As we enter the festive period, a wide range of events are taking place during December.
Each year, we organise a Christmas Charity Appeal to promote empathy and philanthropy. We have chosen to work with a local Foodbank: Compassion Acts. During an upcoming assembly, students will learn all about the work of foodbanks and the fact that there are more foodbanks than McDonalds restaurants in the UK! Over the month of December, if you can please give your child an item of food to donate to our appeal, this will be greatly appreciated. We will also be running lots of interform competitions to promote our charity work.
Food items the foodbank is currently in need of are listed below:
- UHT Milk
- Cereal
- Cordial
- Toiletries – shampoo and deodorant
- Packet mash
- Tea/Coffee/Hot chocolate
- Noodles
- Nappies
- Tinned items – fish, fruit, tomatoes,rice pudding, custard
- Christmas treats
- Pet food
Christmas Dinner Days – this is an opportunity for all students in each year group to sit down and eat a Christmas dinner together. There will be live music and entertainment with a Christmas Cabaret feel. These will take place on Tuesday 17th December for Years 7 and 10; Wednesday 18th will be Years 8, 9 and 11. This is a two-course meal with a mocktail and will cost £3.35 which is payable on ParentPay. The deadline for payment is Friday 13th December. Students on free school meals will get the cost covered. The menu will be a choice of Roast Chicken or Quorn grill and will be served with roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding, sage and onion stuffing, cocktail sausage, brussel sprouts, carrots, peas and gravy followed by a chocolate mousse cookie pot.
If your child does not want to eat Christmas lunch, we would ask them to bring a packed lunch so they can sit down and enjoy the event with their friends. Students can wear a Christmas jumper and/or bling their blazer if they wish on their designated dinner day. We would love to make it even more special by giving out surprises, so we are reaching out to our Stanley community for donations. All donations will be greatly appreciated – big and small. We are looking for items such as chocolates, unwanted gifts and/or teddy bears. If you have any donations, they can be dropped off at the school main reception. Over the two days, at lunchtime, the other year groups not taking part on that day will be served lunch from the food hub. This will be a selection of sandwiches, wraps and pastas or your child may wish to bring in a packed lunch.
During this week, we will be also running our Autumn term rewards days. In order to be invited to this, students need to have over 95% attendance (authorised absences and/or medical appointments will be taken into consideration), no more than 10 stage 1 or 2 detentions and no further sanctions e.g. stage 3s or stage 4s. Students will be invited to the events on Tuesday 10th December. You, as a parent/carer, can also keep check on their progress on the Arbor app.
The events are –
· Year 7 disco on Wednesday 18th from 4-6pm
· Year 8 disco on Tuesday 17th from 4-6pm
Students can go home and change or may wish to stay in school and get changed; they will be supervised by our Pastoral Teams. We will also run a tuck shop at these events so if your child would like to purchase snacks, they will need to bring money.
Year 11 initially were offered Bongos Bingo, but asked to join the Inflatable day, so we have accommodated their request.
Inflatable day will take place on Thursday 19th in the Sports Hall. Year 9 – 11s will take part; each year group will go in separately throughout the day.
There will be the following activities available:
- 12ft slide
- 45ft assault course
- bouncy castle
- wipeout
- wrecking ball
- penalty shoot-out
If any student cannot, or does not want to, take part in this, a Christmas film will be offered in the hall. We will also run a tuck shop at these events so if your child would like to purchase snacks, they will need to bring money.
We are also running an interform competition whereby each form is asked to festively dress their classroom door. The winning form in each year group will win a festive breakfast on Thursday 19th December.
Attendance Streak December – we are running an attendance competition during the month of December. Every student who comes into school every school day for the month of December will receive a selection box on Friday 20th December.
We have our Christmas show Great Expectations the Musical, which will be run by our Performing Arts Department on Thursday 19th at 6pm. Tickets will be on sale for parent/carers to purchase; Mrs Gregson-Burt will share details soon.
We finish the term with our Christmas extravaganza assembly with some very special guests performing on Thursday 19th; Year 7-8 will attend during periods 4 and 5 and on Friday 20th Year 9-11 will attend during periods 1-3. It is my favourite event of the year!!!
Just a reminder we have a staff inset on Friday 6th December, and our last day of term is Friday 20th December, and we finish at 12pm.
