Head's Newsletter 8 July 2016

ROCKET COMPETITION! A select group of six Year 8 pupils were selected to represent the school at the Water Rocket Competition at NPL in Teddington. A great deal of preparation time was spent designing and developing their rockets and included much testing at Grist’s. On the day the weather was not on our side and it rained most of the afternoon; however the students remained positive, if somewhat wet. The boys performed well and were proud to achieve highly within the “Eggstra Challenge” where they managed to fire the rocket containing a fresh egg quite a distance with the egg remaining intact.

BIOLOGY FIELD TRIP Last week the Year 12 Biology students travelled down to Pembrokeshire, Wales, for a field course. On arrival, we were greeted by the staff who showed us round Orielton field centre. The house where we stayed was a spacious and historic former estate, surrounded by a diverse, natural habitat (which we would later explore). There was a huge range of facilities including table tennis, which quickly became the favourite recreational pastime of the students.

Starting early on Tuesday we spent an intensive week studying ecology, sometimes not finishing until 8:30 in the evening. We were divided up into groups, each accompanied by an inspirational tutor who proved to be incredibly friendly and helpful, encouraging us to fully participate during lessons and when conducting field work. In these lessons we covered topics including: statistical analysis tests (including Spearman’s rank correlation and the χ2 test) and