InFISSUE 44 / SEPTEMBERorm 2018

CREATING A CLIMATE FOR GREAT LEARNING, SUCCESS AND OPPORTUNITY 1 www.bentonpark.org.uk WWW.BENTONPARK.ORG.UK Issue 44 // September 2018 InForm www.bentonpark.org.uk

Headteacher’s Message

Welcome to Benton Park School and our annual edition of “InForm”. Once again, this edition is packed full of articles aimed at giving readers a flavour of the opportunities on offer to all our students across a full academic year here at Benton Park.

Our academic rigour is reflected each year in our strong and solid examination results. Despite an unprecedented amount of upheaval in the examination system leading up to the results in 2018, we were very pleased with the outcomes for our students both at A Level and GCSE. It is incredibly rewarding seeing all the hard work of students and staff yield the desired results, enabling students to unlock the next stage on their chosen career path. It is also a really great pleasure to welcome back our successful GCSE students into our Sixth Form and watch them grow and develop in their learning.

In addition to promoting a great climate for learning, we also aim to develop well rounded, balanced and resilient individuals by offering Exam Results a range of other opportunities, giving everyone a chance to succeed. We achieve this through our strong focus on the Arts and Sports as Benton Park Students well as a broad and varied range of extra-curricular activities. We from Year 11 and Year really do aim to offer something for everyone and all our students 13 were celebrating are encouraged to play a full and active part of school life. Our extra- this summer with some curricular programme shows the breadth of activities on offer each fantastic exam results; a year thanks to the commitment of our staff team. This magazine just reward for all their highlights just a snapshot of these opportunities. hard work. It is always an exciting day for those As Headteacher at Benton Park I feel really privileged to be leading concerned and a privilege to share in the emotion and elation such a dedicated and professional team of staff. We are constantly of our students, as they look forward to the next steps in their seeking ways to ensure the school continues to go from strength to education and chosen career paths. This year was particularly strength. Part of this work has involved recently looking at the key important as it reflected major changes in courses at both values that underpin our school vision, to ensure we continue to GCSE and A Level with the introduction of 9-1 grades and fully successfully create an excellent climate for great learning, success linear exams. and opportunity for all. Our key values which you will see running through all aspects of school life are: At A Level, our average points per entry has continued to rise showing that students are continuing to achieve higher grades • Resilience than previous years. There were also many outstanding • Collaboration individual results with Charlie Cunniffe achieving four A • Inspiration grades, and William Carrington, Emma Headley and Max Weir • Compassion achieving three A grades. • Endeavour At GCSE, students completed the new, more rigorous The Autumn term is always busy and a highlight is when we welcome examinations with great success showing that with the into school potential new families making important decisions support of their teachers they had adapted exceptionally well for their children on places in Year 7 as well as Post 16 choices. to the new linear exam system and specifications. Twenty one Our Open Evenings are always an exciting time for us as we enjoy students achieved at least one grade 9 with 21% of all grades meeting new families and we get the chance to showcase the best of awarded to all students at either grade A or the new grade what is on offer at Benton Park School. As parents/carers we would 7 or above. Again, there were some outstanding individual strongly encourage you to visit our school and speak to members performances across all subjects including Maggie Nott, of staff, students and other members of the school community to Catherine Balshaw, Lola Kinard, Joel Cargill, Hasan Ahmad, find out what we are all about. We pride ourselves on the strong and Lauren Webster, Abby Eccles and Estera Ulrich-Oltean all supportive relationships we have between home and school and we achieving at least ten grades at either A or the new grade 7 or strongly believe these are vital in ensuring all our students achieve above. It is with great pleasure that we accept many of these their full potential. These relationships start with our Open Evenings students into our sixth form to continue their studies. so please do come along to meet us. We look forward to continued and even greater success next I hope you enjoy reading this edition which highlights all the year with those students who have just moved into Year 11 wonderful opportunities on offer to our students. A further source and 13 already showing great promise. of information on the school can be found on our website at www. bentonpark.org.uk and please follow us on Twitter @BentonParkSch. Keith Briggs As always if you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact Deputy Headteacher us on [email protected] and we will be more than happy to assist you.

