Headteacher Blog_26th June 2017

Year 9 bowl them over!

I’m pleased to report success by our Year 9 cricket team who recently took on Guilsborough School in the County Cup quarter-finals. Guildford posted a decent score of 103 runs for four wickets in their 16 overs, but Wollaston School very quickly amassed 107 for 2 wickets in only 9.4 overs. All of our bowlers performed really well to keep the runs down for Guilsborough and wickets were shared around the group. Our opening batsmen, Sam Coleman and Will Farrar got us off to a magnificent start, with Sam scoring 21 runs and Will Farrar, with 52 not out, before retiring hurt.
The team go onto take on Oundle School in the semi-final at Earls Barton Cricket ground tomorrow afternoon.

Year 10 girls’ physics challenge.

Two teams of year 10 girls recently attended Girls Physics Challenge run at Sir Christopher Hatton Academy as part of its role as an Institute of Physics Lead School with support from the Wellingborough Ogden Trust Partnership. They independently designed and built a heat shield to mimic a re-entry capsule astronaut such as Tim Peake and Helen Sharman would have used to return to Earth.

Well done to the Technonuats team (Lorraine Cook, Bryony Davis, Megan Perry, Amelie Van de Ploeg,) who came second when their designs where tested. They were praised for their team working and repeated reworking of their design. The representatives from the Institute of Physics were also impressed by the meticulous recording and modifications made by the Heat Busters team (Hollie Bridgman, Brooke O’Reilly, Holly Smart)

One of the aims of the day was to encourage girls to study physics, as only a fifth of students taking Physics in England are girls. To help them to see what physics related careers are possible the guest speaker Dr Judith Croston from the Open University spoke about her career as an astrophysicist. It is important that all of our students are not affected by gender stereotypes when selecting which subjects to study and careers they wish to pursue.

Physics student becomes regional prize winner.

As part of our work with the Wellingborough Section of the Ogden Trust (to promote the teaching and learning of Physics nationally) we were asked to nominate a student for consideration for a regional award. We were later informed that Adam Bebbington in year 12 was one of the prize winners in the “East of England Schools Physicist of the Year” competition. On Friday evening Adam, along with his parents, attended an awards ceremony at Churchill College, Cambridge where he received his award/ certificate. Whilst there he met with a number of undergraduate students as well as taking part in a lecture from Dr Dave Green on Supernovae and time travel. Our congratulations go out to Adam.