News

Thank you to everyone who bought a raffle ticket at our Christmas Concert to win the Chocolate Hamper. We raised just over £200 which will be donated to the NSPCC.

The UKMT is an organisation that promotes maths across the country. Amongst other things it runs maths challenges where students are given a series of maths problems to solve. Students at John Taylor have again entered these challenges this term and done extremely well.

Josh and Greg achieved Gold in the Senior maths challenge and went on to do well in the next round.

William, Evelyn, William, Oscar, Isabella, Elijah and Harry all achieved Silver.

Charlie, Nathaniel, Hugo, Jacky, Abdulla, Louise and Harry achieved Bronze.

In the Girls Maths Olympiad, Evelyn achieved a distinction and Lilia achieved a merit.

Well done to all those who took part.

Look out for results in March after we have taken part in the Intermediate maths challenge. There is also a maths challenge club running on Wednesday lunch times in N4. Sign up on evolve clubs in the new year if you are interested.

Well done to our school community for their efforts in the Rudolph Run in aid of St Giles Hospice - we are thrilled to have raised over £800 by selling the antlers and noses. There was additional £25 raised by Sixth Form at their annual quiz! 

Thank you for your generosity and kindness. 

Mrs Berry would like to give a final 'thank you' of the year to the Young Sporting Ambassadors who have helped at a number of events this term. In particular the Community Afternoon Tea. Receiving messages like this from our local residents who attended, make everything worth it. Thank you so much for making a difference.

Thank you to our talented & hardworking canteen team for providing a delicious Christmas Dinner this week! It was enjoyed by everyone! 

Mrs Appleton, Senior Family Support Worker & DDSL would like to share this from The National College - 10 Top Tips for Parents about keeping your child safe on social media. 

Dear Parents/Carers, 

Please be reminded that Monday 6th January is an INSET day and therefore school is closed to pupils. 

Term starts on Tuesday 7th January 2025 for all years.

Can we kindly ask that parents support us in ensuring their child's uniform is correct. We will be carrying out checks at the beginning of term. Here is our uniform policy as a reminder: Uniform (Y7-Y11 & Sixth Form) - John Taylor High School

We wish you a restful and festive break with family and friends!

This week our school hall has been a hive ofactivity for the much-anticipated ChristmasConcerts.

On Tuesday 17th December it was a pleasureto welcome over 200 pupils from JTMATPrimary Schools for an evening of Christmascarols and festive fun.

The pupils broughtlots of smiles and energy to theirperformances and it was a pleasure to listento them. Well done to everyone involved.The next concert that took place was theJTHS Christmas Concert performed by JTHSstudents on Thursday 19th December.

The group sang beautifully as they captivatedthe audience with some traditional Christmascarols and modern songs too. The audiencecouldn’t help themselves but join in! Thankyou to our Creative Arts faculty for onceagain putting on a successful show. We areso proud of our pupils for showing not onlycommitment and integrity but showingpassion, talent and personal excellence. Well done to you all.

Following on from the success of the Sixth Form Games in the summer, which saw our Year 12 & 13 cohort compete in a football tournament, Andrew our Head Student has organised a winter dodgeball tournament for his peers to enjoy some friendly competition and earn house points.

Andrew decided to launch the Sixth Form Games as there are no formal House Matches once students go to Sixth Form. After speaking with his peers, there was high demand for the Sixth Form Games to come to life and students were eager to get involved. Andrew said ‘The Sixth Form Games are a series of events that I have organised to give Sixth Formers the chance to come together through sport, as well as promoting and earning points for their Houses within the House System. Both Year 12’s and Year 13’s have the opportunity to compete against one another, in a sport that was chosen by Sixth Formers collectively.’

An event of this nature has taken a great deal of planning and preparation which Andrew has taken in his stride with a smile on his face as always. Despite the challenges of logistics, team sheets, risk assessments & timetabling, with the help of other students and teachers, Andrew’s dodgeball event was a huge success.

Well done Andrew, your perseverance, kindness and integrity has been remarkable, everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves! Andrew finished by saying ‘it has been satisfying watching all the planning and preparation come together for the dodgeball event. It was great to see Mr Williams and Mr Forden get involved too. Thank you everyone for your support.’

John Taylor High School is delighted to be taking part in the 2024 BookBuzz initiative, providing all our Year 7 pupils with the gift of a free book. Back in October, Year 7 pupils were invited to choose one of sixteen carefully selected Bookbuzz titles, including books by new and established authors, spanning a wide range of genres.

Next week, every Year 7 pupil will receive their free book and accompanying activity booklet. Their challenge is to read their BookBuzz title and take the online comprehension quiz on our Accelerated Reader platform. Pupils have until Friday 7th March 2025 to complete this reading challenge.

