Home to School Transport
There is to be a review by North Yorkshire County Council of the contracts for transport services. The Council is asking for the view of parents and carers of the existing transport arrangements, suggestions for improvements or any other issues in connection with home to school transport. Please click here to read the letter sent by the Council for further details.

 

Bugsy Malone
Caedmon School are putting on a performance of Bugsy Malone on Wednesday 22nd, Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th May. All performances will be in the Main Hall and will start at 7.00pm. Tickets are now on sale at a cost of £5.00 for adults and £4.00 for children.

 

Caedmon Crowned County Cup Champions
Caedmon U14 Girls have been crowned County Champions after beating Easingwold in the county cup final. See Sports News for a full report.

 

Author Visit

In an event supported by the Home and School Association we had a visit by bestselling author Malcolm Rose. Pupils from four local primary schools joined Year 7 for a morning presentation about the author's "Jordan Stryker" novels and listened as Malcolm (a former chemistry lecturer) explained how he developed his characters and plots. Video clips of robotic limbs in action were soon eclipsed by the actual bionic hand Malcolm produced to demonstrate the technology. Many pupils then had the opportunity to shake the hand and feel the texture of the synthetic skin.

In the second session of the day a group of Year 8 pupils joined Malcolm for a writer's workshop where they experimented with different ways of developing characters and plots – techniques they then put into practice writing their own short stories which they shared with the group at the end of the session.

The final session of the day, for Years 8 & 9, was based on the "Traces" series and involved pupils having to think as forensic scientists and piece together clues the writer was leaving behind such as fibres, fingerprints and DNA from a "used" tissue. One pupil said "That was so clever, how all the clues fitted together".

Both pupils and staff enjoyed the day and it was fascinating to see how the developments in science and technology can be the starting point for amazing stories.

 

"The Big Read" Challenge

Caedmon School's annual inter-house Reading Challenge this year took place during the spring half term. Following the introduction of the Accelerated Reader programme at the end of last year, pupils completed an online quiz after reading their books and their words were added to their house totals. After a tense battle between the houses it was Resolution who emerged victorious, eventually beating their nearest rivals, Discovery, by almost 200,000 words. As well as the house rivalry there was also friendly competition between groups of friends which led to lots of recommendations of fantastic reads – Robert Muchamore's "Cherub" and the "Henderson Boy" series proving the most popular books in school.

Year 8 pupil Will Shaw said "It gives you a feeling of achievement after every quiz you pass". Thanks to publishers Egmont, Scholastic, Penguin, Harper Collins and Macmillan Children's Books who supported the school. Every pupil who participated in the challenge received a prize.

 

Visit to Larpool Care Home
On Wednesday 23rd January Mrs Locker took two pupils, Beth and India, to Larpool Care Home to present two blankets that had been made in Knitting Club. Beth's mum very kindly sewed them together and crotcheted around the edges. Mrs Locker also brought one that she had crotcheted when she was a girl so three were presented. On arrival at the Home the staff showed the group around and three ladies were chosen to receive the blankets for them to wear across their knees or shoulders – or just to make the back of their chair or bed look nicer. One of the residents said they had some knitted squares and she is going to ask her daughter to bring them to school and the Knitting Club will sew them up. Beth and India would like to thank the staff at Larpool for being so kind and helpful, the residents for making us so welcome and Mrs Locker for accompanying them.

 

Youth Speaks
At the end of November a team of Year 8 pupils from Caedmon School competed against teams from Eskdale and Fylinghall School in the Intermediate class of the 'Youth Speaks' competition organised by Whitby Rotary Club.
The purpose of the competition is to promote the importance of public speaking and to encourage young people to develop these skills. The competition was very close but the A Team from Caedmon School, consisting of Will Shaw, Ellie Dyer Brown and Lewis Stephenson came out the eventual winners. The winning speech was based around the theme that torture can never be justified. This speech began with an introduction from Will Shaw which balanced humour with his comments about his fellow team mates and seriousness when he introduced the topic. Following Will was the eloquent Ellie Dyer Brown, who presented her arguments about how torture can never be justified, with clarity and sincerity. Finally it was down to Lewis to draw all the threads together, a task made more poignant when he included a quotation from the human rights museum in New York, a place he had recently visited. This was a very impressive performance and the team did themselves proud.