On Monday 2^nd July, Ben Griffiths won a “highly commended award” for Community Champion – he fought off competition from many other nominated students from all over the county.

Over the last year, Ben has achieved a lot within many local communities and he has played a key role in community development for youths throughout Lincolnshire. Ben has been a part of the Lincolnshire Youth Council for over a year, and in that time has been a prominent contributor to the subjects addressed by the Youth Council, discussing with a range of parties how they can best appeal to young people, and help make a significant improvement to the quality of life of young people universally. He has also taken part in work with mental health organisations throughout his time with Youth Council. This includes work with Young Minds and, in particular, CAMHS. Throughout recent months, Ben has helped CAMHS develop their new marketing/media campaign along with his fellow Youth Councillors. He has also been involved in voice acting/advice in this campaign, allowing his voice to be used to help change young people’s lives, and help them escape some of the most difficult times in their lives. Following Ben’s work, he now holds the role of Vice-Chairman within the Youth Council, and is acting as Chair at the next meeting, therefore being responsible for a large part of the meeting, the agenda and the recording of tasks and responsibilities.

More recently, Ben has become an Ambassador for KOOTH, and has since gone through thorough training about a vast range of mental disorders, some of which were difficult to process, but working together with the rest of his team has continued to educate themselves on these life-ruining, or even life-threatening disorders. These range from depression, psychosis, and even up to suicide. Ben is currently playing a part in KOOTH’s new media project/campaign, in which he will be using his face, his voice, and his personal experiences (on video) to help console others going through difficult times, and to help them reach the other side. In the next few weeks, Ben will also be undergoing online training, and this will allow him to moderate KOOTH users online, as well as writing for the KOOTH online magazine, which will be read by hundreds, if not thousands of members of the community across the country, and will hopefully help them through troublesome times, and help people see hope, when they otherwise may have not.

This weekend three of our students travelled to the English Schools' Athletics Championships at the Birmingham Alexander Stadium.

To even qualify for this event, the students have to gain a qualifying standard. These standards are incredibly challenging to achieve and there is a maximum of 25 students in each event. This by default makes them a top 25 student in England for their event.  Previous competitors at this event have been Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis-Hill and our own Abbie Donnelly, Catrina Thomas and Daniel Fleming.  Once at the championships, the event is run professionally in order to prepare them for the transition to being an adult international athlete.  The championships is sponsored by New Balance and they provide every athlete with a free rucksack for their kit.  Athletes are required to check in before their event and have to be in the green room to be marshalled out to their event.  There is even a parade on day two for all the athletes. They march out in their county teams and we sing the National Anthem.  Hannah Molyneaux did not march out with the Lincolnshire team as she had to march with the other international athletes who had represented Team GB this season.

Charlie Smithers in Year 9 competed in the junior boys' 200m. Charlie doesn’t belong to an athletics club (as much as I’m trying to persuade him) and only trains at the Academy athletics club. His qualification for this event is through pure talent. He has worked tirelessly for weeks, every lunch time, training hard and focussing on perfecting his sprint start. He finished seventh in his heat and ran a personal best time of 24.10s. Hopefully now he will believe that he has the talent to achieve even greater things and get himself to Lincoln Wellington Athletics Club. Charlie also ran in the heat of the junior boys 4x100m relay, helping them to qualify for the final.

Archie Richardson in Year 12 has had an incredible athletics season leading up to this weekend. Archie was put into the faster of the three heats and is a year younger in his age group than the other senior boys. He ran an incredible 1m57s for his 800m and did himself proud finishing seventh.

Hannah Molyneaux, attending her fifth English Schools' Championships, competed in the senior girls' shot put. Hannah spent last week in Hungary competing for Team GB at the European Youth Championships and finished fifth. This had filled her with confidence coming into this weekend and she won convincingly, putting the shot an amazing 13.41m. No other athlete in the competition threw over 13m. Hannah claimed the gold medal, her fourth gold at this event (the fifth medal is silver).

It was an absolute pleasure to travel with our students and the rest of the Lincolnshire team. I am sure if you see them you will congratulate them. They deserve it.

