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Headteacher's Blog

Here is a round up of our blog posts, keeping you informed about the life and times of Pinner High School.

 

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Archive

  • Chair of Governors guest entry

    Published 01/04/22, by Admin

    A guest blog this week from our Chair of Governors, so news from our Trailblazing Head students, comic relief fundraising efforts and impressive sports results will have to wait!

    Dr. Ahmed writes: "I would like to start with an assurance to the entire school community. I know you will be aware of the changing leadership of the school, and I want to reassure you that we have a very stable and experienced leadership team of Trustees, Governors and Senior staff. We are all absolutely committed to building further on the excellent foundations of our school. 

    I wanted to share a couple of extracts from a recent inspection report about Pinner High School. When we were a new school we had a Department for Education School improvement partner to help establish the school. Although this support has now ended as the school has been so successful, the school leadership team invited him back to spend the day at school a few weeks ago to help us set some continuing areas to develop. 

    His report says: "Staff like the Pinner values and the general ethos of the school. They described the school as: vibrant; inclusive; happy; outstanding in all aspects; engaging; supportive; inspiring." The report refers to student views as well: "Three groups of pupils were interviewed and all three groups felt they were attending a great school. They like a lot: the interactive lessons; the inclusive nature of the school; the support and follow-up of staff; the enrichment provision; the regular competitions, such as in maths and physics; the welcome to Year 7 pupils by older peers; a safe place. They described the school as: engaging; dynamic; diverse; inclusive; encouraging; happy; innovative; supportive; inspiring. The pupils felt that the school wants them to become the best people they can be; to be empowered; to never give up; be well informed."

    There is no complacency here and there will not be in the future! The inspection report above is very reassuring for Governors as we provide strategic oversight of the school and we continue to provide rigorous support and challenge as we have always done."

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  • Trips

    Published 25/03/22, by Admin

    School trips are making a welcome return to school life, after last week's successful trip to the V&A museum, and a Mary Poppins workshop in the west end the week before, this week Year 10 students attended the Globe theatre for a performance of 'Macbeth'. They will be studying this next term, and seeing the performance is a brilliant way of bringing to life our motto of 'Inspiring Learning'. My thanks to everyone involved in making all these events happen. 

    The Economics department have brought 'Global Money Week' to Pinner High School over the last few days. This is a global campaign to raise awareness of the importance of ensuring young people are more financially aware. This has involved form group activities, a quiz, and other real life situations to help students prepare for their financial future.  Further information about the campaign can be found here: Home (globalmoneyweek.org)

    Other activities focused on the future include our sixth form work experience. During the week beginning 11th July 2022, Year 12 students will be undertaking a week of work experience.  If any parents in our community are able to provide opportunities for students, please do get in touch with our careers coordinator through the school email info@pinnerhighschool.co.uk  The school has partnered with Changing Education who will coordinate all essential health and safety checks.

    For many of our GCSE students, the practical element of their assessments has begun. The picture above is of the Master Chef Food Technology assessment in full swing!

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  • Life on Mars

    Published 18/03/22, by Admin

    Science week has been particularly active at Pinner High School this year. The official theme of the week this year is growth.  Our Year 7 students have therefore been busy growing bacteria which they have been regularly analysing.  Our Year 12s were involved with a workshop run by the University of Oxford all about the biological molecules and their applications.  This included finding out more about the chemistry of COVID-19.  This encompassed Biology, Chemistry and Medicine, stretching many of our most able students. Years 8 and 10 continued with the theme of growth, this time looking at growing cities and Engineering – they joined our Sixth Form Engineering group in building spaghetti bridges. During the week we launched the whole school element hunt; students have been finding elements around school and finding out facts about them. Our future medics spent a day taking part in a conference run by Oxford High School hearing talks given by a huge range of different healthcare professionals.  There was a keynote talk given by Professor Andrew Carr, the Nuffield Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Oxford.

