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