THE GR8 BOOK DEBATE...
Since April, a group of Year 7 students have been meeting regularly and along with their peers from Great Western Academy, have been reading 5 books all ready to debate their merits and decide a winner. Read all about the Finale from Year 7 student, Nicholas.
After we registered with our period 2 teacher, all students (from Ridgeway) met in the library. We waited a while and after a long journey, GWA arrived. All of the participants of the Gr8 Book Debate sat on 5 tables which each represented one of the 5 books in the competition. We then in our table groups prepared a presentation about the book we were chosen to debate. In the presentation, we focused on themes, style, appeal, setting, start, ending, and our overall opinion of the book.
My group presented The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket. It was really fun to stand up and discuss your book and express various opinions on it. After the presentations, we had a secret ballot where we voted on our favourite book.
The order was –
5th The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket by John Boyne.
4th Nisha’s War by Dan Smith
3rd Fake by Ele Fountain
2nd Becoming Muhammad Ali by James Patterson & Kwame Alexander
1st I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
I was really happy as my favourite book I am Malala won. I really enjoyed the book as it was such an interesting life story and I liked her determination for girl’s education.
After the voting, we had juice and biscuits and then GWA left to go back to their school. Overall, the Finale was great and everyone seemed to have a good time, however, the whole competition was awesome and the books that were chosen were amazing.
Mrs S Day
YEAR 11 PROM...
The Evening of Friday 30th June was the Year 11 Prom. This was held for the first time at The County Ground, home of Swindon Town Football Club. 283 students and staff attended the event, which made it the most attended Prom we have had. The evening started off with arrivals including farm vehicles, sports cars, limos, and 20 motorcycles! Then onto welcome drinks, a 2 course meal, sweets, photobooths, awards for Prom King, Queen, and best dressed male and female, and disco dancing into the night. A great time was had by all and we would like to thank all that attended and the County Ground for hosting.
Mr Wakefield.
RIDGEWAY SCHOOL SUMMER FETE...
On Saturday 1st July, FOR:CE (Friends of Ridgeway: Community and Events, the school’s PTA) organised our second summer fete – an event that was well worth organising for the school and the local community.
Thankfully, this year, the British weather held off (apart from a tiny bit of drizzle and some gusts of wind) so the PTA, governors, students, and staff volunteers worked together to create and run an excellent event on the school field. The second-hand uniform sale proved again to be a real crowd pleaser and drew in lots of people; it was great to see so many getting some fab bargains.
The various PTA stalls included a tombola, raffle, adopt a teddy, splat a rat, hook a duck, and a crockery smash, all run by members of the PTA and/or students. In addition to the PTA stalls, we had a variety of wonderful craft vendors at the event with a range of fantastic homemade items. We also had a visit offer from the local fire station, who came along and lots of children enjoyed clambering up into the cab of the engine! To round it off we had a variety of refreshments on offer as well as an ice-cream van and the Waffle Shack; it was lovely to see so many people relaxing at the picnic tables in the middle!
Thank you to everyone who helped and attended, especially the fantastic students who displayed all the Ridgeway values including the Year 11 students who had been to their Prom the evening before, and Lewis Day in Year 8 who ran his own Magic Show! We are extremely proud of and humbled by the lovely young people that our students are.
Approximately £1200 was raised to go towards funding additional educational resources for the school, and an additional £1000 was raised at the uniform sale to help provide uniform items to families in need in the future. More importantly, we really enjoyed organising and running another community event and look forward to many more in the future. Look out for our Christmas Fayre in early December!
Mrs J Meredith
Prom
