Annual review 2016 17

The Year The Gryphon School, Sherborne

2016 | 2017

Contents

We support and encourage every student to strive for the highest possible levels of academic achievement alongside developing the personal attributes and qualities to thrive and make a positive contribution throughout life.

Letter from the Headteachers Examinations SAST

3 7 11

Reports Admissions Bursaries and Grants Our Year Teams The Sixth Form Equal Opportunities PSHEE Business & Enterprise Day Widening Opportunity SEND Little Gryphons Nursery School LRC Chaplaincy Alumni News

12 13 14 17 18 18 21 22 24 26 28 29 30

Subject Reports Music Drama English and Media Studies Maths Science History Geography Modern Foreign Languages Art, Design and Photography Food and Cooking Computing Law, Psychology Health and Social Care Business Religious Education Sport

34 38 42 44 46 48 50 51 53 56 58 60 61 62 64 66

Reaching Beyond Ten Tors and Duke of Edinburgh Awards School Council, Student Voice & Youth Parliament Social Life @Gryphon Clubs Community School to School Support

76 80 81 82 84 86

Appointments The Governing Body

88 89

A letter from the Headteachers Having completed 25 years as the comprehensive school at the heart of Sherborne, 2017-18 proved to be a landmark year for The Gryphon as we became a founder member of the Sherborne Area Schools’ Trust (SAST). SAST is a partnership with six of our partner primary schools; together we are working to promote excellence in education for young people aged 0-18 in Sherborne and the surrounding area. Our school remains popular with over 1200 students in the main school and over 400 in the Sixth Form. We attract students from a large rural catchment area across North and West Dorset as well as South Somerset.

2 Whilst we are a large school we pride ourselves on the outstanding relationships between staff, students and parents that enables us to have “a small school feel”.

Visitors always comment on the calm and purposeful atmosphere and the quality of our environment and facilities.

The year started with our Prize Giving Ceremony in Sherborne Abbey celebrating another year of excellent GCSE and A level results. Our keynote speaker for the event was Christian Guy, who is a world-renowned campaigner for social justice, his four messages chimed perfectly with our vision for the Gryphon he said: Work for something bigger than yourself; be the most hopeful person in the room; do the small things really well and embrace responsibility. Our aim is to support and encourage every student to strive for the highest possible levels of academic achievement alongside developing the personal attributes and qualities to thrive and make a positive contribution throughout life; being ready to face the challenges of the 21st century. Our foundations are built upon exceptional pastoral care and support – we care deeply about every student, and provide a calm and civil place

to study and grow. During the summer of 2016 we were recognised in “The Real Schools Guide 2016”. This rated all statefunded secondary schools across the country using 25 different measures, put together from the latest publicly-available data, and broken into four categories – attainment, teaching, attendance, and outcomes; the Gryphon was one of only two schools in Dorset to be given a five star rating.

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The array of opportunities, trips and activities available to our students are amazing from our extensive Duke of Edinburgh scheme to “Flying Start” to sport to Lego. We are determined to provide a breadth of experiences; many of which you can read about in this review of the past Academic Year.

Every department is highly committed to providing excellent teaching alongside opportunities for enrichment and personal growth. At our annual Sports Awards Paralympian Ben Rushgrove gave a truly inspiring speech, reminding us to “concentrate on those things that we can control”, before presenting the awards recognising teams who have competed successfully against local state and independent schools as well as individuals who have competed national and internationally. Music continues to thrive and students have a wide range of opportunities to take part in concerts in a variety range of venues. The Music and Drama departments

collaborated in our fantastic production of “Footloose” where we witnessed professional quality of singing, acting, sound, light and costume. The Drama department went on to compete in the premier league of regional Rock Challenge. This year also saw students take part in trips across the country, Europe and the rest of the world. A real highlight of the year was the performance of our “Youth Speaks” senior team who progressed to the national finals of this prestigious competition and came second, missing out on first place by just one point. Well done to all of our students who take part in these activities and huge thanks to the staff and parent volunteers who make them possible!

There are considerable funding pressures to be faced in retaining the quality and range of our provision. Main school funding has been stable but not kept pace with increased staffing costs whilst Sixth Form funding has been cut by 30% in the last 5 years. Dorset is one of the lowest funded areas for education in the country and we await the outcomes of the promised new national funding formula in 2018. We are still seeking to replace 12 temporary classrooms. The latest bid to the Education Funding Agency Fund was strong and close to the success threshold but did not secure funding. Planning permission been granted for a new teaching block and we will bid again for a grant during this year to turn our dreams of bricks and mortar into reality!

Educational change continues at a great pace. This summer saw the first of the new GCSE grades (1-9) awarded in English and Mathematics. A Level and vocational qualifications all have new specifications with the change to linear examinations, a loss of coursework alongside pressure for more academic courses – these changes suit some but not all and do not reflect the world students will enter.

We continue to support and develop the use of mobile technology. As we prepare our students for the 21st century we must empower them to use the internet and mobile technology safely. The iGryphon strategy has significantly enhanced access to information and resources for students and parents. We continue to ensure that quality of teaching and learning is at the heart of our work. Appointing high quality teachers and support staff from across the country, and world in some cases, is a challenge and a great privilege. At the end of the Summer Term we received the exciting news that we will be designated a “Teaching School” from September 2018 and this will provide a new range of opportunities for our staff, and the staff of other schools, across North Dorset and surrounding areas.

Our Alumni continue to provide many examples of success across industries as diverse as film and medicine, engineering and finance. Many alumni are now very successful entrepreneurs in Dorset and beyond. There are lots more examples of the activities of our Alumni in the dedicated pages which follow. We are proud of each and every one of our “Gryphonians” and the part they play in society, locally and around the world.

In June, when we became part of SAST, Steve Hillier, our Headteacher, took on the role of the Executive Headteacher for SAST. Nicki Edwards then became Headteacher having been Deputy Headteacher at the Gryphon since 2002.

The year ended with the Celebration of Achievement events for years 7, 8, 9 and 10. It also saw the group of students who we have known, for the last 7 years in some cases, leave to start at university, apprenticeships, employment and training. We wish them all success and happiness.

As we look forward to 2017-18 we do so with confidence, knowing that our school is guided by the principles of doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Putting the needs of our students at the centre of everything that we do and every decision that we make.

Nicki Edwards and Steve Hillier – Headteachers

Examinations

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Progress 8 at GCSE

English and Maths at GCSE

The main way by which the government now assesses schools is via the Progress 8 measure. The measure counts a student’s best 8 results with Maths and English (the better of a student’s Language and Literature grades) being double-weighted.

In Maths 79.3% of students achieved a grade of 4 (equivalent to the old C) or higher. Our Progress 8 score for Maths was positive at +0.24 i.e. students at the Gryphon achieved, on average, a quarter of a grade higher than might have been expected.

Progress 8 is a measure of value added i.e. it compares how students achieved at the end of Year 11 compared to the results from primary school that they entered the Gryphon with.

In English 81.0% of students achieved a grade of 4 (equivalent to the old C) or higher. Our Progress 8 score for English was positive at +0.12.

Overall 74.3% of the cohort achieved a grade of 9-4 in both Maths and English. We believe this to be the second highest score out of the 20 comprehensive schools in Dorset.

Individual student results at GCSE

The measure for the Gryphon school came out as 0.21 which is a significant improvement on last year’s 0.09. The figure of 0.21 means that, on average, a student at the Gryphon will achieve 20% of a grade more higher than a student at an average school.

It was particularly pleasing to see that our Progress 8 score for disadvantaged students has risen to -0.05. This score is insignificantly different from 0. This basically means that a disadvantaged student at the Gryphon school will make as good progress as the average student nationally; this is encouraging as it signals that our interventions have overcome any socio-economic disadvantage which students started with.

There were many, many students who achieved results that they will be proud of for life. A small selection of these is listed below.

• Dora Solloway, Thornford 9A*, 9,8,8 • Ella Smith, Wincanton – 8A*, 2A, 9,8,8 • Hassan Nauyan, Yeovil – 4A*, 2A, 9,8,8 • George Biss, Sherborne – 6A*, 3A, 9,8,7 • Scott Suri, Charlton Horethorne 6A*, 2A, 9,8,7 • Edward Chambler, Sherborne – 6A*, 1A, 1B, 9,8,7 • Stuart Marsh, Sherborne – 6A*, 1A, 1B, 1C, 9,7,6 • Arianne Lailey, Yeovil – 6A*, 1A,1C, 9,9,8 • Jake Morris, Charlton Horethorne – 2A*, 7A, 9,8,8 • Luke Hamill-Smith, Sherborne, 2A*, 5A, 3C, 9,8,8 • Hannah Cox, Sherborne – 4A*, 3A, 2B, 8,8,7 • Joseph McCloskey, Sherborne, 3A*, 5A, 1B, 9,8,7 • Edward O’Grady, Sherborne – 3A*, 4A, 2B, 8,7,7 • Chloe Haynes, Milborne Port – 3A*, 4A, 1B, 8,6,6 • Emma Reynolds, Stourton Caundle – 3A*, 5A, 1B, 8, 7, 7 • Israel Mason–Williams, Sherborne – 2A*, 5A, 2B, 7, 7, 5

Development Plans for 2017 to 2018 Academic Year A key priority for the coming year is a greater focus on achieving more top grades i.e. 9s, 8s and A*s at GCSE and A*s and As at A-level. The performance of Free School Meals students remains at the top of our agenda on an ongoing basis.

We will be: • Sharing best practice from our highest performing teachers

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• Adding an additional set of mock examinations and using more diagnostic tools to identify areas for improvement at an individual student level.

• Using Apps to support learning of content in EBacc subjects • Developing individual Action Plans at a departmental level • Strengthening accountability through a more rigorous “out and about” programme from an Extended Leadership Group & thorough fortnightly focussed meeting between HoDs and Senior Leaders

We are also continuing our coaching initiative whereby high-performing teachers undergo specialist training and then coach other teachers who wish to strengthen their skills. There is significant additional work going on at departmental and individual teacher level. We have identified departments who require additional support and are using, amongst other initiatives, members of the Extended Leadership Group to work with these Heads of Department. In the case of underperforming teachers we are using Personal Improvement Plans to develop and refine their practice until it meets our expectations.

However, the overall picture is of a good and improving school. The Gryphon adapted successfully to the challenges of the new 9 to 1 specification in English and Maths. We are confident that under new leadership, and as part of a Multi Academy Trust, that we can go from strength to strength over the coming years.

Photo by James Pearce, Year 8

SAST This is an exciting time for education provision in our part of North and West Dorset with new opportunities for greater collaboration and partnerships. It is also a time of change and pressures with new examinations, real funding pressures and challenges in the recruitment and retention of teachers. Fortunately education at The Gryphon and in the Sherborne area is in a strong position to manage our future and is at the forefront of developments.

It is 25 years since the three former secondary schools in the town merged to become The Gryphon School. It has grown from 800 students to having over 1600 including over 400 in the Sixth Form. At the end of this year we saw the retirement of the last of the teachers to have taught in one of these schools. Decades of teaching and making a real difference – they deserved the standing ovations when they left on the final day of term.

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Reports

On 1 June 2017 the next stage in the evolution of Sherborne education began with the Sherborne Area Schools’ Trust (SAST) established with six local primary schools and The Gryphon. The Sherborne Schools’ Partnership had worked closely together for many years to provide an excellent education for our young people. Over the last year, the primary and secondary schools have made a significant investment in the formation of a new multi-academy trust of equal partners to preserve and enhance the quality of education for the students, staff, parents and community in the Sherborne area. The design of our Trust was shaped and agreed through the work of the Project Steering and Interim Board along with the local governing bodies.

The Gryphon School, a standalone Church of England academy since 1 August 2012, converted to become a multi-academy trust. Being part of a new multi academy trust will allow us to further strengthen the links between all our schools in order to support continuity of education from 0-19 within our community. At the heart of SAST is the desire to work in partnership, to collaborate with others and to be outward facing for the benefit of children and staff. The schools have extensive links beyond the immediate area and are keen to extend these further.

This was exemplified in July 2017 when The Gryphon School was one of over 65 schools that were selected to become a National Teaching School as designated by the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) which is an executive agency of the Department for Education. In addition I have received National Leader of Education and National School Support (NLE/NSS) designation. The Chair of Trustees is already a National Leader of Governance (NLG).

The next steps are to lead a North Dorset Teaching School Alliance. A mix of 35 secondary and primary schools were part of the application supported by the Diocese of Salisbury, Dorset LA, two universities and teaching trainer providers. This is an exciting opportunity for schools across the area including South Somerset and Wiltshire to build upon local partnerships and collaboration by linking into national networks and resources.

The School and SAST will take a lead role supporting schools in challenging circumstances. The type of support provided is flexible and tailored to meet the

needs of each individual school. The alliance will be training new teachers, providing high quality schoolled initial teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers at all stages of their career.

We have also been working closely with West Dorset District Council to take over the management of The Gryphon Leisure Centre community use in evening, at weekends and in the holidays. This was finalised in November 2017.

