Oulder Hill Community School and Language College

Welcome back – we hope you had an enjoyable and relaxing break. As we are approaching the time of the year when we could expect snow, I would like to remind you all of the need to check the school website at www.oulderhill-school.com for up to date information regarding whether the school is open or closed. The council website will also contain this information, along with details about other council services that might be affected by snow over the coming months.

We would like to take the opportunity to extend our best wishes to those families about to celebrate Eid. Our information is that this falls on Sunday 6 November – if this is the case then naturally we will expect all students to be in school as normal on Monday 7 November. Enjoy the weekend!!

We would be most grateful for the support of parents and careers of Year 11 students in helping their children prepare for the forthcoming GCSE Maths exams. These are the real GCSE exams and will take place on Wednesday 9th November and Monday 14 November – your children should already be preparing in earnest for these but please encourage them to revise thoroughly and discuss their work with them.

All GCE and GCSE certificates from last year’s exams are now in school and can be collected between 8.00am - 3.30pm. If former students cannot pick up their own certificates in person, they can arrange for someone else to collect them providing they give their written consent. In addition, the person collecting them must also bring their own identification, such as a driving license, passport or utility bill. Unfortunately, certificates cannot be posted out because they need to be signed for.

On the Thursday before half-term we held our first Parent Forum of the academic year. It was a really interesting and informative evening in which staff and parents/carers were able to share ideas on how we can improve our school community. Mr Armitage, who is Oulder Hill’s Community and Partnerships Director, said “The evening was a great success. The parents and carers who attended are passionate about helping improve our school and presented us with some excellent ideas and feedback. All the staff who attended the evening are extremely excited by what we can achieve this year in conjunction with the Parent Forum.” The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday 15th December at 6.00pm – we look forward to seeing you there working in partnership to support the school.

Now on to some fantastic news of sporting successes. Before the half term break 100 of our students took part in the Rochdale Schools Championships. Our Year 10 and 11 girls team and our Year 8 girls team performed superbly to come first overall in their respective categories. The Year 9 girls team also did really well to finish second overall, as did the Year 7 girls team, who finished third in their category. There were also some fantastic individual performances - Kainat Nafees finished first in the Year 8 race and Mio Griffiths finished second. Abi Ellis in Year 10 also produced an amazing performance to finish first out of all the Year 10 and 11 students in Rochdale – an incredible achievement if you consider that many of the girls she was competing against were in Year 11. Well done to all who took part – not just those students that won – everyone there tried their best and represented Oulder Hill brilliantly.

Finally, thank you to our English Faculty for arranging for Manchester Actors to visit the school before half term to perform a theatrical production of John Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men” to an audience of enthusiastic Year 10 and 11 students. The students, who are currently studying this for coursework and examination at GCSE, welcomed the opportunity to see the text as performance and as one student said afterwards: “It brings the story to life and you feel more for the characters when they are not just words on the pages of a book!”