“Mrs White, trustees, ladies, gentlemen and pupils, I take great pleasure in welcoming you all back to our annual Prizegiving.” So began our Headmaster, Mr Steven Allen, as he welcomed pupils, parents, carers, and staff to one of our favourite events of the year.  It has been three years since we last shared our in-person event, but with the sun shining and much to celebrate, this year’s event was a true delight. On the day […]

Activities week is off to a flying start with our pupils getting creative! Inspired by the work of the great architect artist and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, our pupils have designed their own versions of stained-glass window designs and nightlights. As a brief class presentation informed them, Mackintosh was born in 1868 and grew up in the heavily industrialized city of Glasgow, the second city of empire. Highly talented he trained as an architect but […]

The Leavers Ball is always a time of reflection for me, especially when some of the children I taught in Reception have finished their exams and are leaving school for their next adventure. It is such a privilege seeing these pupils on their journey through Fyling Hall. They come to Form 1 as tiny four-year olds and I teach them, not just to read and write and count, but to enjoy and get excited about […]

Our Year 7 Transition Day for Year 6s will be a full taster day of senior school on Friday 1st July. If your child is currently in the Junior School in Year 6 or if you’ve applied for a place from elsewhere, your new ‘student’ needs to arrive at 8:30am outside Main House, in suitable attire for a day of learning, equipped with a pencil case. Lunch is provided but if they wish to have […]

Last year we could not send our Year 10 groups into the real world of work (we all know why) and this year local companies were not yet ready to accept students back for traditional work experience. Instead we ran an internal Professional Development Day which proved to be a great success (so said our Year 10 delegates last time) so we decided to run it again this year. Our Year 10 students started the […]

It’s the last call for your Yearbook! Your last chance to secure your time capsule! The deadline for orders is THIS WEDNESDAY, 15th June which is the latest time I can place the print order to get them in time – so we need to act fast. Thanks if you’ve already placed an order – sorry for the repeated message, I just wanted to check to make sure everyone had that reminder and a last […]

For those who do not recall, Activities Week is three days and more of varied tasks and activities, plus, plus. It is almost a distant memory thanks to the recent pandemic. I have really missed the opportunities it has offered and as a result tried to organise a full activities week that all should be able to attend. On the week pupils will learn valuable skills to support them in their later lives. Thursday will […]

This last weekend saw our first Duke of Edinburgh expedition of the year. On Saturday morning, seven young people set off on the minibus to explore the Esk Valley on their Bronze practice expedition. Blessed as we are with our surroundings, we didn’t have to go far. After a 15 minutes’ drive it was time to get the rucksacks on and the adventure began. Everyone was in good spirits, still strong after a good night’s […]

On 7th June 1971 the three presenters of the BBC children television programme Blue Peter, Valerie Singleton, John Noakes and Peter Purves, buried a ‘time capsule’ in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, live on television. The idea was that it would be dug up in the distant future – in the year two-thousand – so the children of that time might marvel at the mysteries of the past and the children of 1971 […]

Weekly clubs are back for the summer. Here’s what we’ll be doing up to half-term starting this week, 2nd May which is WEEK 2 of our five-week half-term. MONDAY 4:30-5:30pm Drama (for years 5-8) with Mrs JeevesMaths Revision (Years 11 and 13) with Mr WalshBoard Games (for all) with Mrs Banks or Mr ThomasFootball (for all) with Mr Coats and Mr Parker TUESDAY Duke of Edinburgh all afternoon from lunchtime with Mrs Trotter WEDNESDAY 4:30-5:30pm Technology […]

During the Spring Term we’ve taken tentative steps to return to our programme of assemblies and Learning for Life sessions after two years of hybrid events, broadcasting, videos and small groups. Aside from our outside gatherings on the Fountain Lawn and last summer’s Awards events we haven’t yet had a whole school assembly inside. Instead we’ve run Key Stage events with age appropriate material for the two groups of years 7, 8 and 9 and then years […]

In teaching the same topics come around again year after year and again in each year group at different times. In Science we call it ‘spiralling‘ as students see the same topic again in a different year but at a more advanced level. For example, I teach electricity in Year 7 around March, with Year 9 and Year 10 in September and with Year 12 in April.  You might think, doesn’t that get a bit […]

