‘Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf is a flower’

Autumn is seen as the tail end of the year with Winter on the horizon but here at Ryburn it is a time for new beginnings - and the start of a brand new academic year!

It has been wonderful to have all our students returning in person and moving around school freely again and to meet our fabulous new year seven students. There is a real buzz of energy and endeavour throughout school and a new appreciation of the value of togetherness!

Read on to hear about our brilliant Summer School, the welcome return of activities and events that we missed last year and a chocolate-inspired approach to year 11 revision in the Science department!

Here’s to a vibrant, rewarding and successful new school year!

Banner Artwork: Y10 Ryburn art students

Summer School Success!

Ryburn was delighted to welcome some of our new year seven students over the Summer for a fantastically fun week of creative and performance activities, based on the recommended Summer reading “The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh.”

Three Peaks Challenge

Congratulations to Molly Barmby, in Year 11, who completed the three peaks over the Summer holiday. The mammoth trek took nine hours and 43 minutes, covering a distance of 39.9km! Molly has raised a fabulous £310 for charity thanks to the support of family, friends and everyone at Ryburn. Amazing achievement Molly - hope your feet have recovered now!

Charity champions

We are hugely proud of our year 8 student Isabel Wade and her cousin Freddie.

Not only have they raised a massive £1355 for Cancer Research UK, a charity very close to the family’s hearts, but they smashed the Huddersfield 5K Race for Life to do it. Freddie came in first and Isabel seventh!

Freddie’s dad was diagnosed with bowel cancer a couple of months ago and Isabel was quick to sign up to the Race for Life to show her support.

What a fantastic way to support a charity that means such a lot to you - well done to you both!

Well done also to Emily Hitchen, Year 7, who completed the 13-mile Midnight Walk for Overgate Hospice for the first time in September - looks like you had lots of fun Emily!

Happy valley pride pink picnic

September saw the Happy Valley Pride Pink Picnic return to Hebden Bridge and some of our students from Ryburn and Ryburn Sixth were invited along to contribute. They were asked to share their experiences of being part of a diversity project run by Happy Valley Pride and lead by Mrs Logan, our Ryburn Sixth lead mentor tutor. Our students delivered heartfelt speeches about what it means to celebrate their first Pride and spoke eloquently about the creative work they had produced including producing identity T-shirts and filming an identity poem that was shared with other schools in the region. To top their appearance off, they also lead the crowd in a flash mob style dance! Ryburn couldn’t be more proud.

Flying start for Ryburn Sixth

What a great start our year 12 and 13 students have made at Ryburn Sixth! We have our largest intake yet and all of the students have settled really well and established good routines.

Enrichment activities are now up and running with a wide choice from an environment group to chess and running! We also have a reward day at Alton Towers coming up for year 12 and 13 students.

“Wicked Wednesday” is coming to Ryburn Sixth on Wednesday 20 October with a frighteningly good Halloween fancy dress competition organised by the Charity Committee. Students can decide to enter as singles, pairs or groups and there will of course be prizes up for grabs. We also have our Year 13 Prom Committee in place now, and we can’t wait to see what they will come up with for the event next year!

Teen Mental health guide

We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on young people and their mental health, and our Ryburn students are no exception.

We wanted to share this guide from MyTutor which has useful tips and advice for parents to help their teens overcome body image issues, academic anxiety, peer pressure and cyberbullying, including links to other important teen mental health resources - all of which can be helpful in these uncertain times.

Teen Mental Health - A Guide for Parents

points make prizes in the science department!

For our year 11 scientists, points literally make prizes with a new programme introduced by the department to encourage students to get into the habit of regular revision ahead of their upcoming GCSE exams.

Big thanks go to Vision for Education Huddersfield for their kind sponsorship of the incentives on offer for students who complete the extra science challenge each week in addition to their regular homework.

Who could resist the appeal of weekly chocolate prizes and a regular draw for a £40 Amazon voucher? But as they say…you’ve got to be in it to win it!

A-Z Virtual careers fair

For our older students, choosing a future career is an exciting but challenging time. To help you, Craig Whittaker MP has organised a virtual 'A-Z Careers Fair' on 13 October from 4.30pm.

Students from across Calderdale will have the opportunity to discover different career paths and find out more from those working in these professions with representatives for every letter of the alphabet from Accountant to Zoo Keeper as well as professionals from active recruiters such as Lloyds, Amazon and Google.

To attend the online event and access the careers fair brochure, you will need to register with your school email address.

play time for local primaries!

It has been wonderful to see our playing fields and astroturf full of students getting active in the September sunshine! Ryburn’s programme of sports and play activities with local primary schools has started up again and kicked off with a Play Leaders session on 17 September at which year 5 and 6 students engaged in a number of play-led activities - including parachute games, cups and saucers and cones games - which they can now take back and use to lead play themselves with younger pupils at their own school.

This was followed by an exciting girls’ football tournament last week. Girls’ teams from seven local feeder schools competed with Copley Primary School emerging as victors! Congratulations to them and thank you to our Ryburn year 10 and 11 girls who refereed the matches!

The activities are part of a full programme that runs throughout the year which builds our relationships with local primary schools and helps with the transition to high school for students in our catchment area. Next up will be a cross country competition on Friday 8 October - lets hope the sunshine returns!

The wonder of words

The English Department is excited to re-launch Bedrock this year, after a short break! Bedrock Vocabulary is an online programme which enables students to access a vast array of academic and sophisticated vocabulary and all students will complete two Bedrock lessons per week as homework. Once all the log-ins have been created, students will receive more information from their English teacher.

Accelerated Reader is also back for Year 7 and 8! Students have begun fortnightly lesson in the library, in which they read and then complete an online quiz on a book of their choice. Our superb team of Ryburn Sixth reading ambassadors are also on hand to support and encourage the younger students in these sessions.

Rights respecting schools

At Ryburn, we’re already the proud holder of the bronze Rights Respecting Schools award. These awards recognise a school’s achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into practice by creating safe and inspiring places to learn, where children are respected.

Not content to rest on our laurels, we’re now working towards our silver award and you may notice some shiny new plaques depicting all the 42 rights popping up around school. Can you spot the ones on your form corridor or even locate all 42?