It also highlights the power of social connection – recommending books, reading together and meeting authors – alongside the importance of modelling reading ourselves. With expert insight from literacy specialist Carl Pattison, this edition provides supportive, achievable ideas to help young people reconnect with reading and see it as a meaningful part of everyday life.

Students heard how presenting a weekly radio show is a fantastic way to grow in confidence and develop valuable life skills. From planning and preparation to mastering technical equipment and building media expertise, being part of the radio team helps students grow both personally and professionally.

A highlight of the discussion was Purbeck Young Stars, a platform designed to celebrate and empower young talent. Whether your passion lies in science, the arts, literature or media, the station offers opportunities to share your interests with the community, interview rising stars and even attend and report from local events.

 We are incredibly proud of the selected Year 9 and Year 10 pupils who took part in this year’s UKMT Intermediate Mathematical Challenge (IMC) in January. The IMC is a nationally recognised, 60‑minute paper featuring 25 increasingly challenging problem‑solving questions designed to test mathematical reasoning and precision. Earning a certificate is a significant achievement, as only the top 50% of participants nationally are awarded Bronze, Silver or Gold certificates, recognising outstanding performance in problem‑solving.

 This year, our pupils achieved 14 Silver awards and 19 Bronze awards — a testament to their commitment, effort and excellent mathematical thinking. With 44 pupils representing Year 9 and 37 representing Year 10, we are delighted to celebrate their hard work, enthusiasm and impressive performance in such a demanding national competition.

Register for the Rockley College Open event by clicking the link Open Events | Rockley College | Rockley

Infantry Experience 26 takes place on Wednesday 1 April 2026, 09:45–16:30 at Headquarters Infantry, Waterloo Lines, Warminster (BA12 0DJ).

This free one‑day event gives young people (aged 15–34) – and their parents/guardians – the chance to:

• Try Infantry training on the indoor weapons simulator
• Watch a live combat tactics demonstration
• Get hands‑on with the latest equipment
• Meet serving Infantry soldiers and hear about life in the Army

Register Now: https://britishar.my/gITkvV

This year’s collection was nothing short of extraordinary. With over 1,000 items donated, it became the largest single contribution the food bank has ever received. Boxes of essentials, festive favourites, and thoughtful extras filled the school reception before being delivered to support local families during the winter period.

What made this achievement even more impressive was the leadership behind it. The entire event was planned, organised, and coordinated by the Year 10 Student Leadership Team, who worked tirelessly from start to finish. They promoted the campaign across the school, arranged collection points, managed the sorting process, and ensured every item reached the food bank in time for Christmas. Their commitment and teamwork were praised highly by the visiting representatives.

Thanks to the scale of this donation, Wareham Food Bank has been able to increase the amount of food given to families, going beyond the standard allocation. As a result, households in need have been receiving additional items — including sweet treats and festive extras — bringing a little more joy and comfort during a challenging season.

The school is incredibly proud of its students and grateful to the entire community for coming together to make such a meaningful difference. This record-breaking effort shows the power of compassion, teamwork, and collective action.

Each year group attended for an hour, engaging directly with representatives from diverse industries and institutions. From engineering firms to creative arts colleges, students were able to ask questions, gather resources, and gain insights into potential future careers.

The purpose of attending a careers fair is to help students broaden their understanding of the world of work, discover new interests, and begin to make informed decisions about their next steps. Whether considering apprenticeships, university courses, or future job roles, the fair offered a chance to connect classroom learning with real-world opportunities.

We’re proud to support our students in building confidence and ambition for their futures — and events like this are a key part of that journey.

Laura shared a fascinating insight into the ever‑expanding world of creative industries, highlighting just how many opportunities exist for young people who are passionate about visual arts, design, media, and storytelling. Students explored the wide range of career pathways from film production and animation to fine art, photography, creative writing, architecture, and beyond.

What resonated most was the emphasis on how creativity shapes the world we live in. Laura discussed the huge variety of roles within the creative field: from roles in digital media, advertising, graphic design, game development and photography, to careers behind the scenes such as set design, costume, editing, concept art, and technical production. Students were encouraged to see the creative sector not as a single path, but as a rich network of possibilities where their ideas, perspectives and skills can truly thrive.

We are grateful to Laura and Arts University Bournemouth for offering our students such a valuable glimpse into their potential futures. They will be back in this Wednesday 21^st January, to attend our annual Careers Fair.

