Author Archives: Mr J Rennalls

Continued Sporting Success!

We start with the continued sporting success of some of our pupils. The Year 8 boys matched the success of our boys and girls in Badminton and Athletics this term when they qualified for the final of the Haringey Borough Football Competition today. 

The boys had qualified for the semi final this week after sweeping aside St Thomas More, Woodside and Harris Academy in earlier fixtures this year.

The boys travelled to New River today in what was expected to be a tight encounter with Alexandra Park but ran out 4-1 winners with goals from Diego, Mikael and Darius. 

Mr Durrant who has taken over the team this term and committed a lot of time to football fixtures in the last few weeks singled out Mikael, Cavalli, Darius and Leandro for special praise based on their performance and leadership.

They now move on to the final next week (to be played at a neutral venue) against pre tournament favourites Highgate Wood.

Football in Haringey is extremely competitive and this is the first time we have reached the final since our Year 9s in 2018 so it really is a great success!

Three of our year 11 students have also been involved with some extra curricular activity at Spurs and have been featured on their website:

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2024/march/highlight-of-the-week-students-explain-how-huddle-project-makes-a-difference-after-special-guest-appearances/

Fantastic work all round!

Powering Transformation at Imperial College 19th March 2024

On Tuesday 19th March 2024, a group of 36 Year 7’s were given the opportunity to participate in the powering transformation workshop at the Imperial college London. 

The feedback from the organisers speaks volumes; Radhika, who facilitated the session, Jenni, CEO of the Imperial team and the Dell Volunteer, all were so impressed by the students.

The students were in a university lab learning about the different STEM careers and how the university students’ pathways and passions in secondary schools led to the courses that they are studying at university.

They were given the opportunity for a Q and A session with University students, CEO of the university and the Dell representative about any questions they had about what steps led to where they were and how they achieved their goals. 

Touring the university site and asking questions about life at university, Teddy’s questions about Quantum mechanics left the host speechless about how engaged they were in the session. 

Everyone in each group created a presentation about how technology can solve real life problems. They were unique and the confidence of each child sharing their ideas, showed the pride of our school and the student said this was the best trip.

Romeo & Juliet at Shakespeare’s Globe

This week also saw a fantastic trip to Shakespeare’s Globe for an intrepid group of our year 11 students. On the evening of Thursday 21st March over 60 year 11s travelled by public transport to see the current production of ‘Romeo & Juliet’ at the Globe. Sitting outside watching Shakespeare isn’t always easy but our students represented Duke’s fantastically well and loved the production. Well done to the English faculty for organising and taking the students during the evening!

Bright Futures

This week our year 9 students were introduced to the ‘Bright Futures’ initiative. All members of the year group were treated to a fantastic assembly that highlighted future options and a group of 30 students from the year has been selected to take part in the programme this year. 

The Bright Futures programme, funded by the Aldridge Foundation within the school term

Time is a number of group coaching workshops facilitated by a senior youth worker and other specialist providers. The coaching sessions help to improve communication skills, increase confidence, raise aspirations and help young people begin mapping out their next steps to prepare for the transition to KS4 and life after school. They will also be building a supportive community with their peers.

Students who took part in the workshops this week had an absolutely fantastic time – displaying loads of the Aldridge Attributes such as Team Work and Determination!

 

Upfront Theatre Company

This week also year 9 and 10 students watched a performance by Upfront Theatre Company. THe performance touched on issues around mental health and self harm with students taking part in a fantastic question and answer session after the performance. The actors were very impressed with our students and their responses to the performance. 

 

Science Week 

We’ve been celebrating British Science Week this week with assemblies from the Science Department and activities in Tutor Time. The theme of the week was ‘Time’ and this year we marked it with a special interactive assembly as well as launching a ‘growth’ competition in tutor groups – the theme of ‘time’ is highlighted with the seed growth contest! Good luck to all groups taking part!

 

International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day was marked last week with tutor activities as well as a special ‘Women in Careers’ activity that happened throughout the day (this linked IWD up with careers week!). The theme of IWD this year was ‘Inspire Inclusion’ and lots of discussion were held in tutor groups around the subject.

It was also really heartening to see a number of students in school bringing flowers to school to give to female teachers to say thank you! Well done to Romina is year 10 who (amongst others) decided of her own initiative to highlight female teachers as part of International Women’s Day in this way!

 

Y10 football team  2-1 win against Harris Tottenham!

Some more sporting success now – our year 10s played football against Harris Tottenham at their school this week. Our pupils were able to win 2-1, with our goals scored by Reece in year 10. A fantastic performance so well done all!

 

It’s been a busy week as ever at Duke’s. Here is run down of some of the events and activities we’ve had going on:

Book Week 2024

A key moment in the annual calendar Book Week 2024 went off with a real bang this year. A fantastic range of activities organised by the English Department and the library included a brilliant book sale on Purple Lane, reading activities and an amazing author visit by Jeffrey Boakye. Jeffery delivered some amazing assemblies to our students on his life through books but also talked about empowerment, masculinity and his own personal journey and sense of self – what an inspirational experience. 

As usual our Book Week culminated with our annual parade of characters with lots of students and staff dressing up as characters from books and stories – the theme this year was Heroes and Villains – some excellent costumes were on display and a great time was had by all!

National Careers Week

We’ve also marked National Careers week this week with student assemblies and activities relating to careers and employment – particularly in the Borough of Haringey. Some fascinating stats were discussed including the fact that the Public Sector is the largest employer in Haringey but that recently there has been a rise in artisan cheese production and craft beer in our local area!