Delia Martin Headteacher Discover us on Twitter today! @BentonParkSch

2 www.bentonpark.org.uk Life at Benton Park School

An Insight into Transition Prom 2018

Last September saw us welcome into school a full cohort of 245 Once again the Prom was a huge success and all students looked excited new Year 7 students. This is a challenging time for our stunning. It was a privilege to spend an evening with all the young people and their families and we always do all we can to students who attended and celebrate with them their successful make sure the transition is smooth and supportive. It starts in years at Benton Park. As in previous years Friends of Benton the summer term where our students visit in small groups with Park generously donated money so that 24 students received their primary school, followed by a full visit for all the cohort. complimentary tickets for either receiving clean slates from Year 7 or These visits are supplemented by information sessions for for their dedication parents/ carers, as well as members of our team visiting and and commitment speaking to relevant staff at the primary schools. However, towards a particular subject. This is the tranisition doesn’t stop there. Each September our Year a remarkable 7 students visit Nell Bank in Ilkley. They take part in activities acheivement and designed to encourage and promote new friendships and team really gives students building, taking part in water carrying challenges, assault courses something to aim and orienteering, to name just a few. This is always a successful for throughout their first visit at secondary school and last year was no exception. time with us. Our students had a fabulous time and made some new and very positive relationships with their peers. Mr Mark Ross Key Stage 4 Leader This visit was closely followed by our Year 7 disco, which was once again supported by The Friends of Benton Park. This provided further opportunity for our students to socialise with their new- found friends and get to know the staff further. Last year they Student Leadership particularly enjoyed the dancing to our in-house DJ, the popcorn, candyfloss, sweets and slush puppies! After all these activities it Student leadership continues to flourish in school. Student leaders was time to meet with our are engaged in key decisions across school, they organise our new parents/carers at the charitable work and even assist with recruitment of staff. Early Year 7 Review Day also this year they had the opportunity to take part in a fantastic event held in October. It offered organised by Leeds City Council. The event was held to ensure the ideal opportunity for student voice was taken into account as Councillors enter a bid to parents to discuss their fund new and existing services for children around Leeds. Students child’s progress with Form were thrown into the ‘Dragons Tutors and look at how Den’ and given a remit to dream well they had settled into up new and exciting project life at Benton Park. It was ideas to help keep our local also key in helping us to children entertained at evenings continue building upon the and weekends. Ideas included all important home/school sport camps, treasure hunts partnership which is vital and performing arts groups in ensuring the future amongst many more. Students success of our students. had a great time engaging in a thoroughly democratic process Ms Jo Temple and voting for their favourite Key Stage 3 Leader activity which hopefully will be funded by the Council before the end of the year.

Mrs Louise Roberts Student Leadership

Catering Service

The Benton Park in-house catering team are led by Kitchen Manager Debbie Derrick and multi award winning Executive Chef David Carrack of the Red Kite Learning Trust. Making nearly all our food from scratch using local suppliers, we provide break snacks, lunch, event catering and pre- order services to students and staff every day.

We have 3 outlets offering a range of tasty, nutritious meals all compliant with Government Healthy Schools Standards. Our team make as much as possible from scratch using local suppliers and seasonal produce to provide full traceability. Our weekly menus are available via the school website and are displayed around school on menu boards and plasma screens.

