Our final term of the year continues to gather pace with students, teachers and parents being fully involved in many activities.

CLASSES FOR 2016

Last week we held orientation days for new students joining Wyvern in 2016. Many of the ‘new boys’ had the opportunity to spend some time with students from their equivalent Wyvern year group providing the chance for some early friendships to emerge. Currently we are in the final stages of formulating 2016 classes. This is a detailed and rigorous process.  I will write to parents in due course to inform you of the 2016 teaching arrangements for your son. On Thursday 3 December we will be holding our ‘One Up’ morning where all of our students, plus the new student intake, will meet their class teacher and class mates for 2016. Please note that the deadline for parental input into the class allocation process has long passed (end of Term 3) and as such I have to inform you that further requests from parents at this late stage cannot be considered.

STUDENT LEADERS 2016

At this time of the term we also consider which of our current Year 5 students have the potential to undertake a number of specific student leadership positions next year. Again we give this much thought and provide opportunities for every staff member and student (Year 3- 6) to have input into the process. We use the following criteria to help us to form our judgements.

1. Care for others
   How the student has demonstrated a service ethic and a capacity to think of others: e.g. selfless behaviour, assistance provided to others, capacity to work as part of a team; in other words evidence of ‘servant leadership’.
2. Capacity as a role model
   How the student conducts himself on a day to day basis in relation to our values, standards and behavioural expectations.
3. Presentation skills
   The ability of the student to speak confidently and persuasively to different audiences: e.g. large and small groups of peers and adults, in both formal and informal settings and within prepared and impromptu speaking situations.

Students also have an opportunity to nominate themselves for a leadership position. Students who do so will be required to give an impromptu speech to other students from their ‘House’ on a topic provided by their teacher: Note, we intentionally do not disclose either the topic or the date of the speech.

It is important to stress that I do consider all Year 6 students to be our school leaders and role models for the rest of the school and as such I have extremely high expectations about their conduct and behaviour. A leadership training day for the whole Year 6 cohort is planned in early Term 1, 2016.

Finally, well done to our Year 5 and Year 6 debating teams who competed with great success in a Gala debating day last week. This area of the school continues to go from strength to strength.  I thank the parents, Mr Baker and Ms Dillon for their tremendous support of our debating students.

Ian Holden
Head of Wyvern House