Looking at careers across the curriculum has been a focus for us during National Careers Week and encouraging students to make the links between different subject areas and potential careers has been really illuminating for our students. 

More Badminton Success for Year 11

Some more badminton success has been achieved with our year 11 students. Mia, Isa and Andrey were invited for a trial to select the best Badminton players in Haringey to possibly represent the borough at the London Youth Games in the Summer.

This meant after sitting their GCSE PE mock exam they had to race down to Highgate Wood school for the trial to play against the very best Year 11s in the borough. It was all worth it though as all three have been selected! A very proud PE Department! 

Year 8 Football Success

Some further success was also achieved this week by our year 8 boys football team against Woodside High School. They won the group stage of the Borough schools football league with a 12 – 0 victory against Woodside!

This means that they will attend a finals day at New River, and will play against the best schools in the borough in the semis and hopefully finals.  

West End Theatre Trip – ‘Everybody’s Talking about Jamie’ 

On Wednesday 6th March a lucky group of year 9 and 10 students got to go into the West End and watch a performance of ‘Everybody’s Talking about Jamie’ at the Peacock Theatre. The students were entranced by the high octane singing, dancing and acting. The year 10 students were able to see lots of the skills and techniques we learn about in class on stage and the students came away totally enthused and exhilarated. 

MFL Trip to LAET 

Recently a group of year 9 French and Spanish Students took a trip to the London Academy of Excellence Tottenham (LAET) our Head of Modern Foreign Languages Ms Anthony had this to say:

El veintiuno de febrero dos mil veinticinco or le vingt février deux mille vingt-trois was a great day for 26 of Duke’s Year 9 French and Spanish students. It was the first time that many of us set foot into the prestigious London Academy of Excellence, Tottenham. We were also looking forward to discovering the identity of the guest speaker, who was going to remind us about The Importance of Modern Foreign Languages.

Chris Dennis, a multilingual Sports Broadcast Journalist turned out to be the speaker for the

Event. Radio 4 aficionados – one of whom was Arjol Kociu – recognised his voice and his name. His presentation was very inspiring and Duke’s Year 9 students weren’t at all fazed by the presence of LAET’s A-Level champion linguists.

Chris Dennis shared with us how his linguistic skills (he did a degree in French and Mandarin, and learned – after graduating from University – German & Spanish) enabled him to get an exclusive interview with Kodjovi Obilale, a Togolese former footballer.

The ‘take-aways’ from the talk were that Learning a Modern Foreign Language is very useful because:

 

Not everyone speaks English

Languages open doors and minds

They are key to relationship building

They make travelling more fulfilling

They are life-enhancing and life-extending

They add value to your life and to your future career.

They provide you with more opportunities in life.

 

I was proud (in a humble way!) of the question posed by Saad Khan, who asked Chris what

made him decide to become a journalist. The answer was intriguing; Chris stated that two

character traits motivated him to be a journalist: being nosey and his love of story-telling.

Many of us at Duke’s can identify with these traits. How many potential journalists are there among us?

 

Now that Duke’s has now forged links with the MFL Department at LAET, we look forward to a wealth of activities in the future.

Watch this space!

Á suivre!

¡Mantente atento!

 

Haringey Indoor Athletics Championships – 26th Feb 

The Dukes PE team attended the Haringey Indoor Athletics Championships at Lee Valley this week with some outstanding performances from our pupils, most notably:

Cavalli in Year 8 who won the 200m and Long Jump.

Kamarion in Year 9 who won the 200m for a second year running!

John who won the 800m for Year 9.

Zeeshan in Year 10 who came 2nd in the 60m.

Marcell In Year 10 who came 2nd in his heat in the 200m.

Darius in Year 8 who came 3rd in the 800m.

Diego Year 8  who came 3rd in the 60m.

As well as Nathan (Y10), Daniella and Tanaye (Year 8) who all represented their school with distinction. What a fantastic set of results – all students who attended did us proud!

Year 9 Trip – Tottenham Hotspur’s Training Ground

A lucky group of year 9 students also got to go on a trip to the Tottenham Hotspur’s Training ground this week. The pupils were supporting the delivery of coaching qualifications for the Spurs under 18 academy team. A member of their academy coaching team approached Mr Green to commend him on their behaviour and the standard of their football. Well done all!

‘Kindness: A Legacy of the Holocaust’ – Performance at Duke’s 

Our year 10 History, Sociology and Drama students this week got to watch a performance of ‘Kindness: A Legacy of the Holocaust’ presented by ‘Voices’ theatre company.  

The play was written by Cate Hollis and Mark Wheeller and used actual words from a Holocaust survivor; Susan Pollack MBE. Students got to experience the power and importance of this emotional production and were also treated to a fascinating question and answer session with the actors after the show. 

Some students in year 10 said:

“I learnt about how much individuals had to suffer silently with no care, no right or voice. They were outcast just for religion they believed in.”

“I liked how the production was historically accurate and didn’t repeat the mistakes of some more pseudo-historical works. The production was great at portraying the Holocaust in a respectful and sensitive way”

“Great acting by all involved, it provided a brilliant insight into what many families faced during the Holocaust.”

A Successful week for options interviews

Our year 9 students this week took part in their individual options interviews for their KS4 options. The students were really well prepared and mature during their interviews all displaying the commitment and forethought required for the process. It was brilliant for all students involved to have this opportunity and we know that all students are looking forward now to the next stage of their educational journey.