The warm hue of education was in the air on the 19th March as the English Department and the Student Librarian volunteers kindly ran their own coffee morning/afternoon. Parents and children alike read their favourite books in a wonderful gathering of multiple age groups, from the young to the old with many parents and grandparents arriving. There was a bombardment of fantastic comments by the parents, with one parent saying:

“It was very successful and lots of people have turned up, and I hope this will encourage more children and parents to read together”,

Our very own Mrs. Mellar  gave us a lovely analogy about the event by comparing a normal, dull library to our very own, atmospheric library which can attract people of all ages and can allow parents and children to read together more often.

We caught up with Food Technology teacher, Mrs. Katabalwa, and asked what she thought of the coffee morning/afternoon:

“I think today has been a wonderful opportunity for the children, parents and grandparents to get together and have a little bit of reading with some coffee or tea, I can't think of anything more lovely than spending time discussing a book or reading a few pages."

"Do you think this will encourage more parents and children to read together?"

“Yes, I think we've fallen into the trap of when they're very little, we always read to our children but when the children get older we always forget to read to the children but I think it's always nice to have that quality time to have family members together and reading"

KS3 English Leader and event organiser, Mrs. Brough said, "Many thanks to everyone for their support, the response has been really positive."

And even though Miss Lambe forgot to administer hand sanitiser to the visitors, everything still went according to plan.

By Kadir Guler and Niles Butler Y10

On Tuesday 11th March King Edward VI High School Stafford held a High 5 Netball festival. (a 5 a side game with adapted rules for primary children in mixed teams)

This follows on from the very successful primary school festivals already held at King Edward VI High School this year.

7 Primary school teams from the King Edward VI High School cluster participated in this popular event. That was around 50 children.

The games took place on the courts at King Edward VI High School, between 4pm – 5.30pm.

The emphasis was very much on taking part and enjoying the game of netball as for many children it was the 1st competitive games they had played.

High 5 is a 5 a side netball game with modified rules to accommodate the needs of the younger players. Teams were mixed sex.

Sports leaders from Y10, Y12 & Y13 at King Edward VI High School, umpired the games, organising the teams, acted as team managers and record the scores.

The festival was an opportunity to promote another sporting activity and to work across the whole age range of pupils in the family. All age groups worked together to make the event possible.

By holding a netball festival we hope to increase the amount of exercise children are doing. It is a great opportunity for the children to sample an activity in a festival environment and for the sports leaders to gain umpiring and leadership experience.

On the evening all games were played in a very sporting atmosphere. The competing teams were from Castlechurch, Church Eaton, Haughton St Giles (2 teams) and Woodseaves (3 teams).

All teams played each other and after some high scoring games Castlechurch emerged as the overall winners in a closely contested competition.