The Purbeck School Science Fair 2026

Despite the recent rainy weather we have been fortunate enough to be able to deliver a full range pf events so far this term. We started the Year with three Dare to Believe activity afternoons for YR 1&2 and Yr 3&4. To these we invited a selection of DSEN children that schools felt would benefit from activities that developed team building, confidence, developing self esteem amongst other life skills. The children are always fully invested in these festivals and it was no different this year with between 70-90 children in attendance each week. To watch children enjoying activities such as Boccia, small sided games and activity stations where they need to work on accuracy and resilience is always rewarding. With many pupils not having attended The Purbeck School for an event before, it is always very quiet to start with but once everyone has settled in the level of interaction and noise as a result is always a pleasure to see and hear. A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon for all involved. The yr 9/10 leaders did a fantastic job guiding the pupils through the session and they gain as much out of the afternoon as the participants.

These events were followed up with two weeks of competitive football, where the winning school would go through to the Dorset area final. To this event we also welcomed Bere Regis primary and it was lovely to see them in attendance. The first event was a mixed Yr 5&6 tournament where we had 9 schools attending and all schools performed brilliantly. The second event was the yr 5&6 Girls football event where again we had 7 schools attendance which made for a great afternoon of football. The winners for these were. St Marys Swanage won the mixed competition and St Marks won the Girls competition. Both schools will go on to represent the Purbeck area in the finals alter in the year.

We were really lucky with the weather in the first half term and we managed to intersperse the festivals/competitions with two activity days based at Buddens activity centre and Carey Camp. The first ones attendance rewards or for those children the school felt would benefit from an experience like this. Buddens staff were fantastic and they enabled the children to take part in activities such as crate stacking, archery, climbing and nightline. All the children had a fantastic day and left exhausted but happy. The second one was based at Carey camp provided an opportunity for some of the DSEN pupils to experience some outdoor and adventurous activities. This day involved slightly different activities with a huge emphasis on developing team work, communication and self confidence. The favoured activity by a long shot was the ~tunnels~ which involved children wearing head torches and crawling round in small spaces through tunnels. Not my idea of fun, but each to their own.

Back in October we held our annual PE Conference at Hethfelton House where we invited PE leads and Headteachers from all the primary schools in the partnership to come and discuss all things PE. We were lucky enough to be joined this year by Kate Thornton Bousfield who is the CEO of AFPE (Association for Physical Education) which is a national organisation that focuses on the effective delivery of PE within schools. Kate was a inspiring speaker and was able to enlighten us to some potential changes within the curriculum. She was extremely impressed with what we do and deliver as a partnership to our primary feeder schools and beyond.

Handball continues to a popular sport and is always well represented at events. This year was n different when we delivered 2 festivals where the sport was being introduced to some and further developed by others getting some performers ready for a Handball competition later in the year. The festivals were very much based around teaching through the game where skills were drip fed in as the afternoon progressed enabling participants to put certain elements of the game into practice before new ones were introduced. I understand the bit that most children remembered was the term, “crabbing” that was used to describe the movement around the defending circle. Not a technical term but still a strategy they hopefully remember. These festivals invited Yr 3&4 for one event and Yr 5&6 for another.

In November we hosted the annual Leadership academy for over 130 children. Along side the usual PE lessons being hosted by Purbeck Staff this is no mean feat trying to accommodate everyone. The day was delivered by 3 School games organisers alongside our own Yr 11 leaders who were amazing. Very encouraging and engaging with the younger pupils a real credit to the school. The Yr 5&6 bronze Ambassadors spent the day learning some games that they could take back to school. They looked to develop their own leadership skills and qualities and they also had time to reflect on what they wanted to do when they went back to school in terms of how they could be utilised effectively within the playground and in lessons. As always an excellent day.

To round off the term we have had one event for each group. A KS1 multi skills event where the weather took a freezing turn and we had to bring the KS 1 pupils inside to experience a slightly different afternoon, but they had a thoroughly enjoyable experience playing Boccia, working with indoor parachutes, combining skills and playground games such as rock, paper, scissors amongst lots of other small activities and games. Again some slight nervousness to start so was very quiet but 10 minutes in the noise level was high which is always a positive sign of engagement and enjoyment. Some exhausted KS1 left the building at 4pm.

Which led us to the two Football festivals for yr 3&4 and 5&6. These events were introduced last year with a real focus on inviting children that want to experience some football in school but maybe don’t have the opportunity to play outside of school. They are two really lovely events to deliver as the children just come and play. No scores are recorded which removes the pressure of a win or mistakes that might be made and the children just enjoy it. The staff always enjoy these events as do the children, and again this year they did not disappoint. To lovely afternoons although one was slightly wetter than the other.

We finished the term off with some training for potentially new Yr8 silver ambassadors. This involved some extensive teamwork activities based around the cube. It was fin to see them battle against each other to try to get the wining time, culminating in all 10 of them try t get through a hoop in 10 seconds.  Hopefully they will get the debut next term with the KS1 events.

