The Big Read 2025
Every year at Rokeby School we celebrate The Big Read. This is part of our continued drive to improve literacy for all and develop a lifelong love of reading for pleasure.
During our World Book Week celebrations, we gift every student, staff member and governor a copy of our Big Read book. This year our chosen book is Skandar and the Unicorn Thief by A.F. Steadman.
We were delighted to have the author visit our Rokeby and discuss the book, series, writing processes and the importance of reading with our students.
Research suggests that reading for 30 minutes a week increases our health and wellbeing Reading for pleasure has been found to improve our confidence and self-esteem, providing the grounding we need to pursue our goals and make life decisions. It can also aid our sleep and reduce feelings of loneliness. To the onlooker, reading can appear to be a solitary and passive activity. But the simple act of picking up a book can do us a world of good.
“We went to the Natural History Museum and it was an amazing experience! We saw so many incredible things. First, we entered a big hall with a huge dinosaur skeleton hanging from the ceiling It was absolutely breathtaking! We also saw a giant statue of Charles Darwin and explored a whole section dedicated to him Next, we visited a display with life size replicas of birds, including an ostrich! There was also a section where we could see the anatomy of birds, like their legs. It was fascinating to learn about their structure.
One of my favourite parts was the dinosaur exhibition, where we saw many different dinosaurs At the very end, we even saw a life size robot of a Tyrannosaurus Rex! We also saw some amazing dinosaurs like stegosauruses, raptors and much more Then, we went to a section all about rocks and the history of Earth. There were so many interesting rocks and gemstones, including diamonds, topaz and emeralds. This exhibition was one of the biggest and it was also really interactive. We could open hatches to discover more about the items on display.
Towards the end of our trip, we visited an exhibition all about bugs, insects and arachnids This was definitely the most engaging part because we had to interact with different things to learn more. Overall, the trip was really fun and a great experience especially since it was my first visit to the museum!”
Yunus Khan 7B
Talk 2 Learn Debate
The English, Humanities and Art departments supported this term’s cross-curricular Talk2Learn debate for which the motion put forward was ‘Protest Only Divides People’.
It was an engaging and lively discussion watched online by the whole of Year 8 and brilliantly chaired by Ms Sokolova
Both sides put forward well-constructed and clear arguments but in the end it was the representatives of 8R, 8O and 8K who claimed the trophy. Oluwatomiwa (8R) won the ‘Best Speaker’ award for his outstanding argument on how protests can quickly escalate into riots and for his confident delivery. Congratulations and well done to all students involved: Nehaan (8K), Madasir (8R), Oluwatomiwa (8R), Zubayr (8B), Abdul (8B) and Ace (AB) Your response to feedback and commitment to lunchtime rehearsals was outstanding!
A massive thank you to the fantastic judges for their supportive and detailed feedback: Mr Greybe, Mr Iqbal and and a special thank you to Ms Arenson, the Marketing and Communications Lead in the NCL Trust for visiting us for the day and her words of encouragement.
Newham U16 Table Tennis Schools Championship
Competition
Huge congratulations to our Table Tennis teams for finishing 1st and 2nd in the Newham schools U16 championship with Gautham Shenbagakumar, Thasin Ahmed, Dragos-Gabriel Lupu and Mohamed Omar winning the competition and Nikolay Panayotov, Nafi Hossain, Imran Afham Ismail and Saif Hossan narrowly losing in the final
Special mention to our year 7 teams in their first competition who played brilliantly against much older players.
Lunch Menu Next Week
