Many thanks to all those members of our school community who wore their poppy with pride during the first two weeks of November. We raised £98.26, which was the highest total the school has ever raised for this charity. Funds go to support vital welfare and benevolent work with ex-servicemen and their families.

On Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th October NAGC the National Association for Gifted Children and their families ran their Big Family Weekend. There were many useful workshops helping parents of gifted children and giving them the tools to support their gifted and able child. There were also many great workshops for the students including mega maths, creative creatures, film and animation and poetry workshops. These were run superbly: in one example students were getting to use state of the art cameras on runways and software for the film and animation; they were seeing how planets were discovered from eminent astronomers and I got to see two of our  students having a one to one workshop with a poet developing literacy. In their words “The activity was interesting and thoroughly enjoyable. It enabled us to create poetry in an unusual way as we were introduced into new methods in looking at normal evreyday objects. The activity has greatly contributed to enabling us to be creative in other subjects. It was definitely challenging and has given us ideas to do further extension work.”The workshops were designed to stretch most able students but also gave the students lots to take away and extend upon.

Watch this space for more updates on events for Gifted and able children at Hagley.

Click here to download a video filmed at the event

Congratulations to Hagley pupils and staff, who, despite a period of very cold and wet weather, achieved a 6.8% reduction in electricity usage in the first two weeks of this year’s Switch It Off campaign. Undercover Eco Agents carried out a survey during the first week after Half Term, checking the switching off of lights and equipment during morning breaks and lunch hours. In recognition of their good practice in switching off, Good Housekeeping Certificates were issued to the following departments: Art, Modern Languages and RE. WARNING: Undercover agents are still in operation and our COUNTDOWN TO COPENHAGEN Campaign will continue right through to the end of term. If it doesn’t need to be on, save money and save the planet by Switching It Off!