Newsletters

May 2020

I cannot  believe that another month has gone by in lockdown and I am writing the third Lockdown Ribston Roar.

Working remotely between staff and students has fast become our ‘new kind of normal’ and as a school, we have continued to evolve the learning experience of our students. We are now looking to provide more ‘live session interactivity’ and our new Remote Learning Plan will be rolled out to exam groups next week and to other year groups shortly.

We are currently planning to open for Year 10 and Year 12 after the 15th June for some face-to-face support with their teachers. I have shared the Risk Assessment for our reopening to all parents to show the steps we have put in place to ensure the school is as safe as possible. If parents would like to offer feedback before finalisation, please feel free to write in to head@ribstonhall.gloucs.sch.uk

The last few weeks have seen a news feed that has filled our hearts at Ribston with sorrow. The tragic death of George Floyd has reminded the world that discrimination, intolerance and injustice are still embedded within society and that we all must come together to bring about positive change.

Here at Ribston, we celebrate the diversity of our school. We have been impressed with the amount of correspondence we have received from the student body to see what more we can do to raise better awareness around all types of discrimination, including racism. ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ is a quote that we want to turn into action and so we are offering staff and students an opportunity to join a working party to review and improve our curriculum offer. We are looking forward to working together as a community to bring about more awareness through education.  

Sarah Colombini 

Headteacher

Student Wellbeing - May saw plenty of sunshine, a half term break and also Mental Health Awareness Week. This year, the theme was Kindness.

You may recognise the expression “it is better to give than receive”, but did you know this is backed-up by research? 

People who are kind and compassionate see clear benefits to their wellbeing and happiness. Kindness can also help reduce stress and improve our emotional wellbeing. We all have so much going on in our lives - including competing strains and stresses and this can see kindness pushed to one side, in favour of what is more urgent. It can be easy to signal kindness by posting online and following a trend, but harder to commit to kindness in our daily words and actions. If we take the time to be kind to other people, we can reap the emotional dividends. It can really make a difference and especially for people who are vulnerable or struggling. Now is the time to re-imagine a kinder society that better protects our mental health. Whilst we haven’t been able to interact with the students in school, we have set up our Wellbeing padlet, which is updated regularly and can be found on our website if you want to have a look around it. 

Students were asked to share what they have been doing that is kind during lockdown and/or Mental Health Awareness Week. Here is a small selection of some acts of Kindness:

Lauren Smith SF4 – Sixth Form Wellbeing Lead: "I've been making use of the app 'Freeprints Cards' to send my friends and family personalised postcards throughout lockdown. My grandparents really enjoy receiving ones with pictures of me and my siblings on and hearing about the simple things we've been doing to keep occupied at home. It can feel difficult to maintain relationships without being able to see people properly in person, so it's more important than ever to remind those you love that you're thinking of them."

Rosanna Phelps 9R "I help my mum out by making tea every Saturday - One of my acts of kindness every week!"

Zoe Davy, 7.4 "Kindness matters to me because the world depends on it. I have been helping more around the house since lockdown."

Students were asked to design a poster for the Wellbeing Mental Health Awareness week. For her winning entry, Simran Nijjar, 7.5 received a Lockdown Legend Certificate and also 10 House Points for her amazing design! We will be looking to use this design in the school to promote mental health awareness in the future so keep your eyes peeled!

Mrs Ford and Miss Dobson from Wellbeing recently met with Claire Libby, who is the founder of the 'iamme' app. The app is widely used by secondary school students and prior to the lockdown, we had planned for Claire to come in to chat with our students about the app. Claire announced a t-shirt design competition, which saw over 100 entries from all over the world and only 15 were shortlisted. Six of our talented students had their designs shortlisted – congratulations to Sophie Webster 9B, Olivia Ryder-kiely 9R, Daisy Philmore 7.4, Olivia Jaison 7.1, Becca Allen 9B and Jess Risborough 7.3. Two of our students were placed in the top three… Jess Risborough, came in joint second place with another student from another school and Becca Allen WON the competition and will be having her design printed onto the official 'iamme' t-shirts. Absolutely fantastic work girls, well done!

Sponsoring a Child, a Sixth former's family experience during lockdown

Sponsoring a child is something I saw on TV and my family and I would say ‘we should do that’ and would often forget shortly after. However, during lockdown, we decided that we were finally going to do it. We used the charity Compassion UK (however there are many others out there for a smaller fee every month, just be sure to have someone check the charities authenticity for you).

In short, as a family we decided to pay £28 a month for a 7 year old boy called Dainer who is growing up in a poverty-stricken area of Columbia. This goes towards basics such as food, school uniforms and health check-ups but it also pays for him to attend what they call a ‘project’ on Saturdays. This is essentially a school in which he receives social lessons such as conflict resolution, health lessons for practical health and hygiene tips, career planning and a letter writing lesson which is when the children read and write letters to their sponsors.

Compassion UK is a Christian charity so Dainer will also receive a free bible however they sponsor children of any religion. When you sponsor a child, you will have the opportunity to send them letters and flat paper items such as photos, pages from colouring books, stickers etc should you choose to, and they will write letters in return. It is not compulsory to send your child letters however; graduates of the project have said that the letters played a big part in their success and motivated them at school. You also get recent framed photos of your sponsor child and updates. After sponsoring a child for over a year, Compassion offers you the opportunity to fly to your sponsor child’s home country and meet them as well as look around their ‘project’, see where they live and sometimes meet their families.