Spring has finally arrived in North Yorkshire, and with the physical, skills and volunteering sections well underway, it is now time to get ready for the expedition season! During our first DofE training session in 2022, our Bronze group have learnt how to cook a substantial meal on a Trangia camping cooker – we had a buffet of couscous, mac ‘n’ cheese, pasta pesto, jasmine rice, and pancakes with melted cheese, and I think they […]

Even though we are a small school we continue to have a big heart, often thinking of others who are less fortunate. With that in mind, we are running the Rotary Club Shoebox Appeal again next term. Many of you will already be aware of what this entails but for those of you who do not I will give a quick recap.  Each tutor group will aim to fill a number of shoeboxes with gifts for […]

Our annual whole school cross-country House Run is back! A precursor to the summer term Sports Day, the House Run is a whole school activity from the juniors to sixth form with teachers either joining the run or stationed at a checkpoint along the route. Starting at the sports field everyone set off at 3pm around the corner and across Low Farm. At that point the juniors turn and come back. KS3 students run down […]

Our thanks go to all of those who submitted their book photo to our World Book Day competition. The idea was to take a photo of you reading your current of favourite book. The judges were looking for good composition and some combination of relevance or connection between location, costume, props or anything to the book title or theme. There were so many good ones and some real effort made! You can see them in […]

Given our fortunate location in the North York Moors National Park, it is amazing what one can see in our surrounding woods. Two of our Year 10 pupils recently captured video and stills of badgers, cats and foxes in our woods and have done a write up to go with it. Take a closer look and have a read of what one can see in our surrounding woods! One day we went into the woods […]

We’ve launched a photo competition for World Book Day. All you have to do is take a photo of you reading your current or favourite book in an interesting, unusual or relevant to the book, location. There will be a prize for each Key Stage as well as a parent and a staff category with a special prize for an overall winner. It has been a while since our last photo competition with our last […]

As well as being an English teacher, I am also a Year 11 form tutor. Each Tuesday, we meet for the first period to complete activities and discuss areas such as current affairs, keeping safe on the internet and other PSHCE-based topics. Year 11 will also be looking at different revision techniques as we get nearer to the exam period, which begins in May.    Mr Instone is in charge of organising the tutor session activities […]

After taking all the precautions we can and following the latest guidelines we feel we’re now ready to restart our Clubs and Societies, starting from Monday, 17th January. We’ve kept the most popular ones from last year and added a few new ones. As ever, if a group of students have a request for a certain activity and we are able to do it, we will. The new one that needs an explanation is Culture […]

Before they broke for the holidays, Miss Havelock’s tutor group wrote down the highlights from their Autumn Term. This is what they said . . . ‘This term I did cross country three times. Something I liked was my football tournament. Another good thing that happened this term was it snowed so year seven, eight and nine had a massive snowball fight.’ ‘This term I ran two cross countries and played two football fixtures. It […]

Our Carol Service is always the most magical way to end the Autumn Term. With last year’s service presented virtually, delighted students and staff returned to St Stephen’s for our annual event. With health and safety measures still in place, parents and carers were unable to attend. In lieu, we are pleased to share our recording of this most magical way to end the Autumn Term . . . enjoy! #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:100%;} /* […]

Our very own Physics teacher, Mr Instone, will present a one-man-show in character as Michael Faraday, telling his story in the style of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, which Faraday set up, inviting the audience to take part in a number of groundbreaking experiments that helped make our modern world. You have two opportunities to take part in Electrifying!, an interactive presentation of Michael Faraday’s Discovery of Electromagnetism – the afternoon of Saturday, 4th December and […]

There are a few changes to our Clubs and Societies in the run-up to Christmas – with these new clubs are being added: Latin has replaced Philosophy as requested by many students. Join Mr Thomas for an introduction into this influential language and learn the history of the lives of people living in Pompeii along the way. You may even get the opportunity to gain a qualification.Maths Club has been added for Year 11s and Year 13s in […]

What a way to close the half term! Bewerley Park was visited not once by Fyling Hall students, but twice this year. This time it was the turn of our Year 7s. Asked what their favourite part of the trip, this is what they had to say . . . My best part of Bewerley park was the canoeing because we all had a great time and it challenged us. I was okay at it. […]

I’ve split our Technology Society into two teams, one week it’s KS3 (years 7 to 9) and the next KS4/5 (Years 10 through 13). This has enabled a better use of equipment across age groups. With the older ones we’re looking at electronics, using real components to build a simple circuit on a breadboard to test it and then they were trained in using a soldering iron to permanently solder their components and wires together. […]

