Weekly Information - Friday 20th December 2024

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!

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.

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

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.

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 £200 raised by Sixth Form at their annual quiz! 

Thank you for your generosity and kindness. 

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.’

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! 

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.

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. 

Please make yourself familiar with our School Calendar which includes key dates of Events, Parents Evenings, Trips, Reports, Exams, Holidays & Inset Days 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE CALENDAR