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I can recall with great pride the day, back in 2006, when I was appointed as Headteacher of The Gryphon School. The quality and work of all the students and staff supported by the parents and the local community has seen so many great achievements in every realm. It is now a great honour to be appointed as the Executive Head of SAST and I look forward to Nicki Edwards continuing the successes for all.

It is easy to look back on education with fond memories of how it was better. However there can be no doubt that the opportunities children have today are amazing – the experiences, facilities, trips, events, quality of teachers, and equipment could not have been dreamt of 30 years ago when I started teaching.

We never rest on our laurels. The ultimate strategic goal is for the Trust to have the very best schools not only in Dorset but in the South West and nationally.

Trustees, Headteachers and Governors want the Trust to be a beacon of excellent practice which other schools wish to work with.

The Trust is exceptionally well placed to enhance the quality of education even further for the community we serve in the years ahead. Exciting times indeed.

Steve Hillier

Admissions

Bursaries and Grants

In September 2017 we welcomed 240 new students into Year 7. Just over 150 joined from the eight catchment primary feeder schools. Students joined from 32 different primary schools in total.

Central Education Funding Agency Grant Funding

We held an Open Evening in October for prospective Year 7 students and their parents for September 2017 entry. There are extensive visits to local primary schools and very close liaison. Dorset County Council manages admissions on behalf of The Gryphon School.

The Year 7 Transition Team does a fantastic job visiting new students in their schools and finding out about all their strengths and support needs. This information is used to organise the teaching and support provision.

Students who are coming in ones and twos spend an extra day getting to know the school before the Induction Day. The Induction Day in July for students is followed in the evening with the opportunity for every parent to meet their child’s personal tutor. Students who require additional transition support come in during the Summer Term and spend time with Peer Mentors, the Student Transition Manager and the Student Support Manager.

In the Sixth Form there were 192 students in the new Year 12 along with 219 students in Year 13. In Year 12, 76 were male and 116 female. 34% joined from other state and independent schools across North and West Dorset as well as from South Somerset and further afield.

There was a dedicated Sixth Form Open Evening in November 2016 showcasing the A Level and BTEC courses we offer. There were 323 applications to join the Sixth Form. Students were interviewed at The Gryphon and 200 joined Year 12 in September 2017.

An Induction Day took place in July for all the new students prior to them starting.

GAG: School Budget Share 16-19 Bursary Sixth Form Funding Pre 16 High Needs Funding Post 16 High Needs Funding Pupil Premium Funding Year 7 Catch Up Grant EFA Summer School funding GAG: Education Services Grant

£5,484,779 £28,820 £1,794,419 £160,000 £6,000 £224,406 £14,000 £15,897 £124,971

Other Grants • Enthuse Charitable Trust – Enthuse Bursary for Physics • Dorset CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England) – sponsorship of annual Geography prize giving award • Andrew Simpson Sports Award • Sherborne Rotary Club - Aubrey Allen Award • Derek Boshier • Diocese of Sailsbury – RE Department Resourcing • The Gryphon Foundation • The Lord Digby’s Award • The Foster’s School Award • The Fabulous Foundation • Hall & Woodhouse – Community Chest • National Lottery – Small Grant Fund • John Thornton Young Achievers Foundation • Sherborne Rotary Club – Community Fund • Sherborne Rotary Club – General • Sherborne Castle Rotary Club • Yeovil Lion’s Club • Blackmore Vale Lion’s Club • Waitrose – Community Matters • Tesco – Bags of Help

Photo by Jade Nightingale

Our Year Teams

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Year 7

Year 9

Year 10

Year 11

2016-17 saw many outstanding achievements from the Year 7 students. As well as proving their resilience and team work at Carey Camp, the students were able to replicate their newly found skills throughout the year.

Highlights included trips to Exeter and Sherborne Castle as well as an extremely busy Sports Day, where students proved their sporting prowess was something to be seen! The one highlight of the year that stands out is the positive community feel during the year – students raised over £1,100 for charities (Yeovil Hospital Children’s Ward & Asthma UK), and this is a credit to the community spirit and British values showed in the year group.

In July, 37 students travelled to Weymouth College where they took part in a variety of careers workshops.

These varied from Acting, Childcare, Special effects for film and TV, Carpentry and Plumbing to Boatbuilding, Uniformed Services and the Armed Services.

In June 40 pupils spent the day at Bournmouth University investigating student life, finance, clubs, societies, volunteering at Uni, choosing courses and considering where to live before going off for a campus tour around the University given by the Bournemouth Uni ambassadors. They also undertook a budgeting challenge where they explored how to manage their finances, choose a part-time job and finding a place to live as well as looking at how they saw themselves in the future.

Starting their GCSEs the Year 10 students took the next big step in their educational journey. For the students it became much more apparent that their time at The Gryphon is of the essence and now more than ever it was the time to engage and enjoy their studying.

Business and Enterprise Day brought about a particular highlight with one team designing and creating an app that took them in to the national finals of the competition. The year group were also very much the face of the school production of Footloose with a number of students leading the way for their peers on stage. For Year 10 it was another year of both discovering and harnessing the array of talent on offer whilst working together to keep striving for their potential.

Year 11 had a very successful year leading to some amazing results. Their last day in May was a great send off with a BBQ and entertainment over lunch followed by a leaving assembly highlighting their time at the Gryphon from Year 7. Jasmin Whatley and Emma Reynolds provided the entertainment with two wonderful songs showcasing their talents.

Year 8 A busy academic year for Year 8. Lots of our students were involved in the school production of Footloose and Rock Challenge and were well represented in school concerts and the Youth Speaks competition. We were proud of the achievements of our young sports men and women with the Girls football team doing particularly well and winning the Sports Team of the Year award.

Through cake sales and sponsored silences the Year group raised fifty pounds for our Cancer charity and a special mention should go to Amy Downton for leading an assembly and organising her own successful charity event for Children in Need. So nice to see so many of the students becoming more and more involved in the activities and daily life of The Gryphon and becoming ever more valuable members of the school community.

The Year 11 Ball at Haslebury Mill was a great success and all of the year group looked so grown up in their array of evening wear; a great night was had by all. Mr Lane and Miss Sampson returned to see their tutees and spent the evening celebrating.

Throughout the year the students continued with their fundraising and despite their busy exam schedule still took time to raise money for the ball, the Air Ambulance and Julia’s House.

The Sixth Form

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It has been yet another busy year in Sixth Form with successes coming thick and fast both within and outside of the classroom. Mr Smith (Assistant Head of Sixth Form) was delighted to lead his EPQ students to outstanding results with 70% achieving A/A*. The debating teams represented the school at both the Youth Speaks and the Durham Schools debating competitions, producing excellent results and enabling students to get a flavour of national competitions. There were also notable individual successes in the Duke of Edinburgh Award, Ten Tors Challenge, sailing, sport and the Arts, highlighting the high level of commitment students had to their extra-curricular activities.

The Sixth Form team was extended this year with the addition of Mr Stephen Strowger as Head of Sixth Form with Mrs Philippa Huggins taking charge of the new cohort as Head of Year 12 and Miss Laura Harry following her students through as Head of Year 13. Mr Strowger instigated a Leadership Group who played a big part in the organisation of the interview day for external candidates and became active participants in the Dorset Chamber of Commerce events. A full PSHEE and Enrichment programme throughout the year allowed students the opportunity to join in with sports, volunteering, charity fundraising, work experience and life skills and body positive workshops.

This year through the Sixth Form fundraising, we have continued to support Desteria, our sponsored child in Kenya to attend school and have all the equipment he needs. Events also raised money for YoungMinds, Macmillan Cancer Research and Bartek Trojanowski even braved a head shave to raise money and awareness for Teenage Cancer Trust.

For Year 13 it has been a year of development, from moving on from AS exams to making applications for apprenticeships, employment and future studies. We had

over 150 students making UCAS applications this year with many more choosing to take a gap year before applying next year. Of those who accepted their offers, 30% were to Russell Group universities with 2 to Cambridge University (Economics and English), one to Birmingham University to read Medicine and one to the University of Bristol for Dentistry. The students were supported through the process through talks from visiting universities, our successful Oxbridge programme and the experienced tutor team who ensured the applications showed the superb attributes of all the students.

Mr Steve Martin, our Careers Advisor, provided another wide programme of events to support the development of CVs for applications to apprenticeships and employment. Careers Cafes from BAE Systems, JP Morgan, Thales, Thoroughly Modern Media, Leonardo Helicopters and Albert Goodman Accountants among others, talks about medical and mental health careers, retail, defence science and technology alongside 1:1 support from tutors enabled students to be successful at securing places in higher level apprenticeships and invaluable work experience opportunities.

Over the course of the year we have welcomed numerous visitors to the school to widen the perspective of students including Darrell Warner, Film Costume Illustrator for films such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Maleficent, Standing Tall who worked with students on self-esteem and confidence and Dr Michael Jones who presented a seminar on Jane Eyre.

The final hurrah for Year 13 was their Leaver’s Ball, held at Fleet Air Arm Museum. Organised by Miss Laura Bucke, Sixth Form Tutor and her student committee, dancing under the shadow of Concorde provided a truly unique way to celebrate the end of their school careers.

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Equal Opportunities

PSHEE

We continue to promote equality throughout our school community; building upon our Church of England ethos and values with an inclusive curriculum and our rich extra-curricular activities.

Our “I Am Me” anti-bullying initiative is at the centre of our celebration of every member of the school community’s unique gifts and talents, and its unique logo is visible throughout the school site.

Personal Social Health and Economic Education clearly gives students those extra building blocks for life preparing them for the stresses and strains of the outside world. Various topics are covered throughout the year.

Since its launch in September 2015 Gryphon Pride has gone from strength to strength; increasing in numbers and in turn promoting the open discussion of LGBT issues in school. Our group is one of the original members of a network of Pride Youth Network groups across the country, all supported and set up by the LGBT charity Educate & Celebrate.

The group is completely student-led and meets on a weekly basis to offer a “safe space” and empathetic ear. In what is now becoming a Gryphon tradition, after a nationwide public vote, the group sent two members of the student body to The Great Rainbow Bake-Off in central London, returning as runners up in the Secondary School award. During Anti-Bullying Week and LGBT History month the group also delivered assemblies to all year groups, promoting acceptance and respect for all no matter what our differences.

For all years we have continued to follow the Barclays Life Skills for Economic Wellbeing. This focuses on students being able to open bank accounts, manage their money, budget their spending and the issues associated with debt.

For our Sex and Relationship education we have followed the Christopher Winter project this focuses on respect, self-esteem, empathy and communication and negotiation skills that help secondary pupils to stay safe both online and offline and make informed decisions in relationships.

We have worked with Dorset Police’s Safe Schools and Community team to deliver a number of workshops and presentations.

In Year 7 students were given a talk “Gaining Respect in People”. This looks at the issue of antisocial behaviour and how we are expected to behave in a polite society. It looks at the legislation relating to possessing offensive weapons and gang culture. The session encouraged students to make their own choices and respect other people in their community and their environment.

In Year 9 students took part in Blitz - this is a multiagency programme which provided a series of

workshops focusing on different aspects of alcohol misuse such as peer pressure, law and consequences, impact on health, well-being and future prospects, and alcohol related ASB such as hoax calls.

Following the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham it has been even more important to make students aware of exploitative behaviour. In Year 8 students were given a session called R U Safe? This was an overview of personal safety risks such as running away from home, healthy and unhealthy relationships, grooming, child sexual exploitation and provided students with information on where to access help and support. In Year 9 students were given a presentation called “Missing” This explored the reasons why young people go missing and the risks associated with it. In Year 11 students were given a session entitled “Party time” this explored the risks of CSE within social circles, particularly where alcohol is prevalent. There was specific focus on Sexual Assault, Consent and Grooming.

Year 9 were also given a session by “Safe Date” a local charity which looks at what makes a healthy relationship in this ever face passed and ever changing society.

The Gryphon also worked with Dorset Council to allow students to watch the Chelsea’s Choice Performance which focus on how young people are groomed by adults for the purposes of sexual exploitation using various methods, ensnaring young people and eventually taking complete control and dominating their whole lives. This is a very useful and innovative

way of raising awareness of the issues relating to sexual exploitation and reaching young people, giving them some skills and knowledge to be able to protect themselves from this form of abuse.

Year 7 students had a bike maintenance session run by Leonardo, focusing on ensuring our students are cycling on roadworthy bicycles’.

Students as part of their citizenship studies also went to The Houses of Parliaments and the London Eye. This is part of our political literacy programme. Every student in the School also took part in “Make your Mark” which lets them set the agenda for the National Youth Parliament to work on over the year. All students also voted in the Dorset Youth Parliament elections to choose members that would represent them on issues that affect them.

Business and Enterprise Day Business & Enterprise Day enables pupils to enhance and use their enterprise skills to maximum capacity.

This develops those life skills that are the backbone to survival in the outside world. They include; communication, teamwork, resilience, creativity, problem solving and independence.

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Year 7 took part in a Dragons Den day run by Cragrats.

Students had to come up with business ideas that they felt would be financially viable. This involved the pupils focusing on gaps in the market and using innovation to fill these gaps. They presented their ideas to their peers and judges in a heated final.

