1 Alexj Baldwin         Jess Robertson

2 Issy Jakubait         Hamza Ben Malik

3 Joshua Thompson   Hussain Ben Malik

4 Michael Young        Joe McHugh

5 Georgia Grant        Alex Scott

6 Danel Jansen

7 Lucas Salman

Lengths 220             Lengths 134

Thank you also to members of the Friends of Woking High School and student supporters who helped co-ordinate the school swim teams.  If you have already sponsored our teams, thank you, if not, you can still do so by following this link.  Thank you in advance to the Woking Rotary Club for their support of Woking High School.

Many congratulations to Year 10 student Hannagh Mohan and her pony Willow who won both their classes at the RDA South East Regional Dressage Qualifier at Hickstead Showground on 24th May 2018 and qualified for the RDA National Championships. In addition to winning both her classes, Hannagh was also awarded a cup for the junior highest score of 71.6%. Hannagh was also recognised as best newcomer and Willow her pony got an excellent turnout award.

This wonderful partnership then went on to the RDA National Championships on 14th July at Hartbury College.  Hannagh did incredibly well with an 8th in the Championship test and an amazing 2nd in her Freestyle test, with a fantastic score of 72.5%! Hannagh is an independent rider affiliated to Quest RDA as a member of Quest.  Hannagh also participates in Unaffiliated British Dressage events, recently coming 2nd at the Oldencraig Dressage Championship, 1st at Epsom RDA and 1st at Merrist Wood College, where Hannagh competes alongside her sighted competitors.

Following torrential rain last weekend, we owe a huge thank you to our site team who stemmed the floods and dried out wet areas so, thankfully, we are back to our best.

On Tuesday, we held the last of our 2018 Open mornings for prospective September 2019 students. As always, our students were praised for their polite, knowledgeable and welcoming tours. Please can I remind parents of any Year 6 students reading this review, that the deadline for applications for September 2019 entry is 31st October 2018.

Later that evening, almost all parents of our Year 11 students (96%) attended consultation evening.  Year 11s have just received their current GCSE forecast performance grades, so discussions between students, teachers and parents at the evening were extremely valuable and helped identify the actions that need to be put in place prior to indicative exams in December (3rd-19th).

Mr Goodwin, with the support of ex Woking High School students, Chris Pearce and Shannon Matthews, launched the 2019 Music Tour to Paris to a packed audience of students and parents, on Wednesday evening.  The tour will take place from Thursday 18th – Tuesday 23rd July 2019.  Information letters were distributed at the meeting and places must be reserved by 5th November.

Full School Council met on Thursday and had a full agenda. Amongst other issues they discussed ways to achieve a litter free site. They also discussed raising the profile of Student Voice at Woking High School, fundraising, charities and Year Council feedback. A lot of useful suggestions were made by the students and we hope that it will be a very exciting year ahead. In addition, it was delightful to welcome our new Year 7 members to the Council, as well as Mrs Wavish (our School Link Governor). Well done to all involved.

As we approach half term (we break at 3.30 p.m. today) we are looking ahead to next half term. The early weeks will focus on Remembrance events. Please may I draw to your attention our annual Remembrance concert to be held on Wednesday 7th November at 6.30 p.m. in St Mary’s Church. In addition to our whole school Remembrance commemoration on Friday 9th November, we have a number of special activities planned to mark the centenary of the end of WWI.  These include – WWI Thank You cards, our own British Legion Silent Soldier and most excitingly, the creation of a Poppy river.  The DT department have designed poppies which can be personalized by requesting a name to be engraved on the centre of each poppy.  The intention is to sell individual poppies at £2 each which can then be engraved to include individual students, families, in memory of a family member, in memory of local soldiers.  Each poppy will then be affixed to a wire installation which will be placed in the school grounds as a permanent reminder of the sacrifices made during WWI. If you are interested in purchasing one or more poppies, please see the following details click here. All proceeds will be donated to the British Legion.

