A huge well done to Dhanu G in 9H who gained an impressive 96% in his Grade 5 Music Theory exam, earning him a Distinction. Teacher Mr. Boris Peck was incredibly proud of him and we would like to congratulate him on such an outstanding result. 

Well done to Rohith M in 9A who gained a fantastic 94% and Distinction in his Grade 2 classical piano exam. What a fantastic result and we wish him a similar success in his Guitar Grade 5 exam coming up soon.

Well done to Edward F (Y11) who is now the South of England Under 17 men’s Octathlon Champion. In a recent competition (ESAA Regional Championships), he achieved PBs in 7 out of 8 events. Well done

We are absolutely delighted to announce that Scarlett L and Cameron E have been successful in gaining a place in the National Youth Theatre. This is a huge achievement and we are very proud of them both. We also had a number of students audition this year, and whilst we love sharing amazing news, it’s important to say a big well done to everyone who applied. We think you’re all superstars.

A huge congratulations to brothers Zac, Finn and Josh Pile who received their physical Mayor's Pride 2020 Awards. The award was given by Janet Smith, Mayor of St Albans, "in recognition of an exceptional child or young person. It may be their energy, positivity, talent or strength of character that is a true example to their peers."  We are incredibly proud of the boys who work so hard in their fantastic band, Princes to Kings, and also help to raise money through their charity work. You can watch some of their videos here or follow them on Instagram @princes_to_kings

Very excitingly, Jack and Alfie have been selected to be player mascots at the Euro 2020 final at Wembley on Sunday 11 July. The day will start for the boys at 7.30am where they will head to Wembley stadium and experience what it's like to be a footballer and get to do lots of fun stuff. Unfortunately as it is the final (and due to covid restrictions), they will not get to walk out onto the pitch with the fans in the stadium. This video gives you an idea of what the experience will be like 

What an amazing experience this will be for Jack and Alfie!

This half term students at Ridgeway Academy entered a competition to design a poster celebrating the diversity of our Ridgeway community. Equality is promoted throughout the curriculum and assembly programme by encouraging students to challenge prejudice, stereotyping and intolerance on the grounds of disability, gender, race, age, religion or belief, sexual orientation or any other form of diversity.  Competition was fierce as we received 30 submissions from many forms. Students and their Form Tutors voted for the top three form entries to be considered by the Vice Chair of the Governing Body and Chair of HR Committee Governors, Liz Tillett. It was important that the winning entry celebrated our commitment to challenging all forms of prejudice and celebrating equality and the overall winning entry, by Evie Read in 7C encapsulated this.

Evie shared the inspiration for her design, ‘Our community is made up of lots of different people and we are all equally important. The colours on my poster represent all the different people and that we look better and brighter together.’

Evie wins 50 house points for Anderson house and her poster will be featured on the school website and displayed throughout the school from September. Runners up were: Oliver Winnan and Faye Bailey who both earn 20 house points for Mandela and Hawking houses respectively.

We are delighted to announce a new partnership with the Paul Davis Fencing Academy at the Hertfordshire Combat Centre. From the start of the 2021/22 academic year, we are pleased to be able to offer a selected number of students from KS3 the chance to use and enjoy both the excellent facilities at the academy and world-class coaching.

Following a successful day of primary data collection, students at Ridgeway Academy worked hard to prepare a series of presentations for members of the Welwyn and Hatfield Council and the Groundwork Charity. Students in Year 7 focused on the wellbeing of aquatic micro-ecosystems on the school site. After conducting a pond dipping experiment, students were able draw conclusions on the health of the pond using the Trent Biotic Index, which looks at the presence of bioindicators to make inferences on the health of the habitat. Our school pond was abundant in species which were hardy and tolerant to low levels of pollution but lacked the species found in cleaner waters. Overall, students concluded that our school pond is slightly polluted, a little acidic and is relatively soft in hardness. The students proposed that a red cabbage indicator solution would form part of an affordable method for monitoring the health of our pond. It has also been suggested that further research into appropriate ways of increasing the hardiness (calcium and magnesium content) is needed in order to support increased biodiversity.

In Year 9, students analysed primary findings from a town centre perception study. The map above is one from a series created by students using the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) platform ‘Arc GIS’. This map plots a ‘built environment - likelihood of crime index’ (colour of shaded circle, where blue suggests a higher likelihood of crime) against an ‘index of decay’ (size of plotted circle, where an increase in size reflects more urban decay). This primary data has been mapped against secondary data downloaded from https://data.police.uk/data/ on reported crime in the month of May 2021, which is presented using a heat map (warmer colours represent higher crime).

