Regents Review Spring 2022

The Regents Review Spring 2022

WELCOME

Headteacher’s Welcome

Being the Headteacher of Regents Park is a privilege and every day I learn more about our community and our history which is just fascinating. Our school name first appears in 1913 when the Infant School opened for the first time. A year later in 1914 the Secondary School opened its doors. We read in our RPCC archive that many years on in 1940 the school had to be evacuated and it was six years before we opened again as a renamed Regents Park Secondary Modern School for girls and boys, with the addition of an infant school. Now that we have been able to open our doors once again to the wider community it has been very special to have conversations with grandparents, uncles, aunties, sisters and friends in our community who once attended the school. I so enjoy learning about the school community and the sharing of memories. As you will see on our social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and our website) this month has seen us capture memories from the past including our current staff who were once students here! Visitors always comment on the wonderful warmth they feel when they walk around the school but they also comment on the eclectic mix of the traditional and the modern. Our bell tower still rises up proudly into the sky as you approach the school, the infant sign is still etched into the stone entrance, our Victorian doors creek as they open and our parquet flooring still shines in our main hall. Community is in our name, it is in the sole of the building it is our ethos and it is in our future. Our students are at the heart of what we do every day and we have truly missed seeing them experience the fully open RPCC offer over the pandemic. Thankfully those days have passed and now we enjoy seeing students back on stage singing and dancing, children in the pool learning

to swim and lifeguard, others attending to our school site improvement or looking after our allotment, visits from primary schools, sharing reading and mentoring, trampolining, football, art competitions, reward events, dance events, maths clubs, science revision, evening library events and so much more…. we truly have Bounced back. Our laptop lockers and ICT rooms allow our students to access the world beyond the building, our state-of-the-art science laboratories support the challenge of learning physics, shemistry and biology in a modern environment, our Design Hub offers students the opportunity to be creative in making tasty dishes in food technology and making birdboxes or puzzles from wood. Like every community we are always changing. Firstly, I want to thank our Head Ambassadors, Jack and Nicole, for working so hard to represent the student voice and as they get ready to sit their exams next term. They will be getting ready to pass the title and the responsibilities onto the next generation of student leaders. I also want to thank a few members of staff for being part of our community over the last few years as they move onto new challenges and promotions: Mr Odum who will be leaving the maths team to be a Curriculum Leader, Mr Timmis who will be leaving the science team to experience teaching Key Stage 5, Mrs Stanness Witcher who is extending her skills by returning to study, Mrs O’Donoghue from our Technician team who is moving for a promotion in a bigger department and Miss Giles, our cleaning supervisor who will be joining the NHS. We are always so proud when we can share in the success of our staff and our recent recruitment process has meant that we will have some wonderful new staff joining our community who will take over these posts. Thank you for being part of our community, enjoy the Easter break and we look forward to sharing more community stories in the next Regents Review. Mrs Barnes Headteacher

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