Earlier this year, Dr Perry signposted the MFL Department to the GCHQ’s National Language Competition 2025, and we were excited to enter seven teams of four Year 9 students. With challenges of varying levels of difficulty, the competition is designed to enthuse students about language and hopefully encourage them to select language options at GCSE. There were 2734 teams taking part across the United Kingdom, and I am pleased to share with you the results of our seven teams:

On Thursday 20th November, we attended Reading Council’s Young Voices Safety Summit. We met several new people and had to step out of our comfort zone to talk about a variety of topics. This year's theme was crime and safety. The four topics we discussed at this safety summit were topics that young people identified as the biggest issues for them – Bullying and Hate Crime, Violence against Women and Girls, Exploitation, and Reporting.

On Tuesday 11th November, the staff and students of Kendrick School marked Remembrance Day with an assembly led by Ms Kattirtzi, members of the KSL, our two Holocaust ambassadors and Maya, a member of CCF.  This year we commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, as well as the 80th anniversary of VE Day, VJ Day, and the liberation of the concentration camps.  We paid respect to all the veterans whose devotion and sacrifice to the national cause laid the foundations for the free Britain we know today. 

During the summer holidays, Wokingham Borough Council ran a writing competition, Protect Our Broken Planet, in partnership with the Natural History Museum's new exhibition, Fixing Our Broken Planet. I chose to participate by composing a poem on my own experience of the growing issue of pollution, based on my memories of the beach we frequented most during my childhood.

That beach holds a special place in my heart. My first experience of the vastness of the ocean mesmerised me, and it continued to do so every time we returned. Our best pastime was to dip our feet in the cold sea and play with the waves. 

Each year, the Royal Albert Hall hosts an eclectic mix of musical performances as part of its spectacular BBC Proms series. With music from well-known composers such as Beethoven and Elgar, to some artists you may be surprised to see there, such as that of Bill Bailey and Soul Revolution with Trevor Nelson.

We are incredibly proud to say that there have been students past and present involved in this year's set of programmes.  

Over the holidays, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to take part in the Financial Times-AverPoint summer reading challenge. The challenge works as follows: over several weeks, your news consumption is tracked by a browser extension called AverPoint, which gives you targets to meet each week in order to move up to the next level of the challenge – targets include the number of articles read, the number of different news sources consulted, and saving facts you deem noteworthy.

This year’s challenge also included a short essay competition on the theme of remilitarisation for participants who had reached the top level – I was in third place in this competition and in the challenge overall.