Earlier this month, more able students in Year 9 and Year 10 gathered with their Sixth Form Aspire Champions in a special assembly to celebrate the achievements of all the students who took part in English Martyrs’ High Flyer Programme.

In this challenging programme, students attended weekly tutorials for six weeks. Tutorials, delivered by Aspire Champions, gave students an experience of University-style learning. This programme also included a Dragon’s Den-style competition in which students had the opportunity to launch and present a vaccine programme for their assigned country to a formidable line up of ‘Dragons’ from our Science department.

At the end of the programme, students completed a final assignment of 2000 words on the topic ‘Should vaccines be mandatory.’ This was marked in University-style, with pupils receiving a first, 2:1 or 2:2.

The best assignments were entered for an essay competition. Dr P. Lazarus, our own school governor, judged and moderated the entries. All the essays displayed a good degree of argument, structure and a review of evidence from a wide range of literature and media sources; some of the best essays also included a critical evaluation of these sources.

It was very hard to decide on the top achievers because the entries were so impressive and interesting.

A big congratulations to all the participants!

Winners of the essay competition:

  1. Ria A (10Ca)

  2. Lona G (10Ca)

  3. Niamh O’H (9Fi) and Karolina Z (10Cl)

Winners were also awarded special prizes and certificates were presented to all the participants and Aspire Champions.