I will start this week by saying well done to you all. I have visited several lessons this week and in every case I have you working hard, behaviour well and being respectful – thank you and keep it up! One of our key priorities for this year is independence. In order to do your very best you must make sure you look back through your books to make sure you remember everything you have been taught. Tutor time next week will focus on teaching you the skill of note taking, which I would ask you to then use in your lessons to help your learning. 

I’d like to start by welcoming you all back to a brand-new academic year. It is great to have you all back with us again and I hope you all had a good and relaxing holiday and are now feeling refreshed and ready for the year ahead. I am hugely impressed, as always, by the way in which you have started the academic year. I have visited several classrooms and in each case, I have seen you working hard, behaving well and making good progress. Thank you and well done.

Last week was activities week, a week where you are given the opportunity to learn something different from the normal timetable you follow. There was a variety of things for you to try, including archery, taking part in a historical re-enactment, the whole College participating in creating an art jigsaw collage, making pizzas, Bushcraft, various sports, visits to National Trust properties, making masks in English, different experiments in science and residentials to the New Forest, West Dean and also Barcelona. It was a very busy, and I hope, enjoyable week!

Activities Week 2019 is nearly upon us and it is jam packed! Activities Week is where we go beyond the timetabled curriculum and give you opportunities to do something different. On Monday, those of you who are on-site will take part in a sponsored walk around Midhurst, raising funds for Sussex Snowdrop Trust; it’s really important that we support local charities in this way and it is key to our value of ‘respect’.  During Tuesday to Friday, there are several activities challenging for you to experience to develop your mental and physical abilities.

Our values of respect, happiness and achievement are incredibly important to our College. It is important that we all demonstrate these at every opportunity. This means we should respect each other and treat one another the way we want to be treated. We should commit to work our hardest to achieve our very best and that we should promote happiness through being tolerant, pleasant and polite at all times. These values underpin MRC and the way we work – we know we don’t always get it right, but our focus always be on ‘doing the right thing’.

There is a lot to celebrate this week! We had our awards evening on Wednesday last week, which was incredibly well attended. We gave out our highest number of awards ever on the evening, which is testimony to the hard work and good effort you are putting into your work. It is also great to have the opportunity to share your successes. Well done to all.

I wanted to start this week by reminding you all about the forthcoming end of year assessments we have planned for years 7-10. We sent some work home for you to complete over the half-term holiday to help you to be fully prepared for these tests. The assessments are important and we want to see you all do your very best; we use your test papers to find out where your individual strengths and areas for development are. We then work to help you to learn the parts you may not have got right in the tests so that you are better prepared for the future.

Hello to everyone from our new Anti-Bullying Ambassador team! We are delighted to be taking on this new student leadership role and have had a wonderful day’s training last Thursday, hosted by The Diana Award, which has really set us up as a group ready to get into action!

The MRCAllsorts group wrote Last week’s blog on the topic of tolerance and respect for others. We have had two visitors in College this week, both of whom have been incredibly positive you and your behaviour. Increasingly, I see you doing the right thing, being polite and well mannered. Thank you – let’s keep this up!

This week’s blog is written by the MRC AllSorts group, a national programme which support LGBT+ young people. You will have seen staff with rainbow ribbons on their lanyards as well as rainbow stars in classroom and office windows. This is to show that we support LGBT+ at MRC and that we promote tolerance and respect, irrespective of an individual’s gender or sexuality. You are able to talk with these members of staff about LGBT+ issues, should you wish to do so. They will either help you themselves, or signpost you to another member of staff.