Welcome to the first blog of this term, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and Happy New Year! It was good to welcome our students back to school looking smart and ready to learn.

On Thursday we had our Year 10 Parents’ Evening. Thank you to all the parents/carers who came along and the staff involved. Feedback from both was that it was a successful and informative evening.

Year 9 will begin their trial exams in English, maths and science on Monday next week. This time the exams will take place in their classrooms rather than the hall, but can we ask that you support us by reminding students that it is still an exam and usual exam conditions apply.

Year 7 begin their CPR course on Monday. Thank you to Mrs Lythgoe for organising this valuable course for our younger students.

A new group of Year 7 students have begun their weekly Wednesday morning visits to Vectis Radio where they learn about presenting and building podcasts. If you like to hear them live on the radio, please tune in Wednesday mornings and you can hear the students chatting live to Ian Mac at the station.

Emails were sent out to all parents/carers this week with a letter from the school nursing team to sign your child up to the flu vaccination session on Monday 20 January. If you would like your child to have the vaccination, please consent using the link in the letter. Without your consent, the immunisation will not be administered.

Emails were sent out to parents today regarding attendance. Congratulations to the students that had 95% and above attendance last term. Good attendance to school is fundamental to academic success and will help students to reach their full potential. Please support us with encouraging your child to understand the importance of catching up on any work that is missed, should they have unavoidable absence.

Our extra curricular activities began this week and we have many options for students to choose from. We also have our revision sessions for Year 11 taking place during lunch times and after school. The timetables for clubs and revision sessions can be found here. Our extra intervention sessions for Year 11 begin next week and students have been informed of the sessions that they should attend. Emails will be sent to parents early next week with the timetable for their child. Attendance at these sessions will greatly improve your child’s chances of success in their GCSE grades so we would very much appreciate support from parents/carers with this. If there are any issues, please contact Mrs McDowall in the first instance.

Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Begley
Head of School - Carisbrooke College