As a partnership we feel it is really important to reward positive behaviours such as respect and teamwork. So, for each festival/competition I have also been awarding a TREDS award which looks to recognise teams that are adopting Teamwork, Respect, Enjoyment, Discipline and Sportsmanship. In all honesty this is a really difficult award to present as all of our schools adopt this mantra and make sure hands are shaken at the end of matches and people are helped up if fallen over etc. However, there are just little things that make the difference. Congratulating others on goal scored, telling someone that its ok if they made a mistake, cheering on their own team from the sideline. These things make a difference and so far this year, these are some of the schools that have received this. St Georges, Bovington, St Marys, Wareham St Marys and Swanage primary.

And that just about sums up this term. A massive thank you to our leaders again. They are fabulous and none of this is possible without them giving up their time and patience. They are extremely committed and I can’t thank them enough for all they do.

Miss Hamblin.

Pictured above are members of The Purbeck School Sixth Form’s Charity Team loading for delivery just some of the hundreds of chocolate boxes gathered by families and staff: a Volkswagen was stuffed to the roof! We are delighted to continue to support the work of the charity Hope For Food, with these chocolate boxes being added to Christmas hampers that will be donated to Dorset families needing a little help. You can discover more about the work of Hope For Food here: https://www.hopeforfood.org.uk/

We would like to thank all those in our school and sixth form community for your support and wish you the very best this Christmastime.

We are proud to share that this event resulted in our biggest ever contribution, with approximately 1,000 items donated. The food bank has since collected the items and confirmed that they have never received a donation of this scale before.

This incredible achievement was organised by our Student Leadership Team, whose dedication and enthusiasm helped bring our school community together for such a meaningful cause.

The interactive Arson Courtroom Drama (ACD), supported by Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service and Dorset Police, gave pupils a unique insight into the workings of the justice system. Through a realistic courtroom scenario, students explored the roles of the police, the operation of a Crown Court, and the serious consequences of arson.

This National Curriculum-linked session also highlighted the devastating impact arson can have on our local heathland, encouraging students to think about responsibility and community safety.

On Thursday 4th December, The Purbeck School welcomed a range of external employers who conducted mock interviews with our year 12 students. This valuable experience was designed to help students develop confidence and practical skills ahead of their upcoming work experience placements in February.

The purpose of the mock interviews was to give students a realistic insight into the recruitment process, allowing them to practice answering questions, presenting themselves professionally, and reflecting on their strengths and areas for development. Feedback from employers provided constructive guidance, helping students to refine their communication skills and build resilience for future opportunities.

Year 11 Product Design students had an incredible opportunity on 3rd December 2025 when the KIER construction team visited for an action-packed STEAM challenge!

The session kicked off with an inspiring presentation about the wide range of careers in construction—opening students’ eyes to the possibilities of shaping the world around us.

Then came the real test:, a hands-on building project that pushed their skills in project management, budgeting, engineering, and surveying to the limit. Working from a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) blueprint, teams had to memorise the structure, purchase blocks at set prices, and manage their time and money wisely to create the closest match to the original design.

The competition was fierce! Every decision mattered—every second counted. In the end, the winning team proved themselves masters of strategy and precision, delivering a build that was both cost-effective and impressively accurate.

What a fantastic way to combine creativity, problem-solving, and real-world skills!

Mrs Sarah Shepherd

Head of Product Design

In return for wearing their own appropriate clothing, we kindly ask students to bring in donations for our local foodbank in Wareham. Suggested items include non-perishable goods such as tins, packets, and other essential items.

Last year, thanks to your incredible generosity, we collected over 1,000 items for the Hope for Food during our Christmas appeal. This year, we aspire to match or even exceed that achievement, showing the perseverance and commitment that make our school community so special.

All items must be brought into school on Friday 12th December, and the foodbank will collect them on Monday 15th December.

Thank you for your continued support in helping us make a positive difference to local families in need.

We had over 70 students involved in the production, from the incredible cast to those working tirelessly on lighting, sound, and all the technical wizardry behind the scenes. We also want to pay tribute to all the staff who made this possible—those working backstage, front of house, building and painting the set, and designing every detail to bring the story to life.

A Remarkable Achievement

We are delighted to share the outstanding success of our sixth former, Will Douglas, who has achieved remarkable recognition in the prestigious UKMT Senior Mathematical Challenge. This national competition, organised by the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust (UKMT), attracts thousands of entries from students across the country, testing their problem-solving skills, logical reasoning, and mathematical creativity.

Will’s dedication and talent have truly paid off. He was awarded a Gold certificate, placing him in the top 7% of entrants nationwide. This is an extraordinary accomplishment, reflecting not only his mathematical ability but also his perseverance and commitment to excellence.

Progression to the Kangaroo Competition

Following his success in the Senior Challenge, Will qualified for the Kangaroo competition, an invitation-only round designed for the highest achievers. This stage is known for its challenging and thought-provoking problems, requiring students to apply their mathematical knowledge in innovative ways.

