Welcome to the Easter newsletter. As you read this, we are fast approaching the end of what has been a fantastic term. There have been so many things that staff and students have done which are truly amazing. It has been wonderful to see so many parents and the local community back in school for events such as parents’ evenings, open evenings, options evenings, Year 11/13 information evenings and attending our careers fair to name a few.
At the majority of these events, surveys have been distributed on entry/exit and it is truly pleasing to see how supportive you are of the school and that you describe the fantastic experiences your children have and in particular reference the support on offer and care you feel the staff give to your children. This really is a feature which I believe makes Garibaldi unique.
With only 20 school days remaining until Year 11 and Year 13 students sit their real, final GCSE and A Level examination, I want to say a big congratulations to them for all the hard work and determination they have shown throughout their time at Garibaldi but in particular this year. As always, there is plenty of help and support on offer should they need it. Below is some information on the Easter School provision, an opportunity for students to come and do some further revision or continue to upskill their exam practice or refine their knowledge further in specific subject content; each session offers something different.
We have one member of staff leaving us at Easter Mr Dench-Smith, who is Head of Year 9 and teaches Science, will be moving on to a promotion at another school in Nottinghamshire. After 5 years serving the Garibaldi community, he has been instrumental in setting up the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme and has developed, nurtured and led the Year 9 students since they joined us in Year 7. On behalf of everyone in the Garibaldi community, I wish Mr Dench-Smith the very best in his new role.
Mr Lowe will also be leaving us shortly after the Easter holidays. Although he returns for two weeks I want to take this opportunity for publicly thanking him for the work he has done in the History Department whilst he has been on a short term maternity cover and wish him all the best in his promotion to Head of History at another school.
Joining us after Easter will be Mrs Moors. She joins the school as Deputy Head Teacher with significant experience of Senior Leadership at a number of schools. Mrs Moors will add further capacity to the Leadership Team as our school continues to grow and will add significant value to the work we are undertaking on our journey to becoming an outstanding school.
Mrs Bailey joins the school as Safeguarding Officer working with Student Services on safeguarding and wellbeing. A new post to the school to add further capacity to this team. Also joining the staff is Miss Campion as Inclusion and Engagement Leader. She will be joining the Student Support Team and will oversee some of the work undertaken with students requiring additional support in school. Ms Davidson will join the Administration Team in mid April as Finance Assistant/Administrator.
We also welcome the return of Ms Scott, Teacher of Humanities, after her maternity leave.
Below are a few noteworthy celebrations and highlights from this term. I hope you all have a lovely relaxing break and will see students back at the usual time on Monday 17th April for the final term of the year.
Best wishes from the staff and Governors at Garibaldi.
James Aldred
Head Teacher
As part of our support for students in the run up to the exam season Year 11 have a range of revision sessions available to them over the two weeks of the Easter Holidays; please see the timetable below or click here for the Easter Revision Programme on the website.
“Our lives are surrounded by, organised by, even dictated by numbers. Important dates, superstitions, looming deadlines, soaring prices and temperatures or even a secret code to crack; inspiration lies in numbers all around us. This year’s Young Writers' competition was inspired by the use of numbers. Our Year 7 students rose to the challenge of writing a mini saga of no more than 100 words, using a number to base their plot and characters on. After spending time during their English lessons before Christmas, many were successful in publication and have had their saga published in this year’s book. Congratulations to all our authors!”
On Monday 6th March, The Garibaldi School hosted its inaugural Careers Fair event for the local community with almost 400 people in attendance . The purpose of the event was to raise and develop aspirations for the young people of our local community and get them thinking about careers in and next steps in general . As a school a key element of our mission statement is to ensure that by the time our students leave The Garibaldi School, they’ve gained the skills, qualities and qualifications needed for a successful, happy and fulfilled future and the event supported this.
We hosted a range of employers, institutions, and careers providers from across Nottinghamshire and beyond including the NHS, the armed forces, Experian, Ask! Apprenticeships, West Nottinghamshire College the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University to name just a few. This was the biggest event of its kind locally and we had visitors, including students and parents/carers from Year 7 to 13, students from our local feeder primary schools staff and governors. We know it’s never too early to start to think about career and employment aspirations.
