Events

High School Musical – on stage!

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What a show! Three casts featuring over 150 students wowed audiences over four performances at Weston-super-Mare’s Playhouse Theatre last week. I was lucky enough to go to see it twice, but I would happily have gone again…and again!

Firstly, a confession. I love High School Musical. I was a fan when the first movie came out in 2006, to the point that I had a HSM calendar in my classroom which my tutor group bought as a Christmas present! I’ve watched all the films, and I even watched High School Musical: The Musical: The Series on Disney Plus…so, yes, I am a bona fide fan. So, I was a little nervous about our production. Would we be able to do it justice?

I needn’t have worried! The show wasn’t just good – it was brilliant! The acting, the singing, the dancing, the sound, the lighting, the performance…just brilliant! The leads have a lot of work to do, bringing these huge characters to life, with some really challenging singing and a lot of lines to remember, but they did a fantastic job. From Sharpay’s self-centred narcissism, to Troy Bolton’s struggle to be true to himself against the expectations of those around him, to Gabriella’s struggle to re-make her identity, the lead actors managed to bring depth and emotion to their performances.

High School Musical is also funny – really funny. Comedy is really difficult to do on stage, but our students really committed to the script and brought it fully to life, with hilarious results! Ms Darbus’s thespians, for example, showed how the background cast, with no lines to speak, could steal a scene with a dramatic representation of, for example, an earthworm on stage. In fact, the chorus and background cast were so brilliant that I often found myself watching them (and cracking up!) even whilst the leads were performing in front.

The key to the show, of course, is the music. The band were incredible, totally on point from the big showstoppers to the short interludes, giving a really strong platform for the singers and dancers to shine. And wow, did they shine! The solos, harmonies and chorus numbers blew the audience away. There were so many great tunes that it’s impossible to pick a favourite, although “We’re all in this together” is the number I’ve found myself humming in my head all week.

The Dance teams showed why practice makes perfect, nailing every move with energy and commitment – and some pretty impressive acrobatics! It was also great to see our performing arts captains taking lead roles in the production, with dance captains Matilda Nicholson and Lydia Wilson leading their teams with great distinction. And the younger students, learning from the senior students’ example, showed that the future is bright!

I also need to pay tribute to the staff who made it happen. The amazing team in performing arts have put everything into building the platform that enabled our students to shine on stage, and they have been supported by a whole-school effort to get the show on the road. The performances this week have shown that all those hours, the sacrifices, and the struggles have been worth it.

I could go on and on about how brilliant the show was, and I almost certainly will for months and years to come. The memories that our students have made will last a lifetime, and the experience that they gave the audiences will do the same. But what the show really did for me, in a time of stretched budgets, narrowed curriculums, and a challenging educational landscape, was reinforce why the arts really, really matter. A show like this does everything that education should do: its shows students that hard work pays off; that a team that works together is stronger than the sum of its parts; that full commitment leads to a better performance; and that you can be anything you want to be, no matter what anyone tells you to the contrary. The students have learned a million lessons through the experience of High School Musical, and they are all walking taller as a result.

In the words of the song:

Everyone is special in their own way
We make each other strong
We’re not the same
We’re different in a good way
Together’s where we belong

We’re all in this together
Once we know
That we are
We’re all stars
And we see that

We’re all in this together
And it shows
When we stand
Hand in hand
Make our dreams come true

I can’t say it any better than that!

Open Evening 2023

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Our open evening is a great opportunity for us to show off our school to children in primary school who are thinking about their choices for secondary education – and their families! We strongly believe that our students are our greatest ambassadors, and this year we had over 300 of them on site acting as tour guides, ambassadors for faculties, or taking part in rehearsals for our upcoming production of High School Musical – on stage. As ever, our students were amazing, and I want to thank them all for their brilliant contribution.