If you want to gain a bit more insight into what it is like, “key & cam” on YouTube makes good videos documenting her journey of sponsoring a little girl in Ethiopia with Compassion UK.  To sponsor a child with Compassion UK, go to: https://www.compassionuk.org

I would highly recommend It. I’m aware that £28 is a lot of money for some families, however for us we felt that it is easy to spend that amount every month on luxuries such as clothes and takeaways which we will forget we even had. For those who can afford to consider this, it can truly change a child’s life.

Written by Shannah Meaney SF2

Sharing Student Work - Physics and the Solar System Challenge

Well done to our students, who accepted a challenge, set by Mr Millward, one of our Physics teachers, to create Planet and Solar System masterpieces

Alice Holder 8B and Hannah Brown 8B both chose the Planet Mars for their cakes 

Sharing Student Work - Maths Challenge

Ms Price set her groups a task to create a picture that had either lines of symmetry or rotational symmetry. Here are some of the ones that were created.

Sharing Student Work - Food Technology Challenges

Izzy Evans, 7.1 - "Apple and sultana crumble, this tasted so good after our Sunday Roast."

Fran Dyde 7.2

Maisie Blakey 8D 

"I made chocolate chip cookies and left them on my neighbours’ doorstep with a note inside. I used a tried and tested recipe from the Hummingbird bakery cookbook, but had to substitute the light brown sugar for dark. As we haven’t been able to get any. I also used left-over Easter chocolate as I don’t like dark chocolate. I made these by creaming together butter and sugar, next I cracked in an egg, then added vanilla extract. After that I sieved in plain flour and bicarbonate of soda, to finish I add chocolate and rolled into balls, before placing into the oven."

Keela Sullivan 8S "I made cookies for my friends because we don't have any vulnerable people on our street. I made cookies because I find them very comforting and they always taste so good! I make these a lot for my family and they all love them so I hoped my friends would like them too and they did! I just wanted to thank you as well for giving us a chance to do this challenge because it gave me the chance to talk face to face with my friends that I haven't seen in months. So, thank you, it really made me happy. "

Rebecca Chisholme 8D. "I made a coffee and walnut cake using the camp coffee recipe and a Victoria sponge cake. I gave this to my 101-year-old nan who has been really enjoying the cakes me and my sister have been baking during lockdown."

Amy Bowd 8D "I made raspberry and lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream icing for my elderly neighbour across the road. I put them on her door step with a little note on them and she loved them!"

Myrto Barling 8S "I managed to do some very exciting cooking this half term. For my Mum's birthday, I baked a blueberry cake, served with blueberry syrup and single cream. I also made 5 litres of Elderflower Cordial with my Dad and Sister. We picked fresh Elderflower when we went on walk."

Mia Cecchi 8R

Elleice Hennessy 9B - made chicken curry paired with egg fried rice that I made and vegetable spring rolls.

Mrs Fisher, one of English teachers, sent this poem in to the Ribston Roar that had been written by Katie Lundberg 9S. It wasn't a class task but something Katie had written in her own time. We think it is lovely.

Imaginary Kingdom

Where all the roses are red
And the sky is tinted blue
A place where the grass is evergreen
And the sun meets the moon
Where the stars shine brightly
Glistening beams above our heads
Far stretched fields of sunflowers bloom in their beds

Where the birds always sing
And the bees like to play
A place where all raindrops on lily pads never seem to fade away
Where the soft summer breeze hits your skin like it were spring
And the gentle winds joy that it always seems to bring

Where the sunset meets the east just as nightfall hits the moon
A place where silence is the language
There’s no need to break it soon

Where the water freely ripples in and out of seas and lakes
And all the eyes of wandering people just turn back to their mistakes
Where the clouds are rolling onwards
Leading day by day
Morrow to morrow and henceforth
Never leaving or pass away

A place that offers hope and love
A place where kindness is the kings
A place that stretches as far as the eye can see
Covered in brilliant things

This kind of place is where I want to be
The sort of land you only hear about ever so secretly
It’s apparent that somewhere as perfect as this
Could never be possible or even exist

The land of the free or the freedom of land
Where the water is as blue as the sky and the hand
Where the dark is as light as the plainness of day
Where the nightmares and monsters just seem to turn away

My picture I have painted in the minds of you and me
Let it dry for a second
The land of make believe

Amazing Art!

Sadiya Ginwalla in 11B has been keeping busy during lockdown with this fantastic Pointillism piece.... her drawing made completely out of dots that took 3 weeks to complete. Can anyone guess the character?

Charity Fundraising

Mrs Hay, Head of Year 7  wanted to share  a project that Daisy James in 7:5 has been doing. Whilst being off she has been making bracelets for charity. She has set up her own shop on Etsy and is managing the marketing, financials, customer service and is learning general business acumen.

To date she has raised approx £130 for Sue Ryder and has made many people smile with her lovely crafts

You can see her bracelets on the below link:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/DooBean?ref=search_shop_redirect

Great Job Daisy - well done!