News from MCS

Annwyl pawb

Our school community observed 2 minutes' silence today in advance of Remembrance Day tomorrow.  The ceremony itself was led by Head Students, with army cadets parading and a student bugler sounding Last Post and Reville. It is always a very special occasion in the school year, and I am immensely proud of how superbly well everyone marked this important occasion.

It was also fascinating to speak to students, parents and staff about their own personal and family connections to past conflicts, present conflicts and wider connections to military service that I know exist strongly in our community. 

Head Students and prefects will again represent MCS and lay a wreath at the Remembrance Sunday parade and ceremony at the War Memorial in Monmouth, alongside governors and staff.

I wish you all a restful and reflective weekend.

Hugo Hutchison
Headteacher

Congratulations to the following students on becoming new members of the Leadership Academy at MCS.

Mollie Ord, Isla Pardoe-Saunders, Aneira Williams, Jessica Kirkwood, Alexis Waite, Thomas Sommer, Daniel Mayrick-Laud,  Luke Hobson, Bethan Parry,  Amelia Charles, Connah Howell-Jones, Sophie Hill, Hattie Ryder, Carys Yoxall, Lowe Morris and Daniel Mills.

Students will have an opportunity to do a number of outdoor activities through the medium of Welsh, including: go-karting, quad biking, skiing, high ropes, climbing and many more at the Urdd Centre in Llangrannog in the Summer Term, Wednesday 17^th July - Friday 19^th July.

There are 40 places for Year 7 and Year 8 students and places are on a first come, first served basis. The price is £177, to be paid in instalments, which includes all activities, travel by bus, accommodation and 3 meals a day.

The trip launches officially at 4pm today, Friday 10^th November, on payment of a £52 deposit on Parentpay.  

Are you able to support the enthusiastic and dedicated efforts of the Charity Committee to supply enough cakes, biscuits, muffins etc to feed the students who will descend on the Food Hall to buy goodies in aid of Children in Need on Friday, 17th November?! 

The theme for the day is ‘Be Spotacular’, so if you are feeling creative at home, please feel free to go for it! 

We would be delighted to receive any items at Reception (shop bought or homemade) by 9 am on Friday 17th November. We ask that all donations are nut free, please, as we do have students with nut allergies in school.  Any gluten-free, dairy free or vegan options would also be most welcome but could you please let us know if a product can be sold as this.  Your donations towards the cake sale are hugely appreciated.  If you are sending in a container you wish to have returned, please put a name/Form on it and remind your child to collect it during the day, to bring it safely home.  Students will need to remember to bring in some change to purchase their CiN cakes.

On a safety and hygiene note, we have been asked to request you take a quick look at the following link:   Providing Food at community and charity events, if you are baking at home.  

Please note that students will be in uniform on this charity day. All donations are welcome on Parentpay and any sponsor money for students' activities can also be paid through Parentpay. We are proud to be raising money for Children in Need. If you would like to contribute, your generosity will really help transform young lives across the UK. 

Thank you very much for your support for Children in Need. 

Diolch yn Fawr

The Charity Committee

As advised by email and newsletter in October, ABUHB School Nursing Service will be visiting the school to offer students in Years 7 – 11 a nasal flu spray vaccine on 4^th and 5^th December.  Please note, no needles involved! 

If you have not already completed the consent form, and received your acknowledgement email, it can be completed here: https://forms.office.com/e/eyggpck0Kf

Please submit one form per child no later than 12 midnight on Thursday 30 November.  This year, once you have submitted your consent, you will receive a confirmation from the Health Board that it has been received – always useful to have as the day approaches. 

Any consent forms submitted after this time will result in your child not receiving their vaccine at school on the days above, instead your child will be moved to the ABUHB mass vaccination site list and will receive an invitation for that venue at a later date.

Should you have any difficulties accessing the above link, please contact 01633 431685 for further support.  This is also the number to use if you have any queries at all – please do not contact the school, as we are simply acting as a venue for ABUHB. 

Please note that Fluenz is a live vaccine and relevant information for immunocompromised students or families may be found by clicking on this link: https://phw.nhs.wales/topics/immunisation-and-vaccines/fluvaccine/ which is the link on the consent form. This has FAQs and Eligibility criteria and a 'What if my child has a health condition' etc.

It’s very important to protect your child from flu to make sure they stay as healthy as possible, as flu is likely to circulate this winter. The best flu vaccine for most children is a nasal spray. This is the vaccine that will be given on the day. For information about flu vaccination, please visit phw.nhs.wales/fluvaccine.  

Please discuss this vaccination with your child to ensure they are aware you have (or have not) given consent. 

Finally, could we just reiterate that any consent forms submitted after 12 midnight on 30 November will result in your child not receiving their vaccine at school on the days above. 

The Eco Council members Amy, Poppy, Gaia, Lottie, Tegan, Sapphire, Laurence, Hattie, Eliska, Aled, Rowan and Daisy completed their first litter pick on a bright, sunny October afternoon, telling us:

"We did a 30 minute litter pick and cleaned around the school grounds and leisure centre, filling four bags in total in a very small area!  We rounded off the litter pick with a warm drink back in school.

We were shocked to see this amount of rubbish but pleased that we were able to contribute a positive change, supporting our local community. It was a fun and educational afternoon and we will be continuing our litter picks throughout the school year!"

On Wednesday 8th of November we welcomed Monmouthshire County Councillor Catherine Fookes, to talk to Years 12 and 13 for Parliament Week.

It was a perfect opportunity for us to learn more about our right to vote in the UK and even create our own manifestos of what we would like to see if we ran for Parliament.

