Newsletters

Dear parents and guardians,

It has been a busy first two weeks back with our new build commencing. Groundworks are in full flow and foundations are being laid, and I must highlight that the students have been excellent around the site and the potential noise from the works has been minimal.  Although the weather was a challenge in the first week, progress is on track!  

The last fortnight has been full of opportunities for our students, such as Ten Tors training on Dartmoor, Yr10 science events in Bath, Living History for our KS3 students, Duke of Edinburgh group meetings, football and netball fixtures across many year groups, KS5 university finance support evenings as well as all the Year 11 and 13 mock examinations.  Thank you to my staff and well done to all those students involved.

I would like the support of parents and guardians to press home the importance to their children that skirts should not be rolled up so they are too short and that only one set of studded earrings should be worn at school as stated in our uniform policy.  Thank you in advance for your support. I would also like to thank many of you for your support by not dropping off and picking up children on site at present because of the restrictions we are experiencing due to the new build.

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy our newsletter.

World Book Day 2024

Thursday the 6^th was a great day at school! So many staff members dressed up, Ms Knee as the Yellow Brick Road was great and it’s not every day you have your MFL mock with the Snow Queen aka Ms Mitchell! Big thank yous all around!

So many students made an excellent effort dressing up! We had Tiggers, Pigglets, Poohs, Goldilocks, Herbie Lemon, the best Lorax, the cutest Alice and many more. My favourite costume was Luke in Y7, dressed as slime! Thank you to the sixth formers for dressing up showing the younger years that you are never too old to have some fun on World Book Day!

At lunchtime, the library welcomed Trowbridge Waterstones for a special visit. They had brought lots of World Book Day books and students were queuing up to get their free book and also browse the lovely bookmarks, bags and beautiful editions of well loved books. I especially loved the Hunger Games series with the most fantastic sprayed edges! If there was anything you liked the look of or any World Book Day book that you wanted, pop into Waterstones, they are more than happy to help!

For any students who forgot to pick up their World Book Day tokens or haven’t used them yet: they are valid until the 23^rd March and I still have some left in the library.

Happy reading!

The Queen of Hearts aka Mrs Bruton

FUEL programme – Easter 2025

We are delighted that the Department for Education has confirmed funding for the FUEL programme to run at Easter, Summer and Christmas in 2025. The programme is funded to provide activities and meals free of charge for children who are eligible for benefit related Free School Meals.
 
All families who have previously booked onto the programme will be notified directly when booking is open. We would love to support more children in 2025 and welcome your support with encouraging families to book places on activities.
 
Places can also be requested for children who are refugees, are in care, are young carers or who may be vulnerable during the school holidays. The number of places available for these children are limited but we do our best to support as many as we can.
 
Families can make and manage bookings on our FUEL booking system. More information about the programme and eligibility is also available on our website, booking opens on 6 March and will close on 30 March.
 
Resources for promoting the programme are also available on Right Choice.
 
If you have any questions, please feel free to email fuelprogramme@wiltshire.gov.uk

A sneak peek at our new build progress....

Parent and Carer Questionnaire 2024-25

We would like to invite you to complete this Parent and Carer Questionnaire. We value your opinion.

Parent and Carer Questionnaire

             Affordable Schools – Uniform donations

We are collecting donations of any unwanted or outgrown school uniform for our next free uniform event. The Affordable Schools group run a free uniform event three times a year, ensuring that we make the cost of the school day more affordable for all and save clothing from landfill.

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.

The local Authority are inviting parents to join them and participate in an online course which is designed to make parents aware of the risks and challenges that surround the use of vapes, nicotine and other nicotine products that their children may encounter. Please see the flyer below and take advantage of this free course to equip yourselves with the information you may need to help and support your child when talking about these products.

Mrs Kerr

Year 12 and Year 13 History trip to Berlin

At the start of February, 25 A Level historians travelled to Berlin to  learn firsthand about  the rise of the Nazis, the impact of Nazism on Germany, WWII and the Cold War.  

They experienced a packed programme with visits to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the Museum of German Resistance to Nazism, the Reichstag (Parliament building) and the Soviet War Memorial, amongst others, as well as a 4-hour historical walking tour around the centre of Berlin.  They spent time with several experts who developed their classroom learning and made the fascinating history of Berlin come alive.  

To relax, the students got to grips with the city's cultural life by enjoying  bowling and eating German and Italian food as well as sampling Germany's famous sausages and traditional Jewish babkes by the Wannsee lake.

The trip was a huge success with many students already making plans to return to this amazing city.  The final word goes to Robert, the guide of the walking tour, who enjoyed the tour with our students so much that he gave us an extra hour for free!  

Mr Gray, Mr Little and I would like to thank the students for their company - it was a wonderful trip.  They were beautifully behaved and fully engaged with the history - a real credit to their families and the school.

Mrs Addecott

Activities Days

If you're a parent of a Year 7-9 student you will have received a booklet via School Comms advertising the opportunities we have on offer this year. 

Please take time to look at the activities available and to complete the form with your child.  The deadline for the return of the forms is 19^th March.

Our Activities Days are a highlight of our year and we look forward to ending the academic year with some fun.

Careers fair

Our annual careers fair takes place on the 20^th March. We will have a range of stalls set up representing the opportunities that young people have in and around Trowbridge. All young people will have the opportunity to visit the fair throughout the day. This annual event has been hugely successful in the past. If you, or anyone you know, would also like a stall on this day then contact the careers team on careers@jogschool.org 

Ten Tors Update: The Beauty of Dartmoor!

Last weekend 18 intrepid students set off to South Dartmoor in Devon to continue their training for the Ten Tors Challenge in May. We arrived on Friday night and spent some time looking at Mars, Jupiter (and it's moons!) and Venus and students were amazed at how clear the sky was and how many stars they could see.

After surviving the bitterly cold evening, students packed away their gear, gobbled down a hearty hot English breakfast and made their way off onto the South Moor to navigate and hike their way around the treacherous bogs, raging rivers and vicious grassy tussocks of the Moor. 

Dartmoor provided us with a delightful weekend, visibility was superb (we could see the sea at times), and the Dartmoor ponies, Iron Age mounds, Neolitihic stone rows and more recent stone crosses and mining ruins looked glorious in the crisp winter sunlight with a backdrop of azure blue skies. Despite this students still had to carry their huge packs across the difficult and challenging terrain whilst also using maps and compasses in a very bleak landscape.

The students did fantastically - no drop outs, excellent navigation and some really good teamwork helping each other hop across rivers or avoid marshy areas. As always, many thanks to my helpers Iain Richards, Mrs Brooks and Imogen Wood, without whom this could not have been possible.

Mr Gray

Start to the day

Just a gentle reminder that students should not be on the school site before 8:00 am. If they do arrive between 8:00 and 8:25 am, before tutor time, they should be outside and will be unsupervised during this time.

To support our students, we offer a free Breakfast Club in G21 from 8:00 to 8:25 am, where they are welcome to come in, have something to eat, and start the day in a warm and friendly environment.

Thank you for your support in helping us create a safe and positive start to the school day for all our students.

Congratulations to our winners for the KS4 National Storytelling Week competition. Our top four students all won an Amazon voucher.

Our KS3 entries have all been submitted to the National Storytelling competition - good luck to everyone who has taken part. All of our students will have their work printed and laminated in our very own John of Gaunt National Storytelling Anthology 2025!