This is a snapshot of some of the work and progress that students at Ridgeway Academy have made toward the Welwyn Garden City Centenary Project, which will be presented on Thursday 15th July. Ultimately, this work will provide a valuable baseline data set for the school to measure ecological progress against over the coming years.

During lockdown we encouraged all of the children to sign a pledge on Purple Mash towards creating a safer internet and we were delighted to hear that we had contributed to a Guinness World Record of the most pledges for a safer internet campaign in 24 hours.

Purple Mash is an award-winning cross curricular website for primary school children, enabling them to explore and enhance their knowledge in a fun and creative way. It enables positive online behaviours, providing a safe way for children to learn to email, blog and express themselves online.

Congratulations to Alba in Year 4 who was recently very proud to win a prize in a competition she entered in Whizz Pop magazine for her wonderful mosaic style poster celebrating the work of the NHS. Well done Alba!

Emma Beaton has won the national Silver Award in The Award for Teacher of the Year in a Secondary School after being selected from thousands of nominations across the country. She was one of 102 teachers recognised by the annual Pearson National Teaching Awards for their outstanding commitment to changing the lives of the children they work with every day. 

Emma, who has more than 20 years' teaching experience spanning all key stages, was highlighted for her consistent passion for education and working with young people. The judges heard how she is incredibly innovative in her approaches to teaching and learning and is an advocate for blended learning to enhance student experience; vital skills which were fully utilised when introducing remote teaching during the lockdowns.  

Emma is an inspiring member of the school's arts team and a highly accomplished musician, motivating students to enjoy a love of live performance and composition, and gives significantly of her time to support many projects for both the school and the wider community.   She has now been shortlisted to win one of just 15 Gold Awards later in the year, in a BBC TV programme celebrating the exceptional school staff who have worked wonders during an incredibly challenging time for educators across the country. 

Despite the challenges of working through a pandemic, nine Year 10 students from Ridgeway have completed and graduated The Brilliant Club’s Scholars’ Programme this year. Designed to help students access highly selective universities, the course offers youngsters an insight into the university experience. Students were taught by a PHD student for one hour a week over seven weeks whilst staying abreast with their usual studies.  Undertaking independent research, they then collated their learning into a 2000 word dissertation. Each dissertation was graded using the university grading system and, on Tuesday 6th July Ridgeway Academy hosted a graduation ceremony for students and their families attended by Mrs Mitcherson, and Mrs Garland, our Chair of Governors. Both commented on how impressed they were by the resilience, Growth Mindset and determination shown by these students and how much they appreciated the opportunity to celebrate their success face to face. The gradating students were Alex Amaricai (First Class), Alfie Amos, Abbie Casserley, Chaela Cassidy, Cameron Eagleton, Harry Eplett, Shakira Griffith (First Class), Skye Hughes, Oisin Tims and Cyra Wilkinson.

Earlier in the term Year 9 had been learning how to take fingerprints and devised a fingerprinting “who dunnit” style activity for others to solve! We had a lot of fun investigating the most effective way of lifting finger prints!
Year 8 also tested Murphy’s law. They buttered many slices of toast and pushed them off the top floor in the science block!
Lots of spinning toast and surprising results. 

May saw the start of the Athletics season. There was a Year 7/9 match on 19 May and a Year 8/10 County League match on 20 May. Both matches were at Westminster Lodge in some cold conditions, however it was great to be back on the track after almost two years. The Year 7/9 match was excellent with some great performances from our new Year 7 Athletes. The pick of the evening must be Jasmine Rance in Year 7 who broke the school 100m record for girls with a time of 13.6. Well done to her and we look forward to the her bright future in the sport. The boys were also as impressive and the Year 7 boys racked up a number of wins across the track and field.

Year 5 Visit to Jersey Farm Woodland Park

Year 5 children recently enjoyed a second visit to Jersey Farm Woodland Park in support of their learning in Geography.  They had a wonderful time and teachers reported that it was fantastic to see the children enjoying themselves outside whilst fully engaged with their tasks! During the trip, they had to identify locations which they had previously identified on their maps using 'Digimaps'. They then recorded these positions by photographing themselves there along with using their geographical field work skills to identify the location with a 6-digit grid reference. This has been an excellent fieldwork project so far with the children really noticing the life cycle of this environment though the year.

Year 10 Maths Feast

Well done to Alex Amaricai, Matthew Osborn, Charlie Chamberlain and Shakira Griffith in Year 10, who took part in an area maths feast, competing against schools from across Hertfordshire and other nearby counties. They demonstrated fantastic team working skills and resilience, to solve a range of challenging problems. 