For the first time in eight years I don’t have a Tutor Group. Instead, this year I have eleven, sort of. Part of my role is Learning for Life Coordinator which means I’m in the unenviable position of overseeing our programme of PSHE (Personal, Social, Health, Economics education) as well as supporting each Tutor and three groups as well as running our assembles and our guest speakers. All of this is what we call Learning for Life. We’ve […]

We are excited to now have a brand new team of Librarians at Fyling Hall. They are from Year 7; Verity, Skye, Bonnie, Belle and Tabby. Our Year 8s are Anya, Diana, Edward and Isabelle and from Year 10 we have Olivia (our Head Librarian) and Josh. Our new Librarians have lots of great ideas to improve the Library and they help look after it each break time, on a rota basis. We are lucky to […]

We are running a creative writing workshop day called ‘What If?’. We’re inviting just 4 primary schools in the area to send up to 15 pupils from Year 6 (or Year 5 to make up numbers) to take part, learn advanced secrets of creative writing and illustration and then return to you to write their stories within three weeks and then send them back to us to be published in an anthology. The workshop will […]

Following a great start to the term with lots of enthusiasm and excitement all around the school, our Clubs and Societies are ready to start once more. The idea behind our Clubs and Societies is to develop interests and advanced skills in extracurricular areas, opening students to new experiences as well as developing independence, employability, social skills and  of course, just having fun. There is no compulsion to attend (many students already do an enormous amount outside school) but we do encourage you to encourage them to give something a go and […]

Last year we did a whole school activity to understand the origin of The Golden Rule and need for some kind of ‘rules of engagement‘, some kind of standard to uphold when dealing with each other in a fair way in school. Each tutor group was tasked to discuss the issues and formulate their own versions with a view to an agreed standard being produced as a poster for each classroom. The idea was not […]

Speech Day is always one of our favourite events of the year. Call it Speech Day, Prizegiving or in the case of this year, End of Year Assembly, it is an opportunity to celebrate our pupils’ achievements. As has often been the case this year, we adapted our plans to ensure that students received the recognition they deserve. As Mr Allen advised parents, Unfortunately, after a lot of consideration we have made the difficult decision […]

Along with many things, our Year 10 students have missed out on the normal professional work experience they would have taken part in this year. To make up for this we put together an intensive Professional Experience Skills event over two days. On day one we focused on the individual – students had the opportunity to compose their first CV and personal statement and have them evaluated. They took part in a mock job interview. They also […]

An open letter to my leaving students As teachers we don’t usually get to mark ‘final’ exams. We only get to see the results of all those years of study as you do, on results day. This year is again different. I know what grades you are getting. But then so do you. We worked it out together, as a team, me and you. It was unusual marking these, your final exams. You got so […]

Even with just five weeks left of this unusual and disrupted academic year, we wanted a selection of after-school Clubs and Societies to return. So from Monday, 14th June we’ll be running a few events between 4:30 and 5:30pm on Mondays and Wednesdays for various year groups with buses back to Whitby and Scarborough afterwards: Mondays Tennis: all year groups and all abilities. (Sign up with Mr Coates or Mr Parker.)Duke of Edinburgh: year 9. (See Mrs […]

This year has been different for all of us in many ways, but as a Tutor I have spent much more time with my Tutor Group and the other Year 10 group led by Mr Instone than in previous years. We have registered outside every morning in all weathers and eaten lunches together every day. We have become very territorial about the bench on our break time patch and have enjoyed some lovely picnics together. […]

For the second assembly broadcast of the term I want us all to think about how we can all be nicer to each other, to better support each other, not just in school but in the community and society as a whole. Our school motto is of course “The days that make us happy, make us wise” from John Masefield. So how can we be happy? I opened the broadcast with these questions: How should we treat each other? […]

A Focus on GCSEs proudly returns to Fyling Hall School on 25th May. Let us guide you through your or your child’s GCSE choices.  With many subjects pre determined, you and they have the task of choosing four more subjects.  But what and how to choose?  Fortunately, you do not need to choose on the basis of a fixed timetable. As a small school we alter our timetable to suit you.  In fact, we change […]

“The unexamined life is not worth living” said the Greek philosopher Socrates. Self-reflection is important. Knowing who you are and what you like doing is important. Our broadcast assembly had this theme to start of the new term. All of our six terms have names by the way. This, the 5th term of the year, is actually called Perseverance – a great message for us all, especially those in our exam classes, reminding them to […]