Year 8 worked with a company called Talk the Talk who ran a communication master class. This highlighted and developed employability skills, interview techniques and key presentation methods. The day finished with each student giving a presentation to their tutor group on a topic they were passionate about. Students gained confidence throughout the day.

Talk the Talk staff said they had been to over 900 schools, but they were blown away by the students enthusiasm and passion.

Year 9 again excelled in our annual Community Volunteering Day with students going to 55 settings to give their time and energy to the local community .

This included students carrying out conservation work at Stourhead Gardens, The Magdalen Project in Chard and Carymoor Education centre in Castle Cary.

Students also worked with Castle Gardens to continue our efforts as part of the Sherborne in Bloom project.

You may have seen some fantastic floral displays around Sherborne thanks to our student’s handiwork.

Students also volunteered at various primary and nursery schools, residential homes for the elderly and

schools for children with special needs and some did a First Aid course. This is an excellent opportunity for the students to give something back to their local community and for them to be seen in a really positive light.

The Textiles Department worked with a group of students to create clothes to send to Africa. A group of Year 9 students spent the day sewing donated textiles from Tenovus Charity shop, upcycling them into children’s clothes. They produced a range of wonderful dresses, shorts, tops, bags and hats. These were taken to the Tenovus shop where they created a window display. These have now been sent to the ‘Little Dresses for Africa’ charity which have distributed them to orphanages.

The Art Department with Year 9 students painted Milborne Port Bus Shelter to reflect the village’s heritage and important landmarks. This was increasingly difficult due to the continuous rain all day but you would never know it from the amazing artwork produced.

This day really does show our students and school at their very best.

Year 10 students worked with National Enterprise Challenge, a company endorsed by Theo Paphitis.

Students had to come up with an app that they could be used by the company Ryman. The winning team’s entry was a stationery app which replicated similar apps such as pokemon. The Students then went to Birmingham to pitch their idea to a panel of experts..

The students enjoyed rising to the challenge of entering the business world.

Widening Opportunity

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The pupil premium is additional funding for publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils of all abilities and to close the gaps between them and their peers. In 2016-17 there were 314 Pupil Premium students on roll at The Gryphon School, representing almost 20% of our students. 265 of these students were entitled to £935 additional funding as they are students who are known to have been eligible for free school meals (FSM) in any of the previous 6 years, as well as those first known to be eligible at January 2015, whilst 49 students were eligible for £300 additional funding from the service premium, which is extra funding for schools to support children and young people with parents in the armed forces.

The Gryphon School effectively uses the pupil premium to support its disadvantaged pupils in a wide variety of ways. We guarantee financial support for all curriculum trips to current FSM students and also help to support families with equipment and uniform, where necessary. For some students, where appropriate, Pupil Premium has been used to support the school BYOD scheme, to provide access to a computer at home and in school.

The school prioritises Pupil Premium students’ careers guidance, from the Careers Manager, and attendance support, from the Attendance Officer. Pupil Premium students are also prioritised for services such as counselling and mindfulness. TRAX, an after school supported homework club, is open to all Pupil Premium

students to enable them to access help to complete homework and coursework.

At Key Stage 3 we identify Pupil Premium students in danger of not achieving expected progress in English and Maths and withdraw them from foundation subjects, on a rotation basis, for small group work or 1-1 tuition with members of the English and Maths team.

The literacy and numeracy catch-up premium gives schools additional funding to support Year 7 pupils

who did not achieve the expected standard in reading or Maths at the end of Key Stage 2. This has seen the creation of our Nurture Groups at Key Stage 3, and funding from Pupil Premium has been diverted into this initiative to support its development.

At Key Stage 4, 25 Year 11 students were provided with 1-1 tuition in either English or Maths, or both, which significantly advanced their progress; 50 Year 11 students were involved in additional

English and Maths Revision courses run by an external company during the Easter Holidays; 12 Year 11 students received 1-1 Mentoring throughout the year from a senior member of staff. Revision guides are provided for Pupil Premium students in the core curriculum subjects and for other subjects on request. Rewards have been made available for Pupil Premium students making strong progress and all FSM students are provided with a Year 11 ball ticket, a leavers’ hoodie and a Year 11 year book.

The Service Premium helps schools provide the extra support needed to lessen the effects of frequent

changes of school and to provide support for the effects of separation from a serving parent deployed on operations. Student support is provided both through the staff in the Blue Room and other support staff. For example, students who join the school inyear can be helped to settle in with a partial timetable, with supported time in the Blue Room. Staff are trained to help deal with any difficult situations which may arise.

We hold an annual Service Premium lunch, which allows our service children to meet other students in similar positions on an informal basis. This lunch also give the service premium students to

meet and talk to several of our staff with a service background, who understand the additional pressures these students face.

We were delighted that our work supporting our Pupil Premium students was recognised in 2016 when we were awarded a Local Winner Pupil Premium Award; one of only 7 secondary schools in the South West to be awarded this accolade.

Sarah Darlington SENCo with responsibility for Disadvantaged Students

SEND In 2016-7, there were about 100 students on the school’s SEND register, all needing support in different ways. In addition, over 300 students had literacy support, 120 had help with numeracy and 403 students had support for their social, emotional and mental health.

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The emotional and mental health of young people has become a matter of concern nationally and at The Gryphon, we have seen a sharp increase in the need for support. In response to this, last year we reviewed the provision in the Blue Room, took on three more counsellors and worked in close partnership with local organisations such as the Balsam Centre, Mosaic, North Dorset Family Partnership Zones and the RendezVous to ensure a wide range of timely support.

With the help of these organisations we were able to offer 15 different sorts of support to young people so if one intervention didn’t help, another might.

The Learning Support Department continued to deliver a huge range of interventions including one-to-one support with numeracy and literacy, iPad training, computer-based reading and spelling courses, handwriting, speech therapy, exam access arrangement training, occupational therapy, touch-typing and of course, support in the classroom, to mention just a few.

Much of this activity took place in The Gryphon Dyslexia Base which is staffed by two specialist literacy practitioners, Carole Hair and Katharine Paine, who worked with our young people with the most complex needs. The Department is fortunate in having a team of highly experienced and well-trained Learning Mentors including a speech therapist, 5 members of staff qualified to teach dyslexia, the Student Support Managers who provide exceptional pastoral care to each year group and several trained teachers. Between us, we have a lot of life experience, skills and subject knowledge and everyone in the team plays an important part in supporting the young people socially, emotionally and academically.

The Nurture Groups started in September 2014, have grown from strength to strength. Headed by Kat McGreal, nurture expanded into Year 9 last year and in 2016-7, we have introduced nurture groups into all year groups. The classes are taught by two primary specialists and a team of secondary teachers with an interest in SEN and are supported by specialist Learning Mentors including a speech therapist. The focus is on improving literacy at the same time as building self-esteem, confidence and resilience. The results have been impressive and by Year 9, all the students have reached age-appropriate literacy scores. More importantly, almost all of these young people are now embarking on a full GCSE curriculum in Year 10 with three students following a more vocational route.

We work closely with young people with special educational needs and disabilities as they come up from primary school, with Debbie Alexander visiting them, and then they gradually build up their confidence through visits to the school. It is always rewarding for us to see them blossom and grow into young adults within the nurturing environment of Learning Support and last year we were especially proud of our SEND students did so well in public exams at GCSE and A level, some of them overcoming very significant difficulties.

Sarah Darlington SENCo

Little Gryphons Nursery School At Little Gryphons Nursery we are fortunate to be a part of the Gryphon School and the outdoor spaces surrounding the nursery are a wonderful space for our Little Gryphons to explore and have adventures in. Children are stimulated by the outdoors and typically experience, over time, an increase in their self-belief, confidence, learning capacity, enthusiasm, communication and problem-solving skills and emotional well-being.

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When showing visitors around the nursery and we reach our transition area in Woodland, visitors are met with a large display of wellington boots and all-in- one waterproofs which is a testament to how much we value and enjoy our outdoor spaces. They ask us if we take children out in the rain? Our answer to that is most definitely yes! The joy on a child’s face when splashing in a muddy puddle is wonderful to watch. Our brilliant Friends of Little Gryphons group ran a cake sale for us in Sherborne and raised over £250 which we put towards new outdoor play equipment.

In November we had Nursery Rhyme Week as part of our planning and children got to dress up and act out their favourite nursery rhymes.

Singing nursery rhymes and songs with children as young as babies can help develop their language and communication skills from an early age. As nursery rhymes are fun and full of sounds, children will tune into these sounds. Older children will experiment in combining sounds and blend them together to form a word.

We were encouraged by the comments from the

Chief Inspector of Ofsted recently urging nurseries and early years settings to return to the traditional rhymes. At Amanda Spielman's speech at the Nursery World business summit she said, “I imagine most of you in the room today could stand with me now to recite ‘Sing a song of sixpence’ or ‘The grand old Duke of York’. But I don’t know that we can say that is still the case for children in lots of nurseries today.

That is a shame, because of the other great joy of nursery rhymes. They are a unifier. Providing a collective memory and experience for young children across the country. And often teaching a little bit of social history to boot.

Which is why I would hope that every nursery and childminder would find the time for a nursery rhyme.”

Chaplaincy

LRC @ The Gryphon School Another busy year has passed at The Gryphon School Learning Resource Centre (LRC). Being at the centre of the school most students visit in the course of a school week; to study, to borrow a book or to buy stationery items.

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Fiction loans still make up around 70% of our borrowing and despite what you might read in the papers about e-books and kindles, we find that most keen readers prefer actual books. Popular books get read around 15 times before they are falling apart, so are still good value for money. Year 7’s are still timetabled in during their English lessons to learn about the LRC and where things are. Our LRC is very large compared to their primary school ones.

In October we were involved with Sherborne Literary Festival and

had Ali Sparkes, a teen author visit and speak to Year 7 and Year 8 pupils. Her talk was totally engaging and starting and finishing with magic tricks certainly got the students attention. Needless to say the stocks of her books in the LRC were totally depleted for a number of months after the visit.

It just goes to show that the power of meeting a real life author still works and inspires students to try books they might have previously passed by.

February saw the third Harry Potter Book Night and I feel the best yet.

Proceedings started in the LRC with refreshments and the sorting ceremony, where students were allocated their Hogwarts house.

Then it was off to Science where we were met by Professor Umbridge, Tonks and Professor Trelawney. Potions, Divination and

making golden snitches followed before our trek to Food Technology where Mrs Weasley led the students with jelly bean tasting, making edible golden snitches and owl biscuits as well as butter beer to drink. Finally it was back to the LRC for the house quiz.

World Book Day closely followed and the LRC was run by TweedleDee & Alice in Wonderland, with Tweedle-Dum on student reception. The Departments really embraced dressing up and Geography were the cast of The Wizard of Oz, even decorating one of the huts, PE were Superheroes and English looked great in their orange boiler suits from Holes, which is studied in English by students. Students were read a story in 5 parts, one part at the beginning of every lesson and World Book Day vouchers were given to every student and books were available in the LRC for them to swap for tokens.

The summer term was busy as ever with the LRC used by Year 11, 12 and 13 students preparing for their public exams. The stationery store was busy with all the essentials for exams available to the students.

Life is wonderful, challenging and complex. As a Church of England school we recognise this and seek to provide opportunities to rejoice, to understand and to embrace the whole of life. Through our Acts of Worship and throughout the life of the school we celebrate the uniqueness of each individual created in the image of God and seek to help young people to realise they are valuable. Our ‘I am me’ campaign provides a clear focus for this. Amidst the busyness of life, the school community is encouraged to take time to be still and reflect; to ponder life’s big questions and to be inspired to positive action.

Our Acts of Worship, Celebrations of Achievement assemblies and Prize Giving ceremonies celebrate the good and enriching contributions, attainments and endeavours of our pupils, and there are many opportunities for young people to grow and develop both within and outside of the curriculum. We aim to foster awareness that we are all global citizens and our Church Foundation and ‘Rights Respecting’ status provide an excellent framework for this. The generosity of students to our annual Harvest appeal

(supporting local food banks), Christmas shoebox appeal (donating gifts for children and adults in Serbia and Bulgaria) and fundraising for many charities at home and abroad is profoundly moving. Christian festivals are celebrated each year both within school and through occasions such as our annual Carol service held in Sherborne Abbey.

Students are encouraged to grapple with the complexities of life in a variety of ways, including in Year Assemblies and Acts of Worship. Each year we hold a Remembrance Service during which the alumni of Fosters School (one of the three schools which merged to become The Gryphon) who lost their lives in WWII are remembered and honoured. At times, life can seem bewildering

and challenging. Support is offered to the school community in many ways. During the school year 2016 – 2017 the Chaplain supported over 70 young people on an ongoing basis along with a significant number of staff and parents. Pastoral care is regarded as extremely important within the school and is a reflection of the love of God which accompanies us throughout our lives; even in the toughest of times. The Chaplain is on hand and available to offer support to members of the school community through every season of life.

Jesus said “I have come that they might have life – life in all of its fullness.” We seek to enable every member of the school community to discover that fullness of life for themselves.