3 www.bentonpark.org.uk Learning Beyond the Classroom

PERU TRIP

Our 4 week Summer expedition to with Camps International Week 3 - After a couple of days relaxing weary limbs in the Sacred was the culmination of 20 months of hard work fund raising Valley, we took a long journey south to the region, involving 20 Year 11 and Year 12 students, families and one of the deepest canyons in the world. Staying in Madrigal community. The day finally came in July when we were on our way village, we were woken before dawn by the local loudspeaker to Heathrow to meet our experienced expedition leader, Dan, for making announcements about lost sheep. Incredibly hospitable, what was to be a hugely rewarding and enjoyable adventure. It we were allowed free reign of the football pitch. Our project was to combine a physical challenge of a 5 day high altitude trek work consisted of assisting the local tradesmen to complete the to Machu Picchu; cultural experiences and volunteering alongside bricklaying of the school greenhouses along with some carpentry artisans to construct much needed sustainable resources to help for the guinea pig hutches. The project work was strenuous, with communities in some of the most deprived areas of Peru. our students providing the brute force to shift wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of sand and cement which was then all hand-mixed. Read on to find out what our adventure entailed… A morning at the hot springs was a much welcome break from our physical exertions. Week 1- The campsite at Maras just above the Sacred Valley was a great first location with probably the best spot in the world for Week 4 - Our last transfer through the mountains took us to a swing-ball tournament, with its panoramic view of the lower Lake Titicaca, sandwiched between Peru and Bolivia- the highest . Our first tasks were laying the foundations for the primary navigable lake in the world, which made for sunny days and school greenhouse, bricklaying toilets and constructing a school freezing temperatures at night. We were presented with a mud brick bathroom. The appreciation for the work we were pressing task of coming to the aid of one of the residents, who undertaking was reflected in the thank you ceremony by the had been the victim of sheep rustling. Fiercely competitive and Maras Secondary School involving a flag parade, a marching band wanting to make a real impact to help the widow, our team toiled and singing. The team reciprocated performing the Cha Cha slide to make a staggering total of 178 mud bricks in a single day, before we learnt to party the Maras way using the whole of the which would enable the community to rebuild the dilapidated school playground. house and provide a new animal shelter. The next day we divided into two groups, one rendering the kindergarten kitchen, the Week 2- Fuelled by our previous night’s dinner of alpaca and other planting crops and making signposts for the primary school chips, we were treated to blue skies and snowy peaks on the garden. The latter project was completed the next day along with Salkantay Trek. The scenery was jaw droppingly spectacular as provision of some engaging lessons in the town orphanage along we wound our way up past rocky moraines via the “ trail of the with some creative painted benches. Fittingly, our last few days seven snakes” to reach a dizzy height of 4,638 metres. Still full were activity based, starting with a boat trip to the Uros unique of energy, we arrived at camp to polish off a huge quantity of floating reed islands before a sunset beach camp on a paradise popcorn. With sweeping views of the valley below, day 2 was a bay on the island of Taquile. The project leaders, who were hugely long hot day of descent on rocky paths, gruelling on knees and impressed with the workmanship and work ethic of Benton Park feet, with only time to step off the path to make way for the students, organised a sports day, where we were treated to a convoy of ponies that were carrying our rucksacks to our campsite lesson in the Brazilian martial art of Capoeira and a tug of war, in the grounds of a coffee plantation. The next morning we had before the opportunity to salsa. The expedition was rounded off a tour of the plantation, which was hands-on as we picked our with a visit to Arequipa, where we dined at a restaurant rooftop arabica beans, dried and then roasted before tasting our own terrace overlooking the beautiful cathedral before returning to harvested expresso. Then we ascended gradually through cloud for a tour of the Inca ruins and some last minute bartering forest, punctuated by the occasional stop for inca cola, before for souvenirs. emerging to our alpine field camp which provided a wonderful eye level vista at the back of Machu Picchu. A steep descent the next It truly was a fabulous, life changing experience for our students. morning led us to the trout farm which had been the source of the We are already excited to have started the planning for our next previous night’s dinner; and then we trekked beside the railway planned expedition, 2020. Bring it on! line that led to the foothills of the world heritage site. The group made the decision to get up early to walk the final 1982 steps Miss Karen Garvie to the site entrance (yes we counted them all), to arrive before Expedition Leader the tourist coaches full of day trippers. I think we all agreed that photos do not capture the majesty of this historic site, though the lamas that are stationed on the terraces for their grass cutting duties did like to photo bomb many of our pictures!