    And still there is more! Year 8 and 9 students took part in talks given by science writer and journalist, Colin Stuart.  Colin has written 19 books all about space, selling close to 500,000 copies.  He is most famous for the books that he has written alongside Astronaut Tim Peake.  He spoke about what the first human missions to Mars will be like.  Students were of course fascinated by everything but in particular the challenges of going to the toilet in space! You may have seen our daily Science week tweets about amazing scientific facts.

    Elsewhere in school, Food Technology students were delighted that Bridget Earley from 'Meat Like It Used To Be' came to visit to demonstrate professional poultry jointing. This was a huge success, and we are very grateful for her support.

    Year 9 Design students are at the V&A museum today and will return with renewed inspired for their GCSE projects.

    And we have our first tadpoles in the school pond!

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  • Books, Banks and being Bilingual

    Published 11/03/22, by Admin
    A particularly active week across the school community!
     
    Year 12 Economics and Business students had the fantastic opportunity this week to speak with and engage in a Q&A with the Director of Bank Policy at the Bank of England, Mr Phil Evans, who since September 2016 has been in charge of coordinating the Bank's policy on the UK's withdrawal from the EU.  The talk, which was themed 'The Bank of England, Brexit, and the post-Brexit economy' covered a range of topics from bank stress tests to the impact of new regulations at the UK/EU border, which was extremely insightful for the students.  They raised questions on topics from the models used to predict inflation to post-Brexit environmental investment strategy, which was a great extension of topics studied on their courses!
     
    Year 10 tutor groups were set the challenge of preparing and delivering an assembly to the rest of the year group. This week was the first assembly, and 10BU spoke about plastic pollution across the globe, and the importance of protecting animal habitats. They discussed different charities who support animal conservation, and things that we can all do to reduce our plastic usage. 
     
    Students in Years 7, 8, and 9 of the Mandarin Excellence Programme, as well as students studying Mandarin at KS4 and KS5 attended a Mandarin guest lecture this week. Our speaker, JoJo Ramsden, has 30 years of experience working as a translator and interpreter in Shanghai, Taipei, and Hong Kong. She has used Mandarin Chinese as a working language to manage joint business ventures for organisations including the British Trade and Cultural Office, Department of International Trade, China Britain Business Council, Chambers of Commerce, INTO University Partnerships, and the University of Exeter. She talked to the students about the impact learning Mandarin has had on her life.
     
    We wrapped up our extended World Book Week with a talk from an award-winning author at John Lyon School. Students from Years 8 and 9 attended the talk by Manjeet Mann - author of 'Run, Rebel' and 'The Crossing' - where they had the opportunity to ask for tips on how to develop their own writing skills, as well as questions around the author's inspirations.  We hosted a successful Poetry Slam with some excellent talent and sophistication from some of our young poets. Students from Years 7-11 shared their writing with us, including the winner of the Remembrance Day poetry competition last year, and we had the privilege of hearing powerful and emotive poems about mental health, identity and the effects of war. We are very proud of all contributors and their fantastic work.
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  • World book Week!

    Published 04/03/22, by Admin

    World Book Day has been extended to World Book Week at Pinner High School, with a range of activities to celebrate the joy and importance of reading. Amongst others, book quotation bingo, emoji book titles and a virtual visit from author Savita Kalhan (author of 'That Asian kid' and 'The girl in the broken mirror') have led to a very enjoyable week. Thanks to the English department for leading this, and to students for taking part with such enthusiasm. Mr. Spellman from our Reprographics department had a particularly appropriate T-shirt for the day!

    Our Table tennis team won the boys U16 Harrow tournament this week, with close fought victories over John Lyon and Avanti House in the semi finals and finals. Many congratulations to all involved in this impressive result. 

    March 1st was National Offer Day, when year 6 students found out their secondary school for September. We found out that we are the most oversubscribed school in Harrow for the third year in a row with 1196 applications for 180 places. The last distance offered is now 0.55 of a mile. We are welcoming our new students for a quick visit on Monday and Tuesday next week to share our excitement that they will be joining the Pinner High School family. 

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  • Physics Gold winners!