The Reverend Diane Tregail Chaplain

Alumni News Alex Edwards

David Bell

Gavin Robertson

Squadron Leader Justin Butcher

I look back fondly at my time at The Gryphon, history

I spent seven years as a student at The Gryphon, working

After studying Biology at the Gryphon School, I became

I was a student at the Gryphon School at its creation

lessons were my favourite of the week and the trip to

my way from Year 7 all the way up to Sixth Form. I

enamoured with human physiology and disease. After

having previously been a student at Fosters Grammar

China in the Sixth Form was a real highlight for me. Since

studied a number of different subjects, leading to my A

leaving school in 2013, I began to study Biomedical

School. During those early days the school was

leaving The Gryphon in 2011, I have completed a BSc in

Levels in Music, IT, English Literature & Language &

Sciences at the University of Reading, allowing me to

established over the 3 sites of the original schools,

Biomedical Science and an MA in Child Health and

Ancient History.

explore topics from neurobiology to microbiology. As at

Fosters, Lord Digbys and St Aldhelms which resulted in

Development both in London where I am still living. I

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The Gryphon School, my time at University was

significant traveling time between some lessons. It was

love being in the city, there is always somewhere new to

I have many fond memories of the school. I enjoyed my

thoroughly enjoyable and passed far too quickly. I

a breath of fresh air when the new building was

discover and working and studying here has exposed me

involvement within the day-to-day life of the Music

became immersed in student life socially, being elected

constructed and we could finally be housed on the one

to new cultures and experiences. I really think there is

Department, the many laughs that were had with friends

Vice President of the St John Ambulance Society, and

site and the Gryphon School actually felt like one school.

nowhere better to live at this time in my life. I am

and teachers, and the first class support from the

academically, graduating with a First Class Honours

The creation of the school allowed those of us that had

currently working as a mentor at an inner city school

teachers and tutors.

degree. I currently work at Yeovil District Hospital as a

been friends outside of school since primary school to

Healthcare Assistant and as a Medical Laboratory

finally be at the same secondary school which cemented

deprived area where children come from a range of

After leaving The Gryphon, I went on to study music at

Assistant in the Haematology and Cellular Pathology

firm friendships, many of which are still in place today. I

backgrounds and for many of them English is not their

Manchester Metropolitan University, graduating with a

laboratories. Working alongside patients and healthcare

remember particularly fondly our sixth form which had

first language. It's very different to Dorset - living and

2:1. After graduating, I stayed up north to pursue my

professionals augmented my desire to apply my medical

around 40 students compared to the current 400 plus.

working in London has made me appreciate growing up

passion for music, where I currently play in an

knowledge practically. I therefore successfully applied to

in the countryside and how lucky I am to go have gone to

alternative rock band called NEWDAY.

study graduate entry medicine at the University of

The education I received at The Gryphon set me up

Warwick and I’m eager to start next September. The

perfectly for my future career within the Royal Air Force.

support and enthusiasm provided by teachers at The

I have been in the RAF for 22 years as an Air Traffic

whilst applying for teacher training. My school is in a

school in Sherborne. I feel really fortunate that I can still visit and stay with my family - the children at my school

We have recently released our new album ‘Champion’,

can't believe that there are real pigs and sheep living in

which can be found on all major music distribution sites

Gryphon School coupled with how frequently they went

Controller, my current role sees me providing specialist

the fields behind our house!

(iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, etc) and you can follow us on

above and beyond the scope of their roles was vital in

air traffic advice to the Directorate of Flying Training

Facebook @newdaymusicuk

attaining my full potential. For this, I will be forever

based in Bristol.

grateful.

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Kit Thomas-Peter

David Jackson

After leaving the Gryphon Sixth Form in 2010, having completed 3 A Levels, I attended St Mark and St John University in Plymouth to study Sport Science. Following a fantastic 3 years of university, I graduated and returned to The Gryphon School as a Teaching Assistant for a year before leaving for Canada, where I lived for 6 months in Toronto. During this time, I worked as a crew member on a harbour tours and dinner cruise ship on Lake Ontario. After returning to the UK in late 2014 I began working for a company called Deltic, working as a Senior Sales Executive.

Leaving The Gryphon School in 2005 with a selection of A levels under one arm and his trusty, signature guitar under the other, David Jackson headed to Bath Spa University where he subsequently achieved his degree in Commercial Music.

In 2015, I applied to join the RAF as a Logistic Officer. Following a rigorous selection process, including interviews, exams and leadership exercises I was invited to begin Initial Officer Training in January 2016.

Military training is designed to break you down and build you back up, that is exactly what it did. The skills I learned during this time were things I never thought I would do, I learned how to take apart a rifle, how to survive in the field, how to lead men and women and how to dust every inch of my room for inspection!

Six months later, having been through some gruelling training, I graduated as an Officer along with 120 others. This is undoubtedly my proudest day because of the immense amount of hard work it took to reach that point. I am now in my first post as Officer Commanding Mechanical Transport and Mobility at RAF Marham where I command a flight of 108 airmen and airwomen, some of whom are straight out of school, and some who have been in the RAF longer than I have been alive. This involves numerous challenges such as dealing with welfare issues, attending high level meetings with senior officers and writing reports for the 108 personnel in my flight. There are also a huge number of positives and amazing opportunities involved with my job including paid trips away skiing and parachuting, amazing social events such as the annual Summer Ball and getting to work with the most advanced technology and machines in the world.

After a year of touring the UK and realising that he needed a ‘plan B’, he was successful in securing an internship as a writer with a Bristol-based magazine.

Here he learnt many new skills, some through the company and many self-taught and met new people within the industry. Little did he know that his next job as a full-time video editor with Future Publishing in Bath, working on their games portfolio and trialling their new project with Sony called ‘Playstation Access’ would eventually lead him, via his job as a producer with the Yogscast, to set up his own company with fellow directors, Nathan and Rob. We Are Reach was born on 1 April 2017 in central Bath, as the creative agency behind the UK’s official PlayStation channel and on 8 June they won the category of ‘New Creative Business’ as part of Creative Bath’s new Creative Bath Awards. Of We Are Reach, Creative Bath stated that ‘They create the perfect fusion of what audiences want to see and the messages that their brands want to put out. This company has exceptional growth and prospects powered by an abundance of enthusiasm’.

Currently in LA, David said ‘The Gryphon School gave me opportunities and experiences I simply don’t believe I would have had access to at any other school.

I am forever grateful’.

Dan, David, Nathan and Rob at the Creative Bath Awards.

Subject Reports

Music This year’s packed schedule of music concerts and events began early on 21st October 2016 with a oneday music transition project funded by Dorset Music Service for some Year 6 and Year 5 students from our local Primary Schools to work with five members of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and some of our own Year 7 Gryphon instrumentalists.. The BSO team guided expertly the students in the composition of an atmospheric piece on the theme of ‘Journeys Around the World’ culminating in a highly enjoyable final performance to appreciative Primary School parents at the end of the day.

34 Our Autumn School Concert on 3rd November showcased the usual diverse range of music offered by our talented students – whether as soloists or within each of our music ensembles. Our thanks as ever to our dedicated team of peripatetic music teachers for their commitment to, and on-going support of our students’ musical progress throughout the year.

The undoubted highlight of the 2016-2017 year has to be our joint production with the Drama Department of the musical “Footloose” which was a tremendous success - very much down to the incredible dedication and commitment of all members of the cast, the orchestra and staff - who gave up their time so generously to help realise the potential of this very challenging show. It was a pleasure working with you all, and you all made it one of the most enjoyable shows I have ever directed.

The School Carol Service on 13th December managed to surpass the 2015 one with many parents and staff commenting on the sheer quality and variety of the music and ensembles that performed most ably

supported by our organist Simon Clarkson and our choral directors Nat Wilsher and Rosie Monaghan. It was wonderful to have the full Big Band also taking part for the first time as well as our Choirs, Brass, String and Recorder ensembles. Sincere thanks once again to all our male and female staff for singing so admirably and for giving their time to support our students and demonstrate that singing is something that can be continued beyond school.

In January our Primary Schools music roadshow once again provided an invaluable opportunity for our students to promote our various extra-curricular ensembles and to inspire the younger Primary School generation in singing and playing instruments. We visited four of our local schools in two days, giving four 45-minute concerts and performing a large range of musical genres and styles. Our rendition of “Baby Elephant Walk” proved a particular favourite with students!

The Footloose Orchestra with soloists also performed at this year’s Sherborne Rotary Club’s “Youth Makes Music” charity fundraising concert on 9th March. Our sincere thanks to all the students for the time that they so kindly gave up to take part in this most worthwhile of events, and for singing and performing so well throughout the evening.

On 6th April students from our eight local Sherborne area Primary Schools performed a concert version of the children’s’ musical “Bugsy Malone” for this year's Sherborne Schools Music Association ‘Showcase’, ably accompanied by senior members from our own Big Band. This year’s singing strategy, focusing on particular on getting more boys signing, has been coordinated by Alistair Dean from the Dean Academy,

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with rehearsals throughout the Spring Term. Our thanks to the Dorset Music Service for their financial support of this venture and to all the Primary School Head Teachers and music coordinators for their assistance, amazing support and enthusiasm over the Spring Term for providing quality time for the students to prepare for this event. The Quarr Hall was full to the brim with Primary School parents and the afternoon performance proved a wonderful showcase of the quality of singing in our area. The musical success and popularity of the showcase definitely proved that next year we will need to find a much larger offsite venue to continue to accommodate our raised musical aspirations.

On 31st April the Gryphon Choirs performed for the third year running at the prestigious Sherborne Abbey Music Festival in a free-to-attend combined performance with the professional Bournemouth Sinfonietta Choir under the Direction of David Gostick singing “Vive la Vélorution” by Alexander L'Estrange – a work celebrating the joys of cycling and the Tour de France! The massed Choirs were

accompanied by a professional Jazz quintet. The Gryphon girls ably held their own against the massed strength of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta! The extremely supportive audience particularly enjoyed the arrangement of “Daisy, Daisy”. We are extremely grateful

to the Abbey Festival Committee for their kind invitation to perform once again.

On the 6th July our Big Band was the core of the first ever massed Dorset schools’ orchestra’s concertat the Poole Lighthouse.

This was an opportunity for students ranging in age from 11 to 19 to rehearse and then perform a varied selection of famous classical pieces of music as arranged by the BBC to an audience of appreciative parents. The day proved an excellent opportunity for Gryphon

students to meet and play alongside their peers from other local Dorset Schools. My congratulations to all Big Band members for representing the school so admirably and for their sheer hard work and dedication in leading the performance at such a

high level. The day was such a success that a follow-up in two year’s time has already been proposed.

Finally, at the end of another incredibly busy musical year, our informal Summer Soirée concert on 13th July was a wonderful note to end on. There were so many outstanding solo and ensemble performances that it would be unfair to single out any individuals.

Sadly we once again say good-bye and good luck to our fantastic Year 13 and Year 11 leavers – the majority of whom have been loyal members of one ensemble or another for the duration of their school careers.

Thank you to all who have supported and who continue to support our students and the Music Department. My thanks to my fantastic colleagues, Miss Natalie Wilsher, Mrs Teresa Bell and each of our visiting peripatetic teachers.

Everything we achieve is a team effort and everyone’s contribution is highly valued and appreciated.

Val Mizen – Head of Music

Drama

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The Drama Department has had another brilliant year with fantastic academic results as well as numerous events outside of the curriculum. The Autumn Term ended, after weeks of rehearsals, with our production of Footloose. Then, in the Spring Term, our Rock Challenge Team competed in the Premier League Southern Final, achieving five Premier Awards of Excellence for entertainment, soundtrack, stage crew, video performance and the spirit of rock challenge.

This was an outstanding achievement and was clearly our best Rock Challenge performance to date. During the Spring Term students also competed in the Sherborne Acting Competition where we achieved first place in the junior monologue and second in the senior monologue as well as the junior duologue.

Additionally, the Summer Term saw our Key Stage 3 Showcase Evening where 45 students from years 7-9 performed a variety of different pieces ranging from dances to Shakespearian monologues.

Finally, during results days we were overwhelmed with the success of our students particularly our AS cohort who achieved the best AS results in the school.

Footloose was performed on three nights and had rave reviews from students, parents and staff.

Headteacher Steve Hillier wrote: “The professional quality of the Footloose production has been outstanding. From the set design, to lighting, choreography, acting and musical production, students have been incredibly professional and their hard work and dedication has delivered an amazing show that we are all exceptionally proud of.”

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In the Spring Term over 70 students from all year groups participated in Rock Challenge competition.

Rock Challenge is an international dance and drama competition that encourages young people to lead healthy lifestyles and to be their best without the need for tobacco, alcohol or other drugs. Twelve schools from the south of England showcased an eight minute performance on their chosen theme.

