World Down Syndrome Day took place on Sunday 21 March 2021 and to mark the day the charity ‘Wouldn’t Change a Thing’ launched a special video on the theme of ‘siblings’. The charity works to raise positive awareness of Down syndrome, to break down stereotypes and to help raise the value of people with DS in society, and their carpool karaoke style video shares the joy of siblings in families where one member has Down syndrome.

This year’s Red Nose Day was on Friday 19 March and Kingsmead joined in with the fun and fundraising: A ‘Time to Laugh’ ran during the week, where each tutor group shared and voted on their best two jokes in their tutor group (with the best two winning a prize and being shared via Firefly for the whole school to enjoy in afternoon registration time on Friday).

During the week of 15-19 March a series of lunchtime sessions were on offer to Year 8 students, giving them the chance to learn more about some of the subjects they can choose to study as part of their options in Years 9-11. The sessions focussed on subjects that the students have not yet been taught in school, including Child Development, 3D Art & Design, Agriculture, Motor Vehicle, Engineering and Construction.

Kingsmead’s new school build project is progressing well. A large crane was successfully installed on the site over February half term and over the first half of March staged concrete pours took place to complete the ground floor base of the building. Concrete pillars have been lifted into place up to the first floor and the internal concrete walls are being formed.

Kingsmead welcomed all year groups back to school during the week ending Friday 12 March. By the end of the week all students had been offered their first Covid lateral flow test within school, with some progressing to their second test, taken 3-5 days after their first test.

Kingsmead students will soon have the chance to take part in an exciting new lunchtime activity with the launch of our very own school amateur radio club. The club will run from its own fully operational radio station room and students will be able to communicate “on the air” with other radio amateurs around the world.

Staff have been really pleased to start welcoming back students to school from Monday 8 March. The week started with Year 11 who spent their first day back on-site with their tutor group and were the first full year group to be offered asymptomatic Covid-19 testing, set up in the sports hall. The testing process ran extremely well and all students can be really proud of the way they conducted themselves. Well Done.

Many exciting activities have been taking place for students in celebration of World Book Day this year. A dedicated page has been created on Kingsmead’s Firefly site – found on the ‘World Book Day’ page (via ‘Resources’, ‘Extra Curricular’)

Year 11 boys had the opportunity to take part in an inter-tutor group futsal tournament during their lunchtimes in the week of 16-20 November. It culminated in the finals on Friday 20 November with 11Se winning the week. Futsal tournaments for other year groups are being held in the coming weeks, and Kingsmead PE Department are planning on running girls and boys inter-tutor group games every half term, each term focussing on a different sport.

Anti-Bullying Week 2020 took place during 16-20 November and to mark the week Kingsmead students were shown a virtual assembly on this important topic during their form tutor time with the opportunity for class discussion. In addition, and to help raise the profile of the anti-bullying message, both students and staff were invited to wear odd socks to school on Friday 20 November, as promoted by the Anti-Bullying Alliance.