There was a real buzz around the Academy site as families came to visit us. Thankfully Storm Agnes, which was forecast to hit on Wednesday evening, only provided a strong breeze on what was otherwise a lovely autumn evening. Visitors got to sample all of our subject areas and a range of our extra-curricular activities across the site, as our future students collected stickers in their passport books with the promise of a “future student” badge from the Sixth Form if they collected them all!

My part in the proceedings was to present our vision, values and purpose to assembled visitors in the hall. I was delighted we had full houses for both presentations! As ever, I wanted the students’ voices to come through strongly, as they are able to “tell it like it is” from their perspectives. I have to say, I was bursting with pride a I listened to Bruce and Oliviya in Year 13, and Katie and Erin from Year 11, describe their experiences at Churchill and how it has shaped them into the wonderful young adults they have become. But it was Lola, Henry, Grace and Edward from Year 7 who stole the show: only at Churchill for three weeks, and already with the confidence to stand up and speak to an audience of nearly 400 people about their experience of transition from primary to secondary, and starting at Churchill. It was wonderful!

Next week we have two open mornings, on Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th October, for parents and children to come and see the school in action on a normal day and to see what it’s really like at Churchill. Tickets can be booked on Eventbrite via our website.

The deadline for submitting applications to join Churchill Academy & Sixth Form in Year 7 is 31st October. All the links you need can be found on our admissions page. We look forward to seeing you soon!

Presentation Evening 2023

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Our annual presentation evening is a great event in the Academy’s calendar. The evening celebrates the achievements of our highest-performing students, the crème-de-la-crème of Churchill’s excellent student body. Quite rightly, the main focus of the evening is on academic success, and in particular those students who have distinguished themselves in their public examinations, both at GCSE and at A-level. But we recognise that a school is about more than just the examination results that young people achieve, so we were also really proud award prizes for service to the community, for progress and improvement, for compassion, for resilience, and for attitudes to learning, all of which often go hand in hand with academic success. This dedication to developing the whole person, academically and personally, is at the heart of our mission and purpose here at Churchill Academy & Sixth Form.

I often speak to our students about why we are here; why our school exists; what our purpose is. Based on our three core values of kindness, curiosity and determination, we have set ourselves the goal of inspiring and enabling all our young people to make a positive difference both in their time at the Academy and, perhaps more importantly, when they leave us. We aim that the young people who go through Churchill Academy & Sixth Form will go out into the world with the knowledge, skills, character and confidence to make the world a better place. Some of them will do it in small ways, others will change it in ways we can’t even imagine yet, but we are incredibly proud of the young people who attend our Academy and who are celebrated at Presentation Evening.

I was absolutely delighted to be joined this year by two guest presenters on stage, to help me hand out the prizes. Both of them gave fantastic speeches to inspire our audience of prize winners and supporters.

Our first guest of honour was Meg Abernethy-Hope. I taught Meg A-level Media Studies in my final years as Deputy Headteacher at Chew Valley School. Meg was always a wonderful student, with the kind of confident fearlessness that inspires everyone around her. Meg was already modelling when she was at school, and has gone on to a successful career as a model and an actress. But it is Meg’s activism that has come to define her work. As co-founder of The Billy Chip, she turned a personal and family tragedy into a force for social good. Meg presented the Academy & Community prizes, before giving a fantastic account of her experiences at school and beyond, and how the Academy’s values of kindness, curiosity and determination helped her through the many challenges which she has faced, and guided her to the incredible achievements she has already accomplished. We look forward to her forthcoming TED talk!

Our second guest was Anna Jones. Anna was a recipient of a prize at Presentation Evening 2016, when she was a student at Churchill. Anna went on to study Natural Sciences at Cambridge, and is now studying for a Doctorate at Wolfson College, Oxford in the long term Ecology lab. Anna is investigating how ground level ozone exposure affects tree health and growth, using a combination of satellite data, spectroscopy and individual tree physiology to understand how ozone damage scales from local to global vegetation. Anna joined me to present the academic prizes and awards based on this year’s exam results, before giving a wonderful speech of her own about her time at Churchill and in academia, where she now climbs into forest canopies to collect data on the impact of ozone on tree health – relying on skills she first encountered on work experience in Year 10 at the Academy!