Our piece was titled ‘Once it’s Gone You Can’t Get It Back’ which explored the concept of a time and how important it is to live your life to the fullest instead of being misled and wasting it away. The whole production was led by Georgina Chidgey and Tom Forrest, two Year 11 students, who choreographed the performance, ran rehearsals, created ideas for costume as well as chose the soundtrack. Additionally, our set design and stage crew were organised by two Sixth Form students, Gabriel Macey and Rob Stephenson, who worked tirelessly to build our impressive, movable and light up set. The overall competition was fierce with

our competitors being experienced Premier League performance groups however; The Gryphon Rock devising a dance performance focused on the important issue of ‘Mental Health’. The evening was presented by Year 9 students Maizie White and Ned VinesBooth who both also performed in the showcase too. The students worked brilliantly to put the evening together in a short space of time, putting 100% effort into every rehearsal. The professional level of performing

demonstrated how talented our younger students are. All involved should be very proud of their hard work as it was a fabulous evening!

Finally, congratulations to all our GCSE and A Level students for their brilliant results, it was clear their hard work and determination paid off! A particular congratulations to our AS cohort as their excellent results were top of the school!

Holly Young Head of Drama

English and Media Studies

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2016-17 was our most successful year to date in English. Not only did we successfully deliver two entirely new GCSE courses, designed to be more rigorous and challenging, but we also achieved results above the national average in both English Language and English Literature. In total, 81% of our students achieved a new ‘standard’ pass in either of the English GCSEs, which was an increase from the year before despite it being assessed purely by exam. Many of our students have continued into the Sixth Form to study their first choice courses, including at least 80 students taking either English Language or Literature A Level.

Again, despite many changes to the texts we teach, and how we assess students in the Sixth Form, results were high, with a staggering 71% of students sitting English Literature gaining an A*-B grade. Two of our A* students were accepted to go to Cambridge University to study English Literature at undergraduate level, and many more gained places at fantastic Universities like Sussex and Leeds. Our Media students were also very successful in gaining places on quality courses around the country.

held in May 2017. With their witty Shakespeare inspired speech titled, ‘What’s in a name?’ all three students spoke eloquently and bowled the judges over, and as a result, despite being up against some stiff competition from many top independent schools, they were rewarded with 2nd place overall. This means that the Gryphon have the 2nd best public speaking team in the country! Kinga Kowalewska also deserves a mention as she was a key part of the team during the early rounds.

Last year was also busy in terms of extra-curricular activities in the department, including an A Level English Language trip to the British Library, participation in the local Sherborne Sessions and a Year 8 ‘Talk the Talk’ day in the Summer Term. We also had continued success in the Rotary Club’s ‘Youth Speaks’ programme. Youth Speaks is an annual competition which aims to offer young people the experience of speaking on a public platform. This year’s senior team, Callum Henry (Y12), Oskar Maitland (Y10) and Caroline Hawkins (Y12), won four previous local and regional rounds to reach the National final Prue Bendell Head of English

Maths

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The Gryphon School Mathematics Department continues to be one of the highest performing Departments in Dorset having achieved a headline figure for GCSE performance of 80% grade 4 and above for a fourth consecutive year. The Department has a thriving post-16 offer; over a quarter of the Sixth Form study Mathematics. We offer specialist teaching of Mathematics, Statistics and Mechanics which together form the new Mathematics A Level.

We offer a dedicated Further Mathematics course.

New for 2017 is our Level 3 Quantitative Reasoning Qualification; supporting the mathematical content of the social science subjects. We could not offer this without a team of twelve fully qualified, specialist mathematics teachers.

To complement our academic offer we run many activities throughout the year for students of all ages and abilities.

The UKMC sees over 300,000 students taking part in a National Mathematical Challenge at each of three levels; Junior (Year 7 – 9), Intermediate (Year 10 – 11) and Senior (Sixth Form) level. At The Gryphon, over 100 of our most able students compete at each level. In 2017, 81 students gained Bronze certificates, 57 gained Silver certificates and 17 achieved the Gold Certificate. This year, 8 students across all of the challenges joined approximately 5000 other UK students progressing to the Pink Kangaroo International Mathematics Challenge.

James Phillips Head of Maths

In addition to the individual challenge we enter teams into the UK Team Mathematical Challenge. In 2017, Anthony Shaw and Patrick Unwin took two Year 13 and two Year 12 students to Poole High School to compete against and work alongside other able Sixth Form mathematicians.

Further to the National Competition, we run our own Primary Mathematical challenge day, where students from Year 6 join students from The Gryphon School in order to solve problems individually, in pairs and as groups. Sherborne Primary School were the winners in summer 2017.

We continue to run National Mathematics events.

• National Cipher Challenge (October/November) • STEM Challenges (varying times of the year) • National Number Day (3rd February 2017) • Pi Day (14th March 2017 – 3/14) We offer a variety of extracurricular activities throughout the year during the lunch break; Chess club, Warhammer and Lego clubs.

These extra-curricular activities lead to events where our students liaise with the primary schools. Each year we run the Primary chess challenge with year 6 students from the local feeder schools. This year the winning school was St Marys CE Primary School from Bradford Abbas.

Science This year has seen a lot of changes in full swing within the Science department. We have introduced the new GCSE to Year 9, which is now starting at the beginning of Year 9, giving us a 3 year GCSE. This will result in students taking either Combined Science or Separate Science exams at the end of Year 11, being graded on the new 9-1 scale. Science Leadership decided that this would give a suitable amount of time to cover the content set out in the new GCSE specifications.

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Our Year 10 pupils have progressed into the last year of their GCSE course and will be the first cohort to sit the examinations that will give them a grade from the 1-9 scale. The pupils in Year 13, taking the new A level courses in Biology, Physics and Chemistry sat the first of the new style examinations, with some excellent grades being obtained, which allowed many of those pupils to move on to their chosen next steps after Sixth Form.

The structure of the science leadership has altered slightly also, with new additions to the group, namely with Mrs Sophia Bending as KS4 lead teacher and Mrs Cath Moore and Dr Tony Otto taking on the Teaching and Learning responsibilities within the Department.

Mrs Beth Martin has also taken on the Chemistry Lead and along with Mr Lee Moore (Head of Biology) and Mr Clark Davies (Head of Physics) these three share out the Head of Department role.

Mrs Beth Martin ran a STEM club for Year 8, where pupils worked in teams on a project for the BP ultimate STEM challenge. The pupils thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of the task and got a lot out of working independently on the activities. Dr Tony Otto organised an event where the Gryphon’s Challenge Plus pupils hosted pupils from the SWAG for a science based problem solving day, which was a huge success and was enjoyed by all who attended.

Coursework in Science came to an end this year and from now on both KS4 and KS5 will be assessed with examinations at the end of the course. Years 7 and 8 have a greater emphasis on the literacy aspects of Science and the continued development of the ‘Let’s Think’ programme which encourages team work and problem solving within a scientific context.

We welcomed Miss Alicia Upton, Mrs Laura Clark and Mr Andrew Irwin to the team and said goodbye to Mr Harry Collis and Mr Martin Gunn, the latter who has been with The Gryphon School for more than 25 years.

We also have Miss Becky Thomas training with us this year and her previous experience as an engineer in the defence industry will be sure to inspire some young scientists of the future.

Despite all these changes the Department continues to offer a wide range of opportunities for our students.

We visited the JET fusion reactor in Oxford with our Year 12 Physics pupils, where pupils were able to immerse themselves in some cutting edge Physics which could potentially solve the global fuel crisis; Year 8 pupils were taken to the Salter’s chemistry competition and achieved 95/100 making them the overall champions of the event; Mr James Grierson ran an Isaac Physics workshop, linking with schools within the Ogden Trust and we also hosted students from Bath university to give a talk and demonstration on spectroscopy.

Our lunchtime Science Club remains popular with students getting really hands on with a variety of fun science activities. The group took part in everything from woodlice racing and pond dipping to CD hover boards and making gloop (one of the more messy activities). Towards the end of the year the students participated in a mini-project set by the Royal Society of Chemistry to create their own bath bombs which they then tested for ‘fizzyness’.

It has been an action packed year with a wide range of activities that have hopefully sparked the imagination of the pupils in the school. We are back underway with a new year and look forward to the new adventures that it will present.

History

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The academic year saw the first cohort of A Level History students studying the new specification and their results reflected a real engagement with the rigours of examination and independent research assignments. The History Department has started the delivery of new specifications for GCSE History and A Level Ancient History with this year’s cohort of Year 11 students being the first to complete the course. The changes have provided an opportunity for teachers and students to study new aspects of the course, ranging from an in-depth option on Norman England to a local history study of a secret police prison in East Berlin. The new A Level Ancient History course includes a study of the Persian Wars which has been added to the more familiar study of Sparta and Rome under the JulioClaudian emperors.

The academic year saw the first cohort of A Level History students studying the new specification and their results reflected a real engagement with.

Teachers in the Department have been busy: the year marked the publication of Rob Harris’ second book, “The Making of Modern Russia” and Steve Phillips was involved in Ofqual’s review of AS Levels in the curriculum.

During the year A Level students attended a talk by

the noted historian Simon Sebag Montefiore who spoke on aspects of Russian History. The year saw some exceptional work produced by students and the enthusiasm they bring to projects, especially making models, has been impressive. As usual the highlight of the year has been trips, giving students life-changing experiences.

This year’s trips included successful expeditions to Sherborne Castle (Year 7),

Big Pit, Blaenafon (Year 9) and Berlin with Year 10.

This year’s Berlin trip was the fifteenth time we have taken a group of Gryphon School students to Berlin and every year the city does not fail to surprise and excite me. I can only imagine the feelings of those students arriving in the city for the first time. Berlin offers a unique mix of the past, present and future and it is a city constantly changing with its role within Germany and Europe. Our visit included tours of the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, the Stasi prison in East Berlin and a night time visit to Potsdamerplatz, the new city centre, which is lit up with falling snow lighting effects as it plays host to international film stars during the Berlin Film Festival.

The trip to the Stasi prison in East Berlin was of particular benefit this year as this is the site that our GCSE students will be studying for their ‘History Around Us’ unit on the new GCSE course. The students on the trip had a chance to see first-hand the rooms used by the Communist government of East Germany to interrogate political

prisoners as well as the cells where prisoners were kept, complete with hard wooden beds that were always too short for the average prisoner and a bucket that served as a toilet. The students were able to take photographs and collect information that they can share with their peers, adding something extra to their study of the past.

The DDR Museum, which covers aspects of life under Communism, had been substantially enlarged since last year and now included a virtual reality drive in a Trabant car, an experience in an East German apartment lift, (complete with worrying shudders and power cuts), followed by a chance to wear East German clothes, sit and watch East German television

programmes and even sit on an East German toilet!

In the words of one of the students: An urban world met our gazes, diverse architecture and a juxtaposition of poverty and wealth; dilapidation and newness, were overarching themes, we felt.

Glass skyscrapers, concrete living blocks, trams, wide open squares, and last week’s snow were among the novelties of this city so alien to our Dorset/ Somerset lives.

Steve Phillips Head of History

Geography The focus over the past year has been to develop a love of Geography for all the students at The Gryphon, which links closely to one of the Prince’s Teaching Institute aims: ‘Help us unlock the love of learning in every classroom in the UK’. The numbers choosing Geography at GCSE have doubled and students have responded well to the variety of activities.

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We have earned the PTI Mark; through the implementation of Media literacy into our Year 9 curriculum and sharing good practice of fieldwork data collection with schools across the country.

Year 9 students this year have been deciding ‘Is the diamond trade

Modern Foreign Languages Modern Foreign Languages positive or negative for the development of developing countries?’ through studying a range of media clips and images.

Students have created a range of models and taken part in some exciting competitions. The Year 7 students enjoyed making a ‘river in a box’ with one student creating a whole river in Lego. Year 8 students created some fantastic Antarctica contour models and the Year 9 students had fun during the ‘Design a Volcano Competition’.

2016 to 2017 has seen some changes; Miss Schofield has received her qualified teacher standard and we have trained Ben Griffiths through the School Direct training scheme enabling him to get his first teaching job at

Malmesbury School. We had to say a sad goodbye to Mr Ovenden in July; his commitment to detail when teaching Human Geography will be sadly missed by our Sixth Form students.

The students have also had the opportunity to learn outside of the classroom. In June we took the Year 7 students to Exeter to study flood defences.

The Year 8 students went to Bristol Zoo to take part in a workshop on animal adaptions to extreme environments.

The Year 9 trip to Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove took place in beautiful sunny weather in early October. The Year 10 students were

also treated to a day at Chesil beach, to collect data and study coastal processes.

The Year 12 Geographers have had two residential trips, the first to Swanage in October and the second to Porthcawl in South Wales in July. Students gained an understanding of how urban areas are ‘rebranded’ and collected data on sand dune succession for their NEA. I believe we have had another fantastic year as a Department and have definitely given our students here at The Gryphon an opportunity to foster a sense of wonder at the beauty of the world around them and truly unlock the love of Geography.

Sally Dutton – Head of Geography

Students studying Modern Foreign Languages at The Gryphon School can take advantage of a number of opportunities to develop their language skills and appreciation of other cultures.

These include residential trips abroad and European, regional and inter-school competitions.

Year 8 French Trip to Normandy Every year students in Year 8 visit Normandy and the surrounding areas as part of a residential trip that aims to improve their confidence when speaking as well as introduce them to traditional French life. Students stay in the pretty village of Ambrières-lesVallées and take part in town trails following French directions to different points of interest as well as making croissants in the local French bakery. We visit the market town of Fougères where students can buy souvenirs and traditional crêpes in French as well as Mont St Michel, St Malo and the Bayeux Tapestry.