We hope that Bookbuzz will encourage our child to read more frequently, which will help improve their wellbeing, spark interesting conversations and inspire creativity. For further information, please contact the library team via email at [email protected]

Bookbuzz is run by BookTrust, the UK’s largest children’s reading charity that transforms lives by getting children and families reading. Each year BookTrust reaches millions of children across the UK with books, resources and support to help deliver a love of reading. To find out more about BookTrust, visit www.booktrust.org.uk

Dear Parents/Carers,

Please see below the arrangements for Friday 20th December. School will be closed to pupils from 12.30pm.

Structure of the day:

8:55      Movement Bell

9:00      Registration

9:30      Period 1

10:20    Period 2

11:10   Break – extended break

11:35    Movement Bell

11:40    Period 3

12:30    End of day

Break

This is extended to allow our students to access additional food.

End of day

Buses are due to arrive at 12:30.

Bus students to go straight to the tennis courts please.

Students taking a mini bus or taxi to go straight to the front of school.

Students walking home or getting picked up from the village must leave school via the driveway side of school and Palmer close. Please do not come onto the courts.

Across three days this week, our BTEC Business Students have successfully organised a variety of events and activities, as part of their event management topic, with all profits going to charity.

The students were tasked with managing, from start to finish, a business idea that would generate profit. The students came up with a number of ideas to see which would be the most viable and would attract their peers and teachers to attend at lunchtime. The group of students had to take into consideration logistical challenges, budgets, marketing to their demogrpahic and promoting the event across the school.

It was great to see so many people getting involved. Sam, Lydia, Sam, Oliver & Alex chose to do a cinema style event, where they projected Home Alone onto the big screen in the hall and sell cake, drinks and popcorn. Over 70 pupils attended on both days and there was great feedback. Oliver explained that the profits would be going to Save the Children which was voted by year 7 pupils.

Tyrese and Dean’s group organised a dodgeball event in the gym. There was a great atmosphere as teams took each other on to be crowned the champions. The group were also selling drinks and cake to increase their profits which would be donated to Cancer Research. Well done to you all.

The final event was a water balloon game, where pupils got the chance to buy a ticket to throw water balloons at the Business students. As well as the water balloons, the students were also selling refreshments to make additional money which would again be going to Cancer Research. As the event went on, the energy and excitement built with crowds of pupils gathering to watch. Well done Luis, Max, George & Zaki.

To read more about studying BTEC Business at Joh Taylor High School, visit our curriculum map here: PowerPoint Presentation

The week at Hot Chocolate with the Head, Mr Blanchenot celebrated a number of our star students who had displayed the school’s core values.

The first group included; Lily, Huw and James who had been nominated by Mrs Nurse for their entry and successful completion of the KS3 activities created for Parliament Week 2024.

UK Parliament Week (UKPW) is an annual event, spreading the word about what Parliament is, what it does and how you can get involved. It’s a great way to find out new things about UK Parliament and make an impact on the issues you care about. During the week, teachers were given a role within parliament, it was then the students responsibility to ask questions and come to conclusions about which teacher was who. Well done Lily Mae, Huw & James for contributing to the debates, petitions and votes, you showed so much perseverance and integrity. Read more here about UK Parliament Week: Home | UK Parliament Week

The second group included; Evie, William, Mollie, Brodie, Elsie, Jude, Lucy, Sonya, Scarlett, Evie, Holly, Avi and Viktoria who had all been nominated by Mrs Berry for helping at the Community Afternoon Tea.

The Community Afternoon Tea takes place every term and welcomes over 30 local elderly residents to join our pupils for afternoon of delicious cake, hot drinks and Christmas fun. The students took an active role in welcoming, signing in, serving refreshments and creating a relaxed atmosphere for everyone. Mrs Berry said ‘it was a joy to watch our students interact with our local elderly residents. I always say this, I honestly could not manage the event without the help of our students, they are an integral part of the Community Afternoon Tea’. Well done to you all for demonstrating our core values of respect, kindness and integrity and representing the school wonderfully. Here are some photos of the Community Afternoon Tea: John Taylor High School eNewsletter

Finally, well done to Erin for being the winner in the Geography Department’s Year 7 Antarctica Flag Competition. Erin and her peers were asked to help raise awareness of the threats facing Antarctica by designing a flag which would be taken out to Antarctica and photographed by scientists. Take a look Erin’s winning design here: John Taylor High School eNewsletter

To make a nomination for next term, please email [email protected]

Mrs Berry was excited to welcome local primary school pupils to our Dance Workshop, led by our Dance Club Ambassadors.