Year 8 Team Maths Challenge

Huge congratulations to Year 8’s Lucy Claridge, Renee Brown, Daniel Stackman and David James, who have qualified for the finals of the Herts for Learning Year 8 team maths challenge! They participated in one of the heats, coming 12th out of 29 teams and earning their place in the final, which will take place in June.

UK Mathematics Trust Junior Maths Challenge

Huge congratulations to the pupils below, who achieved certificates in this year’s UKMT Junior Maths Challenge! This is a fantastic achievement and the mathematics department are hugely proud of you all. A big well done also to everyone who participated.

Gold Certificates: Year 8s: Robyn Cross, Ethan Hutcheson, Jojo Laci

Silver Certificates: Year 8s: George Amaricai, Codi Rowley-Connolly. Year 7s: Jada Cobbson, Oliver Housego

Bronze Certificates: Year 8s: Andrew Aguilar, Ava Burlingham, Conor Divers, Annie Dykes, Freddie Holmes, Alfie Jarvis, Max McParland, Amy Miller, Kane Nymn, Jonny Seeley, Daniel Stackman, Ryan Stenson. Year 7s: Liam Dossett, Harry Edwards, Kaitlyn Harridge, Lauren Hill, Isla Timms, Oliver Winnan

Our Year 4 children recently ventured out on a trip to Verulamium in support of their learning about Romans in their History lessons. The children visited Verulamium museum where they enjoyed handling artefacts and looking at the impressive exhibition of historical evidence of life in Roman Verulamium. They also spent time visiting the hypocaust and the archaeological remains in Verulamium Park. A great time was had by all and as always, the children were impeccably behaved and wonderful ambassadors for our school. Thank you to all the volunteers who accompanied the visit.

We celebrated a great week of tennis with these boys. We are very proud of you achieving 5th place in the country.  This is a huge achievement and very well deserved.

Well done!

Congratulations to Haofei in Year 6 who achieved a Gold Certificate in the Junior Mathematics Challenge and who has now been invited to participate in the Kangeroo follow on challenge. Well done Haofei!

Huge congratulations to our year 9,10 and 11 students who gained 45 awards between them in the UK Maths Trust intermediate Challenge! Good luck to all 13 students sitting the next round too

Crazy Cress

We decided to grow cress in unusual places and then predict which cress would grow the best. It didn't grow on the fruit, it was ok on the top of the whiteboard and sink, but the best by far was on the skeleton.

It has been great to see a return to some local friendly football competition recently. On Tuesday 18 May, two Year 6 sides took part in a 6-a-side football festival with Samuel Ryder. No results were recorded as the focus was on participation and enjoyment.

On Wednesday 19 May, some of our Year 5 boys visited St John Fisher where they won 3-0 thanks to goals from Toby, Bertie and Daiwik. This was Bertie's first goal for the school and the excitement and pride on his face was clear for everyone to see.

On Thursday 20 May, our Year 5 girls team went to Skyswood and continued their impressive record with another win. Not only did a lot of girls make their debut for the school, we also had Holly and Maya scoring their first goals for the school too.

CaptainTom100 Challenge The CaptainTom100 Challenge ran from the 30th April – 3rd May and challenges schools and individuals to do 100 of any activity – this could be building 100 paper aeroplanes, 100 laps of the playground or completing 100-star jumps! Our children have been taking part, jumping, star jumping and stepping while counting to hundred.

Our School Council Representatives were invited to join The St. Albans Youth Council in January 2021 and have been involved in several of the on-line projects run by Hertfordshire County Council over the last few months. To name but a few, Verulam students have participated in:

The Boost Project which looked at young people's emotional and physical well-being through a range of interactive and motivating challenges;

The Resilience Project which aimed to improve confidence and independence through a range of enjoyable interactive tasks 

The Wheathamsted Project which looked at budgeting, tips for personal safety and healthy lifestyles.

Crosby Caminsky also took a leading role in helping to design The Youth Council Guided Walk which was aimed at the local residents to help them boost their mental health by partaking in a 1-2 hour walk looking at the historical sites and wild-life in St. Albans. Our Verulam School Council Representatives have enjoyed being part of 11-17 young people group in the community.

Some of our wonderful children have recently decided to take actions to help others in need. Liffey in Year 5 has completed a challenge of cycling 100 miles and has raised a fantastic sum of £372 for Comic Relief. On the day Yasmin in Year 4 celebrated her 9th birthday she did a great thing to celebrate; she had a haircut and donated her long locks to the Little Princess Charity, a wig-making charity for young cancer patients.

Bella F also had her hair cut to donate to The Princess Trust.  Bella has so far raised £1282 which is amazing within itself and we are super proud of her.

