It is tough not to think about exams this week, with both public examination groups now well underway, and internal school exams for most other year groups taking place.

Funnily enough, my abiding impression of this week is a sense of calm! It is probably generated by the weeks and months that have gone before. The anticipation of an event is often far scarier than the event itself, is it not?

Of course, a busy schedule of exams does keep the mind focussed. Granted, they are split across a weekend for some breathing space (or several weeks in the case of public exams). Nonetheless, there is an increased incentive to avoid unnecessary distractions, and the drive and determination to give a good account of oneself prevails.

Exams are viewed by some as a dying remnant of an education system braced for technological and ideological reform. Artificial Intelligence and adaptive software will present other ways to “test” knowledge. For others, the challenge of demonstrating knowledge at a specific time, in a specific place, without any support other than the ink in your pen, is viewed as vital to differentiate those who can collate information and deliver it under pressure. Whether or not we will see a hybrid exam system which features elements of both, only time will tell.

The thing that exams can do, of course, is shine a light on topics and ask questions of candidates which reach far beyond the exam syllabus:

• How much have you understood about ionic-bonding?
• Can you apply the knowledge to this novel situation? But also, did you get it first time? Or have you spent ages outside of class using resources to support you to your level of understanding? And if so, has it worked?
• Were you studying SMART?
• Did you give yourself enough time?
• Did you do the questions you knew first so that you didn’t get stuck somewhere and waste time?
• Do you have reasonable regrets about the “could’ve done that better”?

And once exams are over and results are in, they continue to provide further food for thought. How happy am I? Did I deserve that result? What should I do the same next time so that I enjoy repeated success? What needs review?

Sadly, other questions can creep in, too. How did my friend do? What was the top mark in the class?  These questions are irrelevant, of course, and we would do well to remind pupils of that at every opportunity.

Year 7 and 8 had a day focussing on Resilience and Friendships on the day after their exams finished. The day was full of opportunities to work in teams, develop understanding of issues together, reflect on pupils’ own outlook on social interactions. It provided just the tonic, and hopefully goes some way to lessening the comparative element that can sneak into the exams feedback process.

There are a lot of question marks in this piece! The pupils will be fed up of questions written on papers after the week they have just had. However, I hope they are also developing the answers to the questions which weren’t on the paper, but which a set of exams can offer. These are much more potent in young people being honest about their way or working and learning. If they can begin answering those, they will find it a lot easier to make progress in many aspects of their lives, far beyond the academic.

Mr David King
Deputy Head (Pastoral)

Ciara R, Class of 2011

Ciara left Croydon High in 2011 and studied Primary Education plus QTS at York St. John University. After teaching for several years, Ciara changed professions to become a Metropolitan Police Detective. She is now a Senior Criminal Enforcement Officer at The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care, which exists to enhance and improve the health of millions of people every day through the effective regulation of medicines and medical devices, underpinned by science and research.

Ciara is also the Founder of The Real Project (@therealprojectuk), educating young people about the law relating to relationships, domestic abuse and violence against women and girls.

She told us that for many of her generation and before, considering relationships and sex education from a legal perspective was something that just didn’t happen in schools. As a result, many young people were subjected to sexual offences that they were not aware of. “ For some, this still has a daily impact, and many have had therapy and been on medication for mental health. This was not just a school problem – it was a societal problem. We do not educate people on the Law that is there to protect them even though the age of criminal responsibility is ten years old! Realising (years later!) what happened to my friends and me growing up lit a fire in my belly. 

“My favourite role in the police was on a proactive domestic abuse high-harm team where we located and disrupted serious domestic abusers, including sex offenders and paedophiles. It frustrated me how so many victims were unaware of their rights, and as a result, a lot went unreported. 

“Whilst serving as an officer, I went to New Scotland Yard and presented an initiative (including research I had gathered and surveys I had created) to the Assistant Commissioner and her team, based on creating a preventative educational approach for schools to use to help educate young people on the law surrounding relationships and sex. Unfortunately, the Met had many other issues they were dealing with at the time, so I chose to leave to pursue this initiative myself. 

“I have spoken with so many people (friends, colleagues, survey participants, victims), and nearly every single woman has a story to tell about being abused, harassed or assaulted. I decided to put my teaching and legal hats on to create the Real (relationships, education and Law) Project. At the moment, we educate through social media. We are currently in the process of designing different packages for schools and Universities (including pupil, staff and parent sessions), delivering legal relationship and sex education and support agencies, and allowing children to become better informed and to know their rights. We are looking to launch in the next couple of months. I really believe this will help us combat the violence against women and girls epidemic. 