It was wonderful to see our students celebrated in this way, and I look forward to the bright futures they all have ahead of them. You can see a full list of this year’s prize winners, and the Celebration of Success Roll of Honour, alongside an archive of past winners, on the prize winners page of the Academy website.

Activities Week 2023

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Activities Week is an important date our calendar, and a vital part of our curriculum. The week gives our students opportunities to broaden their horizons, try new experiences, develop their skills, and build their character and confidence in new settings and different environments. Through a combination of “basecamp” activities in school, day trips and residentials we provide a huge range of opportunities that students can personalise by selecting the range of activities that fit their interests and enthusiasms. We hope that students will make memories for a lifetime.

At the same time, Year 10 and some sixth form students were out on work experience, whilst a group of Year 12 students were in Cambridge getting a taste of University life with HE+ and our Duke of Edinburgh Silver participants were out completing their expeditions. These adventures extend the vision for Activities Week, by continuing to build students’ skills, experience and confidence in new contexts. As ever, we are so proud of our students for the way in which they rise to the challenges and represent the Academy so positively.

The photos below give just a sample of some of the things our students got up to over the course of the week!

This year’s Activities Week was threatened by the two days of industrial action announced by the NEU. We are hugely grateful to the teaching and support staff who made the decision to support Activities Week over the legitimate strike action, which enabled all of our planned activities to go ahead uninterrupted.

Raising aspirations: Year 11 at Oxford University

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I have just returned from a fantastic day with 26 of our Year 11 students visiting Oxford University. Fresh from completing their GCSEs and Sixth Form induction day, we headed off to the dreaming spires on a sunny Thursday, ahead of the Year 11 Ball tomorrow!

Our host for the day was the wonderful Evie from Exeter College’s Outreach team. She gave the students an introduction to Oxford, including some myth-busting, followed by a tour of Exeter College, including the beautiful chapel. This was followed by a fascinating taster session for English Literature, looking at some eighteenth-century satire. The students engaged brilliantly with the text and the session, exploring concepts such as the authorial contract, and making links with contemporary political rhetoric as well as their knowledge of Dickens and Victorian literature. Evie said it was one of the best discussions she’d ever had in response to the session!

We were ready for a delicious lunch in Exeter College’s Hall, followed by a second taster session. This time, Ben from Brasenose College gave the students an experience of the sort of things they might learn about on an Experimental Psychology course. Again, our students excelled as they engaged with the interrelation of classical conditioning and the placebo effect – even suggesting an interesting new area of research into whether the placebo effect could be used in the fight against antibiotic resistance!

The day finished with a visit to New College, the college I studied at for my undergraduate degree and which is now home to ex-Churchill student Sarah, who has just finished her first year studying Chemistry. Sarah was part of the last group of Year 11 students I took to Oxford back in 2019 – we recorded a podcast together at New College earlier in the year reflecting on the impact of that experience. As our current Year 11 students took in the New College Chapel, Cloisters and the famous tree where Draco Malfoy was turned into a ferret by Mad-Eye Moody in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I hope some of them were similarly inspired to think about applying. Based on their performance in the taster sessions, they are more than capable of getting in!

The Coronation

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This weekend we have the second bank holiday in a row – this time, for the coronation of the King. I know that people in our Academy community will have a range of views on the monarchy, and on the coronation itself, from fervent monarchists to staunch republicans, and everything in between.

For me, the monarchy represents a tangible connection with the history of our country. It’s a ceremony which has been carried out forty times in Westminster Abbey, and the first time I will have the chance to see it – my parents were only five or six when Queen Elizabeth was crowned! I will be watching out for the connections to the past, as well as the signs of the future, when I watch the ceremony on Saturday.