In this competition, Will earned a Bronze certificate, further demonstrating his skill and determination. To achieve recognition at both stages is a testament to his hard work and intellectual curiosity.

The Importance of the UKMT Challenge

The UKMT Senior Mathematical Challenge is more than just a competition—it is an opportunity for students to:

• Develop advanced problem-solving skills that go beyond the classroom.
• Gain national recognition for their mathematical talent.
• Build confidence in tackling complex and unfamiliar problems.
• Inspire future academic pursuits in mathematics, science, and engineering.

Will’s success highlights the value of these competitions in nurturing the next generation of thinkers and innovators.

A Role Model for Others

Will’s achievement serves as an inspiration to his peers and younger students. His journey shows that with dedication, curiosity, and resilience, it is possible to excel at the highest levels. We are incredibly proud of him and look forward to seeing how he continues to apply his talents in the future.

XS 9.8 GRADE 3

Casual zero hours contract

£13.05 hourly rate

From January 2026

The match at StoneX marked a significant milestone, as TJ scored his first competitive try for the Academy. Peeling off the back of a rolling maul from a lineout, he powered over the line to finish an excellently executed team move, surpassing even his memorable try at the Rec at the end of last season. Footage and photos from the fixture have been shared, highlighting this achievement.

TJ’s dedication to his development has been exceptional. His commitment to training, both within and beyond formal rugby environments, has driven remarkable progress. Having first picked up a rugby ball when he joined Purbeck in Year 7, TJ has gone from strength to strength and is now regarded as one of the Academy’s most promising young players. Transitioning from centre to the front row, he is now specialising as a hooker, demonstrating a strong work ethic, adaptability, and an eagerness to learn from every piece of feedback.

We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who has supported TJ on his journey so far: his family, his teachers, his coaches at Swanage & Wareham RFC, and the coaching team at the Bath Academy. A special thank you goes to Jason Helas (JDT) for his ongoing sponsorship.

The future looks exceptionally bright for TJ, and we look forward to following his continued success both on and off the field.

Hope For Food  https://www.hopeforfood.org.uk/

who add them to the Christmas hampers that they provide for their clients who have children. The charity has been absolutely impressed by the hundreds and hundreds of these boxes that Purbeck has provided (we have donated more than four thousand) 

The sixth form charity team will soon be publicising this with posters in and around the school, but please don’t wait! If you would like to support this yourself, please add boxes to the collections in reception and my office, Mr Holmes

During the hour-long session, Professor Almond explored a range of instrumental analysis techniques, including chromatography, mass spectrometry, spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction. These complex methods were brought to life through real-world applications such as drug testing in sport, detecting titanium dioxide in food, pesticide analysis, and even the chemistry of interstellar space.

The hub features:

A brand-new sensory room

Specially designed classrooms tailored for individual learning needs

Cutting-edge technology to enhance communication and learning

The official opening ceremony was attended by Mayor of Wareham, Zoe Gover, Mayor of Swanage, Mike Bonfield, and local MP Vikki Slade, who met with students, parents, and staff to celebrate this milestone.

This involved students accompanying and work shadow a parent/carer. We believe it is beneficial for students to experience the world of work in as many different environments as possible.

Josh went to Knoll House Hotel for the day with his dad, and by all accounts had a worthwhile and rewarding experience:-

Work Experience at My Dad's Workplace

Josh van Staden – Year 8

I recently had the chance to spend a day at my dad's work as part of 'Take Your Child to Work Day'. It was a really cool experience that taught me some useful skills.

I got to try out a few different jobs. First, I worked in the restaurant as a waiter. I helped lay the tables, making sure everything was just right for the customers. This taught me how important it is to pay attention to details and work efficiently.

I also spent some time in housekeeping. I did tasks like hoovering the carpets and taking out the rubbish. These might seem like simple jobs but they showed me how everyone plays a big part in making sure a business runs smoothly.

Working with the teams in the restaurant and housekeeping helped me improve my teamwork and communication skills. I learned how to work well with others towards a common goal and how to clearly ask for help.

This experience has given me a better understanding of what it's like to work in a real-world setting. The skills I've picked up, like teamwork, communication, and attention to detail will definitely be helpful in my future career. I'm looking forward to using what I've learned in future work experiences.

Beneath the colourful exterior, there are risks that parents and educators should know about. In-game purchases, monthly passes, and limited-time expansions encourage ongoing spending, while the competitive online play may lead to frustration, over-investment, and extended screen time. This guide helps adults understand these hidden challenges.

The overriding message came in the agreement that having love and compassion for our fellow humans is key. It was recognised too, as David noted when discussing Humanism, that the core values of our sixth form and school promote care, compassion and also ambition for oneself through our commitment to kindness, aspiration and perseverance.

Our visitors, students and staff benefited from a very positive coming together, one that was particularly fitting on Remembrance Day. We look forward to working with Many Faiths again.