“I definitely developed my outspoken nature, confidence, and drive from Croydon High, which will have played a part in me making two big career changes before turning 30 and having the confidence and ambition to start the Real Project. I most enjoyed the sports facilities, tournaments and matches. I was on the netball, tennis and athletics teams and was able to fulfil my passion through this. The trips were also great – I learnt to ski during a Year 9 trip, which I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do otherwise as my family don’t ski. I would say to my 15-year self, aim high. You haven’t got to be an A* student to succeed and make a difference!”

Ciara spends most of her spare time with her 14-year-old labradoodle, Gus and boyfriend, looking for new parks to explore. Work keeps her very busy, so she enjoys spending her free time with family and friends. 

As for future aspirations? To roll out the Real Project sessions in every educational establishment.

We are incredibly proud of Ciara’s achievements, and look forward to seeing the life-changing impact of The Real Project.

Mrs Karen Roe
Alumnae Relations Manager

Ms Nerys James, Director of Pupil Wellbeing

Ms James is already well known to the Sixth Form, working in the Sixth Form team since her arrival at the school, and teaching the A level subjects of Psychology and Sociology.

She is an advocate of Positive Psychology and her knowledge base and pastoral experience will support Heads of Year with year group based initiatives.

Her role will interact with all parts of the existing pastoral care structures, and no doubt those in the Lower School will soon be as familiar with her as the Sixth Formers are.

Mr Gary Cowie, Director of Academic Studies

Mr Cowie is currently Head of Year 7  and will be continuing in this strongly pastoral role which is one he really enjoys. He is also a member of the Sixth Form team teaching A Level Psychology and Sociology. His new responsibilities mean he will have oversight of all academic data and reporting to ensure that pupils make the best possible progress in their learning

He will be working closely with Mr Rew, our Deputy Head (Academic), to ensure that all aspects of the academic side of the school run smoothly, including exams, reports and our academic support programmes

Mr Cowie will be liaising with all staff to ensure that the very best tailored support is provided for all our pupils to help them achieve their academic potential.

Congratulations to Ms James and Mr Cowie!

Croydon High students performed exceedingly well in the UKMT Junior Maths Challenge. We’ve had four students in Year 7 and 8 win the Gold Award, the highest achievement possible at this stage, and proceed over to the next round!

Over 300,000 students (Year 8 and below) in the UK took part in the UKMT Junior Maths Challenge. The students had 60 minutes to complete 25 multiple choice questions; to give you a flavour of some of the questions asked, why don’t you have a go at the following:

1. Amrita needs to select a new PIN. She decides it will be made up of four non-zero with the following properties:

1. 1. The first two digits and the last two digits each make up a two-digit number which is a multiple of 11.
   2. The sum of all the digits is a multiple of 11

How many different possibilities are there for Amrita’s PIN?

2. One afternoon, Brian the snail went for a slither at a constant speed. By 1:50pm, he had slithered 150 centimetres. By 2:10pm, he had slithered 210 centimetres. When did Brian start his slither?

1. Noon
2. 12:20pm
3. 12:30pm
4. 12:45pm
5. 1pm

The Gold Award Winners

The Gold Award winners (left to right) are:

• Arwa K- Year 8 (Best in school / Best in Year 8)
• Aliyannah H-J – Year 7
• Ana R – Year 7 (Best in Year 7)
• Emma S – Year 8

Aliyannah, Ana, and Emma have proceeded to the following ‘Kangaroo Challenge’ round. This will be similar layout to the UKMT Junior Maths Challenge in that it will be 25 multiple choice questions to complete in one hour.

Academic Scholar, Arwa K, achieved a remarkable score of 117/135 and has qualified for the Junior Maths Olympiad, an extremely prestigious competition where only the top 1200 students proceed to from the first round. The Olympiad follows a slightly different format. It will be a 2 hour paper but with no multiple choice questions and requiring full written answers for part of the paper.

We also managed to obtain 22 Bronze and 15 Silver Awards as well across Year 7 and 8.

After speaking to Arwa on her huge achievement, here’s what she had to say:

“Last year, I got through to the ‘Kangaroo Challenge’, so I’m happy to have got through to the Olympiad this year. But I’m happier knowing that I have improved in the last year to now get to this stage.”

When asked what career path she would like to take, she replied,

“I would love to be a Paediatrician! Nothing is better than making a child laugh. I love caring for other people and always wanted a younger sibling to take care of.”

Looking ahead to 14 June when the Olympiad takes place, Arwa shares that she will be preparing for the Olympiad by practising the Junior Maths Challenge questions and ensuring that she shows her methods and working out clearly, as the focus is more on quality of work rather than speed.

NEWSFLASH

Earlier this year, Arwa also took part in the GDST Creative Writing competition in which the theme was ‘Our Planet’. We have just heard the tremendously exciting news that Arwa has been announced as the winner of Year 7, 8 and 9 category – across the whole of the GDST – and that she has won a £100 book voucher. Croydon High is extremely proud of her – Well done Arwa, you are unstoppable! Read Arwa’s creative piece here.