Battlefields 4 www.bentonpark.org.uk Learning Beyond the Classroom

Battlefields In June, 45 Year 9 students and 5 staff gathered at the front Berlin On a very early frosty January morning, keen Year 11 students set of school at 5am to embark on a tour of the First World War off on a trip to Berlin to immerse themselves in German History. Battlefields of Belgium and France. The main tour lasted two Our packed itinerary took us to sites such as The Brandenburg days with a full day excursion around the Somme in France and Gate and a panoramic view of the city from the dome of The then Passchendaele near to the Belgian town of Ypres. Students Reichstag. The purpose of the trip was to enrich our syllabus were able to visit a number of sites and pay their respects to the on The Third Reich through a guided tour of Nazi Berlin and a fallen, most notably the Thiepval Memorial and the Tyne Cot and poignant visit to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and The Langemarck cemeteries. As in previous years it was also very Holocaust Memorial Museum. Students also benefited from an poignant to be able to commemorate graves and memorials of introduction to The Cold War by visiting the Checkpoint Charlie relatives of students who came with us on the tour. The visit Museum and The DDR museum to gain an insight into the political culminated in our students taking part and laying a wreath at the and social conditions of post war East Germany; as well as a Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate. glimpse into the repressive operations of the secret police at the

Stasi Prison. Megan Naylor and Matilda Rankin-Skelly gave us their take on the tour: “The 2018 Battlefields trip was absolutely incredible. We feel The trip was so successful that Berlin 2019 is already planned! that we learnt so much and were able to see History in real life. We packed so much into the 2 days it felt like we were there a week! We Miss Karen Garvie really enjoyed going to see the preserved trenches as we felt it gave Teacher of History us a real insight into trench warfare. We also visited the Canadian tunnels at Vimy Ridge, which were amazing. The hostel that we stayed in was very nice, it was private and quiet which meant we had lots of Iceland 2018 space. The food was great too – pain au chocolate for breakfast! We During the Easter Holidays, 14 students and 3 staff, went on would highly recommend this trip!” an amazing trip to Iceland for 4 days. This remarkable country demonstrates the power of the earth to create some extremely Mr Mark Foster spectacular landscapes. We were accompanied on our trip by Jans, Assistant Headteacher a retired geology teacher, who was a wealth of knowledge, and was excellent at telling us Icelandic folk stories.

Drama in London The trip started with one of the most famous experiences ‘Blue Students had a fabulous time on a Theatre trip to London’s West Lagoon’. This lagoon is geothermally heated by the power of the End. As well as watching three great shows - Wicked, The Lion planet and the rich silica mud (which you smear on your face) King and Aladdin, they had the opportunity to show off their is good for your skin! The next day involved a trip along the own performance skills and experience the backstage delights southern coast, visiting waterfalls, glaciers and breath-taking of the National Theatre. This included a “hands on” session basalt columns. with a range of exciting stage props from plays including “War We also visited the site of the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. Horse”. At Pineapple Dance Studios all 41 students participated We watched a home video of the family whose farm was directly in a workshop led by members of the cast of The Lion King who affected by the eruption. were impressed by the confidence, versatility and talent of our students. A whistle-stop coach tour of London’s top sights, The next day involved a trip round the ‘Golden Circle’ – including including The Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace sites of Gullfoss, Geysir and Pingvillar National park, the site rounded off the trip perfectly! of the first parliament in Iceland. The sheer size of Geysir was incredible, it truly showed the power of the planet! The final day Mr Wayne Yeadon involved going underground into a cave that was created by the Trip Leader lava flows of previous volcanic eruptions. We experienced what total darkness was like in this underground world. Finally, we headed to the capital Reykjavik. The city of only 200,000 people is on the sea front and was a nice way to end an action packed trip. The students were an absolute credit to the school and we all had a great time!

