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We were fortunate enough to secure a donation of Wild Alaskan Pink Salmon from the Food Teachers Centre, at the end of last term. We are the only school, of 250 schools in the country who received this support. Our Year 10 Food Preparation and Nutrition students were challenged with researching Alaskan Salmon and developing a one person dish that they could cook in an hour. They did fantastically!

On Wednesday we held a STEM careers fair for Year 10 & 11 pupils. We had a wide range of visitors from the world of Engineering, Chartered Surveyors, University, colleges and apprenticeship providers, over 20 different stalls for pupils to visit.

There was a real buzz around the careers fair and pupils engaged with each other as well as the visitors. We had great feedback from the visitors, being impressed by the maturity of our pupils and their confidence for their future career plans. Our pupils said it was the best careers fair. It was a great success and highlighted the wide range of careers in STEM.

Year 9 enjoyed their recent visit to the National Space Centre in Leicester last week. It was an exciting and educational experience for our students.

The centre is home to a wide range of exhibits and interactive displays that showcase the wonders of space exploration.
Upon arrival, students were greeted by a towering rocket that sets the tone for the rest of the visit. Inside, explored everything from the history of space travel to the latest advancements in technology. The galleries were filled with fascinating artifacts and exhibits, including the actual Soyuz spacecraft that carried British astronaut Tim Peake to the International Space Station.
One of the highlights of the visit was the planetarium, which offered a stunning 360-degree view of the night sky. Students sat back and relaxed as they learned about the constellations, planets, and other celestial bodies that make up our universe.

In addition to the exhibits, the National Space Centre also offered a range of hands-on activities and workshops. Overall, the trip was a fantastic way to inspire and educate our students about the wonders of space exploration. It was experience they’ll never forget and one that may even spark an interest in STEM fields and space-related careers.

Last night was the SHINE Technology session for Food.
We had a group of KS3 students attend from all years.

They worked in teams and didn’t know what the challenge before arriving!
In one hour, they weighed, measured and made shortcrust pastry, created jam tarts, baked them and cleaned up! Don’t they look delicious! Well done everyone.

Our Year 10 Food Preparation, Nutrition students have been busy taking part in the Tunnocks Tea Cake Challenge– which is a National challenge, focusing on food presentation.

We think they did fantastically well, for their first go at a presentation challenge!

Jack and Harry P (Year 10 and Year 9) both marched in The Birmingham International Military Tattoo at Resorts World Arena. The Birmingham International Tattoo is Britain’s biggest indoor tattoo (a type of military type tournament) featuring marching bands, pipes & drums, field gun racing, dog racing and much more including a spectacular Grand Finale with over 1,000 performers.

Middle and Senior Leadership – internal courses

At Shires MAT, we value our staff and their professional development. As part of this process, we launched an initiative two years ago where staff could participate in a range of in-house sessions delivered by senior staff across our MAT.

On Wednesday 8th February, we were delighted to welcome our colleagues from Ridgeway to both our Middle Leader and Senior Leader sessions. It was a privilege to see staff discussing pedagogy, leadership and management strategies and sharing best practice.

We are also grateful to our colleagues for delivering such high quality sessions. We look forward to seeing these partnerships with our schools continue to develop and flourish.

Quantum Theatre came into Studley High School on Friday 3rd February to perform ‘A Christmas Carol’ to our year 11 students. This is one of the piece they study as part of their English GCSE curriculum.

It was a brilliant production with just three actors and all of the set coming out of one van! Wishing Year 11 the best of luck when it comes to revising the text for their exams in May.

Our year 7s have had a poem published!

Last term, our year 7 students, wrote poems for a competition,
‘The Power of Poetry’. This competition challenged our pupils
to consider what was important to them and how to express
that using the power of words.

We are delighted that 110 of our pupils’ poems have been
published in this book. This is an incredible achievement.
We could not be prouder of them. Well done year 7!

Image of book to follow.

On Sunday 29th January, 43 students made the short trip to the Utilita Arena, Birmingham to watch the WBBL and BBL Cup Finals. Both the Women’s and Men’s games were competed by the London Lions and Leicester Riders and the Lions were comprehensively successful in both games. Our students were particularly pleased with the results on the day as their adopted team for the day was the Lions. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it onto the big screens but a few of the students were able to grab ‘Larry the Lion’ for a selfie and high five. A fantastic day was had by all and a huge thank you to all the students for their impeccable behaviour.

