Activities Week 2019 is nearly upon us and it is jam packed! Activities Week is where we go beyond the timetabled curriculum and give you opportunities to do something different. On Monday, those of you who are on-site will take part in a sponsored walk around Midhurst, raising funds for Sussex Snowdrop Trust; it’s really important that we support local charities in this way and it is key to our value of ‘respect’.  During Tuesday to Friday, there are several activities challenging for you to experience to develop your mental and physical abilities.

Our values of respect, happiness and achievement are incredibly important to our College. It is important that we all demonstrate these at every opportunity. This means we should respect each other and treat one another the way we want to be treated. We should commit to work our hardest to achieve our very best and that we should promote happiness through being tolerant, pleasant and polite at all times. These values underpin MRC and the way we work – we know we don’t always get it right, but our focus always be on ‘doing the right thing’.

There is a lot to celebrate this week! We had our awards evening on Wednesday last week, which was incredibly well attended. We gave out our highest number of awards ever on the evening, which is testimony to the hard work and good effort you are putting into your work. It is also great to have the opportunity to share your successes. Well done to all.

I wanted to start this week by reminding you all about the forthcoming end of year assessments we have planned for years 7-10. We sent some work home for you to complete over the half-term holiday to help you to be fully prepared for these tests. The assessments are important and we want to see you all do your very best; we use your test papers to find out where your individual strengths and areas for development are. We then work to help you to learn the parts you may not have got right in the tests so that you are better prepared for the future.

Welcome back! I hope that you all had a very good half-term break and are ready for the upcoming half-term. As you know, we sent work home for you to complete over the break. We will continue to do this every holiday and while we know that school holidays are a time to relax and be with friends and family, it is also important that you keep up to date with learning and work for part (not all) of the time. There are exams coming up soon and the tasks we set you will help you to prepare for these and there will be some set changes in response to these test –they are important. Please make sure you revise!

Hello to everyone from our new Anti-Bullying Ambassador team! We are delighted to be taking on this new student leadership role and have had a wonderful day’s training last Thursday, hosted by The Diana Award, which has really set us up as a group ready to get into action!

The MRCAllsorts group wrote Last week’s blog on the topic of tolerance and respect for others. We have had two visitors in College this week, both of whom have been incredibly positive you and your behaviour. Increasingly, I see you doing the right thing, being polite and well mannered. Thank you – let’s keep this up!

This week’s blog is written by the MRC AllSorts group, a national programme which support LGBT+ young people. You will have seen staff with rainbow ribbons on their lanyards as well as rainbow stars in classroom and office windows. This is to show that we support LGBT+ at MRC and that we promote tolerance and respect, irrespective of an individual’s gender or sexuality. You are able to talk with these members of staff about LGBT+ issues, should you wish to do so. They will either help you themselves, or signpost you to another member of staff.

We are all aware that drugs can have a huge and very negative impact on health and wellbeing. It was good to have Dave Parvin in College on Thursday last week to talk about the dangers that different drugs present. The content was hard-hitting, quite rightly, as he talked about several young people who had sadly lost their lives due to taking drugs. His explanation about how alcohol can lead to other drug taking, particularly at parties, is something I would ask you all to be aware of – the dangers are very clear and you have the ability to make the right choices; please make sure you do.

Welcome back to a new term. I hope you all had a very good and restful half-term. Thank you to those students and staff who came in over the holiday to work on preparation for the forthcoming exams – it will definitely help you.