Mr B Kazi
Teacher of Mathematics

The English department are celebrating some fantastic pupil achievements this week, with national winners in both Key Stage 3 and 4 writing competitions.

Year 8 pupil, Arwa K, won First Prize in the Year 7 and 8 category of the GDST Creative Writing Prize, for her entry based on the theme of ‘Our Planet’. The entries were judged by Rachel Hore, an alumna of Sutton High School.

Rachel Hore attended Sutton High School between 1970 and 1978, after which she read Modern History at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. For many years she enjoyed a career as an editor for HarperCollins in London before moving with her family to Norwich, where she started to write fiction and taught publishing and creative writing part-time at the University of East Anglia. Rachel is now a full-time writer, the author of twelve novels, many of them Sunday Times Top Ten bestsellers. A Place of Secrets, Last Letter Home and A Beautiful Spy were each selected by Richard and Judy for their Bookclub in association with WH Smith. The Glass Painter’s Daughter (2009) was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Romantic Novel of the Year. A Gathering Storm (2011) was shortlisted for their Historical Novel of the Year. Her new novel, One Moonlit Night, set in the Norfolk countryside and wartime France, was published in 2022.

Rachel commented:

I enjoyed reading the impressive range of submissions for the Creative Writing Prize this year on the subject of ‘Our Planet’. It was sobering to realise how well these young writers comprehend our poor stewardship of the planet, but impressive to see a strong sense of moral justice at work. They are outraged in these stories and poems and call for things to be put right. A large number of pieces addressed the despoilation of our oceans by pollution, the threat to bio-diversity and the effects on landscapes of devastating global warming. Many stories and poems focused on ways to restore our planet’s health, particularly by appeal to governments, and by calling on humanity to change its destructive ways. Writings by the younger age groups tended towards optimism for change. A note of cynicism entered the work of older students, however, many favouring accounts of humanity seeking refuge on other planets or dramatising aspects of humanity’s last moments.

She described Arwa’s piece thus:

Two generations of Bangladeshi women encounter the devastating effects of climate change in their country. A cleverly structured and vividly dramatised story that conveys a mature outlook.

We are enormously proud of Arwa’s achievement and encourage all budding writers across the school to keep their eye out for the many competitions and opportunities which we post on the English Exploration Google Classroom. Read Arwa’s creative piece here.

Further up the school, Lucia A in Year 10 has won a finalist award in the Newsquest Young Reporter work experience programme, which saw pupils research, write and publish a series of articles over an 8 month period. We will have to wait until the Awards Ceremony in June to discover in which category she has won…watch this space!

Ms Alison Cotton
Head of English

On Friday four girls from Year 5 represented the Junior School at the Royal Russell Maths Challenge. The afternoon was in two parts, first the girls completed 12 challenges. These were a variety of Maths based puzzles, there were written questions, logic puzzles or mathematical games. Each challenge earned the team points. The second half of the afternoon was an interesting talk which explained to the girls that Maths is evident in most things in life, from the honeycomb a bee makes, to the way bubbles form different shapes when they join together. It was a lovely afternoon, the girls worked incredibly hard and were a credit to the school.

‘I had an exciting time and I really liked the puzzles that we did.’ – Antonia

‘I thought it was really fun. The questions were tricky, but we had a lot of fun trying to solve them.’ – Shanaya

‘It was really, really fun and we got to complete some puzzles. I especially enjoyed listening to the talk about Maths being everywhere.’ – Sophie

‘We came 9^th and scored 157 points. The puzzles were challenging, but I enjoyed them a lot. It was a great day!’ – Maahi

Mrs Jo Harrison
Year 1 Class Teacher

Since last week, all five ducklings have now hatched and the children are incredibly excited. The children sang ‘5 Little ducks went swimming one day’ while the ducks had a swim.

Five out of 10 caterpillars have gone through metamorphosis and are now butterflies. The children have been amazed watching the life cycle process.

Mrs Amanda D’Aranjo
Reception Teacher

The Croydon High Astrogazers are thrilled to announce that we have bought the weather balloon kit! We are so excited as we have been waiting for so long to confirm the launch site and date! Astrogazers are getting ready to launch their weather balloon on Friday 30 June in partnership with University of Bath. We will be launching the weather balloon from the University of Bath and monitoring the trajectory of the payload to retrieve it.

Follow us on Instagram and YouTube to get all the updates!

Emily F
Year 8
Astrogazers Deputy Marketing Officer 

On Monday 8 May, Year 6 travelled by coach and ferry to reach our destination of the Chateau D’Ebblingham near St. Omer. The pupils did many interesting things throughout their stay which taught them about French culture and history.

