Newsletters

News from Mrs Grimes

Dear All,

Since I last wrote, while we were all enjoying the glorious Spring sunshine, we have since been plunged dramatically back into Winter, but the icy weather hasn’t taken away the spring in the RHS step!  Our hardy students in Year 12 (and our colleagues Mrs Williams and Dr Carr) persevered with their Gold Duke of Edinburgh expedition to Snowdonia last weekend in the freezing, cold temperatures, proving that they are all even more resilient than we knew them already to be. And, yes, that did include sleeping in tents and eating outdoors for four full days!

For the first time in two years we welcomed last years’ GCSE cohort and special prize winners in Year 11 and their parents into school, on Tuesday evening, to present their certificates and awards. It was wonderful to be able to celebrate in person, and hear from a number of our talented musicians and guest speaker, Gita Natarajan, who inspired us all with her lively speech about how we can work on using our education, skills and experience to improve the lives of those less fortunate than us.  As I write, we are looking forward to repeating the evening tonight with our former Year 13 students and special prize winners and their families. It is always lovely to see students who have left us returning to fill us in on their university adventures, challenges and successes so far and to reminisce about their RHS days.  What makes me smile the most, is the genuine joy on the faces of the students as they are reunited with friends they haven’t seen for many months. 

There is never a dull day in school, and the final two weeks of term have certainly presented us with a mix of emotions; we have had students sitting exams, planning for leavers’ events, charity fundraising, sporting highs and some lows, we have had staff and students still suffering with the effects of Covid which has very much not gone away. We have mixed emotions too about the departure from our staff of Mrs Jane Danger, at the end of this term.  Mrs Danger has worked tirelessly as our Communications and Marketing Director for many years, having joined us initially to lead our fundraising campaign for our new Sports Hall.  You will have seen Jane co-ordinating many an Open Evening or other school event, working alongside the PTA, and she has single-handedly moved RHS into the social media age by getting us on to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Behind the scenes Mrs Danger has influenced so much of RHS and RH6’s development in recent times and having sent her three daughters here, she completely embodies the spirit of our school.  We are pleased for her that she is moving on to different, exciting challenges but we will miss her very much.  We wish her every happiness for the future.

What a term it has been!  Here’s to a very happy and healthy break for everyone.  We will look forward to seeing everyone back and recharged for the summer term.