Molly D in 7J, donated 35cm of hair to The Little Princess Trust, a charity who make wigs for children dealing with hair loss mostly due to cancer.

Molly said “I have so much hair and they don’t have any, so it makes sense to give them mine.” As well as Molly’s hair donation, she is hoping to raise some additional funds for the charity as they operate solely on donations. She has already raised an impressive £365.  Well done Molly!

A huge well done to Ridhi in Year 7 who raised an amazing £1000 for Cancer Research through her bake sale during the Easter holidays. She baked an impressive 45 chocolate chip cookies, 30 tahini biscuits, 40 macaroons, 3 Victoria sponge cakes and 2 chocolate cakes for family and friends to enjoy. The fundraiser was in memory of her grandma who passed away with cancer three years ago. We are very proud of Ridhi and know that the money will be greatly appreciated at a time when funding has been so affected by Covid-19. 

Using funds raised from a non-uniform day last year we were able provide a toilet block and desks for Mukibungere School, for which we received a big thank you. They had to get permission from the Village Leader (in the red shirt) for the toilet block building.   The new, stronger desks were made by a ‘fundi’ (carpenter) in the nearest town, Ngara during May 2021. The new desks were then delivered to Mukibungere – thank you to the Education Department who provided the truck to take them from Ngara to Mukibungere.   The whole school watched as some children and even some teachers tested the desks. Some women in the local village made the mandazi and brought them to the school. We also sent the children a special treat of mandazi (little doughnuts) and soda.  

Asante sana! (Thank you!)

A Welwyn Garden City Centenary Foundation project to help educate young people on environmental issues restarted at Ridgeway Academy on Thursday, May 20. Initially put on hold due to COVID-19, the partnership between the WGC Centenary Foundation, Groundworks and the county and borough councils spoke to student bubbles from year 7, 9 and 10 on a range of topics, including air quality.

This follows the council putting additional air quality monitoring in place outside three borough schools – Ridgeway Academy, Monks Walk and Countess Anne – as part of the wider project. The partnerships hopes that continued engagement with young people and parents will lead to long term improvements in air quality in and around schools by encouraging green travel.

Cllr Fiona Thomson, executive member for climate change at Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council, said: “The quality of the air we breathe is vital to protect our wellbeing, and the health of our environment. By showcasing the science behind the council’s air monitoring, pupils experienced first-hand how pollutants from vehicle engines affect our air. We have a unique opportunity after lockdown to build a healthier, cleaner borough and I hope today inspired them to think differently about how they travel now and in the future.”

Richard Sutton, geography teacher from Ridgeway Academy, said: “Energy consumption, recycling and biodiversity are some of the themes that our student sustainability team have been working on this year. The data that students collected as part of the Welwyn Garden City Centenary Project will be an excellent baseline resource for the local community to measure future ecological data against.”

David Kell of the WGC Centenary Foundation, said: ‘We are very pleased that Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council’s air quality monitoring is able to assist in the school’s environmental science day at Ridgeway Academy.’

The project is funded by The Hobson Charity and the Stefanou Foundation.

For more information about where air quality is measured in the borough and through which methods, visit: www.welhat.gov.uk/air-quality.

We purchased 10 outdoor tepees and all the classes in school had the opportunity to access them. The tepees were set up into trails or small camps and children had the opportunity to carry out mindfulness exercises, focus on what they notice with their senses, times to listen, to observe, time to read to share and talk.  A tent to explore music, mindful colouring, breathing, reading, Group story listening, and story-telling.

The Leadership Academy, formed in 2015, provides leadership opportunities to Year 8 students all the way up to Sixth Form. This may be representing Ridgeway Academy as a Sports Ambassador or a Sports Leader. Over the years, we have partnered with a number of different companies and clubs to provide our students with even more leadership opportunities. Sports Ambassadors run a two-year course in which they follow the ‘scheme of work’ which is essentially ‘leadership training’. The Ambassadors start this process in Year 9 through to Year 10 and are then able to pick up the opportunity if and when they join Sixth Form. Year 9 Silver Sports Ambassadors work in primary schools leading sports sessions and sports days. Year 10 Gold Sports Ambassadors focus on inschool leadership, leading clubs and assisting with the Year 9 Silver Ambassadors as well as Young Ambassador Day.

A special mention to 22 Year 9 students who recently took part in the Silver Sports Ambassador selection process, consisting of a task and an interview. All of the students conducted themselves extremely well and it was clear that they are very proud of the school they attend. It was an incredibly difficult decision, as only 12 students could be selected. All students interviewed were awarded the role of a Silver Ambassador or Sports Leader. Huge congratulations to our Silver Ambassadors: Scarlett, Davey, Leo, Cleo, Lexie, Jamie, Bethany, Reese, Will, Charley, Hannah and Miller.

