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Other News:- Page 44
This year, Mr Jarvis and Mrs Hodkinson have been working on a new and exciting launch of the AntiBullying programme Equally-Safe. It is a programme funded by the Department for Education that is run by Equaliteach and means we are working alongside around 250 schools across the UK to embed best practice when it comes to preventing and tackling identity-based bullying at Cherwell. We asked all parents, students and staff to complete a questionnaire back in November, and have been working with the brilliant staff at Equaliteach to look at our policies and practices to work out long term differences that we can make to stamp out identity-based bullying.
In January, we trained up fifty students for a whole school day to be 'Ambassadors for Change' and they were fantastic! 10 students from each year, across Years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12, came together on South Site to consider what we do now and how things could be changed for the better. The students were trained by Equally Safe facilitators to learn what bullying is, how to identify it and prevent it from a whole school perspective. Our students had some brilliant feedback about the school and ideas to make it better.
Mr Jarvis and Mrs Hodkinson are continuing to work on whole school approaches and will be helping to make more of this training, both for students and staff, to ensure that we support the reporting, handling and education around identity-based bullying to prevent it altogether.
Mrs Hodkinson, Head of Year 8
Our budding astronomers made observations of the moon through a telescope, saw the stars appear in the night sky, and used the patterns they recognised to find north. We put into practice the theory we've learned in GCSE astronomy, and had a lot of fun. By Mr Lorimer
A year on from the founder and Patron of the Duke of Edinburgh Award’s death, the Duke’s legacy the DofE - is needed now more than ever. At this time as the Duke of Edinburgh Award Charity are reflecting on the impact The Duke made to millions of young people’s lives through the DofE, at The Cherwell School we are doing the same.
There are 4 sections to complete, we don’t just go camping, at Bronze and Silver and 5 sections at Gold. They involve helping the community or environment, becoming fitter, developing new skills, an expedition and for Gold only, working with a team on a residential activity.
We have grown the award massively, taking on 374 new students this year. We have also introduced the Venture Award as a “warm up” to the DofE for Years 7 and 8 that will kick off after the holidays.
BRONZE AWARD - Our Bronze Award has the biggest intake ever with 172 students! They have started doing some amazing things for our community and environment too, litter pickers are out weekly, homework help for neighbours is taking place and some charity shop work has begun. While we are also preparing for our expeditions in May and June with weekly training sessions on map work, country code and campcraft.
SILVER - has also seen an increase with 66 students taking part from across Year 10 and 11. Where independence is needed more in Silver and they are left to get themselves sorted, we have fewer training sessions with them picking up intensity towards their expeditions in July.
GOLD - has just completed their Practice expedition in Wales, we all had a fantastic time and were incredibly lucky with the weather. The students, and teachers, learnt a great deal when out with BXM, and covered a lot of ground (25km on one day to be exact!) We are so proud of them and know how well prepared they are for their expedition in July.
“As I look forward to my long-awaited Golds Award in May, I have been reflecting on the highs and lows of being in DofE with Cherwell school on Bronze and Gold. I went to Bronze DofE with a pack of girls who always got lost (it’s a team effort) but had fun along the way. I also tried new things such as Zumba at the local gym, drama club and volunteered at a Fairtrade shop and enjoyed getting stuck in alongside school to mix my days up a bit and I learnt a lot about the background of running a shop which helped me in future summer jobs! I also did Gold because I enjoyed Bronze minus the blisters I had (they only last 3 days afterwards!) Gold is a learning curve in the expedition as I had made lots of mistakes in a bad condition (remember beast from the east 2.0 that’s when I did the practice one) and woke up in the tent to snow and wet socks, my advice is to pack lots of socks plus wool socks which I took to the real one and I was buzzing full of energy by the following day after the expedition because I had no blisters. You definitely learn more about your friends and yourself in expeditions and weather you would be up for getting stuck in, it’ll become a memory to reflect on with your friends throughout life. Every DofE experience is unique and my stories are different to yours”
