#GoRisca!

We held a Leadership Forum meeting on Monday with senior staff to discuss a number of issues, including the new standards for teaching and leadership and an approach to ‘learning walks’- short visits to classrooms to focus on aspects such as pupil progress. We also discussed our INSET day programme. Regular readers of this blog know that at  RCCS we are committed to collaborative working; part of this means that once every two years we ask teachers to spend a day in another school, looking at how they are approaching things which are also part of our school’s improvement plan. This is then fed back to colleagues. We have two days coming up in November, the 20th and 21st, when we’ll be engaging with this programme. A reminder that pupils are not in school on those days.

On Tuesday I caught the second half of the Y7 boys’ rugby game against St Julian’s. This  was played in a good spirit and our boys came out as winners by five tries to two! Well done lads, and thanks to Mr John for his time in setting up and refereeing the fixture. Later in the week Y8 and Y9 girls played netball against Blackwood (a draw and a win) and the Y11 boys won their football match against Newbridge 3-0. Needless to say there have been quite a few tweets this week using the hashtag #GoRisca!

I’m delighted to say that a few parents are keen to start up a PTA, a “Friends of RCCS” group, or something similar to support the school by fundraising, helping out at events etc. If we can get this up and running it would be great. I am personally very keen to develop the community aspects of the school and this will be a very effective way of doing this. There are quite a few links already and they are growing- we have parents interested in helping with sport and music for example.

Miss Bawler and Mrs Nash have been interviewing for our new ‘digital leader’ roles. These are pupils who will be trained to support IT across the school. I have sat in on a couple of the interviews (they are done in groups) and have been extremely impressed.

The cast of this year’s Shakespeare Festival play “Henry V” had a workshop at the Riverfront in Newport on Thursday. It was a really successful day and the actors learnt a lot from the experience. Our performance will be on November 15th and I am really looking forward to it!

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THEME FOR THE WEEK: Behaviour for learning

ASSEMBLY: Principal Teacher of Science (Mrs Nash)

LITERACY FOCUS: Using the apostrophe for belonging

NUMERACY FOCUS: Addition and Subtraction (written methods)

NUMBER OF THE WEEK:  “36  /  thirty-six / tri deg chwech / trente-six / XXXVI” 36 is both the square of 6 and a triangular number, making it a square triangular number. It is the smallest square triangular number other than 1, and it is also the only triangular number other than 1 whose square root is also a triangular number. It is also a circular number- a square number that ends with the same integer by itself (6×6=36). (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

CYMRAEG YR WYTHNOS: Da iawn! : Well done!

Find out more about the Welsh Phrase of the Week by clicking HERE

ENGLISH WORD OF THE WEEK: respect : due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others.

THIS WEEK’S QUOTATION: “If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.”  -Maya Angelou

TRIVIA OF THE WEEK: A tap that leaks at a rate of one drip per second would leak about 3,000 gallons of water each year!

VIDEO OF THE WEEK:  This is a great clip, showing the head of the US Air Force training school (USAFA) making clear his views on racism to to the whole academy. Very powerful.

TWEET OF THE WEEK

@RCCS_MissBawler 5 more great appointments today to our Digital Leaders programme @RiscaCCS this time from year 9. 11 Oct 2017, 17:01