It has been a busy time with so much happening here at The John of Gaunt, we certainly have hit the ground running since the start of the year. The students have made an excellent start with their studies, including Years 7 & 12, who have settled well into their new surroundings and routines.
So what has been occurring in the last couple of weeks?
We have had two science trips to universities, our Year 11s have been involved in geography fieldwork trips to the Studland coast and there has been drama performance exams. We were pleased to welcome Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra to run a workshop with our musicians and let's not forget our first Year 7 PGL residential trip, which was brilliant fun, if a little damp!
I would like to give you a sample of what our extra-curricular provision looks like. Last Thursday I went to talk to a colleague after school and as I walked around the site I passed:
Drama production rehearsals
Pokemon club
Netball fixtures
6th form students reffing for a primary football festival
Rugby club
Students walking from homework club
Students, when walking home, told me they were going to be joining the school's Ten Tors challenge teams
I was then stopped by a parent of a Yr7 child who stated, "I wanted to say how wonderful it has been for my son since he started here. Thank you"
All in the space of just 20 minutes - fantastic.
Mr Roberts is working on a formalised extra-curricular timetable that he will be sharing soon so that you are aware of what is occurring, when and where. If you follow our social media sites you will have seen our posts of the above activities over the past week. Can I publicly thank the staff for all they provide for our students as it is these experiences that the students will remember and cherish in years to come.
I would like to highlight the challenges of our site when it comes to traffic before and after school. Our capacity to hold cars is limited and is mainly for staff and visitors to the school. When cars are entering and leaving to drop off and pick up students, our car park becomes full quickly with some drivers parking next to cones with the 'no parking' symbol clearly displayed. The purpose of these cones is to allow the flow of cars through the car park. I request that parents and carers find a location outside the school grounds to drop off and pick up their child as I am concerned for the safety of our students who are entering and leaving our school site on foot next to a busy road.
Thank you for your co-operation, have a good weekend and to the staff and students coming into school on Sunday for the production rehearsal, good luck and enjoy!
Please enjoy the rest of the newsletter and keep up to date with all our announcements and celebrations through our website and social media pages:
In the second week of the summer holidays, 10 intrepid Ten Tors’ students joined myself, Mountain Leader Iain Richards and volunteer ex-students Imogen Wood and Jasmine Smith for our annual Snowdonia Expedition.
Monday saw the long drive up to our bunkhouse - Caseg Fraith, a serene upgrade on our previous accommodation and nestled beautifully in the shadow of the stunning peak of Tryfan. Students were grateful for the showers, kitchen (for us to dish out some morning fry-ups) and wifi after their Ten Tors experiences of wild barren Dartmoor campsites.
On Tuesday, we summited Snowdon via the Pyg (up) and Miners (down) tracks. The sunshine allowed for great views on the ascent but had also unfortunately enticed out the masses, and the mountain was as busy as I have ever seen it. As we approached the summit the heavy cloud and rain duly came in (we blame Imogen for getting too excited about finally getting summit views on her 4th attempt) and we all piled into the cafe for lunch.
Wednesdays forecast was dire with 50mph gusts and intermittent rain so in the interests of safety we re-routed our plan to summit Glyder Fach and Glyder Fawr and instead opted for the gloriously scenic low-level lakeside circuit of Cwm Idwal featuring regular snaking waterfalls, splashes of purple heather, carnivorous plants and a tranquil mountain lake. Skimming stones and watching horses duel gave additional pleasure.
We drove back on Thursday having had a wonderful time and as always the students were a credit to themselves and the School.
As always thanks to all our volunteers and administrative staff who made this trip guys? Can we mind the whistle a bit? possible.
Mr Gray
Fund raising for ‘Dorset & Somerset Air Ambulance’
Recently one of our ex-students, Toby, a young man of just 17, was in a car accident which left him and a friend critically injured. His life was saved by the Dorset & Somerset Air Ambulance service. Toby remains seriously ill in hospital.
The air ambulance services are funded by public donations only. On the 6th October Toby’s Mum, Sarah is running the Cardiff Half marathon and is raising funds for the air ambulance service. If you would like to donate please click on the ink below which will take you to the fundraising page for this and will also give you additional information.
The John of Gaunt School, along with many schools in the area, have been contacted by the organisation Rehab 4 Addiction with the aim of raising awareness of services available in the local area.
On Friday 20th September our GCSE and A Level Music students took part in an exciting workshop with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The workshop began with players from the orchestra performing the opening of the Hebrides Overture (also known as Fingal’s Cave) by Mendelssohn. They were led by their conductor Enyi Okpara. The piece was composed in 1830 and was inspired by one of Mendelssohn’s trips to the British isles, specifically an 1829 excursion to the Scottish island of Staff, with its basalt sea cave known as Fingal’s Cave.
Following the performance, our students were then invited to get out their instruments and experiment with different musical ideas and textures to represent the misty island cave. They got in to their instrumental groups to come up with their own ideas to put towards a whole class performance. The guitarists and keyboard players played chords. The brass and woodwind players performed melodic ideas to represent the waves and bird sounds. The percussionists came up with rhythmic patterns to represent the scenery. The strings played interesting ostinato ideas in the bass. At the end, all of the groups brought their ideas together to perform as a class orchestra and it sounded brilliant.