A Level trip to Granville KS5 students are invited to take part in the Sherborne Douzelage visit to Granville. During their stay, students participate in the Granville Carnival and spend the day in a local school so that they can experience student life in France first hand. They also visit the landing beaches on the Normandy coast. Upon returning their confidence and fluency are vastly improved and this prepares them very well for the speaking exams.

Gryphon Day of Languages KS3 students took part in a languages day in school. They had the chance to watch a Spanish play, a French film, research and plan a holiday to Germany and take part in a range of other cultural activities. Different year groups had different activities but all students took part fantastically and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to experience different linguistic and cultural activities.

Amy Whiting Head of MFL

together to find the best way of translating some very tricky texts with teachers from all three school on hand to help and offer guidance.

Visiting French Play

German Exchange

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The Gryphon School has run a successful German Exchange for more than 20 years to the town of Bad Kötzing. During their stay students have the opportunity to spend the day in a German school completing all the lessons that their exchange partner has that day and visit the Allianz Arena home to the Bayern Munich football club.

Students spend a large amount of time with their host families visiting the area and sampling the local cuisine, and speaking skills and confidence develop hugely over a short amount of time.

Juvenes Translatores and Translation Workshop Juvenes Translatores is a translation contest for secondary school pupils in the European Union organised by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation. All of our KS5

students take part in this and to help them prepare for the official competition they joined up with students from Sherborne Boys’ and Sherborne Girls’ School to take part in a workshop. They worked

Year 7 and 8 French students had the opportunity to watch a play put on by a visiting theatre company.

They thoroughly embraced the chance to join in and try out their acting skills in French! The students enjoyed the experience and it was fantastic to see how confident they were in speaking to the actors as well getting up on stage.

Art, Design & Photography

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Students once again experienced an incredibly diverse range of opportunities throughout our busy year in Art, Design & Photography. This year saw exciting changes to our KS4 curriculum, with GCSE Photography and Three-Dimensional Design joining our suite of creative subjects. This builds upon the foundations of our KS3 Creative Design curriculum, which encompasses the best of Art, Design and Digital creativity, with the emphasis upon combining both traditional practical approaches and digital techniques, providing a rich, holistic experience. The success of this first year has led to the inception of a new KS5 A Level ThreeDimensional Design course, which replaces Product Design and which enables students’ to experience an expansive range of creative opportunities, broadening students’ knowledge and understanding and furnishing them with a creative skill set and thirst for innovation.

In November the International Award Winning Artist and Illustrator, Darrell Warner gave a lecture showcasing his incredible career, focusing specifically upon his costume concept illustrations for Feature Films, including The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Guardians of the Galaxy to name but a few.

Darrell presented his richly illustrated talk to a captivated audience of GCSE and A Level Art, Design & Photography

students who gained a real insight into what it takes to be successful in pursuing a career in the arts.

During December and January, our GCSE and A Level Art & Photography students had the opportunity to visit London art galleries through our ever-popular programme of trips.

Students’ experience and understanding was enriched with visits to Tate Modern, The National Portrait Gallery (to view the annual Taylor Wessing Photography Prize), The Saatchi Gallery and The Royal Academy. These inspirational gallery visits played an important part in the development of students’ personal work as the year progressed.

Our annual Business & Enterprise Day contribution to art within the community saw Year 9 students once again excelling with their Art, Photography and Textiles skills, taking part in a variety of projects

including the production of a mural which adorns a bus shelter in Milborne Port. One of our Year 13 Art students, Hollie Clarkson submitted work to be considered for inclusion in the annual Royal Academy A Level Art Summer Exhibition and we were thrilled to discover that she made the shortlist of 65 works out of 2400 submissions! This is a highly contested award, competing against the countries best young artists.

The exciting year came to a brilliant close with our annual Art, Design & Photography Exhibition showcasing the work of our departing Year 13 students and featured a wide variety of styles, media and approaches and provided an opportunity to celebrate the completion of their courses of study before embarking upon Foundation and Degree courses.

Michael Fenton-Wilkinson Head of Art, Design & Photography

Food and Cooking It has been a busy year which has included the implementation of the new Level 1 and 2 in Hospitality and Catering. This is a vocational course linked with industry which prepares our students for a career in the world of food and hospitality.

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October saw the Year 12 and 13 BTEC students helping at the Live,Love Ball in Milborne Port. This was a charity fund raiser for Cancer Research and the Rendezvous in Sherborne, and gave our students the opportunity to work alongside leading professionals offering insight into event managing and catering. The Ball was a great success raising thousands for charity. The students felt they have been given a real experience of hospitality for large numbers as over two hundred and fifty people attended.

As part of the new BTEC our students have organised a succession of charity fundraisers including a Sherlock inspired Ball, a summer holiday themed evening, an Indian buffet and a Mad Hatter inspired Tea party. Over £400 was raised by these events for varying charites, including the Teenage Cancer Trust, Maternity Worldwide and Mercy in Action.

In November 45 students from Years 10, 11 and 12 joined us for our biannual visit to the Good Food Show in Birmingham. This included an opportunity to see Paul Hollywood give a demonstration of his skills in the live theatre. Our annual ‘Christmas Cake Bake Along’ involved 22 staff and students making and decorating a wide range of shapes and designs of cakes. Year 9 held a Gryphon Bake Off during their lessons and cooked their chosen signature dishes in a tightly contested school final. Claudia Foote, a former pupil and from Fudges Bakery Stalbridge, and Mrs Peacocke were amazed by

the high standard with Marhruk Rasheed coming out as the Champion.

It was another successful year for the Future Chef competition with Marcus Wilcox a former pupil and now Chef Proprietor of ‘Sienna’ in Dorchester and Bruce, Head Chef at the Ship Inn West Stour judging the School Final. The School Final was won by Ruby Boland who went on to win the local final to become Somerset Champion and then represented the county at the South Western regional final, where she has Highly Commended.

Future Chef is a National

competition which pairs aspiring chefs with a chef partner to help develop their skills. Ruby’s partner was Executive Chef Simon Hadyn, who is in charge of food production at Yeovilton Airbase.

Meanwhile several students developed their cooking skills for the Bronze and Silver Duke of Edinburgh Awards developing skills in baking, pasta making, sauces and cake decorating

Caroline Elsworth Head of Food and Cooking

Computing The year started with the computing syllabus seeing full integration into the Department across all Key Stages. Continuing awareness of the development from ICT to Computing has grown alongside the sta and student skills and expertise. This also sees consistency being delivered from KS3-KS5.

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Through the course of the entire year the Computing Department has run lunchtime clubs nearly every day of the week. This has involved students from all year groups across a wide range of skills and abilities, allowing students access to develop classroom skills further, form friendships outside the year group and share knowledge and expertise amongst themselves.

At the start of the year a Unity Programming Club was trialled where students were encouraged to develop gaming programming skills that they had learned from day to day teaching. Later in the year this developed

into an EPQ student using programming skills to build a small robot using basic movements and sensors in order to allow the robot to perform some simple duties using a Raspberry Pi. The Year 12 trip to Digital Wave in Bournemouth was a huge success with a small group of Year 12 and 13 students who had opted for either Computer Science or ICT being allowed the opportunity to start to develop those all-important networks of people and potential future employers. Our Sixth Form leavers obtained entry to top universities and entered a number of key areas in the computing industry.

Towards the end of the year the Department welcomed our ďŹ rst Troops to Teacher trainee who has now joined the department for the next two years.

Nigel White Head of Computing

Law

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I am setting down student’s experiences during the past year.

‘Witnessing a domestic violence case at the local Magistrates’ Court where the victim’s sexuality was being used against her in attempts of persuading the magistrates into believing she was lying, left me bewildered. In that moment I knew as an advocate for women’s rights, that I had found something I was truly passionate about - Law. There is no excuse in my opinion in using a woman’s sexuality against her when it undermines the movement for female sexual liberation and would not be the case for the opposite sex’.

– Alicia Caldentey Langley My visit to the Inns of Court ‘Earlier this year I travelled to London after being accepted onto a course called ‘Becoming a Barrister’, this was a day's course being held at the Inner Temple Inn. I decided to attend this course as I am already inspired by pursuing a career in the legal profession. The course allowed me to experience ‘in person’ deliberations from top Barristers and Judges in the profession. I found the experience very interesting and motivating. I was

able to meet students like myself all pursuing a career in the profession. My day in London at the Inn left me in no doubt that I am on the right career path. – Owen Down ‘During the last two years I have worked in a local law firm, closing files on residential properties.

This has given me practical experience in the legal system and provided me with connections to qualified legal personnel. In the last year my job role has changed, as I now shadow a senior partner during some of her client meetings. This has increased my experience of everyday work in a solicitors practice; I have also been introduced to elements of Trust Law. Through this work place experience it has confirmed my passion for law and has inspired me to pursue a law degree and legal career.’ - Jessie Boa Francesca Gillingham Head of Law

Psychology

Health and Social Care

Psychology students had a very successful and enjoyable year in 2016-17. In the Autumn term Year 12 students planned their own practical research and then visited Bristol Zoo in order to gain experience of conducting practical research. At the zoo we conducted observational research on two species of animals and attended lectures, in which we learnt about animal learning and were able to apply our understanding of behaviourist principles to understand how the zoo staff train animals to take medication. Upon returning to school, students analysed the data they had collected in order to draw conclusions about the differences in animal behaviour.

This subject is delivered in Key Stages 4 & 5 as a BTEC course. This more vocational approach to learning gives students across both levels the opportunity to experience the practical world of health and social care along with applying the theory through assessments.

Students also collected data through research into humans, using self-report investigations and conducted experimental research in which students classically conditioned their classmates to blink in response to a bell. Meanwhile, Year 13 have been conducting practical research, using family and friends as participants. Many students chose to investigate causes of stress and ways of measuring stress, through setting friends challenges such as completing the Buzz Wire game and measuring sweat responses using a galvanic skin response monitor.

Rachel Blakemore Head of Psychology

During the past year students have been to visit local nursery settings, care homes, day care centres, Yeovil District Hospital and reception classes in local primary schools. Professional visits enhance the students’ learning and this is an area we are continuing to develop. The subject is ever changing and those working in the industry have up to date information to pass on to the students which augments their studies.

In Key Stage 4 year 10 students spent a week in a placement which developed their communication skills, ability to research independently and gave them the opportunity to experience a sector within the local area. Feedback from employers and students was very positive. Simulation activities along with key assessments were undertaken as part of the overall exam process.

Key Stage 5 students took part in a round robin of visits to enable them to experience a wide range of settings as well as arranging their own long term placement in Year 13. The experience gained, alongside the theoretical element of the course, helped students with their university or employment applications. As a Department we were delighted that one of our Year 13 students once again gained a place to train as a midwife which is a very popular course with a rigorous

application process. Other students were successful in gaining placements for early years’ education courses and apprenticeships within early year’s settings.

The department remains involved in working with Time to Change and its campaign to break down the barriers and taboo of mental health which affects all sections of society, including young people in education.

Overall the students had a successful year resulting in a good set of results enabling students to move on in their career or educational pathway.

Jackie Brighouse Head of Health and Social Care

Business

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The Business Studies department has had a busy year, with changes of course and staff changes to take on board.

ably assisted by the Year 13 BTEC Travel and Tourism students who worked with and guided the primary students through the various tasks.

Over the course of the year, we welcomed Mr Strowger into the department. There have been a range of new ideas and activities added into our teaching, with students continuing to enjoy considering real businesses and business problems.

We have also had six teams of students from Years 10, 11 and 12 taking part in the Student Investor Challenge a national competition with each team investing a virtual £100,000 on the Stock Exchange. Whilst we didn’t quite manage to qualify for the chance to go to New York, the students generally managed to completely outperform the staff efforts.

The Year 12 Business Students have been completing the new Applied General Qualification. The applied nature of this qualification has required students to develop their research and presentation skills to complete portfolios of work. One of the units of coursework completed centred on the Merlin Entertainments group (owner of Thorpe Park, Madam Tussauds, the Sealife Centre and many other brands) with students completing detailed analysis of how this business has developed and maintained a competitive advantage. Another unit required students to develop their own ideas for pop up businesses. The range of ideas investigated provides enough evidence to indicate that some of these students will go on to become budding entrepreneurs of the future.

In March, we hosted our annual Business & Enterprise Day for Year 6 students from local feeder primary schools. The event was called ‘Be the Boss’ and was designed to develop a range of enterprise skills such as team work, communication and problem solving as well as introducing the students to business topics such as marketing and promotion. This event was very

BTEC Level 3 Travel and Tourism students were given the opportunity to learn more about events management when they were given the opportunity to help out with the ‘Give Life, Live Life’ Roaring 20s Charity Ball in Milborne Port.

The ball was organised by Claire’s Catering who briefed the volunteers and raised money for Cancer Research UK and The Rendezvous in Sherborne. The students worked tirelessly putting together a slide show and helping to set up, run and clear up after the event.

