Easter Newsletter 2022

9511 SPRING NEWSLETTER 2022 ENGLISH Follow us @Thornleigh_Eng WORLD BOOK DAY 2022 The theme of this year’s WBD was: “You Are A Reader”. Bo th staff and students at Thornleigh took part in activities so we came together to celebrate our shared love of reading. Our English Leaders delivered a superb assembly to each Year group in which they talked about their favourite books and the positive impact that reading has on their lives. Well done and thank you to Ben N, Jacob C and to Miss Hodgson for organising and presenting such an inspiring assembly. Key Stage 3 students participated in lessons which encouraged them to reflect on a range of reading strategies which they applied to a range of different genres. Students were also given their World Book Day tokens and spent time swapping ideas with each other and their teachers on what new book to buy with it. Outside of lessons, students went on a scavenger style hunt to track down the books that their teachers are reading. The winners of this “Title Quest” are: Olivia K 7S, Daniel N 7S, Alessandro O 7K, Kian K 7T, Panda S 7D, Gracie P 8D, Elizabeth M 8D, Hannah P 8D, Seren L 8D. Congratulations to these students who will each receive a Waterstones book voucher and a goody bag. Fi nally, many of our students participated in a Readathon in support of the charity Read for Good who fund the supply of books and storytellers to brighten up the days of children who are patients in the UK’s main children’s hospitals. Our students have risen to the Readathon challenge and it has been great to see students who have not read for a while being inspired by Readathon to pick a book. A special mention must go to Amy O (8D) who has raised £160 as part of her Readathon pledge. It would be wonderful if you could support your child’s reading at home as it bring enormous benefits to their academic development as well as their emotional well-being. If you need and guidance on how to go about helping your child to read at home, there are lots of resources to help you in the Student Zone on the school website under the heading: Let’s Read. St art reading and being amazing! ROTARY YOUTH SPEAKS COMPETITION This term, some of our students have been preparing to take part in the annual Rotary Youth Speaks competition. Due to the lingering effects of Covid-19, this event took place virtually with other competing schools across the country. The first round took place in the second week of February for both teams. In the intermediate team Maisie K, Miriam G and Xander T stormed into the lead with an excellent presentation on ‘Global Warming: Bottle It’ for the judges. The senior team, made up of Ben N, Tom S and Isabel R impressed the judges with their knowledge on ‘ARTificial Intelligence’ beating their opposition in a tough round of the competition to not only first place, but with individual prizes going to both Ben and Isabel for their performances. The F inals took place on the 1st and 10th of March. The intermediate team performed well with tough competition and came 3rd overall which they were delighted with, especially as it was their first time competing in this competition. The se nior team had a dramatic shake up on the day with our chairperson falling ill, so Jacob K stepped into the breach with only a few hours before the competition started. The team did brilliantly in what was a very close competition, coming runners up overall with Isabel winning Best Vote of Thanks. A huge congratulations to all the students involved for all your hard work! GLOBAL YOUNG JOURNALISM AWARD Our English Leaders have been busy, and this term are challenging themselves over the coming months by entering the Global Young Journalism Awards. Our students are putting together journalistic pieces to try and tell a story about the world we live in today across 9 different topics – but journalism doesn’t just have to be written, and entries are also taking the form of photograph series and mini podcasts. Judges include the outstanding Tina Fey, and the winners will receive the award, be published on The Day website and have the opportunity to gain work experience in a national newsroom. Once the Award entries are complete, our English Leaders will be helping put together a debate club to carry on into next year – so watch this space!