This term, an exciting competition will be taking place in school for ice-cream lovers. The Flavour Wars competition will see four staff-led student teams, including ones led by Mr Grieveson and Mrs Babington, compete to invent a unique flavour for homemade ice-cream.

The groundworks for our multi-million pound new building are now complete and every day sees rapid progress as the steelwork emerges and our state-of-the-art academy takes shape.

Our Year 7 students have been working alongside Year 5's at Crook Primary School on a collaborative Royal Shakespeare Company project called "Shakespeare Flash Mob'. The project aims to promote the enjoyment of Shakespeare and to encourage schools to work together and be mentors to each other.

Students have recently visited Watermillock in Ullswater for our annual, week-long outward bound trip. Unlike last year's arctic conditions in Howtown, the weather was good, which meant that students could take part in a wider range of outdoor challenges.

A group of Year 9 students who are interested in pursuing STEM related careers recently visited Durham Science Festival to join in a carousel of Science and Technology team challenges.

Four of our talented Year 10 mathematicians, Thomas M, Iwan M, Niamh E and Emelia E recently took part in the Further Maths Support Programme team challenge at Teesside University and came seventh overall out of 22 participating schools.

Our ICT department recently ran a workshop for primary school teachers to investigate the use of the Raspberry Pi and Python programming in education. The event was well attended and support from our Computer Science Champions ensured it was a success.

Year 12 Law students enjoyed a Q&A session with Helen Goodman MP recently as part of their A Level studies. The visit was organised by our Teacher of Law, Miss Grieveson as a follow-up to an initial meeting which took place in November in London.

Year 12 Photography student, Adam B has received a commendation in the national competition, Social Sciences for Schools.

A number of students from years 7 to 10 recently visited Newton Aycliffe's "Planet Leisure", where as a reward they enjoyed an afternoon Ten Pin Bowling.