Week 24 – 15 March 2024
Key Dates
- Non-uniform day for Oscars – Friday 22nd March
What a Week!
Some great pictures and reports this week from the French trip thank you to Mr Winston for organising the trip and to Mrs Donkin, Miss Wilkinson and Miss Blackburn for giving up their time.
Great to see the improvements and success in girls sport with the netball and gymnastics results.
Plus we have an amazing video of some of our Year 7 students at the Railway museum (which you can watch below).
Next week we have a non-uniform day on the last Friday of term to raise money for Oscars Paediatric Brain Tumour Charity.
Bring a pound and please wear your sports shirts if you have them.
As a Trust we will be attempting, to run and pass a rugby ball approximately 1500km which is the same distance that York Knights have to travel to Toulouse the following weekend.
Students will take part in assemblies delivered by Phil Martinez from OSCARS and ex pupil Cain North who was diagnosed with a Brain Tumour this time last year.
We are hoping that we will be joined on the day by York Knights and Valkyrie stars to encourage the students.
Full details will be sent out on Monday.
Have a great weekend everyone.
Rod Sims
Thank you Paris!
Last Friday Mr Winston, Miss Donkin, Miss Wilkinson and Miss Blackburn took 39 of our year 9 and 10 students to Paris for the weekend.
We explored Paris, including climbing the Eiffel Tower, taking a boat trip on the Seine and visiting Montmartre to see the Sacré Cœur.
On Sunday, the group spent the entire day at Disneyland Paris, even staying until the park closed to see the illuminations and fireworks!
The students were amazing and represented the school very well, and despite the very long journey back a wonderful time was had by all.
Mr Winston
Awesome Author Visit
On Monday we welcomed award winning author Simon James Green into school as part of the YHS Book Festival.
We don’t know who was more excited, the students or our LRC Manager Miss Linsey.
Simon has released 14 books for children and young adults, and written many more.
One of Simon’s more recent books is Finn Jones Was Here, which is a finalist at todays York Book Awards.
During his visit he met with Year 7 & 8, speaking to them about everything from awkward teenage moments in school, to how much money an author really makes.
The sessions were full of laughter and had students leaving with a real buzz about books!
One student even told Simon “Your books sound a lot like me!”
Wonderful Time At WonderLab
Back in January, 20 of our Year 7 students visited the National Railway Museum to record a promotional video for Wonderlab.
They worked incredibly hard during the long shoot (and also managed to fit in some very competitive games of air hockey!).
This video is the result of their hard work.
Mrs Lancaster
Get Your Bake On!
After school yesterday the Food Technology room was transformed into the venue for our YHS Staff Bake Off.
Mrs Webster bravely took on the mammoth task of overseeing several members of staff shed their daily roles to get their bake on for Comic Relief.
From Mr Byrne’s Custard Cream Blondies, to Mrs Stevens savory bake, Mr Drury and his Chocolate Orange Brownies, and we can’t forget Miss Burns sneaky box cake (which looked amazing!) everyone had a fantastic time.
Students got to see, and taste the fruits of their labours during our Great YHS Bake Sale at breaktime.
The full story, with more pictures from the Bake Off and Bake Sale will be out in next week’s weekly update!
Sparx Maths
Since September:
- over 3952 hours of independent Maths work have been completed
- 485,773 questions have been answered correctly
- 202 students have improved their times tables
- 11y/Ma1 have the highest average XP per student.
An amazing 17 students have reached the next XP level. These are:
Well done to all!
Mrs Garrett
Performing Arts Spotlight
Dance Masterclass for Cast…
The buzz around school is growing for our school musical ‘We Will Rock You’!
This week we were really lucky to have year 11 student Alicia Hunter in rehearsals to teach our cast the choreography for Radio GaGa. Alicia choreographed the whole routine herself and demonstrated excellent leadership skills communicating with and coaching our cast.
If you want to see the result of Thursday’s dance masterclass, make sure you get your tickets for We Will Rock You via parentpay or LRC/Finance office.
Show details:
Wednesday 17th, Thursday 18th & Friday 19th April 2024
Doors 6:30pm, Show 7pm
(show includes a 15 min interval)
Tickets: Adult £4, Child £3
Sports News
Netball
On Monday I took 11 of our superstar netball players to the U13s York and District Netball Tournament.
The girls played superbly and did an excellent job at representing our school!
It was lovely to see how many new friendships they have made with students from a variety of schools in our city throughout the past year.
In total the girls played 5 games and stood their ground amazingly well.
Watching them come together as a team and support one another was a joy to watch on and off the court.
We started with a strong start in Game 1, maintaining a lead in the first half!
Game 2 was our toughest game but the girls learnt a lot from it and improved massively in the following games.
Game 3 everyone came together as a team and found our rhythm in the game.
Game 4 was very much like watching a tennis match, taking it in turns scoring with the opposing team and some outstanding passes were made throughout this game.
Game 5 despite being tired the girls held their own extremely well, making it a lovely game to watch.
Scores below:
- Bootham: 1-7 (Bootham win)
- Huntington: 0-9 (Hunt win)
- All Saints: 1-0 (YHS win!!)
- Millthorpe: 3-5 (Millthorpe win)
- The Mount: 4-3 (YHS win!!)
I am very proud of how hard these girls work towards the sport they love and their attitude to each game that they play!
Well done girls!
Miss Jeans
Basketball
Well done to the Y11 boys who went to Vale Academy after school yesterday to play basketball.
This was the boys first competitive fixture and they can be proud with their efforts, despite a 48-19 defeat they did really well against a much more experienced opposition and gained valuable practical evidence for their Cambridge Nationals in Sport.
Mr Jeffery
Gymnastics Competition
- Team 1 3rd place in Teams!
- Megan 2nd place in Individual!
In Other News
Win Big on the Performing Arts Raffle
We are holding our big spring Performing Arts Raffle, with some fantastic prizes available to win.
Tickets available NOW, via ParentPay or from Miss Linsey in the LRC.
At just £1 each, don’t miss out on your chance to win.
YHS Book Festival
As part of this weeks Book Festival we have had the Scholastic Book Fair in the library – if you haven’t already placed an order it’s not too late.
- Step 1 – Check out the online bookcases at: https://bookfairs.scholastic.co.uk/bookcases to see what is available across all age ranges.
- Step 2 – Choose your books and work out the total price, making payment at: https://bookfairs.scholastic.co.uk/pay/1289408
- Step 3 – email you order and payment reference to library@yorkhigh.southbank.academy – don’t forget to include your child’s name
- Step 4 – your order will be actions, and the books delivered to your child next week
Deadline for orders is 10am Monday 18th March
YHS Way
Next week’s focus – Movement around school
Community News
York’s Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF)
Children and young people in receipt of benefits-related free school meals can receive up to eight sessions of free activities during the Easter holidays.
Each day will include: a healthy meal and a selection of activities ranging from sports, drama and creative workshops, nature activities, and much more.
For more information at a look at the events brochure here.
