Students in Music and Media were given an insight into the television industry when Dialogue Editor, Tom Williams visited King James. He spoke in both departments about his job, having worked for over seven years on shows such as Whitechapel, The Musketeers and Golden Globe winning Downton Abbey.

Last year, a group of students travelled to France with Mrs Pethybridge, our Director of Learning for Languages, to establish a new link with young people in our partner school, Collège Béranger. The trip resulted in firm friendships, which have since been nurtured through emails and social networking.

ICT students in Years 11,12 and 13 have visited Sunderland University School of Computing to see the excellent facilities and to find out about the options available for further education in the field.

We are again celebrating success as we have achieved the BIG Award, a prestigious national award, supported by Esther Rantzen, which is given to schools and organisations who achieve excellence in bullying intervention. The award is judged by the Bullying Intervention Group (BIG).

As part of our A Level Sociology course with Mr Shearer, we recently went to see 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' at Newcastle Theatre Royal. This was linked to our studies of culture and diversity as it looked at people's reactions towards drag queens and addressed the issue of stereotypes.

Sixth Form Drama and Performing Arts students have recently spent two days in London discovering the progression routes into a career in the Arts as part of our Aim Higher programme.

Brilliance of British Film

Inside: Issue 9 of the free e-magazine written and produced by an editorial team of young people at King James.

Click Here to visit the Exclaimer Magazine website.

Sixth Form Media students have recently turned author-illustrators for a BTEC unit on Graphic Narrative. Eighteen students in total have written and illustrated a range of children's story books and comics for a variety of age groups, with exceptional results. Their work has now been produced as a collection of hard-back books.

A tree has been planted at King James to mark the beginning of the multi-million pound building project that will see our academy transformed by September next year.

Following on from an excellent performance in the Year 7 Cross Country Championship race at Teesdale School in November, Ben M was chosen to represent South West Durham at the County Championship race, held at Meadowfield