It has been an excellent week for over one hundred of our Year 13 students who have spent it revising hard - and having a little downtime - on the banks of Lake Windermere. At such an important time in their school careers, this shift of climate – there is snow on the mountains – and change of scenery are invaluable. This revision trip is a defining characteristic of our Sixth Form and we are sure that it is an experience which will prove both practically useful and remain with these young people for a long time.

I have written quite often recently about the amount of extra-curricular activities which are going on and I was quite overwhelmed as I walked out towards the leisure centre on Tuesday after school by the numbers of students who were either at a club or competing in a fixture. There were students as far as the eye could see covering the netball courts, the astro-turf and the football pitches. It was noisy, vibrant and simply fantastic – the essence of a great school experience.

I must say “well done” to our Year 10 students on the first two days of their exams – their approach has been exemplary and so very impressive. As I said to them in assembly last week, we will soon be appointing prefects from the year group and the sense of responsibility and maturity which they demonstrate bodes very well for next year. Well done also to the team of students from Years 8 and 9 who participated in last weekend’s Magistrates Mock Trial competition; it was fiercely competitive but they did very well indeed and returned with the award for “Best Usher”.