Head of Mayo House, Mrs Yvonne Caswell, recently took part in – and completed – the Heineken Race to the Tower along the Cotswold way (53 miles), in aid of Mayo’s Charity MIND and achieved her target in 14 hrs, 11 mins 59 secs.

Last week Tegen Hammick and Emma Musgrove from 7JW organised and held a bake sale to add to the money raised for MIND and managed to raise a whopping £66.40!

They said:
“We were inspired by Mrs Caswell’s 53 mile run for MIND so we wanted to do something too to support. MIND is an amazing charity and supports so many people. We feel very proud that the money we have raised will be going to a good cause”.

The school is pleased to be supporting the Shipston Proms in a number of events this year. If you would like to see the level at which some of our musicians are performing, the following events are well worth attending:

Sunday 17th June – Townsend Hall, The Fame Contest 2.00 p.m.
Some of our students have entered the Fame Contest competition which this year is on a Sunday afternoon rather than a Saturday night.

Thursday 21st June The Summer Showcase School Concert 7.00 p.m. School Hall
The ‘main event’ for the school in regard to the Proms fortnight, this is a nice event to attend if you can. Featuring only our students the audience sit round tables and refreshments are available throughout to make a nice relaxed atmosphere.

Wednesday 27th June Young Musicians Concert Barcheston Church 7.30 p.m.
Some of our students will be performing at this concert which is always of a very high standard.

Friday 29th June Songs from the Shows Townsend Hall 7.30 p.m.
Some of our current and ex students will be performing.

Saturday 30th June The Last Night (and Day) of the Proms. 2.00 p.m. to 11.45 p.m. Shipston Town Centre
The School Jazz Band are performing from 3.50 p.m. for about 30 minutes and potentially one of the Fame Contest entrants!

As part of our new GCSE course we will be studying Surgery and Medical developments on the Western Front during World War One. Over the weekend of 18th May the school took 36 year 9 students to Ypres in Belgium in preparation for the course.  They visited a variety of places including the largest British Military cemetery, Tyne Cott, and Langemarck which is a Germany cemetery.  Many students were able to visit relatives’ graves during the visit.   They were able to visit J.E Phipps grave which was significant for four of our students who came to us from Brailes Primary School. This was the grandfather of their former teacher’s husband who have never been able to travel to the Somme. The students placed crosses on behalf of the family at his graveside. On the third day the group travelled to France and visited the Somme. The first stop here was the Lochnagar Crater which is one of the largest man made holes on earth caused by a mine. They were able to see the Thiephval memorial, the largest British memorial in the world. On this day they also followed the route that casualties would have taken either on stretcher or on foot. This allowed students to understand the movement of casualties during the war. The final day was spent in the Arras area investigating the underground tunnel system used to move troops closer to the front line.  As part of the tour two students were selected to lay a wreath on behalf of the school, this was part of the Menin Gate ceremony that takes place every evening.

Thanks to Miss McElroy for organising such a valuable and moving experience for the students.  Congratulations also to the group of students who took part in the visit for their exemplary behaviour and attitude in dealing with some very emotional events.

 

Throughout May, Year 8 ran a collection for the Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre. Matthew Martin, Katie Haycock and Beth Brookes were all involved in delivering assemblies to each House to help raise awareness of the terrible situations some people are currently having to deal with and to ask for the school’s help in supporting the donation drive.

On the Wednesday before half term Miss Whitworth and Mr Howells travelled to Coventry to deliver the donations from the Shipston High Students; to say the team were grateful is an understatement! Jackie and the team were overwhelmed by the support and the donations that Shipston had offered and were very keen to want to pass on their thanks to all the students at Shipston who had donated.

On behalf of the Coventry Refugee Centre, Miss Whitworth and everyone at Shipston High School thank you to all parents for their generous donations. Toni the Centre Director at the Coventry Refugee Centre has written to the school ‘we were overwhelmed by the generosity of all the pupils at Shipston High. Our destitute clients will be very grateful for the food and it helps enormously to know that there are many people in the UK who really care about their plight’.

As always, our students have done us very proud!