Results day in August 2017 saw an outstanding set of examination results for both our Applied Business Studies A level student and our Year 13 A Level Economics students. These students achieved a fantastic 22 A* grades between them. With many of these now at university or taking up apprenticeships, we wish them luck in the future.

Tom Crassweller – Head of Business

Religious Education In Religious Education at The Gryphon we want our young people to become tolerant members of a global society, who understand and accept difference, but who are also willing to stand up for what they believe is right. We do this through blending a rigorous academic program, which focuses on developing philosophical thinking, with opportunities for students to reflect on and discuss their own views on ultimate questions.

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This approach is exemplified not only in the classroom but in the number of opportunities we offer pupils in a range of trips and visits.

Year 9 students at The Gryphon had the superb opportunity to hear William Bergman, a Holocaust survivor give his testimony as part of a Holocaust memorial day here at the school. William’s incredible account was both moving and thoughtprovoking and all of the students gained so much from hearing his testimony. In addition 49 students travelled to London to visit the Holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War Museum. We were able to visit the entire museum and had a talk from one of the education leaders to explore the artefacts more closely. All of the exhibitions were fascinating; however, it was the Holocaust exhibition that really stood out. The students were fantastic, asking thoughtful questions and reflecting carefully on what they saw and heard.

Year 9 Students were also given the opportunity to create a personal reflection on the Holocaust and we had a number of outstanding works of art and writing submitted which really demonstrated the impact that this day had on our students.

A highlight of 2017 for the RE department was the visit to mystical and magical India involving twenty

three students from across Years 10 and 11. Over eleven days we saw many great sites such as the Taj Mahal, sunrise and sunset on the River Ganges and the Red Fort. To do this we travelled by plane, train, bus, elephant, rickshaw and even camel! This life changing trip exposes our students to a world very different from ours, including a day in the ASHA slum projects. No one returns from this extravaganza of the senses unchanged.

As a result of the connections we made at ASHA we had the founder of the charity, Dr Kiran Martin visit The Gryphon, along with a student from the slums. They spoke

movingly to Year 7 about how the project changes lives. A joint schools trip with Sherborne Girls, Leweston and the Gryphon is now being arranged for Year 12 to work in the project.

We are proud of having students who want to contribute to the wider world community, both by learning in the class room and by experiencing it first-hand.

Stephanie Rann Head of RE

Rugby

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Sport The Gryphon School has always regarded sport as one of its strengths over the years and this year was no exception.

Pupils from all year groups participate in four hours of Physical Education a fortnight in a whole host of activities, giving them the skills and understanding to participate in a well-structured and personalised curriculum.

With an enthusiastic and knowledgeable group of teachers within the Physical Education Department, pupils enjoy the positive atmosphere created in lessons and the atmosphere and buzz around sport has created an encouraging environment around the school.

Having strong links with Sherborne Rugby Club has always assisted The Gryphon School with large numbers of pupils wanting to pick up and develop their skills within the game. We are finding more and more pupils wanting to play both within school and outside of school on a consistent basis. With such a large number participating, the results are impressive with strong performances coming across the school from Year 7 (Under 12) right up to the Sixth Form 1st XV (under 18). The rugby teams enter the County Cup Competitions at all available age groups as well as the Natwest National Cup Competition

at Under 15 and Under 18 level an in the past The Gryphon School has reached the last 32 top rugby schools in the country, demonstrating how well the players are developing as they move up the school. We have also won the Dorset Cup at Under 16 level as well as coming Runners Up in the Under 14 South West State School Rugby Championships.

Throughout the rugby season we keep a watchful eye on all those playing and look for particular individuals who exhibit high levels of commitment, motivation and sportsmanship in training and during fixtures. Each team has a

Player of the Year who is rewarded for his efforts at the Annual Sports Award Evening. Last years’ winners from Year 7-13 were Sonny Staunton, Lewis O’Grady, Dylan Henderson, Angus Buckland, Luke Garland and Hywell Yandell. A number of individuals were also selected to represent the Dorset and Wiltshire side as well as being involved with the Bath Rugby Development Squads in their respective age groups. These included; Dylan Henderson, Jack Wiltshire, Israel Mason-Williams, Max Harvey, Samuel Hodge and Henry Brennan Craddock.

We also experienced an increase in the number of girls taking up the sport and the following pupils made a real impression by being selected to play representative rugby. These included; Jodie Genes, Megan Yates, Alice Lockwood and Vanessa Paice.

Although these particularly players were selected to take their skills and understanding of the game to the next level, we are immensely proud of all the pupils who turn up each week to train and develop as both individuals and as a team.

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Football

Netball

Football at The Gryphon School seems to be growing more and more with pupils joining the school from outside of the catchment area and players committing to regular session to develop their techniques and tactics used within the game. We have seen a steady increase in participation in training and clubs from all year groups.

Alongside the other sports Netball at the Gryphon school has continued to flourish in popularity and strength over recent years. Having strong links with Yeovil Netball Club has allowed many of the pupils to represent the School and the local netball club with great success. We have more than 60 girls at training every week from September to April, as well as those taking part in fixtures across the whole year.

With links to local clubs being developed more and more, there have been a larger numbers of players representing the school in football than ever before. With so many individuals wanting to play, the results the teams managed to achieve were very impressive. The highlight of the year was when the Year 11 Team beat Millfield School 10-1.

Once again it is very pleasing to see how our female footballers are progressing with more opportunities provided for them.

Utilising the expertise of the Yeovil Town Ladies Football Team and The Gryphon School staff has seen a consistent number of girls playing for fun and in competition. We are proud to see some of our most

talented footballers flourishing at higher levels of the game. Emily Wilson White in particular has been involved with Yeovil Town Ladies team as well as the regional side in the area. Two of our Year 11 students, William Hopkins and Oliver Hebbard, are also gained huge amounts from working with Yeovil Town FC and Swindon Town FC respectively. The access to state of the art facilities and the ability to work with professional coaching staff has enabled great progress for these boys, which in turn filters down to others they play with at school.

We honoured several of our most talented and committed footballers in our end of year

Sports Awards, to recognise the enthusiasm and dedication that they had shown throughout the year. For girls football, these were Emily Tregale and Sophie Garcia and for boys football Bradley Davison, Konrad Maitland, Mason Ridout, Regan Taliby, George Daniels and Oliver Marshall.

Congratulations to these students, and huge thanks to all of those involved this year.

Results during netball fixtures were highly successful with many of The Gryphon School teams beating their opposition with high score levels. Our greatest success was the Year 9 girls’ team, who qualified for the Dorset Schools County Competition was again for a third year in succession. Their commitment and motivation towards the game is second to none. All our teams competed in the Yeovil and District League, where we have also had great success.

We have a number of players who have been selected for senior teams at Yeovil Netball Club, as well as for the England Netball Talent Pathway within Somerset. Katie Giles was selected to be part of the Somerset County Netball pathway, which involved working with the top coaches and players at under-16 across Somerset. The girls were also part of the Somerset Satellite academy, which is for talented under-14 players across Somerset.

Isabelle Walters was successful in making this group for the 2016-2017 season.

As well as our links with Yeovil Netball Club, our success has also come from expertise from the staff

within the Department who all have heavy involvement in netball outside of their working hours. Mrs Tanya Gibbs is a player for Bath Netball club, where she plays and trains with players from the Bath Netball Super League team, as well as England players. Miss Laura Harry is an A award umpire as well as an England Netball umpire tutor and assessor. She umpires within the England Premier League, and works with international umpires on and off the court. Miss Jo Peters is a Level 2 qualified coach at Yeovil Netball club and is the Head Coach of the regional team who play within the South West

League. Miss Peters is also a coach within the England Netball pathway, and coaches the Somerset County Academy girls.

The Players of the Year for Netball were recognised for their ability to motivate the players around them, always giving 100% on court and giving up time to practice their skills and help bring on their peers.

These included Katie Honeywell, Emilia Mears, Amy Mortimer, Katie Giles, Jessica Gaylard and Amy Luck.

Hockey Hockey has also grown over the years particularly with the success of the girls’ teams. The main hockey season is between September and Christmas and pupils in all year groups compete on a regular basis.

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Throughout the season the girls take part in local competitions within the North Dorset and Somerset area. This involves competing against a variety of state schools where the outcome is often positive. Once again, the link with a local community club, Yeovil and Sherborne Hockey Club, has allowed us to develop the skills of the young players both within school and at weekends. As hockey is so popular there is now a sustainable set of players which means the girls train in separate sessions depending on their age group. This allows them to hone their existing skills and learn from each other through coaching opportunities and tactical scenarios.

With so many young girls taking part it is becoming increasingly difficult to select a Player of the Year. The individuals who showed particularly high levels of enthusiasm and motivation include Lola Tunnicliffe, Daisy Parker, Alice Gregory, Hannah Roberts and Ellie Chandler.

Individual Sporting Successes Throughout the school we have a large number of talented pupils who play for the school, local clubs, county teams and also the national team. Having strong links with local community clubs like Sherborne Rugby Club, Sherborne Football Club, Yeovil and Sherborne Hockey Club, Yeovil Swimming Club amongst others, has allowed us to enhance the skills and tactics of our pupils giving them the necessary skills to be selected at all levels to participate in the sport they enjoy so much.

One of our most successful sporting pupils was Ollie Devoto. Ollie was at The Gryphon School from Years 7-11 where he excelled in all sports but showed a particular aptitude for rugby. With strong links with the local community and Sherborne RFC that the School has developed, we have worked with numerous young sports performers over the years and Ollie definitely stood out. Being picked for the development squad at Bath Rugby was a huge

achievement for Ollie when he was at The Gryphon school and showed how dedication, motivation and a passion to succeed in your sport really pays off. Having secured a professional contract with Bath Rugby Club, gaining his first Cap for England and then moving to the Exeter Chiefs more recently, we are all immensely proud of what Ollie has achieved so far and are excited to see what the future holds for this talented young man.` Amy Northam in Year 9, continued to competed internationally in Triathle and represented Team GB in a host

of competitions and also received the “Andrew Simpson Olympic Legacy Bursary.” This was provided by the Rotary Clubs in Sherborne to help young performers develop and move forward in their chosen sport.

Andrew Frost was another recipient of the Bursary Award and used this to great effect in sailing, where he became World Champion in 20162017 at the competition in France.

Alan Cummings Head of PE

Whole School Sporting Events

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The highlights for sport definitely happen toward the end of the academic year when we celebrate our Annual Sports Awards Evening and School Sports Day. The purpose of the Sports Awards Evening is to celebrate the vast array of talented young individuals we have at The Gryphon School and to recognise the commitment and effort they have put into developing their sporting performances throughout the year.

Each year the pupils hear from a guest speaker about how they have got to where they have in their chosen sport. This year the speaker was Paralympic Sprinter Ben Rushgrove. He gave an inspirational talk about his experiences at the Paralympic Games and also fielded questions from the audience on his quest to

success. Ben presented each and every winner with their award and left a real mark on the students drive and commitment to succeed in everything they do.

The School Sports Day known as ‘The Gryphon Games,’ is a fantastic celebration and all-inclusive event which sees pupils in Years 7-10 competing as a Tutor Group in a full day of activities. It is run by all members of staff with the help of Year 12 students and is coordinated by the Physical Education Department. The pupils compete in four separate categories of events which include; indoor events, alternative events, outdoor events and athletics. With over 32 different activities taking place at once it is a great way to end the year and highly sought

after trophies go to the winning Tutor Group in each Year Group.

The range of activities is exceptional and gives each and every pupil the opportunity to gain success in one form or another. The range of activities include boccia, volleyball, cycling, football, rounders, benchball and the 4x100m relay to name but a few.

With the whole school involved this showcase event demonstrates a real community feel at The Gryphon School and continues to enthuse and engage all pupils and staff. The Gryphon School also received a highly commended award from the Community Education Award Competition for the success of the Sports Day Event. The 2016-17 winning tutor groups were: 7 AJS . 8 AMW . 9 RDS . 10 PMU

Reaching Beyond

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Ten Tors Challenge After training since September, twenty four students took part in the gruelling Ten Tors Challenge on Dartmoor over a weekend in May. Organised by the Army, Ten Tors sees students hike across the rough terrain of Dartmoor, visiting ten nominated tors/checkpoints in under two days.

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This year saw The Gryphon enter four separate teams due to its popularity – the two Year 10 teams faced a 35 mile challenge, Year 11 completed 45 miles, and the Sixth Form team completed a gruelling 55 mile hike – the equivalent of walking from Sherborne to Torquay!

The teams had to be self-sufficient, carrying all that they needed to complete their route and stay out overnight safely. The four teams all managed to complete the course within the time, and without injury. Four other students also took part in the challenge as part of a team with Sherborne Air Cadets.

This is the first time the school has entered the 45 mile course, and that a Gryphon team has completed the 55 mile course.

Mr Cooke said “This is such an incredible achievement for all of the students involved – they have been training every week since September, giving up weekends to complete their practice walks, and their dedication and perseverance has really paid off. Ten Tors develops skills such as teamwork, problem solving and leadership as well as building self-confidence, and these skills will stay with the students for life.”