Mr Nick Gadsby Geography Curriculum Leader

London

Iceland Berlin Battlefields 5 www.bentonpark.org.uk Spotlight on Teaching and Learning

Business Centre of Excellence World Book Day

Staff have spent the past two We thoroughly enjoyed celebrating World years working with an education Book Day again this year; specialist from Young Enterprise even being thwarted twice by the in order to create and deliver Beast from the East didn’t dampen the a detailed programme of enthusiasm of our students! There were financial education for our plenty of fantastic fancy dress outfits; students. The programme has creative activities and a ‘fashion show’ been successfully completed at lunchtime. Students discussed their and we have been recognised reading with teachers in lessons and and awarded as a Centre of completed a range of activities relating to Excellence and provider of high reading in all subjects. We raised money for quality financial education. Book Aid International, a fantastic charity that supports reading for children living in The Centre of Excellence programme has a proven track record in difficult circumstances around the world. helping children and young people understand more about money Winners on the day for fancy dress were and personal finance. We are one of 91 centres across England and Samuel Walker, Year 8, as The Cat in the Wales who have been awarded with the Centre of Excellence status Hat, Jake Lideard, Year 7, as an Oompa in financial education. Loompa and Charlie Richards, Year 7, as Wonderwoman. It was fantastic to see so As a Centre of Excellence, we will now be supported in sharing our many students and staff share their reading new expertise with other schools in the local area. This is with the experiences and love of their favourite aim of benefitting the wider educational community and students in books. neighbouring schools. Miss Ashleigh Brown Michael Mercieca, Young Enterprise Chief Executive, said: Teacher of English “Benton Park School has worked extremely hard to achieve its Centre of Excellence award and we are pleased that its students have already started to see the benefit. This programme will hopefully continue to have a positive impact on their futures. Maths in Action “Our aim is to ensure that all children and young people enter adult Last year Maths really came to life with the skills, knowledge and confidence they need to manage life for our students. February money well – and the partnership with Santander is helping to make saw 120 students from Years this goal a reality.” 9 and 10 take part in the UK

Intermediate Maths Challenge. Delia Martin, Headteacher at Benton Park School, said: Many of these students “The financial champion here at Benton Park School has worked achieved a Gold, Silver or extremely hard, with Young Enterprise’s help, to embed financial Bronze certificate. education in our curriculum. I am delighted that our efforts have been rewarded with a Centre of Excellence award. High quality This was followed in March by financial education is already bringing significant benefits to our a visit for our older students students as they take their next steps in life.” to see a performance of “Maths Inspiration” at Leeds City Varieties. The Host, Kyle Evans was entertaining and the speakers gave the audience a chance to find out how Maths applies in a variety of situations. Paul Shepherd showed us how Maths is used to optimise materials used in constructing innovative roofs for different stadiums and Katie Technology in Action Steckles challenged us with Freaky Fractals.

Our Year 7 students took part in a STEM competition called “Race Matt Parker both entertained and challenged us by demonstrating For The Line”. Through a number of enrichment days, students the use of programming to manipulate a live camera feed which researched, designed and manufactured their own rocket powered filmed round 360 degrees in all directions (a spherical view). racing cars. The culmination of this hard work was the school’s race day, during which more than 240 Year 7 students raced 63 different Our students were engaged, challenged and inspired by professional cars. The day was organised with military precision – Soldiers from mathematicians. the British Army set up a high tech race track which accurately recorded the speed of each vehicle. Competition was intense, but Fast forward to May when we saw National Numeracy Day sweep our fastest car was “The Sheep”, recorded at a speed of 34.68 mph. not just the Mathematics department but also the entire school. A very close runner up was “Go Bananas”, which recorded a speed of Students were encouraged during Form Time to take part in a quiz 34.57 mph. Both teams successfully competed against other schools that showed us how numbers affected every aspect of our life. and as a result of their fantastic scores progressed to the regional Various activities were held across the whole school from measuring final at Catterick Garrison. Here they competed against 20 other distances in P.E., to drawing Celtic knot patterns in Art, from using schools and we came extremely close to winning, coming in 3rd scrabble in Languages to compete for the highest word score to place, but only 1/1000 of a second behind the winning team! finding scores of words in Music. The whole school truly embraced numeracy and its importance. Parents also received an email Our teams performed admirably, and all involved had a fantastic outlining the importance of numeracy in life and employment and day. Well done to both teams. you can still find out more through the national numeracy website by following the link: www.nationalnumeracyday.com Mr Tom Longley Leader of Technology Mr Jordan Macrow Director of Maths