Peterhouse College, Cambridge University
Mr B Hall, Head of Year 10 and a small group of year 10 students visited Cambridge University on Monday 20th March to get a sense of University life and what is required to apply, be accepted and to study at one of our country’s leading higher educational institutes. A great day had by all, informative, inspiring both in content and environment, giving students an aspiration goal to work towards.
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UCAS Exhibition, Sheffield - 23rd Mar 2023
To provide students with high quality IAG information and guidance in careers, universities and apprenticeships
The Brilliant Club, University of Birmingham - 25th Jan 2023
This term a group of Year 9 students have started their work with The Brilliant Club. This involves a programme of study led by a university lecturer and based around foundation degree work. This year the topic is STEM-related and is: How Do Machines Think? They will focus on Artificial Intelligence and its use in the modern world – very timely! The programme is led by an expert in using AI and machines in medical diagnosis. They will submit an assignment on this topic at the end of the programme and are receiving 1:1 feedback from the tutor during planned sessions in school.
Sport Relief
As part of the Cambridge Technical PE course, students have to plan and organise a sporting event. Our year 12/13 students went big and decided to plan sport relief activities for a full week, for the entire school. Various activities were on offer including a penalty shootout, staff in stocks, bake sale and staff football match to top off the week. Alongside raising money for sport relief we also sold merchandise for the Lashes foundation. Overall the week was a great success, the 6th form students went above and beyond to give the students at Garibaldi a fantastic week of fun activities and raise £1,228.50 for Sport Relief.
Pictured above (L to R ): Owen Hardwick, Daniel Barnes, Finlay Proctor, Miss F Gibbs, Kian Caffery, Josh Deakin and Abigail Martin
Comic Relief Donations
On Friday 17th March 2023 we held a non-uniform day to raise money for Comic Relief.
We are delighted to announce that we raised £540.41.
Thank you so much for your donations!
Garibaldi Charity Football Match - 29/03/2023
Sixth Form student Owen Hardwick arranged a Garibaldi Staff football match to raise money for Macmillan Cancer.
Owen is well on the way of exceeding his target of £1,000 as the funds he has raised so far is £900. The charity match raised an additional £245.48.
Team Owen Hardwick Vs Team Kian Caffrey
OFFICIALS: Mr Aldred, Jake Hart, Jimmy Allen
A nail biting performance saw Owen's Team win 3 -2 with goals from:
Thank you to Owen for arranging the match, the staff for taking part and for students and staff donations.
Message from Miss J Humphries - Head of Year 8
“As the Year 8 Head of Year I believe it is paramount in rewarding all students for consistently good behaviour, ATL and conduct. I hope by doing so, this sends out a positive signal to all students in Year 8 and to show that what they are doing exemplifies everything we ask at Garibaldi and demonstrates how proud I am of them and their efforts over the last half term."
In order to recognise students who have performed at a consistently high-level in terms of their Attitude to Learning and students who have made significant improvements, we facilitated a reward afternoon on Thursday 30th March. Students spent the afternoon off timetable watching a film, playing board games and socialising with friends. The students were accompanied by Miss Humphries who enjoyed having an opportunity to engage in positive conversations with students and celebrate in their successes.
Well done to all who attended and keep up the good work!
The Easter Bunny came to Garibaldi a little early this year. A treat for all those students in Year 7, 8 and 9 who met their Accelerated Reader spring term point target – over 100 students met or exceeded their target.
Well done!
Huge congratulations to the Year 7 boys Football team who won the Mansfield Schools Football Association Y7 Festival competition at Sutton Lawn on Tuesday 28.03.23.
After qualifying for the event as winners from our qualification pool in November, the team continued their excellent form, running out 3-0 winners in a competitive final against Holgate Academy.
The team conducted themselves brilliantly from start to finish, goals from Luke Stirland-Fell, George Hinchcliffe and Ryan Matthews ensured jubilant scenes during the winners shield presentation upon completion of the game. Further congratulations to Harley Leech who was chosen as player of the match for his performance during the game.
Well done to those involved as you have demonstrated consistently our school values of Pride, Respect, Achieve and the PE Department are proud of your performance.
Team named below: Back Row L to R - Elliot Jones, Kyros Elliot, Coby Trivett, Ryan Matthews, Charlie Jackson Front Row L to R - George Hinchcliffe , Harley Leech, Eddie Horsfield, Luke Stirland-Fell, Alfiejack Kimberley
The Garibaldi School
Train to teach with the Nottinghamshire Torch SCITT