Principal Blog 17th November 2023

SWINDON YOUTH FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE…

DAME JACQUELINE WILSON…
Every year the librarians of the Swindon secondary schools collaborate and organise the Swindon Youth Festival of Literature – a celebration of everything book-ish with visits and workshops with authors, poets and illustrators. The week kicked off with year 7 and 12 students attending an author talk at The Wyvern with the one and only Dame Jacqueline Wilson. Students were inspired and entertained in equal measure with a slight atmosphere of “I can’t really believe that’s actually Jacqueline Wilson” in front of us! Did you know Jacqueline’s favourite book ever is I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and her recommended read for the audience was anything by Katherine Rundell. A huge cheer of enthusiasm lifted the auditorium when she walked on stage and a slightly flatter cheer hailed her departure some 2 hours later. A trip to remember.

“This trip was incredibly insightful and surreal, seeing an author I grew up reading. It was cool to hear her story and motivations as well as learn about the context of her plots. As a wannabe writer I definitely enjoyed the experience and hearing little bits of advice regarding character development and writing techniques”. Imaan (Year 12 student)

JENNIFER BELL…
Over 250 year 5 pupils from our partner primary schools gave a very enthusiastic welcome to author Jennifer Bell. Jennifer writes for the KS2 and KS3 age group and we all had a fantastic time with her imagination-stretching adventure talk featuring high-energy interactive games and brave volunteers. A huge thank you to both Waterstones and our student librarians who were invaluable in their help.

“The talk by Jennifer was really engaging – a must for any computer game lovers! I know lots of our pupils will love reading Wonderscape” Mr Smith, Headteacher, Bishopstone Primary School

“Jennifer Bell was entertaining and engaging. She was superb at encouraging even the most reluctant readers” Ms Hingley, Wanborough Primary School

ASH DICKINSON…
Performance slam poet and Festival favourite Ash Dickinson inspired year 7 students to find their inner poet with his entertaining and interactive workshop. 300 students, 600 poems, in less than an hour. Result!

“I found that Ash helped everybody with their poetry. At the beginning I knew that I wasn’t keen, but at the end I wanted to hear more and I didn’t want the session to end. I loved the poems Ash wrote. The moral of the story I think is that everybody loved him and probably wanted to see him again.” Florence (year 7)

MANGA MANIA…
A massive thank you to FORCE (Friends of Ridgeway Community & Events) for their extremely generous donation to the school library allowing us to buy lots and lots and lots of Manga books. Books from the Manga Collection are the most frequently borrowed books in school, with students clamouring for them as soon as they arrive! The new books formed the basis for our Manga Mania Art lessons with KS3 classes during LitFest week with students learning about the history of Manga, watching Anime, discovering the new books in our collection and learning how to draw Manga faces with their very distinctive eyes, hair and face shape.

SWINDON YOUTH FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE & MATT DICKINSON

MATT DICKINSON…
Matt had groups of students on the edge of their seats with his tales of his Everest adventures, tailoring his presentation to the relevant groups. Year 8 were inspired to use all of their senses to describe what they would miss if they were on Everest as part of a creative writing workshop, whilst year 9s were inspired about all the careers that they could consider as Matt was able to tell them about being a film maker, adventurer, writer amongst other things. Finally, half of year 10 had an “Everest and Antartica” themed science lesson. His books have been flying out of the LRC ever since!

BOOK QUIZ…
The Ridgeway librarians were delighted to host the finale of LitFest week: the hotly contested InterSchool Book Quiz.

12 schools entered teams of 6 students from years 7 to 9, to answer 14 rounds of questions about all sorts of books, from Paddington to Divergent with Agatha Christie and Harry Potter thrown in.

Our heads of school ably managed the role of quizmaster and the festival sponsors, Bower & Bailey, came to present the awards to…
3^rd Place: Great Western Academy

2^nd Place: The Deanery and

1^st Place: Ridgeway

ISAAC COMPETING WITH THE ENGLAND TEAM…

During the October half term, Issac travelled to Finland as part of the Volleyball team representing England. The England team performed well but were up against counties who play volleyball as a professional sport. It was an amazing experience for Isaac and another wonderful achievement!

All at Ridgeway wish him continued success and good luck representing the England Volleyball team. Well Done Isaac. Mr M McMeeking

CONGRATULATIONS TO HUGO…

Last weekend Hugo attended his Swindon ASC Swimming championships. 6 Golds,10 silvers, and 1 bronze. He also won the trophy for his age group. He now has three County times and this weekend he is at Calne Alpha meet hoping to improve some more times. Mr M Mcmeeking

FRONTLINE LIVING HISTORY…

On Tuesday 14^th November our Year 11 students were joined by Frontline Living History, Richard Townsey and David Alton who are experts and re-enactors of the First World War. We had 2 excellent sessions where Year 11 were given a talk about the main weapons used in the First World War and the injuries that they caused. This included images from the recent archaeological dig at Hill 80 near Ieper, Belgium. David And Richard presented this whilst in the full uniform of a sergeant and officer of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Year 11 also had the fantastic opportunity to handle a number of First World War artefacts; hand-grenades (inert we were assured), helmets, rifles and trench clubs. The sessions ended with 6 volunteers wearing the various gas masks issued to the British Army during the First World War and giving a demonstration on how they were fitted and worn.

Following the Year 11 session Frontline Living History were joined by the Vickers Machinegun Collection & Research Association for a workshop with our Year 13 Historians. We explored how the equipment and weaponry of soldiers changed from the 1840s to 1916. They explored how the changing nature of these weapons impacted battlefields tactics, logistics and equipment. They had the opportunity to handle Vickers and Lewis Machineguns and look at how the crews kept them supplied with ammunition. This was done through a demonstration and a trial of an original belt filling machine – a rarity as most were destroyed in the 1920s.

Overall, our Year 11 & 13 Historians had a fantastic day with some incredibly rare hands-on experiences with historical artefacts. Mr D Voisey

RIDGEWAY BAKE OFF…

Last month, just before half term, Ridgeway School held its own ‘Bake Off’, which has become an annual house event, where all students were invited to bake a cake and enter it to represent their house. The theme was left open, and the contestants did not disappoint, providing a wide range of designs, flavours and types of cake.

The very newly appointed House Captains (10 of our fantastic R6 students) made an excellent job of both organising all the entries, and then judging the cakes (scoring them on taste and design) to carry out the near impossible task of choosing the top three cakes for their house. I never thought I would see so many students go from very excited to extremely full in such a short space of time! The winning cake from each house was then put forward to the final round, where our ‘Ridgeway Royalty’ (Mr and Mrs Vincent) along with members of the senior leadership team, carefully tasted and judged the cakes to select the overall winner.

During breaktime and both lunchtimes, a large number of the cakes were then sold to staff and students, raising £273 with the money raised going to local food bank charities.

A HUGE thank you to every single student who baked and brought in a cake, it was a fantastic house event where all entries received 5 merits, then the top three from each house and the overall winner earned even more to bring up their house totals!

The number of cakes entered and merits earned for each house were as follows…