Mrs Bentley

On the 23rd - 27th June, a group of Year 12s went to the Peak District. It was a very warm weekend for it and perfect weather, however they needed loads of sun cream as we would probably have got sunburnt a lot more than we did! We walked about 16-18k each day for about eight hours per hike. The first day we were all full of energy getting ready to get out of the bus  after a two hour bus drive there. We had to carry all of our gear, clothes, tents and food for the four days all in one bag, which was slightly heavy! We had pretty flat ground for half of the day through fields which was very scenic and we got to understand more about the map and land. Nearing the end of the day we climbed up Mam Tor, which was quite a big hill and quite steep! Then some of us lay on our backs and slid down the rest of the hill going down the other side of Mam Tor to get to the campsite, which was really fun! There were a lot of vertical hills we had to climb up which varied from a 200m climb to a 2k climb, being all pretty difficult and a challenge to climb, but we got to the top eventually, just in time to have a break. The scenery was beautiful when we got to the top because you should see how far we had climbed up and all the valleys that we had walked across.

On the second  day we still had a lot energy, with energy bars getting us through it! We went through some fields and then climbed up Jacob's Ladder which was fairly steep! It was a challenging hill as there were many steps…. Once we got to the top we had our lunch and then continued on to Kinder Scout, which was a very puzzling part of the Peak District because you could get lost very easily, as when you are on the top you can’t see the other side where you have to be. All you see is more land. We managed to find our way out of Kinder Scout at the end, however we ended up having two team members getting stuck in the bog which was kind of like quick sand! It ended up being a really funny memory to take back. Once we got off Kinder Scout, we ended up meeting another Gold DofE group who were lost so we took a route down some rocks, which was pretty scary at first but with a lot of teamwork and support we ended up getting down safely and getting back to camp whilst the sun was still out.

On the third day we had not as much energy, but were raring to go as it was the last night! We started our walk climbing up the same hill we had climbed up the day before, but this time we headed left and went down a stone pathway for about 3k. Then we went through fields until we got to a big upper field where we had to climb 200m up as it was very steep and felt like more than 200m! We all eventually got to the top and started walking through the lake reservoir which was so scenic and beautiful. We continued for a further 6k through the lake reservoir.  We started walking through fields and seeing all the sheep.

Then we approached the final day. When we looked up we realised we had to walk up the hill that we had slid down on Mam Tor, which was going to be interesting! As we had been walking for three days in a row now, we were a little bit tired, so we did take a couple of breaks.  However, we were determined to get to the top so we fought through it. Once we got to the top of the hill we went to the other side of the hill, and were walking through some fields with the lovely hot weather! We then went through forests with shade which was really nice after being in so much heat. The walking was quite hard, but everyone was quite peppy and we had a sing-a-long whilst we were walking to keep the positive vibe. We had a few water stops as it was up to 37 degrees and therefore very warm. We ended up meeting the van in Edale at around lunchtime and we stopped for a break but then realised we were able to leave and go home!

I thoroughly enjoyed the few days we were in the Peaks as we got to see the beautiful scenery and spend time with new and amazing people, who were very funny and kept up a positive vibe for the whole time, which made the experience worthwhile.

Leeds University Medical and Dental School held a taster day on Friday 29^th June in their state-of-the art facilities. The purpose was to give Year 9 students from across the region an idea of the breadth of careers available to them in a health care setting, and the sort of qualifications required to get into those roles.

The visit involved practising lots of practical skills: looking down ears with an otoscope to see if a patient had a perforated ear drum or just lots of wax; learning how to analyse an x-ray or ultrasound image, in some cases to find out what the patient had swallowed; practising CPR and using a defibrillator on a patient who’s stopped breathing.

The highlight of the day for many was the chance to use a Moog Simodont Dental Trainer.  This is an incredibly realistic device that simulates a dental drill in 3-D. We all got the chance to try and drill out an area of decay, and it included using a mirror for hidden features and even the noise of the drill itself. Fortunately there was no patient to scream when we got it wrong!

The day was a great success. We had a great time and we are all now aware of the range of jobs we could look at in the future, including ones we didn’t know about before, such as audiology and radiography.