Westminster Abbey

The English coronation service was drawn up by St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, for the coronation of Edgar, first King of All England, in 973 at Bath Abbey, but Westminster Abbey has been Britain’s coronation church since 1066. King Charles III will be the 40th reigning monarch to be crowned at the Abbey this weekend. The first documented coronation at Westminster was that of William the Conqueror on 25th December 1066. It is likely that Harold Godwinson was also crowned in the Abbey following the death of Edward the Confessor’s, but there is no evidence to confirm that this happened. William probably chose the Abbey for his coronation to reinforce his claim to be a legitimate successor of Edward the Confessor, having defeated Harold at the Battle of Hastings.

Queen Elizabeth I in her coronation robes

The two monarchs who did not have any coronation were Edward V (the boy king), who was presumed murdered in the Tower of London before he could be crowned, and Edward VIII who abdicated 11 months after succeeding his father and before the date set for his coronation. William III and Mary II were the only joint monarchs to be crowned.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, public spectacle sometimes overshadowed religious significance. At George III’s coronation some of the congregation began to eat a meal during the sermon. George IV’s coronation was a great theatrical occasion but he flatly refused to allow his estranged wife Caroline to enter the Abbey. William IV had to be persuaded to have a coronation at all and spent so little money on it that it became known as ‘the penny coronation’. With Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838 came a renewed appreciation of the true religious meaning of the ceremony.

Coronation portrait of Queen Victoria from 1838

By the time Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953 millions around the world were able to witness her coronation on television.

Coronation portrait of Queen Elizbeth II, 1953

King Charles will travel to the Coronation in the Diamond Jubilee State Coach – a fully modernised coach with heaters, air conditioning and electric windows! But his journey back will be in the Gold State Coach, which has no mod cons, and which Queen Elizabeth famously described as “horrible.” I suppose it’s all relative!

St Edward’s Crown

The crown that will be used is the St Edward’s crown, which was made in 1661 for King Charles II. It is a copy of an earlier crown, thought to have been used since the 11th century – but it is believed that Oliver Cromwell had that one melted down when the monarchy was abolished between 1653 and 1658.

As part of the ceremony, we will see the Crown Jewels in action. This includes the orb, a golden, jewelled ball with a cross on top to symbolise that the monarch’s power comes from God. The orb is accompanied by sceptres – jewelled golden sticks – which symbolise the monarch’s power and rule.

The ritual, ceremony and regalia of the coronation will not be to everyone’s taste – but, for me, they are a connection to our nation’s history, and I will be watching with interest.

Self-expression: finding your voice

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I have been really proud this week to see our Academy’s vision – “to inspire and enable young people to make a positive difference” – manifesting in our students’ achievements.

We often talk about the education we provide at Churchill helping our students to make a positive difference to themselves, to our Academy community, and to the wider world around them. This week, I have seen this in three wonderful examples of our students building their confidence, pushing themselves out of their comfort zone, and finding a way to express themselves – finding their voice – through the opportunities offered at Churchill.

Dance Live!

On Wednesday night, our dancers and their support crew were in Portsmouth for the national finals of Dance Live! Having won the semi-finals, we knew our ensemble would now be up against the very best in the country. Since that triumph, they had listened carefully to the feedback and honed their performance to perfection, synchronising their movement to the huge video display screen behind them. I was following – along with hundreds of others – the Instagram Story updates as they rehearsed and prepared in the prestigious Guildhall auditorium. And then…it all went quiet. Until an email from Mr Buckley confirmed that their incredible performance had won them second place – and top state school in the finals! This amazing achievement was accompanied by a healthy £500 prize for Team Performing Arts.

Video of the semi-final performance

We know, from long experience, that the arts are essential for enabling students to find a way to express themselves. Whether it be through dance, or drama, or music, or painting, or sculpture, or installations, or film, we do all we can to help our students give expression to their ideas. To see that come together, in such a triumphant way as this, is breath-taking. I am so proud of the students, and the staff, who helped put this together.

