“It’s a hard knock life” has been the theme here at Plymstock all week as our School Show ‘Annie’ took centre stage. After months of planning, preparation, rehearsing and the odd ‘artistic outburst’ the show finally went live. I am delighted to say that it has been a huge success with our students and staff putting together a top quality production and performance – something to be really proud of.

For those who don’t know the story, Annie is an orphan in a facility run by the mean Miss Hannigan. Annie believes that her parents left her there by mistake. When a rich man named Oliver Warbucks decides to let an orphan live at his home to promote his image, Annie is selected. While Annie gets accustomed to living in Warbucks’ mansion, she still longs to meet her parents. So Warbucks announces a search for them and a reward, which brings out many frauds.

Over four nights our students have entertained hundreds of people as they brought this story to life. The show was a real triumph and I would like to thank the huge number of people who contributed to this, giving up evenings, weekends and holidays to make it such a success.

Finally a huge thank you goes to everyone who took the time to come and see the show – without the huge levels of support these opportunities wouldn’t run.

Wednesday morning proved to be a nervy start for our Year 11 students as they arrived early for their GCSE mock results morning. Having completed a challenging period of mock examinations before and after Christmas, Wednesday was the day that they received their results. The aim is to give the students a realistic simulation of what to expect in the summer but with the key difference that there is still time to make changes and further improve. Thankfully, many of the students were happy with their outcomes and it reflected some real hard work during that mock period. Just four months to go now until they take the real exams! Best of luck Year 11.

Congratulations go to one of our ex-students, Chris Gregory, who has just made the Great Britain Snowboarding Team and is currently competing in the Europa Cup. Chris completed his education at Plymstock in 2007 and joined the Army Foundation College in Harrogate. Whilst serving in the British Army, Chris was given the opportunity to learn to snowboard at the Royal Engineers Championships in 2011. From there he went on to gain numerous titles across the Army and Combined Services Championships. In 2018 he raced across Europe in FIS events to gain the criteria to attend a selection camp for the GB Europa Cup Team. Having trained with the squad throughout the 2018 summer, Chris is now competing with the GB Team. Well done Chris – we are really proud of you.

This week it was lovely to see a nice comment about Plymstock School in one of the local papers (Plympton, Plymstock and Ivybridge News), written by our local MP, Sir Gary Streeter.

Finally, it is time for our students of the week. I am delighted to say that this week’s winners are…

• Lauren B – for the amazing art work that she is producing. She recently won an Arts Award Discover Certificate for her work from Trinity College London. Perhaps even more impressive than that, she produced a drawing for her Head of Year, that Ms Kirk thought was simply stunning.
• Fern S – for simply being an all round fantastic Plymstock student. In her recent progress check she received 42/42 ‘Yes’ indicators for her learning behaviours, is on or above target for every subject, has already accumulated 35 merits and is just a lovely, positive influence on her peers.
• Olly C – for his incredible achievements in the world of Table Tennis. He has just been invited to compete in Prague in a tournament against players from all over Europe. In addition to this he recently won the Band 1 Cadet (U15 age group) Tournament that took place in the East Midlands. He’s also been selected to play for Devon again this week at U15 level, and has a strong chance of being asked to join the U18 team again this year.
• Alex R – in recognition of his attitude and effort. This young man always tries so hard in class and is consistently polite and considerate to both staff and other students.
• Emma F – due to her hard work and commitment she has just been promoted to the rank of Corporal in the Air Cadets.
• Andrew H – to congratulate him on enduring tests and interviews to successfully gain an offer at Oxford University to study Engineering – a tremendous achievement.