The main event of the week at Roding Valley was the Key Stage 3 Awards Evening on Thursday. The Hall was packed with expectant students and proud parents and the evening was a true celebration of what our students can achieve. I would like to thank Tony Barritt, Vice Chair of the Governing Body, for his welcome speech and for handing out a number of the awards. Miss Dyer compered the show and kept things moving with her charismatic performance. The students received trophies and certificates for their academic excellence, academic progress as well as for superb attendance and punctuality. There were also prizes for the students chosen by their peers as being the most supportive and being able to make a difference to their form group. Although it is difficult to pick out individuals on a night like this I would like to mention certain students whose hard work and first rate attitude is worthy of special mention. In terms of their Anti-Bullying work and their support of students across the year groups, Ellouise Lemon and Jake Forecast deserve an enormous amount of credit and rightly received the Community Shield Award. Doncho Atanassov and Keya Ahmed also returned to the stage on several occasions to pick up prizes for Effort and Progress across a range of subjects and have clearly made a great impression in the first three years at the school. Lucy Raymond, Vivien Lee and Tom Karim also deserve a pat on the back for achieving the highest levels in key subjects and across the board which puts them in the top 3% of students in the country - a truly fantastic performance. In addition to these excellent achievements I would like to mention Matthew Tinker. He not only achieved the joint highest levels in Maths, English and Science in the year, but was also awarded the Faculty Award in no fewer than six subjects which must be some sort of record. Every time he came to the stage he was met with warm applause from his peers and he is clearly one to watch for the future. In short, this was a great evening and I was delighted to meet so many hard-working, positive students who will be the stars of the school in years to come. I am expecting great things when these students take their GCSEs in 2016 and very much hope that they stay with us to do their A Levels in our new Sixth Form thereafter. In other news I would like to thank students and staff in advance for all the hard work that will go into preparing for next week's Open Evening on Thursday 9th October. Just a reminder that the school will be closing early on that day at 1.20pm so that we have time to get ready for our evening visitors. Could I also remind you that school is closed next Friday, 10th October, as we have an INSET day. I hope that you all have an enjoyable weekend. Mr J Luck Headteacher
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