Poetry Competition

Also this week was the final of the inter-house poetry competition. In this event, our students found their voices through the language and layout of poetic forms, expressing themselves using the rhythms, rhymes and interplay of words. The themes of this year’s competition were social media, and Churchill Academy & Sixth Form, and our students found new and unusual angles on both subjects. You can read more on our website, but here is the winning poem:

You Only Get One Life
By Melissa Otero-Zambrzycka

Open the app, shut the door,
Time after time, coming back for more,
Another swipe, another scroll,
Another notification on the phone,
A nagging need to know every hit,
Every detail, every bit,
“What are they saying?”
“What do they think?”


The need to feel that acceptance,
From a group of strangers, you don’t even know,
The feeling when that comment,
Makes you hit an all time low,
The toxicity of the fact,
“They don’t care how you feel,”
Putting your heart out there is a gamble,
Yet you chose to spin that wheel.


And so you isolate, compensate,
For people you’ll never meet again,
When in reality, waiting outside that door,
Is only the truest friends,
But your eyes cannot leave that screen,
It’s a vortex you cannot reverse,
You cannot leave, even if you plead,
And every hateful comment hurts,


But you’re stuck in this matrix,
And “Who cares, you’re all alone,”
But it only takes one move to escape it all,
Go on, turn off your phone.


Get out into the real world,
Write your own story in colourful ink,
You’ve only got one life,
“Who cares what people think?”

I just love what Melissa has done with her poem here. The use of the “who cares what people think” refrain at the beginning and the end, with the twist in meaning from the changed context, helps to reinforce the message of the poem: that it’s all about perception. Your own attitude towards things is what really matters – not what other people think. I think it’s fantastic that our students have these opportunities to hone their craft and get their words out into the world in this way.

The Gabblers Club

On Monday, I returned to the Bristol Hotel for the finals of the Gabblers Club competition for the first time since the COVID pandemic. Gabblers is a long-standing tradition across Bristol schools, where Sixth Form students meet together to practise the art of after-dinner speaking. There were twenty competitors from state and independent schools, with our entrant – Gemma Partridge – dazzling the audience with her witty and thought-provoking speech on the topic of “Soaps.” Gemma – who won the Raymond Hayter Song Prize in the Churchill Young Musician of the Year competition in January, and was part of the crew for Dance Live! – is a shining example of a student who has made the most of the opportunities offered to her, and thrived as a result.

It makes me so proud to see our students achieving such highs across this range of disciplines – with the confidence to express themselves. This is exactly the positive difference our vision statement talks about.

The power of music to change lives

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Last summer, the government published “A National Plan for music education.” Whilst schools are crushed under the weight of non-statutory guidance from the Department for Education, telling schools they should be doing this, or they should be doing that, this was one plan that I could fully support. The ministerial foreword says:

Excellent music education opens opportunities, but it is not simply a means to an end: it is also an end in itself. It gives children and young people an opportunity to express themselves, to explore their creativity, to work hard at something, persevere and shine. These experiences and achievements stay with them and shape their lives.

From The Power of Music to Change Lives: a national plan for music education, June 2022

I found myself in the unusual position of being inspired by a piece of government guidance!

I grew up playing instruments, having lessons on the piano and guitar throughout my school days. I was in bands and ensembles from primary school, through university and beyond. When I completed my newly qualified teacher year, I bought myself a saxophone as a “congratulations” present to myself, alongside a challenge to learn to play it well enough to be in the band for my school’s production of Bugsy Malone in the next academic year.

Since then I have played in pit bands for school productions of Grease, Little Shop of Horrors, Godspell, Return to the Forbidden Planet (three times!) and more. I’ve directed – and even written! – musicals. I’ve played in big bands, covers bands, rock bands and jazz groups. There’s nothing quite like playing with others, sharing never-to-be-repeated moments in live performance, where the interactions and interplay between the musicians and the audiences create that unique moment in time for all involved.

This is why I am pleased to see the Department for Education prioritising music education. There is a recognition of the contribution that music makes to the economy, and the careers that can be pursued within the music industry; this is, after all, a government document. But it is also clear that a good quality music education is a right for all our young people.

