Newsletters

Dear all

As Christmas approaches, it has been wonderful to feel the festive spirit building around the school.  The Year 7s loved their Christmas disco (and all the sweets!). I enjoyed looking at the festive artwork produced in the art club after school, and it has been fantastic listening to some of the beautiful singing and musical pieces being practised for our Christmas Carol concert. Those who will be attending on Tuesday 17^th December, 7pm, in Holy Trinity Church will be in for a treat.  Book your tickets early!

It has been a real focus for us at JoG to ensure our students are reflecting on the school values of Kindness, Positivity and Belonging through our Character Education curriculum during tutor times. This will continue with the launch of our values awards in the new year, where we will be recognising and rewarding students for demonstrating all the qualities we are striving to nurture here.  This is the next step following the Headteacher rewards that I give out weekly.  

Our student leaders also focused on our values on their 3-day leadership residential training when they travelled to Stratford on Avon last week.  It was a fantastic opportunity for our students to gain Level 5 leadership coaching and allowed them time to refine their plans for their main projects for the year.  More to follow from the students in the future.

Please enjoy the rest of the newsletter and keep up to date with all our announcements and celebrations through our website and social media pages:

Facebook:  The John of Gaunt School  

Instagram: jogschool24

Have a lovely weekend,

Stonar Cross Country 

A fantastic day out recently at Stonar School for our X-Country trials ahead of the Wiltshire Schools Cross Country Championships in January which 6 OF OUR PUPILS QUALIFIED FOR! 

We took teams with us from all year groups to compete for the chance to represent us further in this competition, with some fantastic individual performances, some real displays of grit and determination and a number of our students stopping to help others from a number of different schools out on the course. Really displaying the value of kindness, we work so hard to nurture here at JoG. 

We would like to say well done to our 6 students (Kyle, Ben, Ed, Isla, Imogen and Maddie) who finished within the top 10 of their races to get through to the next round. All competing in categories with up to 80 students, what an unbelievable achievement. And we would like to say an extremely special well done to Kyle who beat the rest of his catagory by over 30 seconds, taking home the top spot and the first ever student here at JoG to do so - congratulations!"

Snap chat is a social media app which a lot of young people use. The age restriction for Snapchat is 13 and older, but we are aware that this is difficult to enforce. As parents and carers, snap chat is really difficult to monitor as so much content is designed to disappear in a very short period of time. This can seem exciting but also poses dangers to young people who may not have developed a secure sense of risk and managing danger.

Even if you are familiar with this app please look at the attached leaflet and find some time to discuss the risks (and joys) of using snapchat with your child. Thank you, Helen Kerr

Year 10s go through to Round 5 of the ESFA National Knockout!

The boys ran their socks off and defended resolutely in a brilliant game against the Matthew Arnold School from Oxford. The team showed incredible positivity and character to score two late goals to win the game 4-2 after Matthew Arnold equalised twice, especially as we were missing 4 of our forwards. 

The goals came from James, Riley and Owen x2, who the boys gave man of the match. 

The next round is home again, to be played in the next week or two - good luck boys!

Please bring any donations into the school reception.

If you have any questions regarding donations or would like to be involved in future events, please see our website for further details: The John Of Gaunt School - Affordable Schools Information

Affordable Schools needs you!

The Affordable Schools group is looking for any parent/guardian volunteers to assist us with our fundraising activities. This is much like a PTA, looking at ways we can bring down the cost of the school day for our whole school community. We are currently fundraising to subsidise the cost of trips for all students. However, this can only be achieved through a variety of fundraising activities.

If you are interested in be involved, please email Emma Jeffries ejeffries@jogschool.org or visit our website for further details.

JOG Festive Food Parcel appeal launches in support of Storehouse

We are pleased to launch the ‘JOG Festive Food Parcel’ appeal. We have been working with Storehouse – the Trowbridge foodbank – to create a special food parcel shopping list. It contains essential items along with some nice-to-haves. Across the school, tutor groups will build the same food parcel through the generous support of our families. In total, each parcel would cost around £22.00. Once delivered at the end of term, we hope a large number of JOG Festive Food Parcels can be handed directly to people who visit the foodbank over the Christmas period.

Storehouse reports an increase in visitors over Christmas as some people can run out of essentials due to the extra costs the season can bring. Each tutor parcel will help ensure they have a range of meals for a number of extra days along with some household supplies and some festive treats. Along with supporting others, the aim of the appeal is to help build our values of Kindness, Positivity and Belonging in our students.