The Gryphon School would like to thank The John Thornton Young Achiever’s Foundation, the Rotary Club of Sherborne, Blackmore Vale Lions Club and Yeovil

Lions Club for their sponsorship and support of the scheme.

The students who completed the Ten Tors Challenge are: Year 10: Team A: Alfie Neville-Jones, Fraser Cooke, Alan Flechon, Ali Macey, Fred Stone and Dan Preston completed 35 miles. Team B: Henry Slocombe, Gen Cooke, Hannah Syms, Kieran Neller, Josh Tregale and Dan Victors completed 35 miles.

Year 11: Ben Gear, Caspar Barker, Josh Attwood, Kieran Bennett, Joel Clark and Phoebe Redman completed 45 miles.

Sixth Form: Jonny Ellis, Tom Blake, Matt Dey, Will Pullen, Harry Russell and Mat Callard-Weller completed the 55 mile course.

Duke of Edinburgh Award The Duke of Edinburgh Award challenges young people to give something back to society by volunteering, taking part in a regular sporting or physical activity and learning a new skill or developing an existing one.

Each DofE Award is concluded by an expedition which the school currently runs in the West Country (Bronze), New Forest (Silver) and Snowdonia (Gold).

78 In September 2016 we enrolled nearly 150 students on the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme at Bronze (nearly 100 students from Years 9 & 10), Silver and our first full group on the Gold Award.

These students spent the year training, volunteering, exerting themselves at a sport and learning new skills – building up to their expeditions so they could put their training to use.

All of this takes them outside of their comfort zone, helps them learn more about themselves and makes them more attractive to future employers.

The programme is supported by a dedicated team of staff,

volunteers and parents who regularly give up their evenings and weekends to ensure everyone has a good experience and passes their award.

The team were also busy fundraising to pay for the new trailer, store and equipment.

We would like to thank everyone who supported cakes stalls or who packed bags.

In particular we would like to thank Waitrose, Sherborne Rotary, Sherborne Fair, Yeovil & Blackmore Vale Lion’s Club and the National Lottery who have helped us raise over £10,000.

Geoff Cooke, DofE & Ten Tors Challenge Manager

School Council, Student Voice and Youth Parliament Social Life @ Gryphon

The School Council meets once a month and is chaired by two students who also act as Associate School Governors. There is always lively debate with varied topics provided by each year group – history tells us that it is always Year 8 that provide the most controversial issues!

The Staff Social Committee formed in 2014 with the objective to raise social interaction between staff, boost morale and provide that all important down time and relaxation that teachers so often need.

The School Council consists of two representatives from each Year Council, each Year Council has two representatives from each Tutor Group. Year Councils also meet once a month and then raise issues at School Council via their reps.

The activities which sprouted from the creation of this committee continued in the last year with vigour, including staff running club, regular social activities, staff Christmas celebrations and staff sports clubs including football and volley ball. Socialising and relaxing play a great part in keeping our staff body happy and well.

Mindfulness sessions have also played a key part in staff welfare during the last academic year.

80 During School Council meetings we discuss issues ranging from anti-bullying to the questions that are asked by student panels on staff interviews. The open session of the meeting, with questions from the Year Councils, is always fascinating. The most popular subject for discussion is the food served in the Café! This year the students succeeded in persuading us to reintroduce a take-away system for certain main meals – we agreed providing that this did not lead to an increase in litter!

Associate School Governors attend Full Governing Body Meetings and the Governors’ Student, Staffing and Community Committee where they are able to raise any issues that they choose. The Governors are always keen to hear students’ perspectives on a wide variety of issues and our students are never shy in giving a full response.

We are always delighted to take part in the elections for the Dorset representatives to the National Youth Parliament; Hayley Andrews coordinates our participation as part of her role as PSHEE co-ordinator.

All of our students are able to vote and it is great practise for when they take part in national elections and referenda as adults. Following the elections students also take part in an activity called “Make Your Mark” which sets the agenda for debate at the National Youth Parliament.

Each year students take part in ‘Student Voice Lunches’ with Steve Hillier and Nicki Edwards.

Representatives from each Year Group in turn meet with Nicki and Steve over lunch to talk about ‘what’s good about the Gryphon’ and ‘the Gryphon School could be even better if….’

It is a great opportunity for us to gain an insight

into everyday life of each Year Group. When talking about ‘what’s good’ the students unfailingly mention the excellent relationships between staff and students, the facilities available and our extra-curricular activities.

When asked how we could improve we are often asked to ‘make the corridors wider’ or to make café prices even lower!

The committee prides itself on listening to staff opinion – and this year’s end of term activities will be modified and extended to take on board staff suggestions. As per last year, the overall feel of the staff social group is one of community and togetherness across the staff body – the very mission which was set out from the beginning.

Joe Miles – Staff Social Committee Leader

Fiona Stewart

Clubs

ART B a d m i n t o n Baroque Chamber Ensemble Basketball Big Band

Br ass Ensem ble Dan ce Chess Club Choir Creative Writing Fencing F i t n e s s Fo l k M u s i c B iology

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Football Gryphon Pride Guitar Ensemble Gymnastics Hockey Homework Club

ICT Juggling Club Lego Club Maths Zone Media Coursework Club M i n d ful ne ss Psychology Clu b N etbal l Recorder Group Rugby Science Club

Sport

for

All

String Ensemble

Table Tennis Volleyball Youth Speaks Woodwind Ensemble Music Theory

and Homework Clubs

Community We are proud of our links with the wider community and our students have been involved in a wide variety of community activities some of which are highlighted here.

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The Gryphon School was the centre for school events during Sherborne Literary Festival again this year. Over 100 Gryphon students attended as did students from Leweston School and Sherborne Girls. We also hosted local heats for Sherborne Rotary Club’s ‘Youth Speaks’ Senior Competition.

Two teams from Years 10 and 11 were entered. The Year 11 team were first, and went on to the next round of the competition and were placed second overall.

School to School Support ‘What’s the point of partnerships?’ was the title of a session delivered in June by myself and three other colleagues at the inaugural Bryanston School Education Summit. It was easy to prepare for because the school is committed to be both outward facing and future focused. We are explicit about using the best ideas from around the country and beyond to help improve the experiences and opportunities of our students and staff.

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We have always shared our expertise and excellence by school to school support with others through a host of groups.

The formation of the Sherborne Area Schools’ Trust and the designation as a national Teaching School cements that commitment to be leaders and “givers” in the school system. We have been selected for top roles supporting schools in challenging circumstances and training new teachers including my role as a national leader of education.

National leaders of education along with staff in their school – appointed as national support schools – use their knowledge and experience to provide additional leadership capability in other schools in need of support.

The type of support provided is flexible and tailored to meet the needs of each individual school. National leaders of education also have responsibility for developing the next generation of NLEs and national support schools. The Chair of Governors, as a National Leader of Governance (NLG), has been supporting a number of schools in the region.

The Gryphon School was one of over 65 schools selected to become a national teaching school in the latest recruitment round, taking a leading role in

recruiting and training new entrants to the profession.

Introduced in 2011, teaching schools are excellent schools that work with partner schools in an alliance to provide high quality school-led initial teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers at all stages of their career. They raise standards through supporting other schools, especially those in challenging circumstances, and ensure that the most talented school leaders are spotted and supported.

The next steps are to lead a North Dorset Teaching School Alliance. A mix of 35 secondary and primary schools were part of the application supported by the Diocese of Salisbury, Dorset LA, two universities and teaching trainer providers. This is an exciting opportunity for schools across the area including South Somerset to build upon local partnerships and collaboration by linking into national networks and resources. We will continue to work closely with The Woodroffe School in Lyme Regis as the Lead School for the Jurassic Coast Teaching Schools Alliance (JCTSA) with national Teaching School status.

The Gryphon has always been at the centre of collaboration across the five North Dorset schools in Sherborne, Gillingham, Blandford, Sturminster Newton and Shaftesbury. This was especially active and impactful when vocational courses were funded and ran across the area. There continues to be close leadership connections. We lead the North Dorset Partnership for the highly successful School Direct teacher training placements with the Mid Somerset Consortium SCITT. In addition the school has been active in working with the South West Academies Group, the Jubilee Group, The Princes’ Teaching Institute, PiXL, Dorset, the Diocese of Salisbury and the Sherborne independent schools.

The Jubilee Group was formed in 2012 based on the McKinsey principle that educational systems and schools have most to gain from collaboration when they have similar profiles and are at a similar stage of development. JN1 brings together Heads of nine large, semirural, high performing 11-18 comprehensives in ‘one-school’ towns in the South West. The Gryphon School is an inaugural member of the Network. At its core it aims to address current, rising and strategic problems, to provide a safe place for reflection and mutual support, to support each other’s efforts to improve at the leading edge and to provide opportunities for further collaboration by other staff. The South West Academy Group

(SWAG) is a group of up to 9 secondary academy schools and teaching schools from across Somerset, BANES and Devon. It has similar aims to the Jubilee Group but also drills into detailed operational issues. Subject leaders also meet across the schools; there is an HE+ programme for gifted students.

The English, Geography and Languages Departments at The Gryphon School have once again been awarded the Prince’s Teaching Institute Mark. The Prince’s Teaching Institute (PTI) launched the Schools Programme in 2007 to recognise and reward school departments that develop inspirational ideas and activities which enhance teaching.

PiXL (Partners in Excellence) emerged from the London Challenge in 2007 to further develop and widen the learning and success achieved in the capital's school improvement programme. The network has evolved from 50 schools at its inception to current membership of around 1,700 secondary schools, 600 sixth forms, 500 primary schools, and 75 providers of alternative education – all of whom share a desire to raise standards and inspire young people to achieve excellence in their lives.

The Gryphon joined in 2014 and has selectively used strategies to support leadership challenge and provide resources.

Steve Hillier

Appointments We continue, as a school to employ 106 teachers and 114 support staff who all contribute to creating a special ethos and work tremendously hard, in a range of roles, to support our students.

We were delighted to become part of the Sherborne Area Schools’ Trust in June 2017, Steve Hillier was appointed Executive Headteacher, whilst Nicki Edwards (Deputy Head) was selected as Headteacher at the Gryphon School, on an interim basis which ensures continuity for the school.

Support managers in Finance, IT and HR now also have a trust-wide focus, providing functional support for the trust schools.

88 There was a real sense of a changing of the guard at the end of this 2016-17 academic year, with a number of long-serving staff taking a very well-deserved retirement; Jan Jackson (20 years), Sue ThomasPeter (34 years),Martin Gunn (36 years) and Chris Bladon (an impressive 43 years). Sue, Martin and Chris are the last of our staff body to be founding members from Fosters and St Aldhelm’s schools.

We wish them well with their retirement plans and thank them all for the amazing contribution they have made to the school and the lives of the many young people who have passed through their care.

Tim Ovenden also stepped down as Deputy Head, having provided 10 years of exceptional leadership nurturing new teaching talent and supporting the development of staff through his coaching and middle leadership initiatives.

It was with a mixture of pride and sadness, that we also saw a number of our teachers take up promotions in other schools or spread their wings a little further, to work overseas.

The Governing Body – The Gryphon School 2016-2017 Looking to the future 2017-18 Looking to the future 2017-18 We seek through our recruitment to bring the best available talent to the school. In September, we welcomed some new faces who bring with them a combination of experience, ideas, energy and enthusiasm to complement the existing staff team at the Gryphon.

Internal promotions to Heads of Department posts include Amy Whiting (MFL), Tom Crassweller (Business), Holly Young (Drama), Beth Martin (Chemistry Lead) and Laura Bucke as Head of Year 7.

Caroline Rabbetts took on a new role of Leadership Support Manager, George Greed progressed to Senior Design Technician and Daniel Thomson joined us a Level 4 IT apprentice.

It is also pleasing to provide further opportunities for staff development, as a number of Heads of Department and outstanding teachers have stepped into extended leadership roles at a senior level.

GOVERNORS Mr S Murcer, (Finance and Resources) Mr N Rees (Chair of Governing Body, Member of all Committees) Mr M Sandy (Student, Staffing and Community Committee) Mr P Tebbatt(Finance and Resources) PARENT GOVERNORS Miss J Atyeo (Finance and Resources) Mr G Booth (Student, Staffing and Community Committee) Mr A Cooke (Finance and Resources) FOUNDATION GOVERNORS Mrs M George (Student, Staffing and Community Committee) Canon E J Woods DL (Vice Chair Governing Body, Student, Staffing and Community Committee) Mr D Smart (Student, Staffing and Community Committee) Mr Bernard Brown (Finance and Resources) STAFF GOVERNORS Mr T Crassweller, Staff Governor (Finance and Resources Committee) Mr N White, Staff Governor (Finance and Resources) HEADTEACHER Mr S Hillier (Member of all Committees) STUDENT ASSOCIATE GOVERNORS Deputies Mrs N Edwards Mr T Ovenden SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNORS BURSAR/COMPANY SECRETARY

Mrs J Jackson Mr C Vigar

The Gryphon School Bristol Road Sherborne Dorset DT9 4EQ T: 01935 813122 E: office@gryphon.dorset.sch.uk

www.gryphon.dorset.sch.uk