Volunteering with Hertfordshire Libraries this Summer

Aged 14 – 24? 

Friendly? Enthusiastic? Reliable?

You could volunteer to support children taking part in the Summer Reading Challenge at your local library. Volunteers talk to children about the books they have been reading and hand out rewards for each stage of the challenge.

You will gain valuable experience in working with children and families. See below for a link to the website for more information and to sign up!

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Volunteering with Hertfordshire Libraries – My Voice Volunteering Programme

This is a project designed to offer tailored volunteering opportunities throughout the year. 

These could be short term roles based around dedicating about an hour a week at a local library, to county-wide longer-term opportunities. These will develop key skills and experience in the world of work.

For more information and an online registration form visit the website;

https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/services/Libraries-and-archives/Support-your-library/Jobs-and-volunteering-at-your-library.aspx

Look out for the special envelopes arriving next week!

On June 27 th at 7pm we will be holding our 2 nd annual Arts Awards Evening. This year our keynote
speaker will be Jonny Weldon one of the stars of the hit Netflix show ‘One Day’. With over 60,000
followers on social media, Jonny is also a comedian and singer which should make for a fantastic
speech!

There will also be performances from our own students as well as the presentation of our awards.
Tickets for the lucky nominees and parents will be available from our performing arts website at
http://www.kw-arts.co.uk/box-office

Democracy in Action at Katherine Warington School

On 17 th June, the Harpenden Society will be hosting a hustings for the new constituency of
Harpenden and Berkhampsted. This features the candidates for all of the political parties standing
for election with an opportunity to ask questions of the candidates.
Two students from Katherine Warington School have also been given the opportunity to ask
questions in order to ensure that the youth voice is heard.
Whilst in person tickets are sold out, KWS will be live streaming the event for the Harpenden Society
and more information can be found at their website https://www.harpendensociety.org/

In PE we are now into the athletics and cricket season:

We’ve had some excellent performances in the first 4 meets of the athletics season this term. Thank you to the staff that have given up their time for this. We’ve had 1st place finishes for a high number of students, including:

Darci achieved 3 first place finishes in the 200m, Ali C and Jessie T-L in the hurdles for their respective year groups, Will C in the 100m, Harry S in the 300m, Lucy W in the high jump with a new PB,  Lexi F in the long jump, Finlay R throwing the  shot,  and Jessie T-L in the discus.

There are also a high number of students that have finished either second or third – too many to mention unfortunately – but well done on all your efforts.

We also wanted to acknowledge Elliot G, Jessica H, Rose S, Frankie M, Heidi and Ollie S either stepping in at the last minute or putting themselves forward for an event with limited practice beforehand, showing great character. Well done. 

In cricket, the girls teams have already had 2 fixtures. The u15 girls had an encouraging win v Samuel Ryder last week, and then the U13 and 15 girls also had a fixture against Dame Alice Owen’s – with the u13s winning by 26 runs and the u15s losing by 27 runs. Jessie T-L was recognised as the player of the match for the u13 game. Special mention also to Georgia R, Jessica K and Rose S for helping and encouraging the less experienced cricket players throughout. Well done. 

The year 7&8 boys cricket team had a fantastic win against St Albans School in the first round of the district cup, winning by 8 wickets. An outstanding performance by Finlay R, who top scored with 64 runs and also took 3 wickets. A notable contribution of 24 runs by Noah S too. The year 9&10 boys team have a fixture next week. 

A belated congratulations to Noah in Year 7 who played for the Windward Islands U15’s recently. Opened the bowling, he took 2/14 and scored 35, getting caught out in the final over going for quick runs whilst batting with the tail. Well done.

Miss Adams organised our first ever rounders fixtures. A mixed Year 7&8 team played at SJL and equipped themselves well.

Finally, congratulations to Ethel M for representing the East region at the National Gymnastics Finals last weekend. Ethel competed excellently and was awarded the silver medal for her floor routine.

On Wednesday 15th May, year 10 Computing students visited The National Museum Of Computing located in Bletchley park.  

Lucas Cosier reports “We started the day by splitting up into two groups and doing 2 activities in the morning, and two in the afternoon. My group’s first activity was understanding the Turing test which was if a computer deceives you into thinking it is a human then it is an “intelligent computer”. Then we had a look at the computer systems from the 1940’s to the 21st  century where we looked at the morse code the British and Germans used to communicate in the second world war. 

Saladeen Khodabocus adds “We were taken to the Arcade game section to appreciate previous devices that were used to operate old game systems in the 19th and 20th century. As we were introduced to the area we were also told that we were able to play/test out some of the game systems. It was a really interesting experience for everyone. Shortly after this session, we jumped straight into an old coding session, where we were informed that people from the 20th century used to type out lines of codes found on newspapers to play games. From this point forward we were given 17 lines of code that we had to type out with no errors to play the game allocated to the code. Many people attempted to write the full 17 lines of code but had no further luck.”

Thomas Roadknight comments “It was great seeing the WITCH computer – the oldest computer in the world originating in a nuclear power plant performing calculations. We also tried our hand at coding an 80’s game of python, if we made just one mistake our code would have needed to start from scratch.”

Tejan Mistry writes “My favourite part of the day was where we got to try out playing retro games such as Sonic. There were many games to choose from. We also got to see the oldest operating computer work and solve maths equations.”

Dominic Karys comments “During the Bletchley Park trip my group used BBC micro computers, which are computers that were made in 1981 to code a game of Snake. This was particularly challenging as the layout of the keyboards were different to what we usually use, and you couldn’t return to your previous line of writing and if you made a mistake you had to retype the line. But overall it was fun and was a great experience. If you were offered the trip you should go.”