The workshop began with a warm-up and the primary pupils got the chance to watch our extremely talented students perform the routine they were about to do. As the primary school pupils watched the ambassadors demonstrate the routines, it was great to see that the pupils were keen to get involved and begin learning the routines, which they all picked up quickly.

The energy and enthusiasm was commendable and it was great for the JTHS Dance Club Ambassadors to not only teach the primary pupils the routines, but also talk to them about the importance of their formation and their spatial awareness which the children listened and adapted to perfectly.

As the workshop came to an end, each group performed their routine to their peers. The primary pupils were so proud to receive their certificates. Well done to everyone involved and to our Dance Club Ambassadors who showed kindness, integrity and respect throughout the workshop.

Miss Arif would like to give a heartfelt thank you for all the donations for the food bank. Burton Hope were extremely grateful, the donations will make a real difference to families this Christmas.

Thank you to our Sporting Young Ambassadors who have underpinned our core values of kindness and respect by volunteering to deliver Christmas gifts to our local elderly residents in the community.

The initiative led by Mrs Berry, aims to show our school’s One Community ethos and put a smile on the faces of those who may feel lonely this Christmas. The group of students set off on Thursday 12^th afternoon and delivered over 30 gift packs, festive treats and Christmas cards that they themselves had created and hand-written. Thank you to Mrs Smith and Mrs Gee in Food tech for baking all the delicious Christmas biscuits!

The residents were blown away with the kindness of our students and were grateful to be thought of at this time of year. Even spending a couple of minutes chatting with them at their doorstep made their day.

It was wonderful to see our pupils interact so lovely with the elderly residents which in turn gave our pupils that real feel-good-factor. Well done to everyone involved, you should be really proud of yourself for making a difference this Christmas time.

It was a privilege for Mr Blanchenot to celebrate the achievement of Milo, Tegan & Lily at the prestigious JTMAT Exceptional Achievement Award celebration this morning.

The JTMAT Exceptional Achievement Award is an initiative led by Mr Donoghue, JTMAT CEO, to showcase all the remarkable individuals that we have across all the schools within the JTMAT.  Students can be nominated for; achieving ‘National or International status in any given activity’, ‘Grade 8/Diploma in music/performing’, ‘Fundraising over £5000 for charity’ and ‘Success in overcoming adversity’. Nominations can be made by parents, carers, peers or teachers and go through a rigorous selection process to ensure all criteria are met.

Read more below about our inspirational young people at JTHS who have won the Exceptional Achievement Award:

Tegan (Year 13) – Performing in televised programme/film & Overcoming Adversity: Tegan has raised awareness of Haemophilia through speaking out at conferences, assisted with providing information and personal experiences for bleeding disorder booklets for schools and participating in videos. Tegan has most recently participated in a video of her experience of living with a Bleeding Disorder the video was released on 06th April 2023. The video has been distributed worldwide and is used to raise awareness to within health, medical, educational organisations: Watch it here - Women with Bleeding disorders: A lifelong journey on Vimeo

Tegan was formally diagnosed with haemophilia C, Factor X1 deficiency when she was 5 years old. The condition is an inherited rare bleeding disorder. Like many lifelong medical conditions, it can be challenging and can have a negative impact on individuals’ daily life and in particular exclude participation in activities, events and work roles and placements. In the past there has been limited knowledge and education surrounding bleeding disorders and assumptions made around only males experience bleeding disorders. Research supports for years females have been suffering with bleeding problems and have gone undiagnosed or diagnosed after suffering a significant bleed such as through, surgical procedures, dental treatments, pregnancy and child birth.

Tegan has been a member of the Haemophilia Society from a young age and continues to support other peers diagnosed with bleeding disorders and raise awareness, knowledge and support to medical professionals and community member that females have bleeding disorder too.

Milo (Year 9) - National or International status in any given activity: Milo has been selected to be part of the England Karate team and attended the World Karate Union World Championships in Rhodes, Greece. Milo did fantastic and won all his fights in his age category getting Gold and becoming World Champion. Milo trains relentlessly about 4 times a week and shows commitment and passion when he is competing. He is very proud of his achievement!

Lily (Year 10) – Success in overcoming adversity: Lily has overcome her adversity and difficulties throughout her treatment after her diagnosis of Hodgkins Lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system. She has been brave and is a role model to everyone that knows her. Those that come to know her story in the future will also feel inspired by her story. When the family has cried she has always said something positive, she always knew that she would get through the treatment although there were plenty of testing times and further illnesses that came.

Well done to all the pupils across the MAT at today’s celebration. It was a pleasure to be surrounded by so many inspirational pupils have proven to show their remarkable resilience, compassion and hard work. This accolade was much-deserved and we hope you wear your gold pin with pride!