May I wish all in the Woking High School family a relaxing half term break and I look forward to seeing Woking High School staff return on Monday 29th October for Inset Day 3 and Woking High School students return on Tuesday 30th October for the second half of the Autumn term.

Best wishes,

Jane Abbott

Headteacher

Reminder regarding roadworks on the Ridgeway starting 5th November

Ridgeway will be a NO THROUGH ROAD from 5th November. This may be for a few weeks depending on the concrete cure time needed. The section between Ridgeway Close and Ridgeway Gardens will be RESIDENT ACCESS ONLY WITH NO PARKING whilst road works are in progress. This is for safety reasons as contractor vehicles will be moving and parking in the area.

For 5th/6th/7th November, pedestrian access to St Andrew’s School will be via Footpath 19 (from Church Road to Ridgeway/ Morton Road) ONLY whilst contractors are working. Children will not be allowed in the road near moving vehicles. Vehicular access to St Andrew’s School and North Lodge may be restricted when that section of road is being resurfaced.

Woking Borough Council, the Emergency Services and Royal Mail have been informed.

The Directors RRAL

Headteacher's Weekly Review

Dear Parents/Carers,

The autumn sporting calendar is in full flow and our students continue to excel.  Over the past weekend, Year 9 Mackenzie Russell represented Surrey in the Inter Counties National Swimming Championships in Sheffield (40 Teams compete). In his individual race, the 12/13 year old 100m Freestyle, Mackenzie produced a wonderful swim, beating his personal best by over a second. This saw him touch first and win gold in a time of 56.02 seconds which ranks him first in Britain for his age. Mackenzie followed this swim up with two impressive swims in the relays with a second place in the 12/13 year old Medley relay and tenth in the Freestyle squadron relay. 

We also had 13 students representing the school in the Ascot Schools Biathlon. This competition acts as a qualifier for the British Schools Championships. Our students were in fine form despite the horrendous running conditions. This will hopefully see many qualify for the National School Championships in March. Please see selected results below:

Ascot Schools Biathlon (Selected individual results top 6 places only):

Under 16 boys          Lucas Salman           1st Place

Under 15 boys          Joshua Thompson     1st Place

Under 13 boys          Daniel Baldwin          1st Place

Under 15 boys          Michael Young           4th Place

Under 13 girls          Lizzie Chapman        4th Place

Under 15 boys          Alexej Baldwin          5th Place

Under 15 boys          Steven Wood           6th Place

Under 12 girls          Bella Hornzee           6th Place

On Thursday our students were in action in Southampton, competing in the first round of the English Schools Cross Country. This round consisted of schools from all over Hampshire and NW Surrey. Our students performed really well. Please see team results and selected individuals below:

Inter boys      2nd Place

Inter girls      3rd Place

Junior girls     5th Place

Junior boys    13th Place

Selected individuals (top 10 only):

Inter boys      Liam Stone              3rd Place

Inter girls      Emma Harris            8th Place

Inter girls      Jodie Bongartz         10th Place

Also over the weekend, 19 Year 10 students attended the University of Surrey for the first of a series of specially tailored sessions titled “Catastrophe on Campus”. Year 10 students will get a fantastic insight into what university life is all about. Mr Bunsell, Head of Year 10, was very proud of what a great first impression these students made on university staff. It was also wonderful to see so many parents and carers at the university supporting the students.

The “Catastrophe on Campus” programme allows students to take on the roles of experts in forensics, media, biomedical science, disaster management and more, to assist in the response and recovery of a suspicious biological hazard. Through working with the university, these students will get the chance to not only find out what university has to offer, but to develop new skills and find out what leading research is happening right now that could help them think about their future careers.   

A further two Year 10s, Mana Komatsu and Toby Webb, were also at Surrey University on Saturday attending a training day for Young Ambassadors for the Duke of Edinburgh Award.