6 www.bentonpark.org.uk Focus on Arts

Grease

“Grease” hit the stage at Benton Park School during February 2018. Wednesday saw the opening night of a three day run of performances of fabulous singing,dancing and acting supported by a brilliant seven piece band. The cast and crew worked tirelessly over several months and the opening night was all the evidence that was needed to show their hard work had paid off. The performances were flawless and showcased the depth and breadth of talent we have in school. The costumes, staging and acting were all incredibly professional. The final Friday evening performance proved very special as the audience were invited to dress up and sing-a-long with the cast.

The Arts remain a strong focus at Benton Park and this production was made possible by the passion, commitment and dedication of a wide ranging team of staff in school. Rehearsals are already in full swing for the production next February which promises to be just as spectacular.

Miss Candice Veigas Teacher of Drama

Student awarded Best in Show

In July work from our A Level Art and Photography students was part of an exhibition run by the Red Kite Alliance in conjunction with Harewood House. 15 schools took part and we were absolutely delighted when one of our students Muhammad Usamah was awarded best in show. His work was entitled “Unseen” and this is what he wrote about it:

‘I am a photography student who Celebrating Art at Benton Park believes pictures speak powerful words. Through my work I try to Our Arts Celebration Evening was a great showcase of the work of demonstrate juxtaposing lifestyles; some of our most talented students in Art, Music and Drama. Our from the squalid living conditions of keynote speaker was Robin Hawkes, the Executive Artistic Director of the less fortunate, to those who are The Yorkshire Playhouse who talked about his career in the Arts and wealthy and living lavish lives. The detailed examples of how our students could become more involved pictures I have taken show a pure in local projects. He was incredibly engaging and it was fascinating to and organic expression of reality.’ hear about his experiences and varied career. Mr Stephen Brown There were amazing performances of GCSE work on Blood Leader of Art Brothers; incredible songs performed that were written by our own students; the ever-popular rock band and a variety of solos that were genuinely inspiring. Three Year 9 students ran the most delicious cake stall and students enjoyed creating their own polyprint design at the Benton Park: Make your Mark stall. A real Music highlight of the evening was a performance of “This is Me” from The Our students continue to display excellent talent in Music. Greatest Showman in sign language by the Benton Signing Club. Not Several concerts were held throughout the year from a Christmas forgetting the fantastic GCSE and A Level Art and Photography work extravaganza to a Jazz concert at the end of the academic year. The that was displayed as a gallery for the audience to enjoy. concerts showcased our talented students with all performances being of a very high standard and the students conducted The evening was absolute proof that staff and students are themselves in a very professional manner. There was a wide range determined to celebrate the importance of the Arts subjects in the of music, from jazz, classical, rock and soul, with students from Year curriculum and beyond, especially as we have so many brilliant 7 to Year 12 performing; many for the first time. Our music students concerts, productions, groups and clubs planned for next year in Art, also played a big part in our school production of Grease and in fact Music and Drama. the Music department along with the wider school were delighted

to receive a very generous donation from a parent which has been Mrs Lynn Wearing used to purchase a piano for use in school. Director of English Mr David Pritchard Leader of Music

