THE QUEEN’S 90TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

Four students and I had the pleasure of attending a service at St Mary’s Church in Thornbury for a formal celebration of The Queen’s 90th Birthday for the whole of Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire, with a number of dignitaries from the two counties in attendance.

Also on the guest list for the invite-only event were 90 residents of the county who have reached the landmark age of 90.

Reverend Jan van der Lely, St Mary’s vicar who led the service, described it as “an uplifting and inspiring experience.”

The service will feature in an episode of Songs of Praise which will be broadcast on June 12.

YOUTH POLITICAL FORUM

More than 30 students from Castle School and Marlwood School, ranging from Year 7 all the way to sixth form, discussed topics including the EU Referendum, Trident, and whether prisoners should have the ability to vote, in the political forum set-up by Thornbury and Yate MP Luke Hall.

Throughout the session, the students would hear presentations and talks from guests on their pre-selected topics, before breaking off into groups to debate the issue, and then taking it to a ballot to vote.   “It is really impressive to see how interested these young people are,” said Mr Hall.

Well done to all students who took part.

NEWS FROM WITHIN THE CSET CLUSTER

Who says employability skills are only for older children? At Charfield Primary school, Premium Partners have been working with Year 5 and 6 students as they produce a newspaper. They have had illustrators, photographers, journalists and even an advertising team who have managed to sell more space than that paper had originally allocated.

Now after several months of writing, designing, selling advertising and editing, Charfield Chatter is finally on the newstands! 14th April sees it in all the editions of the Gazette newspaper.  This story was picked up by BBC Points West so there was excitement in the playground at Charfield as this means over 46,000 people would have heard about their newspaper.

If you would like to see the BBC Points West interview please click on the link http://youtu.be/6wsqXjrAoys

GUINNESS WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT

On Monday 22nd February Key Stage 3 students took part in an attempt to break the World Record for the most people taking part in Simultaneous Literature Quizzes.  This was a venture undertaken with other schools in multiple venues.

The current record was 2,679 people quizzing, but we are very excited to announce that, in news just in, a whopping 11,828 took part.  That is nearly four and a half times the record we needed to beat!!

Congratulations to all those who took part!

MARLWOOD SCHOOL - TIME FOR READING

Marlwood School receives the Time For Reading - Silver Award.

Marlwood School's commitment to reading continues.  The Time For Reading scheme was set up by the Local Authority to promote an enjoyment of reading.  There were a number of criteria the school had to meet in order to achieve this award, needless to say we successfully met them! The benefits of a high level of reading for our young learners are obvious and we use the Accelerated Reader system to track our students' progress with their reading.  Huge congratulations to all involved and thanks to you as parents for supporting us from home.  We have the Gold Award firmly in our sights!