MESSAGE FROM THE HEADTEACHER

Well done to all those involved in the Christmas Festival – an excellent evening.

DECEMBER NEWSLETTER

Christmas is in the air, with the Advent Carol Concert, the Christmas Market and Christmas assemblies for all year groups. There are plenty of other things to celebrate too, and an important message from Mrs Elizabeth Cook, Chairman of Governors. It 's all in the December Newsletter.

OFSTED REPORT

"The Arnewood School is a good and improving school. It has worked hard to develop an outstanding curriculum in Years 7 to 11, which is personalised to meet the needs of all its students. The school has used its specialist subject technology extremely well to substantially increase and enhance the number and quality of subject choices. Tailor-made courses have helped to raise the aspirations and confidence of less able students..."

This is how the school's OfSTED Report 2008 begins. You can read the report in full here. The inspectors have written a letter to students, which will be sent home with the latest newsletter some time this week (the week before the half term holidays).

LOWER SCHOOL PRESENTATION EVENING

Students, parents and staff gathered together for this year's second presentation evening. This time it was students in the lower school receiving the accolades, with awards being given to last year's Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9 students.

The Head Teacher introduced the evening with a speech that highlighted the many successes that we have already experienced this year. This includes:

• our best ever GCSE results - 74% achieving at least 5 A*-C grades
• being one of only 11 schools nationally to receive the Community Futures Vision Award
• a hugely successful Family Learning fortnight
• a very positive Ofsted inspection (watch this space for a link to the full report as soon as it becomes available)

If you were unable to make the presentation evening, you can download Mr Hummerstone's speech here: Word or PDF.

SEPTEMBER NEWSLETTER

Find out about the Year 7 Learning to Learn Day, action-packed adventures to the Ardeche, Kenya and Siberia, and a whole host of other school trips and activities.

Do you want to know more about the national award that the school received in September? Then read on...

This newsletter was sent home in printed form, but please have a look at the online version to see the photos in full colour!

YEARS 8, 12 AND 13 VISIT HAMPTON COURT

History teachers spent 2 exhilarating days at Hampton Court. On Friday, Year 12 students had a talk on Henry VIII and Wolsey from William Le Fleming. They had a look at Catherine of Aragon's bedroom and took the Young Henry tour. Year 13 students had the opportunity to roam around, taking in the State Appartments and the Royal Tennis Court.

The Year 8s enjoyed an audio guide, followed by a workshop in the Tudor kitchens. All of our students behaved brilliantly and had a really positive experience at Hampton Court. Click here to see a video compilation of photos.

YEAR 9 TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITY DAY

Five qualified professional instructors from the Army, working with Year 9 tutors,supervised activities focused on team-building, problem-solving and raising self-esteem. The day was an outstanding success, allowing tutors to bond with tutees and giving students a chance to work together in peer groups that they would not normally have the opportunity to work in.

Students described the activities as 'challenging' but 'brilliant fun'. One student said that 'it gave me the chance to do well in something that I didn't think I'd be any good at'. Seargent Taff Rees said he was 'very impressed with the enthusiasm and positivity of the Year 9 students.' He said that Arnewood is 'one of the best schools that we have ever visited.'

BEST EVER GCSE RESULTS - AGAIN!

When the GCSE results came out in August, we were delighted to see so many of our students getting the grades they needed to stay on to do further studies. It's great to see so many of them with us now in the Sixth Form.

Now that the results have been analysed, we can see that the upward trend over the last 5 years has continued - in fact, 74% of our GCSE students received 5 A*C grades. This is the second year in a row that our students have broken the record for the best-ever GCSE results at Arnewood. Well done to all of you!

YR 8 GEOGRAPHY STUDENTS VISIT THE RAINFOREST!

OK, we didn't quite make to Brazil and back in a day but a drive up the motorway to the Living Rainforest Experience is the next best thing! It was chance to see an amazing range of rainforest plants and animals and to learn how they have adapted to this incredible humid environment.

We also found out a lot about the impact of rainforest destruction, why it is taking place and how rainforests can be developed in a sustainable way.

ARDECHE

This summer we took 40 pupils from Year 11 to the south of France for a week of watersports.  Three days were spent canoeing down the Ardeche river in the Ardeche Gorge and 4 days were spent on the beach doing watersports in the Mediterranean.  These watersports included sailing funboats and catamarans, sea kayaks, snorkeling on a coral reef and banana boating... not to mention the day spent at Aqualand waterpark!

We were lucky enough to have taken an excellent bunch of students who were brilliantly behaved all trip.  The weather was amazing all week. We had a fantastic trip!

JUNE/JULY NEWSLETTER

16 pages of news, information and dates for your diary arrive just in time for your holiday reading. Whilst Fairthorne just didn't make the deadline, there are articles on Sports Day, Osmington Bay, Science and Technology Day, International Day... and much more in the June/July Newsletter.

FAIRTHORNE MANOR

Two groups of Year 7 students have recently completed another very successful time at Fairthorne. Students spent 3 days and nights at Fairthorne Manor, completing a range of activities from Kayaking and Raft Building to Archery, Rock Climbing and Orienteering. They then went over to the Isle of Wight for a brisk 7 mile hike across the island. To find out more, have a look at a short video of Fairthorne, the photos on SharePoint and a video compilation of images: Right and Left.

SPORTS DAY

Tuesday 8th July was Sports Day. We had a very successful day, inspite of the rain! There were record-breaking performances from several students, including a Year 7 who broke the school record for his year group in long jump. Ironically, the former record holder, an ex-student of Arnewood, had come in for the day and was helping out in the long jump area!

The photos are now available on SharePoint. Please remember that your username must begin arnewood\ You can also see a compilation video of the photos.

INTERNATIONAL DAY

Students experienced a wide range of activities from a variety of perspectives. This included dragon dancing, making fireworks and talking about Human Rights.

Click here for the Humanities SharePoint pages for International Day.

BOURNEMOUTH SCHOOLS CRICKET FINAL

The boys played brilliantly, and deserved their medals and the trophy.

Have a look at the video, or see the original photos on SharePoint.