Year 7 assembly on Monday saw the launch of our Rotary Christmas Shoebox Appeal. This is an annual event for our Year 7 students. Last year 101 boxes were sent to children across the globe who are in dire need of support and kindness.  We are hoping to match this in 2018. Please see the attached powerpoint for further details. All boxes must be received by 21st November.  Although this is a Year 7 focus, members of any other year group are most welcome to contribute. During the assembly we also celebrated news of the Coin Race held last Wednesday. A wonderful total of £536.89 was raised towards our minibus appeal with additional matched giving a total of £736.89 which will be added to our fundraising. Congratulations to 7Y who raised the most and made the longest coin line with a total of £109.04. Thanks to all Year 7s and their families for their generosity, to Friends of Woking High School and to Year 8 students Amy Rolfe and Elliot Cross plus Lia Sutherland, who helped count the coins.

We were delighted to welcome Kay McLeod from the Mandarin Excellence Programme to Woking High School on Monday. Ms McLeod spent time with Miss Barfield and Mrs Abbott discussing the introduction of Mandarin to the school curriculum, observed a Year 7 Mandarin class and had the opportunity to hear the students practising their speaking skills.  She was very impressed with the progress they have made and their confidence in speaking Mandarin.

Later that day, we welcomed visitors from Ubisoft – one of the leading computer games developers who are an international company. They met with senior staff and Mr Afana, Head of Computing, to discuss ways in which the company could help support our school and students.  Suggestions ranged from a parents meeting on gaming safety, E-sport competitions and careers days. We look forward to working with them and Digital School House, in expanding the career opportunities available to our students.

Our two Open mornings this week (Tuesday 9th and Thursday 11th) were exceptionally well attended.  Our students and school received much praise, with visitors particularly highlighting:

“The tour guide was extremely polite and informative on our tour and I felt I got a real sense of the school.”

“The student in Year 9 who showed us around was wonderful. What a fantastic school and culture you have created.”

“Very helpful tour and great to see the school in its working day. Well done Woking High for welcoming us to our school.”

“It was a lovely tour by the girl that showed us around, tailored to our needs. Great to see such well-behaved children enjoying their learning.”

“It was nice being shown around by the pupils. We found the open evening and tours very welcoming. The open evening in particular was amazing.”

“The whole tour was fantastic. My tour guide showed a lot of knowledge and pride. Admissions were helpful and honest.”

On Tuesday evening I was delighted to attend the annual Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) presentation at Gordon’s School to award staff and students from the Arete Partnership their well-earned certificates.  In total 19 students achieved their ILM2 award, 14 staff achieved ILM3 and 8 achieved ILM5. The partnership were also able to launch this year’s programme and excitingly share news of a coming ILM7 award.

On Wednesday, 13 Year 11 students, accompanied by Miss Powderly and Mrs King, participated in a visit to St Edmund Hall (Miss Powderly’s Alma Mater) and Merton College, two of the oldest colleges at Oxford University. The day involved talks from current students and tutors as well as tours of the colleges and some time to explore the city – a particular favourite being Blackwell’s Bookshop! The students asked excellent questions of both the staff and students at the university to gain a greater understanding of the collegiate system, the tutorial teaching method and the admissions process. It was a beautiful day to see the city with blue skies all day. The students were excellent ambassadors for the school throughout.

On Sunday 14th October, 30+ students will be participating in the Woking Rotary Swimathon.

There are 6 teams taking part representing all year groups.  Please find the link to the sponsorship form if you would like to support our teams.

Best wishes,

Jane Abbott

Headteacher

Headteacher's Weekly Review

Dear Parents/Carers,

Congratulations go to the 16 students in our swim teams who over the weekend gained great success in the Surrey Relay Swimming Championships at Guildford Spectrum.  The competition was fierce with over 40 schools competing. All of our swimmers swam well but special mention must go to our inter boys team of Alexej Baldwin, Michael Young, Josh Thompson and Mackenzie Russell who won the Freestyle Relay and second in the Medley relay. This will hopefully see them qualify for the National finals in November. What is also really encouraging is the performances of our junior girls teams where the A team were the highest finishing placed state school, this bodes really well for the future. Please see results below:

Surrey Secondary Schools Swimming Relay Championships

Freestyle Relay                  Medley Relay   

Inter Boys     1st               2nd

Inter Girls      7th               10th

Junior Girls A Team   5th     6th        

Junior Girls B Team   15th    18th

It seemed like the majority of the student population had arrived in the Drama Studio on Monday evening. PIE Productions embarked upon their search for stars with the eagerly anticipated auditions for ‘Grease: School Edition’ which will be presented by special arrangement with Theatrical Rights Worldwide. ‘Grease: School Edition’ features the book, music and lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, and contains additional songs by arrangement with Robert Stigwood. PIE Productions were overwhelmed at the amount of students who attended. The audition panel were in awe of the bravery and talent of Woking High School students who all acted their socks off! As a result of the astounding numbers, it took longer than anticipated to conduct the acting audition. Consequently, the singing audition was rescheduled to Thursday. Once again, students sang their hearts out. Throughout the process, nearly 130 students have auditioned. It is sure to be a challenge for the audition panel to cast the production when faced with such enthusiasm and talent. Recall auditions will be occurring next week, and we look forward to confirming the final cast. PIE Productions would like to thank everyone who attended the auditions and hope the students had fun!

Meanwhile, on Monday evening, a team of 12 students from Years 7-10 accompanied by Miss Dixon and Mr Eaden, represented Woking High School in the Area Maths Challenge at Sir William Perkins School in Chertsey. The Year 7 team of Herbie Hunter, Darcie Blissett and Peter Heeney performed particularly well, finishing the competition in first place for their age category. Once the scores from all of the teams were combined, the Woking High team finished a highly successful 3rd overall. Congratulations to the team and well done on representing the school so well.

Our major focus this week has been on welcoming visitors to our school for Open Evening (Tuesday) and the first of our Open Mornings (Thursday).  We are extremely proud of our school which is widely regarded as one of the best schools in Surrey. During the evening, parents and prospective students were able to listen to a presentation by Mrs Abbott and Mrs Doe, which included viewing our new ‘Spirit of Woking High School” video. They were then able to tour all the subject department seeing a variety of activities and demonstrations which included Sgraffito work in Art, participating in a Drama performance skills workshop, contributing in a world-wide food quiz in Geography, playing “Who wants to be a Mathematical Millionaire” and were amazed by the many demonstrations in Science which ranged from fire and ice, CSI and optical illusions.  Parents and students were also able to learn about our language offers in French, Spanish, Latin and Mandarin, provision for Further Maths, Statistics and Triple Science, Music Masterclasses and our extensive Computing department, which is a centre for Digital Schoolhouse and Ubisoft.

Thank you to all our visitors for attending the evening and for the wonderful feedback we received.

“We visited Woking High this evening and wanted to say what a spectacular event you, your staff and the pupils held.  My wife and I have visited a few local schools and I have to say that we were very impressed with the thought that must have gone into the whole event.   We were made to feel really welcome and your pupils and staff were very engaging, confident and did you and your school proud. It was so rewarding to see you and your Head of Year 7 so proud of your pupils each time they gave a small speech in front of the parents. Again thank you for a lovely introduction to Woking High.”

“We came to your open evening last night. What an experience, we were so impressed. Firstly I would like to commend our tour guide, who showed us around your school. What a lovely young lady. My husband came home and said that she was a fine example of the impact, that we would like high school have on our girls. She was polite, sincere, confident and showed such respect and kindness. She is a wonderful ambassador for Woking High. Secondly, the staff were fabulous. The way they engaged with not only my 10 year old, but my 8 year old as well was great. They grabbed every opportunity for a learning experience, and made the most of it. This showed me that teaching is in their blood and a true passion. These are the people I want to educate my child. The school on a whole was fabulous. There was a strong feel of honesty and sincerity, that can only come from a happy school. The staff greeted us warmly and answered any questions we had. There were even a few laughs along the way. Thank you for a superb evening.”