We are fortunate at Churchill to be building on a firm foundation, with an established strength in the musical life of the school, supported by the North Somerset music service and, more locally, the amazing support of Churchill Music. Our partnership with Churchill Music continues to thrive, not least in the Churchill Young Musician of the Year competition which took place on Monday.

This competition, along with the wealth of musical activities across the school, shows that music is at the very heart of our education at Churchill – and will continue to be there, whether or not the government issues non-statutory guidance to tell us that it should be.

Making informed choices

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This term our attention has been focused on the Year 9 options process. The options evening this week was a good opportunity to meet with students and their families to discuss the choices that they are making as they seek to personalise their curriculum for years 10 and 11. As I said to the assembled parents, carers and students in the hall alongside Mrs Dawes on Wednesday evening, the aim of the whole process is to provide as much information as possible, so that students can make good decisions about their next steps.

The same philosophy governs our whole “choices” programme – whether it be advice and guidance to Year 11 students making decisions about post-16 education; or sixth formers exploring their options for higher education through universities, apprenticeships, employment or gap years; or the wider careers inspiration, advice and guidance programme that covers all our students; the aim is to ensure that our students are well-informed about their choices, so they can make the right decisions for them.

An example of this was our “Careers to Curriculum Day” for Year 9 students on the day after options evening this week. Year 9 students followed an adapted timetable to learn more about how the subjects they follow on their curriculum apply to the real world of work. From the applications of maths to climate science, the use of economics and law, the life of an actor, product design, illustration, journalism, financial trading, medical ethics and food sciences, our students got to think about how their classroom work could serve them in a future career.

This was supported by our annual Careers Convention on Thursday evening. We welcomed representatives from businesses both local, national and international to the Academy. We had employers including Airbus, GKN Aerospace, Rolls Royce and Taylor Wimpey; Civil Service Careers and HMRC; the Army, Royal Navy and Border Force; the NHS and St Monica Trust; Virgin Atlantic and Easyjet; the Met Office, Thatchers, Wessex Water, the National Grid Electricity Distribution, Burges Salmon, Motorbodies Weston and more. They were joined by further and higher education providers including colleges, apprenticeship providers, and universities with the aim of raising student aspirations, broadening their horizons, and encouraging them to think about what may be possible in their future.

Throughout their time at Churchill, students also have access to the Unifrog system. Unifrog helps young people find and apply for the best opportunities for them after school. It gives students a wealth of information and tools to use to help them navigate the array of options open to them. From interest and personality profiling, to information about a wide variety of careers and education pathways, Unifrog also gives students a space to record their wider activities to build a profile of their skills and competencies. This can help to guide them as they consider their next steps, by enabling them to reflect on what they are good at and what they enjoy – not just in their lessons, but beyond.

All this is just scratching the surface of our careers inspiration, advice and guidance programme, led by Mr Morgan and coordinated by Mrs McGonigal. We do our very best to make sure that our students’ choices about their next steps – whatever and whenever they may be – are informed, thoughtful and the best possible choice for them.

Christmas at Churchill 2022

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There are many fantastic Christmas traditions at Churchill – and this year we have added a couple of new ones into the mix! Firstly, hats off to our Hanover House Captains, who organised a whole-school non-uniform day on Monday with donations to food banks instead of money for charity. The Academy community responded with characteristic generosity, bringing in over 800kg of donations which were delivered on the same day to the Weston Foodbank Warehouse. Well done team!

Students remained focused and attentive in lessons, as we ran up towards the last day celebrations. The Sixth Form outdid themselves with their traditional fancy dress parade and revue.

The main school enjoyed celebrations and competitions within their houses, as well as making the trip to local churches for our Christmas assemblies.

The annual Headteacher’s Quiz also went down a storm – congratulations to winning tutor group SRS and the winning house: Stuart. If you fancy a go yourself, you can find the quiz here.

Merry Christmas!