Many of you will be aware that over recent weeks around the world young people have been protesting to raise awareness over the impact of climate change. Many young people do not believe that governments around the world are taking the issue seriously enough. At Plymstock School, many of our students and staff feel the same. Consequently, we want to do our bit on this very important issue. Very shortly, our students will be having assemblies on the issue of climate change and to launch an exciting programme we are going to get involved in, called Eco-Schools.

Eco-Schools is a global programme engaging approx. 20 million children across 67 countries, making it poentially the largest educational programme on the planet. For nearly 25 years Eco-Schools has been empowering children to drive change and improve their environmental awareness through the simple Seven-Step framework in order to achieve the international Eco-Schools Green Flag award. Eco-Schools develops pupils’ skills, raises environmental awareness and improves the school environment as well as a whole host of other benefits.

The first step is to create an Eco Committee comprised of students from each year group across the school.

I would like to say a big thank you to Mr Hurd-Thomas and Mr Schindler who are leading our involvement.

On Thursday this week the school celebrated World Down’s Syndrome Day through ‘Odd Socks’. The day was created to globally celebrate the lives of people with Down’s syndrome and to make sure that they have the same freedoms and opportunities as everybody else. This year’s theme is ‘Leave no one behind’ to emphasise that all people with Down’s syndrome must have opportunities to live fulfilling lives, included on a full and equal basis with others, in all aspects of society.

To raise awareness, people around the world have been wearing odd socks and using the hashtag #LotsOfSocks on social media to highlight the cause. Socks have been used as the symbol because chromosomes are shaped a bit like socks and people with Down’s syndrome are born with an extra one. It was great to see a huge number of people across the school spending the day in their odd socks!

Mrs Tyrrell’s Year 8 tutor group have been working to raise money and awareness for the global campaign. Students had the opportunity to ‘Name the Sock-Puppet’ and ‘Guess the number of Sweets’ in a jar to raise funds. A huge thank you to goes Mrs Tyrrell and her tutor group for doing such a great job and a very special thank you to Miss Bettison for organising the whole event with her team of helpers: Lizzie B, Amy T and Caitlin R.

Recently, students in Mrs Withey’s Year 9 History class, completed an extended homework task where they independently researched aspects of life during the Blitz and then used the knowledge gained, to answer a challenging GCSE level question. This required them to reach a judgement on the success of the government’s attempts to protect its citizens during this time. While Mrs Withey was hugely impressed by the performance of the whole class, the responses written by Max, Emma, Caitlin, Imogen and Sophie (sadly absent when the photo was taken) were absolutely superb and achieved a GCSE Level 9 grade equivalent! These talented students did exceptionally well and must be congratulated on their achievement at this midway point in Year 9.

Our Year 9 and 10 rugby teams have recently taken part in the West Devon 7s Rugby Tournament. Our Year 9 team had a mixed day but they finished by beating the private school, Mount Kelly, in their last game. The Year 10 team made it through to the semi-finals where they were beaten by the eventual champions Devonport High School for Boys. Both teams represented the school brilliantly and Mr Bellamy said they were a pleasure to watch, coach and referee! Well done to everyone involved and a big thank you to Mr Bellamy.

Congratulations goes to Year 11 Judo star Cordelia. She has recently won a Silver Medal in the English Junior Open Tournament. Additionally, she competed in the Seniors’ Competition, to gain a little extra experience. Amazingly, she went on to win a Gold medal. So, as well as being a British Champion in her own age group, she is now ranked the Number 1 player in GB for U21s and Number 6 in the senior GB rankings. To top it all she has received her first call up notice to represent GB U21s in Germany later this month. Absolutely amazing – well done Cordelia.

This week, I have a huge number of ‘students of the week’. Here we go…

• First up is our Year 7 Netball Team who recently competed in the Plymouth Schools Netball Tournament. They played brilliantly and finished in second place. This is really impressive for a team that have only started playing together this academic year. Well done to Poppy B, Olivia L, Freya W, Gracie F, Molly M-C, Issy I, Annie W Daisy T-B, Beau M, Jess G and Neve P.
• Next up is some of our rowing stars who represented the Plymouth Amateur Rowing Club in the National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships last week. The girls team did really well and won their heat team race but eventually missed out on a medal. The boys team ended up winning overall, with Charlie P also winning his single race. In the girls team, Phoebe D is now placed 8th in the country for indoor rowing. A huge well done goes to all the following Plymstock students in the teams – Charlie P, Phoebe D, Stanley B, Charley J and Sam D.
• Our next winner is Ryan M who really impressed at a recent taster session with the Royal Marines. It was a gruelling experience but Ryan impressed the staff with his amazing resilience and determination.
• Another worthy winner this week is Luke D who has shown an incredible effort and made tremendous progress, in a highly challenging mock examination period.
• Aidan O is our next winner, in recognition of the brilliant way he has supported a new student who has joined the year group, and for all the personal improvements he has shown.
• Lastly is a group of students who have successfully gained places at a number of Cambridge University Masterclasses. A big well done goes to Daisie P (BioMed), Georgia T-G (Psychology), Martha R (History), Zara L (History) and Sofia B (Philosophy).