On the 18th January Mr Ormerod, Mr Rose and Mrs Roberts took 47 year 10 and 11 students to Coventry Cathedral with the aim of seeing Christianity emerge from the text books in the real world, and to enhance our understanding of the important GCSE topic of reconciliation.

The day started with a tour of the ruins left behind by the legacy of the Second World War. Our tour guides were expertly describing events and the lasting impact that they had, not just on the city of Coventry but for the country as a whole. Once back inside we explored the modern Cathedral and were told the meaning behind the different rooms, symbols, tapestries and stained-glass windows. At one point we even became the main focus behind an online short Litany service held by a member of the Cathedral. Students also expressed their more creative side where they were given the opportunity to explore their understanding from some of the key messages from the day.

The school could not have been prouder of the students who took part as their behaviour and effort throughout the day was beyond exemplary.

Year 10 Astronomy GCSE students braved the cold to go on their first stargazing night on Thursday evening. They managed to find Saturn, Mars as well as many stars, meteors and constellations!

Year 7 students designed a model cell, for homework this week.

There was a wide range of entries from posters, cakes, and elaborate models made from cardboard, clay and 3D printing.
Students explored a variety of cells and had some excellent nerve cells, sperm cells and red blood cells, as well as plant cells.
The effort which went into the homework was amazing. Well done year 7!

Year 7 enjoyed a full Christmas dinner, waited on by Studley High School staff:

Last week, Year 7 went to see the Pantomime ‘Ali Baba and the 30 Thieves’ performed by a local drama group at the Entaco.

It was a fun experience for the students and allowed them to experience their first trip with the high school. They represented the school in a wonderful way and thoroughly enjoyed it!

‘Ali Baba’. the best-known of the Arabian Nights stories introduces the phrase ‘Open, Sesame!’ which are famous even to people who have never read the story of the crafty thief and his adventures.

Last week, the Heads of House ran a week long competition to raise as much money as possible for Children in Need. There were student and staff forfeits for each fundraising “milestone” that we passed per house, from teaching in face paint to being pied in the face! Our SLT even had forfeits of their own which included dressing as each other and being covered in gunge.

As a community we raised an incredible £1613.98

Thank you to all the staff and students who completed forfeits, and of course thank you to everyone who contributed towards this very worthy cause.

On Wednesday 16th November, we collapsed the timetable and everybody focussed on Social and Personal Education (SPE) themes for the day.

Students threw themselves into everything they were set to complete.

Year 7 looked at personal hygiene and safety, including a visitor from the Warwickshire County Council’s Road Safety Education and Active Travel Team.

Year 8 discussed what ‘consent’ means and how to deal with pressures from their peers and social media.

For year 9, there were some more difficult themes around mental health, but considered some incredibly important information on signs to look out for and how to make sure we care for ourselves and others. Samaritans were in school to support us with this really important topic.

Year 10 got stuck in to some team building activities, and had some very interesting designs for their shoe brands!

Year 11 were spoken to by many visitors, all focusing on careers and their futures. Mrs Roberts and Mrs Skidmore also delivered a fantastic ‘basic first aid’ session, with lots of top tips to take away.

Finally, thanks to our Careers Advisor Mrs Dixon, all year 11 pupils had a mock interview with a local employer to get some practice in for their next steps. It was an incredibly busy day with over 30 visitors on site, but all staff supported in making sure the day was a success and all pupils were resilient and mature with the themes they were covering. As a school we have now been able to cover a vast range of the compulsory Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education guidance, which is so vital in preparing our pupils in becoming well-rounded and informed responsible citizens.

We recently received some wonderful feedback about our pupils which we wanted to share with our school community.

In Summer this year, some of our students carried out some volunteering at Redditch Library. Although they are in year 10 now, they found out about the scheme when we held our Humanities Careers Fair in the summer (when they were still in Year 9).

Here is the feedback we received:

Good Afternoon,

I work at Redditch Library and part of my role is volunteer management, this year we had several of your students volunteer with us to help out over the summer with the annual Summer Reading Challenge. This role involves helping children find a passion for reading, helping children pick out books, talking to them about the books that they have read and supporting staff in general maintenance of library tidiness. These students included; Erin R, Rebecca D, Niamh F, Ruby H & Hayley-Mae S.

