The Flagpole

It is always great to be able to share news of pupils' co-curricular achievements outside of school.

Lower Sixth Former, Bea Taylor had the privilege to perform at The Royal Albert Hall last week as a member of her County Youth Concert Band that had qualified to play in the Music for Youth Proms. The night showcased a wealth of UK national youth talent across all types of musical genres and by all reports was truly outstanding and inspiring. 

Bea is currently relishing being Principal Clarinet of the Northamptonshire County Youth Orchestra, 1st clarinet in the County Youth Concert Band, bass clarinet in the Northampton County Clarinet Choir and was delighted to receive her second Gordon Robinson award in the shape of a Peter Dunkley speciality award for most promising Woodwind player for 2024 presented to her at the Northamptonshire Music and Performing Art’s Trust’s Youth in Concert at The Royal and Derngate in October.

Not to be left out, her younger sister, Year 7 pupil, Atty also had her debut outing with her newest ensemble; the Northamptonshire County Training Orchestra last weekend playing flute and piccolo at their Autumn Festival of Music (having completed two years as Principal Flute in their Junior Orchestra). 

The Day is an online daily newspaper for young people.

It publishes analysis of the news that provides context for debates that explore the deeper currents shaping our world. All resources are created by a team of journalists to help schools teach critical thinking, real-world knowledge and civic engagement. 

Articles are available in five different reading levels for children between the ages of five and eighteen. It is interactive and has voting on hot topics where pupils can share their own views.

It is an excellent resource that can be used in school or at home. There are lots of articles that support all parts of the curriculum and provide additional reading around topics that are studied here at the College.

Pupils can find the link to The Day via the School Portal in the Library section.

Princethorpe Library subscribe to the JSTOR. This is a digital library containing academic journals, books and primary sources, in many formats and disciplines. It includes current issues of journals in the humanities and social sciences and supports further reading around subjects and research.

There are over 2300 full text journals, more than 100,00 ebooks from academic publishers, images that are contributed from institutions such as universities, museums and private collection as well as audio content. It is an excellent resource that pupils can use in school, or at home for research. 

Pupils can access JSTOR via the School Portal in the Library section.

We are looking for pupils who would like to help play an exciting and important role in the day-today running of the Library.

Further details and an application form are available from the Library. Applications need to be in by Friday 6 December.

Did you know that our Library Management System, OLIVER, holds book lists to give pupils ideas of what to read?

If pupils click on Reading Lists at the top menu then there are lots of book lists that we have put together to help them find their next fabulous read. These include different genres, book awards we follow, suggested reads by Year Group and all these lists are updated regularly. In addition there is an excellent interactive News page, that changes regularly. The main Search page also shows new books as they come into the Library, and also popular reads and recommendations.

Access is via The School Portal, pupils should click on School Information – Princethorpe, then select Library from the left hand menu.

All Bronze, Silver, and Gold Duke of Edinburgh's Award participants for 2024-25 have now been added to a Team where information and assignments will be posted. All participants that signed up before the deadline will have received an email on 12 November 2024 with details of how to logon and trigger the welcome pack, there are still a few outstanding. The welcome packs can take up to a month to arrive in the post so please ensure the participant has logged in.

We have five Young Leaders in the Lower Sixth undergoing their training and they have been allocated 35 Bronze and Silver participants to support through their DofE journey this year. Teams chats have already been set for the groups if participants require any extra help.

The presentation, expedition dates and other useful information is still live on My School Portal under the Co-curricular - Princethorpe page. Link here.

The Duke of Edinburgh's staff team have completed their training and will be aiding last year's participants to sign off their awards over the coming weeks. Participants will be contacted on Teams highlighting the areas that need completion by the Christmas deadline.

For any Duke of Edinburgh's enquires please use the dedicated email dofe@princethorpe.co.uk with the subject DofE-B, S or G-Surname.