Today saw the first day of our Praise Table, and we welcomed our first cohort of students who received golden stickers for outstanding work in lessons this week. Hopefully some of you have been shown Praise Certificates in recognition of their achievement of being awarded a golden sticker, although I suspect the small bag of sweets did not manage to make it home. READ MORE

Mr Turner and I have led assemblies this week in which we introduced our new Character Caught Award Scheme. Students have told us through surveys that they like it when we recognise their achievements and efforts and they want to be praised more regularly. Parents and Carers have said through surveys and meetings with leaders that they would like to see a focus on the positive contributions that the students make on a regular basis. READ MORE

We are really keen to celebrate the achievements and great character of our students outside of school in assemblies, monitor screens in school and via weekly messages and newsletters. We do not always find out about some of the incredible efforts and displays of character of our students and we would be really grateful if you could let us know by completing the Google Form below. We welcome any achievements in any context or individual moments of students showing great character. READ MORE

The Year 9 NEMO Maths competition took place this week at St Helena School. Accompanied by Mr Gaukroger and Miss Mead, our Year 9 students showed outstanding hard work and enthusiasm, taking on three challenging rounds of puzzles, constructions, and problem-solving questions, plus a fun bonus “pointless” round where they impressed with their most obscure answers. With 17 teams of four taking part, Thurstable Team A achieved an excellent 2nd place and Team B secured a strong 7th. READ MORE

On Friday 21 November we hosted our second quiz night fundraiser which certainly proved to a lot busier than the first one; word had obviously spread as we were sold out! 11 students from our Catering and Hospitality group, School Council and Student Leadership Team, supported at the event by greeting our guests on the door, encouraging raffle sales, serving tea, cake and sausage rolls and announcing the winning raffle numbers. Money raised from ticket sales, our amazing raffle and food and drink sold came to over £820 (a 27% increase on last year!). READ MORE

This week the Year 8 football team had more success, winning their 4th round fixture in the National Cup. We came up against our strongest opponents yet, a grammar school who had some academy players and haven't lost all year! After going 1-0 down early in the game, our team stuck together, demonstrating incredible resilience and teamwork, to win the game 4-2.

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We marked the day with a memorial service read by Andy Butt from the Tiptree Youth Project Outreach, which was supported by Chris Neale and his colleagues from the ACF (Army Cadet Force). Mrs Swan co-ordinated the day and our cadets from across different regiments in the area paraded from the quad, past C block and to the Memorial Garden which was a wonderful sight to see. Next year the newly created ACF unit will also participate in the Memorial Service. READ MORE

Much of the communication between the school and families is now conducted by email and I am writing to ask for your support to follow a revised email protocol when contacting members of staff at the school. Central to the protocol is for emails to staff to be sent in the school week between 7am and 6pm only in order to support the well-being of staff. READ MORE

Mrs Gray, our Assistant Headteacher and Designated Safeguarding Lead, has been working on developing student leadership through the Digital Leaders programme. She has written the following message to recognise our pioneering first cohort of leaders: “We are extremely proud to present the first four fully-trained Digital Leaders"  READ MORE

After months of meticulous planning, we are absolutely thrilled to announce a landmark achievement this week: the official launch of the first-ever Army Cadet Force (ACF) detachment hosted right here at Thurstable! This is the culmination of close collaboration with the Army Cadet Force regional team, resulting in an exciting agreement to host a closed detachment of D-Company ACF from Thurstable.  READ MORE

Please support us by ensuring your child is in school every day, unless there are genuine and unavoidable reasons for absence. Together—with your support, our school’s commitment, and the expertise of Aquinas—we can ensure that every child in our community has the very best chance to succeed. Thank you for your continued support. READ MORE

We have had more tours this week and the feedback has been really positive from prospective parents who were really impressed with how calm, orderly, purposeful but relaxed the atmosphere was in school. The positive culture at the school can also be seen by just how many positive points the students have been awarded as the table below shows. READ MORE

Our data for the first two weeks shows 99% of behaviour records have been positive commendations compared to just 1% negative entries. Equally impressive is that since we have returned to school 94% of our students have received zero negative points. This is a phenomenal achievement and to be celebrated and shows the positive culture at the school. Staff have really enjoyed catching the great character of our students and rewarding them by signing their commendation cards. READ MORE

Welcome back to the new academic year and I hope that you all have had some form of Summer break as well as the students. The students have come back in fine fettle and it has been great to formally greet Year 7 as Thurstable students. I cannot praise them highly enough, they have impressed everyone with their impeccable behaviour, manners and friendliness and have made an absolutely brilliant first impression, they have managed every routine seamlessly and are all experts at using their Yondr pouches after just four days. Well done Year 7!   READ MORE