Haiti Fundraising day

Our first event of 2010. All about raising money for those affected by the terrible earthquake in Haiti. Our target is to raise £1500 on one day. The most that we have raised ever in a similar manner is £1032. So a tall order. The response of students and staff has been excellent. Many new and creative ideas for fundraising and a few classic ones that always bring in the crowds. Many students and staff have voted for fairly horrible things to happen to the Principal. The options range from being dressed by Year 11 girls through to having my hair shaved off. The most popular votes were being dressed and he haircut. I really thought that "gunging" would win. However all will be revealed at lunchtime tomorrow. A great day in prospect for a really good cause

Musical show

The evening of our first show. Great excitement at the prospect of our first ever supper show. Food produced by one group of students and wonderful entertainment produced by another. Everyone who is about to take part is excited and a little terrified. We know that they have all worked so hard to make this and the next two evenings a wonderful spectacle. Best of luck to everyone

How time flies

We are nearing the end of term two and I suddenly realise that it has been almost a month since my last notes. Since then we have held Anti Bullying week, Global Enterprise week and Healthy Schools week. Our Year 11 students have completed their trial GCSE examinations. We have hosted visits from Kidderminster, Croydon, Clevedon and will finish the term with visitors from Wigan. We have held our first Learning Review day as well as the newly formatted parent/carer consultation evening. We have also opened our Management Information System to all parent/carers. This allows full access to every piece of data that we have on each student. This means that we have met the government target for full access one year early. We have just started a series of events linked to Christmas. These include community discos and a wonderful performance which is being held on three nights next week. The weeks go so quickly for everyone within the College but the arrival of two wonderful Christmas trees does tell us all that a holiday is not so far away.

The new term starts as we finished the last. Our Ofsted report has been published on the Oftsed website(www.ofsted.gov.uk). It provides plenty of evidence of our progress throughout the last three years. Now for the work of tackling the areas of improvement. On Thursday of this week we will be attending a Partnership for Schools annual award ceremony on London. The College has been shortlisted for the BSF school of the year award. Ourselves and a school in Leicester make up the nominations. We wish them the best of luck. We were awarded a BSF team of the year award at this event last year. It is great to receive the nomination and to have been shortlisted. Once again as the Ofsted team commented "a really interesting and different College" has been recognised at national level

Two busy weeks

The last two weeks have been among the busiest that the College has ever known. On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week we were subject to an Ofsted inspection. It was a well focused two days which allowed us to show off many of the great things about our College. The final report will be published in early November. The week ended with us hosting a "RAIS" conference at which Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal was the key speaker. This was a wonderful event. The College looked great and our work in taking forward restorative approaches was excellently presented by students and staff.

This week began with a visit from Deborah Meaden, the Dragons' Den star. She was visiting in her capacity as chair of the Child line Charity's South West Child's voice appeal. She was launching a new online service from the charity to support all young people who need help.

We have also hosted a Careers Fair for all Year 11 and Sixth Form students. This was followed up by a higher education evening. The Bristol Schools Cross Country Championships were held on site on Wednesday with a number of our students achieving excellent results. Today saw our Lynx community students presenting their Diwali celebration. Oh and just to fill in we have held a full evacuation fire drill.

Tomorrow is the final day of term. We will host our final visit this term from 30 colleagues from Sussex. Our attendance has never been as high as our current figure at this stage in the academic year. I think that we have all earned a welcome period of holiday before we return refreshed on 2nd November

New Chair of Governors elected

Open week has been a very busy time for us all within the College. We have been visited by well over 1000 people during our five events. This is a wonderful response from our community and provides an early indication to the possible number of applications for 2010 entry.

Also this week saw Mr Des Craddock appointed as the new Chair of the College Governing Body. Mr Julian Anderson was elected Vice Chair of Governors at the same meeting. The outgoing Chair was Mr Tony Bishop who has ended his term of office as a governor. Tony has been chair for the past nine years and has been a governor for sixteen years. We are all very grateful for the contribution Tony has made to the life of the College and for the leadership that has allowed us to take full advantage of the new build project.

Des will be writing to all parent/carers within the next few weeks to outline the changes to the working practice of the governing body that have been agreed and also to inform you of the detail contained within the action plan for the governing body

Open Week

We have been working very hard to be fully prepared for our Open Week which starts on Tuesday 29th September. We have well placed adverts in the local media, our bus adverts, being used for the first time, have been well received and every parent/carer of a Year six student within our designated area has been invited to attend . This means that we are expecting large numbers of prospective parent/carers to visit on Tuesday evening to explore the wonderful experience that is the College. The next three days will see walking tours each morning. We conclude these opportunities to view the College with an Open Morning on Saturday 3rd October. Students and staff are really looking forward to welcoming prospective new students and their parent/carers to the events of this week. Our new brochure will be available throughout the week and will soon be available via a PDF download from our website.

The current Yr 7 group is now full. We expect a high level of demand for one of the 270 places available for next September. Remember if you are considering the College as one of your choices for entry next year place BEC as your first choice to ensure a successful allocation