Quick summary for parents/ carers

1. With their tutor, your child will choose an item from a special shopping list of groceries we have agreed with the Trowbridge foodbank, Storehouse.

2. Please support your child with buying this item (if possible*) in the size specified (the brand is not important).

3. Please ensure they return it to their tutor by Friday 13th December.

4. Full details have been emailed home.

*We appreciate that Christmas may pose challenges for families, so there is no obligation for students to take part.

For more information about Storehouse https://www.communityactionwestwilts.org/

For more details about the appeal, please contact Mrs Rossiter 

Year 8 HPV (Human Papillomavirus) vaccination

Your Year 8 child is now due their HPV vaccine, which will be delivered by the School Aged Immunisation Team at John of Gaunt on 22/1/2025 and 7/2/2025.

The HPV vaccine is offered to all boys and girls in Year 8 (aged 12/13 years) because the evidence is clear that the HPV vaccine helps protect both boys and girls from HPV-related cancers. More than 280 million doses of the HPV vaccine have been given worldwide, including 120 million doses in the US and over 10 million in the UK.

The HPV vaccine used in the NHS vaccination schedule is Gardasil 9 and protects against 9 of the types of HPV which can cause cancer and genital warts for most people with just one dose.

Full details of the vaccination product used, including full contents can be accessed at: https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/7330/smpc#gref

To consent for your child to receive the vaccination, or to decline, please click on the link below:

            www.bswschoolagedimms.co.uk/Forms/HPV

            School Code:  WT138020  

You can also use this link to find out further information about the vaccination before you provide your response.

If you have any difficulties completing the consent, please contact our Immunisation Team for support:

    Phone: 0300 247 0082

    Email: vcl.immunisations@nhs.net

Please respond as soon as possible to accept or decline the vaccination.  Where no response is received, all young people will be offered the opportunity to discuss the vaccination and self-consent if appropriate.  

School will be asked to share contact details of parents so that if you have not responded, we will contact you directly to discuss whether you wish to consent or any concerns you may have. 

Once you have completed the online consent you will receive an automated email with a reference number as confirmation.  Please check your junk/spam box if not in your in box and contact the team if it is not received.

Thank you, School Aged Immunisation Team

Ovid Competition 

A heartfelt congratulations to Ava Trebilcock, William Collins and Maja Szcerbinksa Y7 who made it through to the final of the Ovid In The West Country competition, hosted by Bristol University on the 4^th December.

The competition asks pupils from across the South West region to re-tell any Greek myth of their choosing in any format: cake making, embroidery, model making, film animation, video, music, poetry, prose - anything goes.

The evening was very enjoyable as we listened to author and master story teller, Daniel Morden perform with expertise, humour and warmth two tales from the Greek myth cannon. After which, the judges explained in joy what they loved about each entrant’s work. Each exhibit was incredibly creative and each one a total pleasure to see. There were some incredible models - a furry bull’s head designed to electronically re-tell the story of Theseus and The Minotaur when its tongue was pressed; paper mache heads at moments of transformation; Dedalus’s life sized wings in a harness; a cake depicting the moment of Icarus’ soaring flight; a retelling of Ariadne’s story in ten pages in modern and humorous prose (this was the overall winner); an incredibly detailed board game and so much more.

How delightful therefore to announce that Maja came runner up in the competition as a whole, with her delicately detailed drawing and prose retelling the story of Medusa. She was up against some stiff competition, so she must have really impressed the judges!

Well done to all of our Y7s who entered for making the competition such a huge success. And - congratulations once again to Ava, William and Maja.

Thank you and super well done!

Leadership Residential

Day 1 -

The students were straight into activities as soon as they arrived – their starter task was a team exercise of building spaghetti and marshmallow towers. They had sessions on level five leadership and the pillars of great leaders. Day one was rounded off nicely with a stroll around the town centre.

Day 2 - 

Day two saw the students focus on speaking confidently. They worked hard on their non verbal clues to ensure confident delivery to larger groups.

Day 3 -

The last day started with a lovely frosty morning and the students got stuck in to working on how to communicate clearly with a team in a project meeting setting. They then presented their belonging pitches. They were back on the road at midday to return home – tired, happy and ready to see their family and loved ones.