    Published 24/02/22, by Admin

    Just before the half term break, our year 12 physics students took part in the British Physics Olympiad Online Competition, run by the University of Oxford.  I am delighted to say that they did incredibly well! 50% of the students were awarded gold certificates, compared to 18% nationally. All of our Year 12 physicists achieved either gold, silver or bronze awards which is a fantastic achievement. The gold award winners are featured in the photo this week.

    This half term started with a Deep Learning Day, enabling Years 7-11 to engage with important age appropriate topics from the Personal, Social, Citizenship and Health Education curriculum.It was great to have guest speakers back in school, and we welcomed visitors from 'Stand Up to Discrimination', Brook, and motivational speaker Mr. Beezy. My thanks to everyone involved in the day.

    Year 12 students had a positive trip to the University of Oxford today, and I had a very enjoyable day on Wednesday interviewing candidates to be our very first Head Student. Mr. Flitcroft, one of our community governors, joined Mr. Stump and me for the interviews, and we were all so impressed at the eloquence of the applicants. The next step in the process is for the candidates to share a video with the school community, enabing all students to hear directly from their potential leaders, before a school wide vote. Exciting times!

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  • @pinnerstagram

    Published 11/02/22, by Admin

    Our CCF students spent last weekend at John Lyon School completing aspects of their Army qualifications under close supervision. All of them passed their assessments, which is really very impressive indeed. CCF is going from strength to strength and I am very grateful to my colleagues for giving up their weekend to lead this event.

    The image this week is of our A Level lino tech art work in a new display in one of the art studios. There is more art to see on our art and design Instagram page @pinnerstagram

    The Key Stage 3 Science Club was a great success this half term at Pinner High School. The club is run by the Head of Science, Mr.Clarke. The students witnessed demonstrations of methane bubbles, blue bottle magic, crushing cans, fitting an egg into a flask, writing with invisible ink and turning water into wine. The students conducted practicals based on their personal interests in science. The practicals they participated in were making a hologram projector for their mobile phone, making lip balm, making a bath bomb and the GCSE chemistry flame test practical.

    Year 9 mid term exams come to a conclusion today. The students have been absolutely brilliant in their first formal set of examinations. The assessments help them to see how they are progressing in their GCSE subjects with plenty of time to build further on the strong foundations they have created.

    There are a few posts available around the school at the moment, as we are looking for a Geography teacher, a PRE teacher and an Economics or Business teacher for September. We are also looking for more members of our site team, to help us with weekend and out of hours lettings now that we have the full building available to us. This is a link for details of the advertisements. If you know anyone who might make our first class team even stronger, please do ask them to apply. We are Investors in People Gold award holders for Health and Wellbeing and would love to hear from you.

    Today is the last day of the half term. I hope you have a restful week.

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  • Planting

    Published 04/02/22, by Admin

    Our Geography A level students have been busy this week planting fruit trees. The 'Orchard for Schools' programme has entrusted the school with growing five different fruit trees. Mr Smith , Head of Geography commented that "I think it is important in urban areas that we try to be as environmentally friendly as possible, the trees help reduce the schools carbon footprint and make it more sustainable." You will know that the school were Climate Kick-start prize winners from the Mayor of London in November. These plans are developing well and I look forward to showing you photos of our progress soon.

    More sporting success this week, with our Year 7 boys and girls winning the local indoor athletics competition and progressing to represent the whole of Harrow. Many congratulations to all involved.

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  • Cambridge Scholars!

    Published 28/01/22, by Admin

    Two of our students are celebrating this week after recognition from the University of Cambridge for two different programmes. A student in Year 8 has won a partial scholarship to attend a creative writing course at the University of Cambridge this summer. This was part of the Immerse Education Essay Competition we launched last term. There were over 5000 entries and only 7% of entrants received scholarship funding! A student in Year 10 has recently found out that they successfully applied for a place on a highly competitive international summer school as well, as one of just 10 participants from around the world. This is so impressive- many congratulations indeed.

    More sports teams were competing this week, with year 7 netball and year 11 basketball involved in really good games last night, and more fixtures due in the coming days. The teams are training really hard, and it is great to see such dedication from our students.