This was such a wonderful experience for our musicians. There was a real buzz following the workshop; the students really enjoyed the session. We would like to extend our thanks to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Wiltshire Music Centre for making this workshop possible.
"GET YOUR WRISTBANDS READY!" John of Gaunt School Productions invites you to watch its 2024 Whole School Show "Out of Power". What is a farmer to do when they're up to their eyeballs in crop-rotation and cattle feed...host a music festival! Does Michael Elvis (Uh Huh) know how to host a music festival? No. Does that matter? Absolutely not! So come along on the 15th and 16th of October to watch the chaos ensue! Only, look out for cow-pat....
(Playlist includes: Dance the Night Away, Texas Hold em, Bet That You Look Good on the Dance Floor, Uptown Funk...to name a few!)
FUN FRIDAY!
We have got off to a roaring start with both Fridays being full of fun and belonging. Week one was all about “Would you rather” and had the whole school up in arms debating their strong opinions on M&Ms v Skittles. Then we had the pleasure of the origami swan house competition which meant that tutor groups made them in tutor time for 2 points or sent reps for their house to the hall for five points a swan! This resulted in me counting over 1000 swans, something I may rethink for next time we do it…. Next week is a cracker eating contest in houses.
Please see the awesome house competitors in full action below. We are so proud of our students for the sense of competition and belonging.
Attendance
We are so happy to see all of the students of John Of Gaunt making an excellent start to their attendance journey this year. It has been amazing to see all of the new and continued tutors having attenance conversations with leanrers as well as the student welfare team putting in additional provision. Please don’t forget to keep the school up to date with any issues and appointments by emailing our attendnace teams if there is to be organised medical absence that is unavoidable.
In addition we have launched The Learning Bridge which replaces the skills centre and will work on EBSA based strategies as well as developing strong links with the ELTA specialists within school to develop the confidnece of our socially anxious learners. We are looking forward to appointing a permanent member of the team this term who will shape the programme further.
Finally please see the Wiltshire informtation posters below and check out the updated attendance page if there are any concers. There are some excellent resources and guides to national support networks for both parents and children. https://www.johnofgauntschool.org/parents-and-carers/attendance
IT'S (ALMOST) PANTO TIME!
For the second year in a row, Poppy Newman has auditioned and been given a part in the ensemble for Warminster Athenaeum's Patomime of Beauty and The Beast! She will be performing as part of the red team. Congratulations Poppy, we hope you have lots of fantastic performances and have a blast.
Please a look at the flyer below for how to book tickets and all get behind supporting Poppy.
CLOSURE OF WESTBURY TRAIN STATION – 24.12.24
Please be aware that Westbury station will be closed between 24.12.24 – 24.01.24 for them to modernise aging facilities within Westbury station and the rail infrastructure in the surrounding areas.
This will affect staff and pupils in January. There will be no running trains from Warminster, Dilton Marsh or Westbury to Trowbridge during this time and services to Frome will also be limited.
Rail replacement services will be in place HOWEVER to ensure that this is adequate they would like to try establish the number of pupils and colleagues that will be affected.
If this is a route you’d usually take – please fill out the following survey:
We now have 13 students enlisted for the expedition of a lifetime. These students are now fundraising for their trip BUT it’s not too late for you to sign up and join us in 2026
This opportunity is open to current year 9, 10 , 11 & 12
We are very excited to announce that we are partnering with Camps International to offer students the opportunity to go on a life-changing, 4-week expedition to Peru, during the summer of 2026. Students will work on a variety of meaningful and sustainable projects as well as undertaking the personal adventure.
Last year, we launched the ‘Every Name Matter initiative. The aim was to ensure every student had an opportunity to have their name pronounced correctly. We had over 50 students respond and their pronunciations uploaded to our registers. We have also voice recorded their name pronunciations and stored these for staff use only.
We collected student and parent voices to measure the impact of the initiative.
77% of students indicated it had a positive impact. 82% of parents indicated there was an improvement (of which 55% said it was significant) in how their child’s name was pronounced.
Parent voice
After "Every Name Matters", how much improvement has there been in the way your child's name is pronounced in school?
Student voice
Overall, how much impact has the “Every Name Matters” project had?
We are launching this initiative in 2024 to give all students the opportunity to have their names pronounced correctly.
Step 1 Complete the form: If your child has a name that you would like staff to pronounce correctly, please complete the Microsoft Form: https://forms.office.com/e/kUv5ryVf0w
Step 2 Phonetic Spelling: Once you have completed the form, we will upload the phonetic spelling on SIMS and all their teachers will see this on their registers.
Step 3 Audio recordings: We will record students pronouncing their names and save the audio recordings which only staff can access.
“What’s in a name?”
“If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky, Michelangelo and Dostoyevsky, they can learn to say Uzoamaka”
Uzoamaka Azuba’s mother
In summary, once you know someone’s name, you are no longer strangers. People warm to surroundings where they feel known and understood, and the name is the first opportunity to imbue a sense of belonging. To quote Dan Carnegie, who wrote in How to Win Friends and Influence People: “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