I just wanted to pass on a message of thanks and also express how very lucky you are to have students who represented not only themselves but your school in such a positive way, they were not only willing to help at any given opportunity but they each took their roles very seriously. On top of being punctual, helpful and all-round pleasant to work with, they took pride in helping the younger children who were participating in the challenge and were a credit to themselves and should be very proud of the work they have done. They will also be receiving certificates recognising the amount of time they dedicated to helping us this summer.

Through this experience I can say I would be more than happy to take on any work experience students you may have this year, so please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any students looking for roles similar to this, thank you,

Kind regards,

Amber Morris
She/Her
Library Customer Advisor
Redditch, Alvechurch, Woodrow and Wythall
Libraries, Archive & Archaeology

Earlier in the term, The Royal Navy visited Food Tech, to complete two practical workshops with our year 11 students, enabling them to learn about Careers and develop further core practical skills. This was a wonderful opportunity which was enjoyed thoroughly by all.

Prefects raised more money for Macmillan yesterday lunchtime, with a penalty shoot-out vs the staff.

Here are some highlights:

Yesterday we held a House Engineering Competition which was open to all years.

Around 80 students took part.

The objective

To build the tallest tower using only spaghetti and marshmallows.

Result

First 1st (99.5cm): Molly H, Louis R, Jess S, Charlie H​ for Griffin

Joint 2nd: Highest Tower (78cm)​ Hollie H, Hollie H, Tamzyn, Emma A​ from Phoenix
& Sean A, Ryan and Michael from Pegasus.

3rd: Madison W & ​Marcus S for Phoenix

Yesterday, Mrs Smith and Mrs Guest completed the Alcester 10k – in under 60 MINUTES!

They started on the High Street and then followed the route out into the stunning country lanes of Warwickshire for a single loop with two drinks stations along the way, finishing with welcome cheers and t shirts and medals!

Well done both!

So much going on the world of Studley Science at the moment! We wanted to share some of the highlights with you:

Mrs Harris’ STEM held in S1 on a Tuesday after school with Year 7, produced catapults last week and Cartesian divers this week!

Also, here are the new Year 10 intake for Astronomy GCSE.
Their lessons are after school on Wednesdays with Mr Fincham. 

Don’t forget that it is our Macmillan Coffee morning tomorrow, Friday (7^th Oct) AND the MFL ‘Bake Time for Others’ competition!

Macmillan Cancer Support provide physical, financial and emotional support for people with cancer. This is a charity very close to our hearts, so please get baking!

Every cake matters!

Things to do to support:

1. Bring a cake to the hall before Lesson 1
2. You don’t have to have baked it yourself, you can bring a shop bought cake or cakes!
3. If you bring a container please ensure it is labelled with your name so we can return it
4. Bring 50p or £1 to buy cake at break and lunch

We will see you tomorrow!

On Friday 23rd September 2022 we launched a new maths homework platform to our students: Sparx Maths. Sparx is inclusive online platform and can adapt to all students’ current level of expertise. This promotes engagement, confidence and ultimately learning.

Sparx’ research (sparx.co.uk/evidence) has shown that this type of personalised maths home learning leads to clear progress.

For parents and carers, find out more here:

SPARX VIDEO

Amazing news from Joe B in Year 11.

This weekend he won an international karate competition ‘Lions Cup’ in Luxembourg.

He won u16 – 52kg and beat 6 other competitors from all different countries, including Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Czech Republic and then Netherlands in the final.

Well done Joe!

On Monday we launched our brand new house system with a whole school “house launch” in the sports centre. Our three new heads of house (Mr Willett, Mrs Blackford Taylor and Mr Neal) put together an event full of activities involving staff and students designed to foster a sense of competition and fun, to get students involved and excited about their new houses.

The event included ‘name that tune’, ‘chubby bunnies’, an eating competition and many balloons! Phoenix House were victorious, much to Mr Neal’s delight.

It was the first time in three years that we have been able to host a whole school event, and both staff and students thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Thank you to all the staff and students involved!

Last Wednesday the Year 11 prefect team organised a Year 7 Treasure hunt during form time.

This was an orientation exercise to help Year 7 pupils learn their way around the campus.

Scattered around school were 11 questions and 11 letters.
Pupils had to solve the clues. If they couldn’t solve a clue, the prefects were on hand at each question to give further clues.
The letters were an anagram of ” Studley High”

House points were awarded to all pupils who did well and all pupils received a biscuit prize.

FIRST PLACE: Griffin
SECOND PLACE: Pegasus
THIRD PLACE: Phoenix