Year 12 started with an assembly from Cllr Fookes before breaking into Form groups to discuss their manifesto plans which included items such as more affordable housing and a greater focus on reaching net zero carbon emissions.

Year 13 got the opportunity to share our manifestos with the rest of our year in an elevator pitch-style competition led by the head students, which provided some funny and thought-provoking policies, from shorter school days to cheaper public transport.

Most importantly, we were able to vote for who we thought had the best ideas, teaching us about democracy and how important it is to have our say as well as being a great way of reminding everyone to register to vote. If you haven’t already, register to vote at https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote 

Edie Bell

Outrun The Rain were formed in 2021 whilst studying at MCS. Encouraged by our remarkable PEA Faculty, the band (Ewan Bredemear-Walters, singer/guitar. Rory Bredemear-Walters, keyboard and Noah Ryder, drums) developed an engaging style combining soaring melodies, electrifying keyboard, pounding drums and raw energy with carefully crafted lyrics.

Emerging from lockdown with a wide following throughout Monmouth and South Wales, Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales DJ described their debut single as "epic and soulful". Their latest single "Tell Me What You Think I'm Not", released this week on all major streaming sites, brings new levels of maturity and shows a band comfortably defining their style. The accompanying music video, available on YouTube was produced and directed by Dominic Hodgson and featured Dan Smith, both former MCS PEA students.

Tell Me What You Think I'm Not - Music Video: https://youtu.be/zci1j_UthHs?si=7WjuJ4-URnUwIjfx

Tell Me What You Think I'm Not - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/07sdvXVKrTxGB1a0aaPab8?si=jtuvVVcdSqS_KKBOTcBAKw

Dear Parent/Carer,

Student Health and Wellbeing Survey

The School Health Research Network is led by Cardiff University in partnership with Welsh Government, Public Health Wales and Cancer Research UK. Every two years, schools in the Network are invited to take part in the Student Health and Wellbeing Survey. The information collected in the survey is used to compile a Student Health and Wellbeing Report for each school, which supports their work to improve their students’ health and wellbeing.

Your child’s school is taking part in the Student Health and Wellbeing Survey this term. The survey is being managed by Ipsos on behalf of Cardiff University and is completed online under the supervision of a member of school staff. It contains questions on health behaviours, including diet, physical activity, smoking, alcohol, drugs, school life and relationships. Students in Year 9 and above only will be asked a small number of questions relating to sexual behaviour. Each student chooses whether or not they want to complete the survey and they can omit any question they do not want to answer.

At the end of the survey, students are asked to give their name, date of birth and postcode. This enables researchers to connect students’ responses across different rounds of the two-yearly survey, in order to investigate how and why health and wellbeing change through adolescence. It is made clear to students that they do not have to provide this information if they do not want to and, if given, it will only be seen by a small number of researchers at Cardiff University and Ipsos.

Students will also be asked if researchers can use their survey answers for data linkage research, meaning their answers will be anonymously linked to other data that is routinely collected about them, e.g. education records, and this will be held and reported at an anonymous level. The school will show students a video about this, which you can view here: www.shrn.org.uk/gdpr along with further information about data linkage. If you cannot access the video or website, please contact Matt Davies at shrn@cardiff.ac.uk or 029 2087 4433 to request a leaflet. Your child can say they do not want their answers to be used for data linkage if they want to.

All data will be treated in accordance with the Data Protect Act (2018) and the General Data Protection Regulations, and you can read our data privacy notice here: www.shrn.org.uk/gdpr  The survey is strictly confidential unless a student response raises concerns about their welfare, in which case we will notify the school’s safeguarding officer if we have the student’s name. Cardiff University use the survey data to compile the Student Health and Wellbeing Reports and for research into adolescent health. The Student Health and Wellbeing Reports contain only aggregated data, e.g. the percentage of Year 7 boys who eat breakfast daily.

I hope that you will be happy for your child to take part. If you have any concerns, wish to see the survey questions or withdraw your child from the survey or from data linkage research, please notify school reception as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

Professor Simon Murphy
 

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago we caught up with former student Brian Rowlands who was part of the Durham University Solar Car team in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in Australia.

We can now tell you that they covered the 3000km from Darwin to Adelaide and finished the race in 5 days and 71/2 hours. They are now the only British solar car team to have ever completed the challenge in under the cut-off time of 6 days!

They were also 1 of only 12 cars that finished the race entirely powered by the sun and under the 6 days, in fact, less than half of the cars that entered were able to manage it!

Brian had the most amazing once in a lifetime experience, not only traversing 3000km across a continent and camping in the outback but meeting other like-minded students from all over the world. 

Maths Support

Multiply is a UK Government SPF-funded programme designed to help adults improve their numeracy skills; specifically targeted at adults who are over 19 and have not achieved a C or above at GCSE. 

They are offering a wide variety of free courses throughout Monmouthshire many of which they feel will be of interest to our school community.

Please see below a selection of courses that will include:

Homework Help 

• This course is aimed at assisting parents and guardians with their understanding of the maths curriculum and empowering them to effectively help their child with maths homework – this will be open to all parents

GCSE courses

• A 36-week GCSE course at both foundation and intermediate level, helping adults to improve their grades or attain qualifications they may have missed earlier in life.

Entry Level

• A 10-week course aimed at upskilling adults who have no maths qualifications. This is a great place for absolute beginners to start gaining some confidence with maths.

GCSE Resit

• One-to-one revision sessions for adults who are resitting GCSE maths. These sessions will be tailored to the individual’s needs and can be offered both in person and online.