Our term ends on a high as our U13 Basketball Team, led by their coach Mr Hunter, achieved silver medal position in the Northumberland Games Finals in Bedlington.  Narrowly beaten by the team from Tweedmouth in the final, the Duke’s team enjoyed their games against Cramlington, Ovingham, Chantry and St Benet Biscop that took them to the final.

Duke’s School has been selected by the Department of Education to benefit from a major financial injection from the government into schools in the region.  Duke’s was named on Thursday as one of only 30 schools from across the north east region to be designated as a ONE Vision School.

Steve Gibson, Principal at Duke’s School, said “This is a fantastic opportunity for us to make even more of a difference to the lives and futures of our young people here in Ashington, Lynemouth and Newbiggin.  It’s exciting to be part of the ONE Vision partnership, creating a network of schools working together for the benefit of our young people and their communities.”

“Our most recent Ofsted visit demonstrated that we are on track to meet our improvement goals, but this programme will really help to unlock potential here at Duke’s.”

Of the £24m being spent on the Opportunity North East project, around half will be spent on ONE Vision schools, and Duke’s is part of the first wave of involved schools.  This will help to bring together school leaders, local authorities, and educational experts to share best practice and work together to raise children’s aspirations and attainment.

Alan Hardie, CEO of the NCEA Trust, said “We are delighted that Duke’s Secondary School has been offered support from the ONE Vision programme as it is completely aligned with our focus on continuously improving the quality of teaching and learning.  We believe that the tailored support from ONE Vision will accelerate our progress towards achieving the high aspirations we have for our students.”

The ONE Vision programme will commence for first wave schools in September 2019.

An exciting World Book Day 2019 took place for pupils at Duke’s.  Some very creative staff costumes were on display, reflecting their favourite characters from stories.  During the day, Year 7 and 8 experienced the whole of Alice in Wonderland, read to them by each class teacher throughout the day.

Pupils and staff at Duke’s School marked the start of Lent with the opportunity for the traditional placing of an ash cross on the forehead, with the visit of four of our local clergy to the school.  Revd Mina, and Fathers David, John and Lee, spent lunchtime with pupils in the atrium, offering the ash cross and a prayer, or an opportunity to ask questions or just have a chat.  Lots of pupils joined in, and learned about the sign of the cross in ash being placed on the forehead as a reminder at the start of Lent that there are things in our lives that we need to apologise for, and that we should all strive to try harder to improve ourselves each day.

Well done to the Duke’s Rugby team who battled valiantly against Bede Academy this week!