Headteacher's Blog including visit by the Permanent Secretary for Education, Chris Wormald

Week 34 of 39 was quite an exceptional one. We had our Year 8 parents’ evening on Wednesday evening, which was attended by 74% of Year 8 parents. Reports for the pupils were posted out at the beginning of the week and I know from the number of congratulatory letters I sent out that there was plenty to be pleased about at parents’ evening.

Friday saw the visit of the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education, Chris Wormald, who had lunch at the school whilst being entertained by Megan Harrison, Josh Jackson and James Milne in a performance of Amy McDonald’s “Let’s Start a Band”. After lunch he saw the Year 12 Drama AS performance of “The London Bombings”, an event that has personal resonance for the Permanent Secretary, who employs over 2500 civil servants in London. A visit to the A-level Art exhibition (open to all on Wednesday 25 June 2014 at 6.30 p.m.) was followed by our Year 12 dance students’ performance of Bob Fosse’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” before a visit to Modern Foreign Languages,
where Year 7 students were teaching a selection of Year 6 pupils from Penruddock, Plumpton and North Lakes primary schools.

Chris Wormald expressed his admiration for all he had seen at UCC and wished the school well in its further
developments. See our interview at https://vimeo.com/98621454

Also on Friday 13 June 2014, our Year 11 students finally came to the end of examinations and enjoyed their leavers’ assembly, in which, as well as being shown images from the last 5 years, they also received leavers’ certificates written by form tutors.

On the sporting scene, a number of our students competed at the Sheepmount, Carlisle, last weekend and won places on the county team: congratulations to Jake Burrows in the triple jump, Rachel Byers in the long jump, Ellena Hayhurst in the high jump, Robbie Hebson in the javelin and Tara Simpson-Sullivan in the hammer. They will be competing at the inter-counties event in Durham on Saturday 21st June.

…And finally, a bit thank you to Joe Kidd, who left Year 11 last summer and who popped round on Friday evening to clip my sheep. They look much neater, having had a short back and sides and are enjoying the warm sunshine much more as a result.