During Mental Health Awareness Week, students in Years 7-12 were encouraged to write positive messages to comfort and inspire others. These were written on green ribbons to form leaves of a 'Positivitree' which is now situated in the Main Lunch Hall. A huge thank you to Mr Kemp for running the initiative and Mrs Warris for creating the beautiful display. We hope that the messages provide encouragement and comfort to students when they need it.   

Throughout the week the children have enjoyed taking part in International Mud Day activities, the quotes in the photo above show the many ways children have embraced the joy of mud! Just proves we aren’t afraid of mud at our school!

History of International Mud Day

The creators of International Mud Day wanted to find a way to help all of the children of the Earth feel closer to each other…and what a better way to do it than through the Earth itself? International Mud Day began in 2009 at a World Forum event, when Gillian McAuliffe from Australia and Bishnu Bhatta from Nepal got together to talk about ways to encourage feelings of community and appreciation for the world around us. The collaboration that followed has inspired educators, children,and families across the globe to celebrate International Mud Day together each year on June 29. Regardless of age, race and religion, covered in mud, we all look the same!

We have placed sustainability at the heart of our school and as such encourage all of our children to :

• Care for themselves

• Care for each other

• Care for the environment

We have six Sustainable Ambassadors from Year 2 who help all of the children in school to make the school greener.

As a sustainable school, we will care for the environment and about the energy and water we consume, the waste we produce, the food we serve, the traffic we attract.

Our Eco Code

• We will turn off all of the taps and try to save water
• We will recycle paper and plastic bottles
• We will close doors and turn lights off to save energy
• We will look after our pond and keep our bird feeders filled with seed
• We will recycle our milk cartons and reduce the waste produced
• We will encourage more people to walk to school or use buses and leave their cars at home
• We will reduce the amount of litter produced in school and will use litter pickers to clear up.

Our vegetable plots continue to grow well and the children have been busy tending their plots in the environmental area, noticing lots of changes over the past week. There are some strawberries beginning to ripen, some flowers on the beans and the carrots have doubled in size! They have also learnt about the importance of dead heading flowering plants so that they continue to flower throughout the summer.

Mr Higgins has cleared out the wasteland and pond next to science and created a wild fence to protect the area so we can turn the area into a conservation area for ecology work in Biology. We will get the Verulab boys out there to help plant too.

Recently, several members of staff enjoyed some time in our Environmental Area, weeding and preparing the raised beds ready for the children to use. Over the next few weeks, the children will be learning about sustainability as part of the Sustainable St Albans event. They will learn about how how we can make small changes to help keep both ourselves and our planet healthy including how we can grow our own food as well as use local and seasonal produce. Every class has been busy planting seeds and we are very excited to see what seedlings develop from our new propagators in each classroom, ready for planting outside.

Students at Welwyn Garden City’s Ridgeway Academy have been hard at work creating habitat for wildlife as part of Earth Day and the school's efforts to earn the Eco-schools Award. 

Focusing their work around the theme of ‘Restore our Earth’, the students planted fruit trees and bushes, lavender, clematis and passion flowers to the school garden with hopes of providing a safe home for birds, butterflies and bees. 

Along with the help of the Eco-Committee, Ridgeway are hoping to make improvements to a pond on the grounds to attract further wildlife. 

One of our core strategic areas for development over the coming years is sustainability. We have managed a number of projects in recent years, many focussed on the canteen area and this has had an impact on being more sustainable in our outlook. Much of our work is educating everyone on the importance of being sustainable and making the best use of our resources. In December, Year 7 students planted 420 saplings around our Northern perimeter and we have now taken delivery of the next tranche of 420 saplings that will be planted in May by Year 8 students.

Thank you to Mrs Mouncey for organising this.

St Albans schoolchildren had the opportunity to create a beetle bank, which is a strip of land planted with grasses and/or perennial plants, to foster and provide habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and other fauna that prey on pests.

Pupils at Wheatfields Infants and Nursey School in Downes Road took part in the activity under the umbrella of St Albans Sustainability Festival.

Forest school subject leader Tracey Lower said that the project came after pupils had been researching information on the decline of many species of beetles and wanted to do something to help. Tracey said: “The children have been working hard to encourage wildlife into their class gardens.

"Children from Year One were digging and planting wildflower seeds to make a beetle bank. They also made beetle buckets for their forest school area so that they can encourage beetles to make their home there."