On Thursday we held the first of our Open Mornings. On this occasion parents and prospective students were able to tour the school on a “normal” working day.  Once again, we received some great feedback on the event.  Other open mornings are on 9th, 11th and 16th October 9.15 and 9.45 a.m. These days and times can be booked via our website or by contacting the main school office.

Wednesday saw the first Day 11 of the 2018/19 academic year.  Year 7 spent the day in tutor groups with group challenges to help them work together and get to know each other.  Half their day was spent in Geography, building shelters from recycled materials in the attempt to build a family home that withstood the force of ‘Hurricane Dixon’.  They also completed a Maths trail looking for numbers around the school, which was a great opportunity to test their knowledge of the school site and the final session was competing in the FoWHS coin challenge.  Tutor groups were set a challenge by the Friends to create the longest line from the coins they had been collecting in form time all week, results to be announced in assembly on Monday. Year 8s welcomed a fashion designer, a freelance embroidery artist, a creative practitioner, a designer and a creative copywriter into school.  Students worked on a carousel to spend time with the visitors supported by workshops by our own staff in Media and Computing. They had a chance to work in a variety of media and to meet people who work in the Arts, allowing for questions regarding their career paths and opportunities in the various fields. Thank you to FoWHS who helped to fund the visitors’ fees to enable this activity to run. Year 9 DT students had a guest speaker to introduce to them the Design Ventura challenge for this year and to help support the initial brainstorming of ideas. They also had activities in Languages and Sport.  Year 10s had a whole day in Science looking at skills and tips for improving their practical work, a great opportunity to refine these skills so early in their GCSE course.  Year 11 were in English all day recording their speeches, which they have been preparing in class over the last few weeks, it allowed an extended period of time for all students to deliver their speeches in front of their peers and for them to be assessed by their teacher. 

Following on from our successful Year 11 careers fair, a group of 15 Year 10 and 11 students had the opportunity to visit Brooklands College on the morning of Day 11, as part of Post 16 options.   The visit offered a valuable opportunity for students to learn about different vocational career pathways and provided them with an insight into student life at college and the support that is available within the college.

Also on Wednesday at the Arete Cross Country competition, we had 60 students competing for Woking High School. Our students performed extremely well showing real grit and determination. Our boys’ teams swept the board winning all 4 team titles and the girls were runner’s up in all four behind Gordon’s. Our Year 7 and 10 girls’ teams were agonisingly close to beating Gordon’s. This meant that the overall score was level between Woking High School and Gordon’s. Please see team and selected individual results below:

Arete Cross Country

Team Scores:

1st = 20 points       Woking High and Gordon’s (Joint Winners)

Woking High School Team Winners:

Year 7 boys

Year 8 boys

Year 9 boys

Year 10 boys

Individual Top 3 Places:

Gold:

Year 7 boy     Joseph Walters

Year 10 boy   Liam Stone

Year 10 girl    Emma Harris

Silver:

Year 7 boy     Jiyah Kapotwe

Year 7 girl      Laura Kersley

Year 8 boy     Toby Spencer

Year 9 boy     Stevie Barron

Year 10 boy   Chris Baker

Year 10 girl    Jodie Bongartz

Bronze:

Year 8 boy     Teddy Gannon

Year 10 boy   Lucas Salman

Congratulations go ex-Woking High School student Helen Finney, who achieved first class honours at Imperial College London with a Bsc Biology with French for Science. Her graduation is in late October at the Albert Hall. Helen was the only student to achieve the French for Science module and spent a year in Montpellier, France, studying at Supagro which specialises in developing agricultural crops for Sub Saharan and other arid regions of the world. She has now embarked on a Masters in Environmental Management at Imperial and wants to take up a career where she can be involved in developing and implementing environmental policy.

Good luck wishes go to Alfie Sullivan in Year 7, who is competing in an International Judo Competition at The Hague on 9th November.

Best wishes,

Jane Abbott

Headteacher