    The image above is of Aaron in year 12, as My Pinner News reported his appointment to exam board AQA's advisory board. This is an exciting opportunity for him, and great to see AQA taking student views seriously. 

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  • High Five

    Published 21/01/22, by Admin

    Students represented the schooI in five different sports this week: basketball, football, netball, badminton and cross country. The Year 7 netballers are unbeaten in the competition so far, and several members of the cross country team will be invited to join the county team on the strength of the competition this week, hosted at Harrow School. More important than the results are the opportunities this provides our students, and I am very grateful to everyone involved in this, students, colleagues, parents and volunteers at our school and others. It is always appreciated.

    St. John's College at the University of Oxford hosted our Year 10 English students this week. They had a tour of the Ashmolean Museum, the Bodleian library and an interview skills session with an admissions tutor. Many thanks to St. John's for being so welcoming, and accommodating our Scientists last week as well. Our school motto is 'Inspiring Learning' and students certainly returned inspired by what they had seen.

    Our student leadership positions have been shared with students this week, with an opportunity for all year groups to be involved in student government. We will also be electing our very first Head Students. Now that our Trailblazers have reached Year 12 they are ready to take on these additional responsibilities. Candidates have to be part of student government, and will then be interviewed for the posts by me, Mr. Stump our Head of Sixth Form, and a member of the Governing Body. I remember talking to Year 7 in 2016 about appointing our first Head Students in 2022. I don't know where the time has gone and it is exciting have such high levels of interest in these posts. More details are on the dedicated Google Classroom page!

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  • Oxford Visit

    Published 14/01/22, by Admin

    St. John's College, University of Oxford was the destination for a group of Year 10 students on Monday who found out more about what it would be like to study Chemistry at university. The student report on the trip reads: "Firstly, we took part in a session which discussed the history of the university, and the other things that you can get involved in whilst studying there such as extra-curricular activities, volunteering, and research. After this, we took part in a Chemistry workshop where we had to use our problem solving skills to solve a mystery and work out how someone had been poisoned. We then had lunch in the college dining hall before going to the Ashmolean Museum, where we viewed famous pieces of art from around the world. Finally, we took part in another workshop at the university where we had to combine our scientific skills with critical thinking skills to come up with solutions to help stop climate change. The trip was a fantastic way to learn about what it is like to study at university, and we would like to thank everyone at St John's College who worked with us throughout the day."

    Year 11 students have been doing their Spanish and Mandarin Speaking exams all week.  This has given them the valuable experience of speaking one to one under test conditions. They have risen to the challenge really impressively. A group of Year 11s had a valuable session with the Reach Society co-founder and Chairman Dr. Neil OBE and Dr. Adams. More details of the Reach Society are available here: https://www.reachsociety.com/ I am delighted our young people have the benefit of working with them.

    You will see another certificate in the image this week; thanks to the North West London Health and Care partnership for supporting us to be an asthma friendly school.

    Our House Event this week for Years 7-9  was preparation for the Spanish Spelling Bee. Next week we will crown our MFL Spelling Bee Champions!

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  • Happy New Year!

    Published 07/01/22, by Admin

    Happy New Year! It is so lovely to have students back in school this week. They have settled back in really quickly, and it is brilliant to see them immediately approach their learning so positively.

    Year 12 have been focussed on their mid-year exams this week, and like the Year 11s in their mock GCSEs before the holiday, they have impressed everyone with their dedication and resilience through what is undoubtedly a challenging experience. Of course, those are Pinner High School Values, so this should come as no surprise!

    Creativity and collaboration are also Pinner High School Values, as exhibited in the attached new display for the International Peace Poster Prize, sponsored by the Hatch End Lions Club. They are also shown by the 53 students across the school who are involved in our LAMDA programme. 33 students recently received their results, with over three quarters of them at the highest 'Distinction' level. LAMDA is the 'gold standard' performance examination, so this really is an astonishing achievement. Many many congratulations to all the students involved on this stellar achievement. There are just a couple of places remaining on the LAMDA programme this term. Please do contact us if your child would like to be a part of this. Students report a positive impact on their confidence and enthusiasm: also Pinner Values!

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