After arriving, the pupils were quick to unpack and settle into their rooms. They then enjoyed a meal followed by a treasure hunt! The next few days were very busy and included visits to traditional markets in Boulogne-sur-Mer and Le Touquet. We climbed the 274 steps of the Phare Le Touquet and were rewarded with breath-taking views of the town. This was followed by a picnic at the main beach which also gave the pupils an opportunity to play beach football and design sand sculptures.

Other exciting highlights included visiting a First World War Cemetery near our chateau, a traditional boulangerie, to see how bread is baked using the same methods from 150 years ago and a trip to Parc Saint Joseph which took us on a journey to the France of times gone by.

In-house activities included a scavenger hunt, cheese tasting, crepe making, a trenches experience, snail tasting and archery tag!

It was an excellent trip and the pupils were outstanding. They were able to listen to a lot of French being spoken and it was good to hear them practising the language at every opportunity. We saw fantastic moments of humour, respect and friendship.

“When the sand art competition was announced, my friends and I thought we should do a giant mermaid, so we did…. and we won!”
Vienne P

“When I tasted the escargot, I liked it, I really, truly liked it. It tasted like garlic butter”.
Kimaaya B

“At the top of the lighthouse I felt like I could touch the clouds and see the whole city. People the size of my fingernails walked around the busy streets and crowded shops.”
Anahira A

“I walked around the gravestones at the WWII cemetery and was surprised at how young the people were when they had died.”
Rohaab S

Ms Effie Nathanael
Year 6 Teacher

As part of our fundraising for the forthcoming netball and hockey tour to South Africa later this year, the tour party are organising a Colour Run on Friday 7 July.

Two years ago, we ran the event for some Junior and Senior pupils which proved to be very successful and popular even though it got rather messy!

We would like to open this up to pupils in Year 5 and above. There will be a number of different races depending on age groups (Year 5 and 6, Year 7 and 8, Year 9 and 10, and Lower Sixth and staff). Pupils will be required to run/walk for a set period of time whilst having paint thrown at them. Those wishing to enter need to pay an entry fee of £10.00 by May half-term. This fee will provide them with a white T-Shirt to wear during the event and keep afterwards, plus colourful powder paint (the colour powder is non-toxic, made using natural ingredients) which they can throw whilst spectating the other categories.

To secure your child’s place, payment will need to be made via your ParentPay account. Upon receipt, you will receive acknowledgement plus a link to a Google Form which needs to be filled out, giving permission and selecting your child’s t-shirt size.

Both of these (Google Form and payment) need to be made by Friday 26 May. Any entries made after this date will not be accepted and unfortunately t-shirts will not be available for your child.

We are hoping that as many students as possible will take part and enjoy this event.

Mrs Sue Beck
Teacher of PE & Head of Community

As part of our fundraising for the forthcoming netball and hockey tour to South Africa later this year, we are running a number of events to help raise money for the trip.

I am delighted to announce a highly desirable item for all those golfing fans out there! We have received a generous donation of a 4 ball at Royal Cinque Ports Golf Course in Deal, Kent, one of the top golf courses in the country (to play this course currently, green fees are £210 per person per round).

Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club

As two time host of The Open Championship in 1909 and 1920, Royal Cinque Ports is a truly magical golfing destination on the Kent coastline.

Tall dunes, pot bunkers and a strong crosswind all contribute to the challenge that awaits as you make your way round.

The course

“I consider the last four holes at Deal to be without doubt, the finest four consecutive holes on any course in the world.”
GARY PLAYER
Open Champion 1959, 1968, 1974

“One of my favourite links courses. Straight out and straight back, the inward nine, especially if there is a wind against, is perhaps as formidable as anything in British golf.”
PETER ALLISS
Ryder Cup Player, Television Presenter & Honorary Member

Auction details

If you would like to bid for this amazing item, please complete this form by Friday 26 May at 4pm.

Please note there are some conditions, stated below associated with this auction item.

Winning bid – after the deadline on Friday 26 May at 4pm and as long as the reserve has been made, I will contact the winning bidder with further details on this auction item and how to book the 4 ball.

Start your bidding form here

Conditions

• The four ball cannot be split into two lots of 2 balls.
• Four balls play is permitted on Mondays and Thursdays ONLY
• Valid and in date World Handicap System (WHS) certificates required for all playing golfers.
• Voucher valid until May 2024
• There is reserve on this auction item.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the family who have made this generous donation and I wish you all the best of luck in your bids!

Mrs Sue Beck
Teacher of PE & Head of Community

We are so pleased and grateful to Jemca Toyota Croydon for sponsoring our Netball and Hockey Tour of South Africa later this year.