7 www.bentonpark.org.uk Round up on Sport

A whole host of sports play a huge part in life at Benton Park School. We continue to enjoy a strong partnership with Leeds Beckett There really is something to suit everyone. Autumn term saw our University and in particular with their Carnegie School of Sport. football teams in action in the Leeds North West school league. Our Rugby season also got underway with our Key Stage 3 teams We recently had the opportunity to take all our A Level PE cohort competing in the Leeds Schools Festival leagues run by the Rugby down to their state of the art Biomechanics laboratory where our Football Union. students spent the day carrying out scientific sporting experiments and bringing their theory work Continuing on the rugby to life with practical examples. theme, we have been fortunate enough to have No annual PE calendar would the support of the Leeds be complete without our annual Rhinos in school. Their Sports Day. This year our Sports excellent academy coach, Joe Day proved to be one of the Sanderson, worked with our most inclusive events that we’ve Year 8 and Year 9 students ever hosted, with over 700 Key during PE lessons. The Stage 3 students competing students loved working with against each other representing a professional coach and their Form Groups. A fantastic made huge progress with time was had by all with the their rugby league skills. attitude of Key Stage 3 students being an absolute credit to our school. England Table Tennis continue to support the growth of the sport at Benton Park and thanks to our successful bid for funding, our In addition to our extensive PE curriculum we continue to offer students are now the beneficiary of two brand new state of the art a wide range of after school sporting clubs. All our students are table tennis tables. All students are welcome to come and use them encouraged to go along and give them a go, trying their hand at a every Thursday after school with our resident professional coach favourite sport or something entirely new! on hand to support. Summer kicked off in fantastic style with our Year 10 Under 16 Table Tennis team being crowned champions of Mr Dan Furniss the City of Leeds. An incredible achievement with our talented team Director of Sport and PE progressing as winners from the highly competitive Leeds North West pool of schools, and then going on to play against the best schools from across the City, eventually triumphing against all of them. Duke of Edinburgh This year we had 60 students completing their Bronze Award, 15 We have literally reached new heights in PE, when a large group of students completing their Silver Award and 4 students completing Year 11 GCSE PE students took part in a very successful climbing trip their Gold Award. Most to the Leeds Climbing Wall. They performed brilliantly and learnt groups were lucky with the how to climb safely, use specific climbing knots and took part in a weather and were able to fantastic speed climbing competition. enjoy Yorkshire in all of its glory. Only one Bronze group In addition to this trip, we selected a group of our elite climbing were unfortunate to have students to take part in a heavy downpours on both school bouldering competition. of their expeditions but they Bouldering is a sport we have didn’t let it dampen their enjoyed great success with in spirits and showed complete recent years and this year we resilience throughout. The were ranked 3rd place school Gold Expedition, saw the out of 17! group successfully taking on the Lake District, hills Our relationship with the Royal and all. This year the wild Marine Commandos goes from camp involved students and staff tackling the midges, on an strength to strength. Each overnight camp at Grisedale Tarn. It is always a pleasure for staff year they spend a day putting to see students in a new light and share new experiences and this students from Year 7 to Year year was no exception to that, with groups showing teamwork, 10 through their paces and communication and most importantly resilience all served with a explaining the important work that they do all around the world. smile. Well done to all students who have completed their different Their work with us helps to outline the positive attributes that can awards this year and we look forward to the new challenges be developed at school such as teamwork and resilience. that face the young people in the new academic year as well as welcoming new students to this rewarding adventure. Basketball is another success area with the fantastic achievement of our U14’s and U16’s Basketball teams who both qualified for the In Particular huge congratulations to 4 students who have Leeds City finals by finishing in the top 3 in a very competitive Leeds completed their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award. Paris Lee, Ruby North West League. They faced the best Basketball schools from Nott, Megan Dunlop and Hannah Robertson have worked extremely across the city at the finals held at the prestigious home of Leeds hard in achieving this alongside their A Level studies. Three of these Force Professional Basketball team. Both our teams finished a very students attended Buckingham Palace on 24th May to receive this respectable 3rd in their respective age categories, securing bronze prestigious award. medals.

Mrs Danni Whittel and Miss Daniella Taylor Leader of PE & Teacher of PE

Sixth Form Open evening Friends of Benton Park Your school needs you! Wednesday 7th November 2018 For more information on our future events & how you can get involved See website for further details: [email protected] 8 www.bentonpark.org.ukwww.bentonpark.org.uk www.facebook.com/bentonparkfriends