Staff are invited to nominate students who have demonstrated a Growth Mindset in the past few weeks. This might have been in lessons, in clubs, in tutor time or simply around school. Please note we already award bi-annual subject badges and merits for good academic work, effort and improvement. These Growth Mindset nominations recognise those who show resilience (academic or otherwise); who aren’t afraid to get things wrong and learn from it; those who have a go, take themselves out of their comfort zone or show that even if a task is tough they will persevere.

Staff are invited to nominate students who have demonstrated a Growth Mindset in the past few weeks. This might have been in lessons, in clubs, in tutor time or simply around school. Please note we already award bi-annual subject badges and merits for good academic work, effort and improvement. These Growth Mindset nominations recognise those who show resilience (academic or otherwise); who aren’t afraid to get things wrong and learn from it; those who have a go, take themselves out of their comfort zone or show that even if a task is tough they will persevere.

‘Scribes’ is a brand-new creative writing club for Key Stage 4 students. Club members will work on crafting submissions for some of the fantastic poetry and prose competitions on offer locally and nationwide. Through creating their entries, members will develop their writing skills and benefit from giving and receiving constructive feedback in our fortnightly workshops.

Here are a few of the competitions we have our eye on this term:

• Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival Poetry Competition – Theme: Let Nature Thrive
• Young Writers Integer Prose Competition – Theme: Inspired by Numbers – 100word short story
• Young Poets Network Song Lyric Writing Challenge – Theme: Identity – winning poems will get the chance to turn their poems into songs with professional composers!

One of our Scribes has already submitted to the ‘East Ridings Festival of Words Poetry Competition’ with the theme ‘My Wonderful World’; you can see Chiara’s emotive entry below.

Ms A Natley

Teacher of English

All KS4 students are welcome to join Scribes – see Ms Natley for more details.

On the weekend of 26 and 27 November, Grace (7PA) competed at the UK National Kuk Sool Won Tournament and also took part in the Masters Demonstration. Grace competed at the rank of 1^st Degree Black belt (Joh Kyo Nym) in the under 12 female division, across the categories of Sword, Staff, Form, Techniques and Sparring. Grace was successful in winning silver in 4 categories and bronze in another. Grace later went on to join the Masters Demonstration team, where, in front of a large number of spectators, she performed Staff and Sword forms, and then closed the ceremony by joining the ‘Nak Bup’ (Break Fall) Team for a thrilling acrobatics display.

On Sunday 27 November, Grace attended the Black Belt Workshop, where she received expert tuition from the Grand Masters Son, 9^th degree Master Alex, to refine her Sword and Staff Forms. She was also then taught the art of Traditional Korean Archery.

Kuk Sool Won is a systematic study of all the traditional fighting arts, which together comprise the martial arts history of Korea. It is known for its comprehensive collection of combat techniques, in particular, an extensive set of offensive and defensive moves designed to take advantage of the human body’s pressure points. There are many elements of Kuk Sool Won which include: striking, kicking, throws, joint lock techniques, falling/acrobatics, body conditioning, meditation, animal-style techniques and weapons.

Well done to Bella who attended Loughborough University for a 5 counties tournament, where she represents Nottingham County. She played Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire and won against all the counties.