Leighton Park School

The netball tour to Dubai over February’s Long Leave was a wonderful way to spend a week in the sunshine. The girls were training both on the beach and in the stadium, playing matches and seeing the sights in the desert city, some - like the indoor ski slope – more unusual than others!

Great to welcome Haberdashers' Monmouth Schools to Leighton Park today to see our IT in action and to learn from our students how our hardware and VLE combine to make interactive teaching and learning such a rewarding experience.

Fryer Book Club were delighted to attend the Berkshire Book Awards yesterday where they got to review, question and debate a variety of interesting topics and see the reveal of the Berkshire Book Award shortlist.

Students had a lot of fun challenging themselves in a circus workshop with aerial artist, Betty Bonne-Fire on the weekend. A range of acro balance tasks, juggling, stilt walking, hula hooping, plate spinning and more - There were a lot of fun and impressive activities to practise and be entertained by, that's for sure!

Change Champions from Years 7 and 8 have been presenting their sustainability projects to a panel of experts this morning. With topics ranging from food waste to single use plastics we are looking forward to putting their ideas into practice and making the Park an even better place to be.

Upper Sixth students impressed fellow students, staff and parents that joined them for the EXPO on Friday. The evening is a chance for students to show off their hard work they have undertaken as part of their IB Extended Essays or Extended Project Qualifications. The evening proved to be successful with a plethora of interesting topics to engage the community. A few topics included but were by no means limited to, 'Should the UK government allow hydraulic fracking in Lancashire?', 'Where next after Mars' and 'Do the benefits of Artificial Intelligence outweigh the risk?'.

Upper Sixth Design and Technology students had the pleasure of enjoying an exclusive tour of the BMW Mini Plant in Oxford last Friday. The visit supported students' learning about mass commercial manufacturing processes, but whilst they learnt a lot of interesting things, the highlight of the day was definitely getting to use the Mini car simulators!

Delighted to announce we are in the top two schools in Reading for Sixth Form Academic Progress for the second year running. Read more on our website here: http://bit.ly/AcademicProgress2019

Students enjoyed a Harry Potter themed day yesterday as Fryer Book Club enjoyed taking part in a quiz followed by some HP inspired lectures that included interactive talks on Herbology, Potions and Transfiguration! Not to mention the incredible Harry Potter themed Library transformation thanks to our brilliant Library staff.

Yesterday saw the return of the House Talent competition, where there was quite the eclectic mix of acts taking to the stage in Main Hall! Categories included Lip Sync, Comedy and Speciality. It was a brilliant evening all the community enjoyed!

A group of students keen to celebrate the Chinese New Year by eating delicious Chinese cuisine enjoyed trying a variety of dishes at China Palace in Reading yesterday evening. Students had the chance to practice some basic Mandarin and also had fun brushing up their skills using chopsticks.

Year 9s dedicated their morning to History today as they listened to a presentation from volunteers from the Trooper Potts memorial project before creating articles, drawings, poems and letters from what they had learnt. Students were gripped by the emotional account of The Potts Story. Frederick Owen Potts is the only Victoria Cross medal holder in Reading and only around 1,300 people have received this - the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system - since it originated in 1857.

Fun in the snow for those lucky enough to be on the Park with the snowflakes up to their ankles yesterday and today! Check out the awesome slide created under the supervision of Adam, our Head of Chemistry, and Ann, our nurse (not that we were expecting any accidents - what could possibly go wrong?!)

Well done to all our talented musicians who performed in the annual Music Scholars’ concert on Wednesday.There was a wide range of pieces performed, from Bach to Chopin, Mozart to Saint-Saëns, Musical numbers from ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ and ‘Matilda’ plus a number of student compositions. And many of the audience managed to squeeze in a tour of the new music and media centre during the interval too!

Leighton Park will be closed to Day students today due to the adverse weather conditions. The website is also currently down. Updates sent to parents and guardians by text and email. Please call your child's House if any questions.

Take a look at these beautiful photos members of the community have shared of the Park this morning! Nothing like a dusting of frost to make grounds look even more picture perfect! Who's hoping there will be snowy photos to share tomorrow...?!

Earlier this week during their CAS lesson our Fryer Change Champions have been working in groups on a number of projects that look at making the school more sustainable. Just a few of the projects included: reduction of electricity and gas, recycling plastics, recycling food waste and making the school send zero waste to landfill. We're looking forward to seeing what bright ideas our students have come up with in the coming weeks. #inspire #educate #challenge #sustainability #changechampions

Our Sixth Form Economists enjoyed lively discussions with Ethical Reading this morning over some delicious breakfast pastries. Students were learning the importance of fairness in the workplace through a case study and considered the importance of defining the balance between the three Ps: Profit, People and Planet!

Bronze Duke of Edinburgh participants put their map reading skills into practice on Saturday as they walked from Reading to Mortimer with checkpoints they had to reach along their way. One group may have got a bit lost due to their enthusiasm to explore but they were swiftly literally, put back on the right path! #learning #outdoors #challenge

Your perform in Split (Croatia) was great! Good job ! ✌

So I did receive a wonderful Christmas Gift from LP the other day.

The OL News Magazine.

Really nice layout and I actually read it through completely.

My time at LP was such a blend of ordeal and christening into manhood.

I couldn't remember enough of my lessons to easily pass my exams but EVERYTHING I learned has been of immeasurable utility in the decades since!

Got kids you need properly educated to prepare for University?

Send them to LP

One of the best English institutions for learning.