Dear Parents & Carers,

I hope this email finds you well.

We have had an excellent week back at Dr Thomlinson’s following the Easter Holidays.

Year 8s take part in The Mock Trial Competition

The Mock Trial Competition is Young Citizens longest-running active citizenship experience.  It provides unparalleled exposure to the criminal justice system and access to senior legal professionals. Year 8s from Dr Thomlinson took part in this on Monday, April 25th and, in doing so, played all of the key roles involved in a criminal trial: from lawyers to witnesses.

Each year children have to imagine they are part of an actual court case – this year the criminal offence was imagining that a student was charged with the offence of Harassment contrary to Section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act of 1997 and they pursued a course of conduct which amounts to harassment of another, and which she knew or ought to know amounted to harassment of the other.   The case centred around threatening and abusive emails . Our team had to provide both a prosecution and a defence team as well as the defendants; witnesses and court ushers and magistrates.  Our team then conducted a “mock trial” which was observed and marked by an independent judge.

Dr Thomlinson School competed against Coombe Girls’ School and gave an exceptional performance and, although we did not win overall, the team can be very proud of their efforts.  Well done to Luke; Sasha; Imogen; Daisy; Isaac; Aaron; Isla; Ryan; Rose; Max; Esme; Demi; Kate and Jasmine.

On Friday, the team visited London where they will be getting the opportunity to have a guided tour around the Houses of Parliament so that they can see where our laws are made.  We would like to congratulate all of the students that were involved especially, on their hard work and amazing attitude throughout the competition and the many weeks of preparation!

Key Stage Three Girls Football

The football season for our Key Stage Three girls continued on Tuesday with games against Chantry Middle School and Walker.  The team played very well and scored their first goal of the season following a clever reverse pass by Emily to Maisie who drove the ball home emphatically.  Unfortunately this was our only goal in a narrow 1-3 defeat against Chantry.  The team also lost to an excellent Walker side.  I was so impressed by all our team’s efforts.

TOP Awards Week beginning April 25th

The core value for this week was Trust

5T – Finley

5H – Jessica

6O – Hylton

6M – Lucy

7I – Chloe

7L – Hannah

8N – Harry

8S – George

TOP Awards Week beginning April 4th

The core value for this week was Compassion

5T – Jack

5H – River

6O – Jayden

6M – Xanthe

7I – Millie

7L – Edward

8N – Isaac

8S – Sam

Well done to all of these award winners.

Take care,

Liam Murtagh – Headteacher