A Message from the Head...

Something very exciting arrived in Prep this week in the form of our new playground buddy bench!

In their half termly meeting last month, the Prep Wellbeing Champions, suggested that the school buy a friendship bench!  They thought it would be  lovely to have a place for children to sit should they need a friend to play with at playtimes.  Mrs Hallam and Mrs Prince thought this was a fantastic idea and it now sits proudly under the tree in the playground! 

The Wellbeing Champions keep their eye on it (as do lots of other children!) during playtimes and, should they see someone sitting on it, they go over and offer to play with them or find them a friend to play with. 

We are absolutely delighted with the Wellbeing Champion’s first purchase, and think it is a terrific addition to the Prep playground. 

As mentioned last week, the second paper in the GCSE Maths exam took place on Tuesday of this week.  The Upper 5 seem to have taken their first public examinations in their stride and we now wait with baited breath for their results to arrive in early March!

The school week ended with a fire on the field ... a controlled one of course!  This was part of a 'Great fire of London' workshop which Transition  were involved in -  more information about this eventful session will follow in the Prep articles section in next week's newsletter.

Of course today sees a full day at school with our annual Year 7 Entrance and Scholarship Assessments taking place.  I look forward to writing lots of offer letters in the coming days to next year's prospective Upper 3 cohort and hope that they will have a positive experience with us today even though they are being assessed! 

The picture above shows the online assessments we are using which are provided by Atom Learning.  These adaptive tests really allow our candidates to demonstrate what they CAN do rather than to highlight what they CAN'T do.  This leads to a positive experience for all candidates regardless of their ability.

I'll finish this week by mentioning, just in case anyone thinks that we have deserted the school entirely, Mrs Titman, Mrs Carver, Mrs Wallis, Miss Bond and I are all out of school on Tuesday this week as we are away at Berkhampsted School attending a conference on the future of IT in schools.

If you are interested to see what we will be hearing about and to see the many different workshops each of us will attend, then please click the button below to read more about the day.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

- Dr Tracy Johnson - 

Pupil news

The Whites and Coopers' talented hockey siblings 

Gateways has seen double sibling hockey success at county level with both the Whites and the Coopers gaining places in their respective counties.  Well done to Jamie (U15 North Yorkshire) and Iris (U14 West Yorkshire) who are now well-established in their county sides, after some very stiff competition and hours of assessment required at U12 level.

Congratulations also go to Iris's sibling Agatha and Jamie's sibling Caitlyn who are now joining them at county level.  It's just a shame they will be competing for opposing counties as Agatha plays for West Yorkshire and Caitlyn for North Yorkshire!

Huge thanks to Mr Scholfield for his encouragement and support of hockey at Gateways. With Iris and Agatha in goal and Jamie & Caitlyn in defence, scoring against Gateways will be extremely tough! 

Sadie selected for Yorkshire County Cricket Club U11 squad

Congratulations to Lower 3 pupil Sadie Maiden who has been selected for the Yorkshire County Cricket Club U11 squad, following a trial of more than 80 girls from across the county. 

Sadie started playing cricket when she was 3 and also plays for Scarcroft U11s. She keeps sharp by competing in the back garden against her younger brother Rupert, who also plays representative cricket.

As well as cricket, Sadie also participates in a wide range of other sports including hockey, netball, tennis, golf and karate; we are sure we will be featuring more sporting successes from Sadie in future newsletters!

Chinese New Year

To celebrate Chinese New Year, the lunch on Monday will be off-menu and will feature a delicious range of Chinese themed dishes.

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