It’s been a busy week as ever at Duke’s. Here is run down of some of the events and activities we’ve had going on:

Book Week 2024

A key moment in the annual calendar Book Week 2024 went off with a real bang this year. A fantastic range of activities organised by the English Department and the library included a brilliant book sale on Purple Lane, reading activities and an amazing author visit by Jeffrey Boakye. Jeffery delivered some amazing assemblies to our students on his life through books but also talked about empowerment, masculinity and his own personal journey and sense of self – what an inspirational experience. 

As usual our Book Week culminated with our annual parade of characters with lots of students and staff dressing up as characters from books and stories – the theme this year was Heroes and Villains – some excellent costumes were on display and a great time was had by all!

National Careers Week

We’ve also marked National Careers week this week with student assemblies and activities relating to careers and employment – particularly in the Borough of Haringey. Some fascinating stats were discussed including the fact that the Public Sector is the largest employer in Haringey but that recently there has been a rise in artisan cheese production and craft beer in our local area!

Looking at careers across the curriculum has been a focus for us during National Careers Week and encouraging students to make the links between different subject areas and potential careers has been really illuminating for our students. 

More Badminton Success for Year 11

Some more badminton success has been achieved with our year 11 students. Mia, Isa and Andrey were invited for a trial to select the best Badminton players in Haringey to possibly represent the borough at the London Youth Games in the Summer.

This meant after sitting their GCSE PE mock exam they had to race down to Highgate Wood school for the trial to play against the very best Year 11s in the borough. It was all worth it though as all three have been selected! A very proud PE Department! 

Year 8 Football Success

Some further success was also achieved this week by our year 8 boys football team against Woodside High School. They won the group stage of the Borough schools football league with a 12 – 0 victory against Woodside!

This means that they will attend a finals day at New River, and will play against the best schools in the borough in the semis and hopefully finals.  

West End Theatre Trip – ‘Everybody’s Talking about Jamie’ 

On Wednesday 6th March a lucky group of year 9 and 10 students got to go into the West End and watch a performance of ‘Everybody’s Talking about Jamie’ at the Peacock Theatre. The students were entranced by the high octane singing, dancing and acting. The year 10 students were able to see lots of the skills and techniques we learn about in class on stage and the students came away totally enthused and exhilarated. 

MFL Trip to LAET 

Recently a group of year 9 French and Spanish Students took a trip to the London Academy of Excellence Tottenham (LAET) our Head of Modern Foreign Languages Ms Anthony had this to say:

El veintiuno de febrero dos mil veinticinco or le vingt février deux mille vingt-trois was a great day for 26 of Duke’s Year 9 French and Spanish students. It was the first time that many of us set foot into the prestigious London Academy of Excellence, Tottenham. We were also looking forward to discovering the identity of the guest speaker, who was going to remind us about The Importance of Modern Foreign Languages.

Chris Dennis, a multilingual Sports Broadcast Journalist turned out to be the speaker for the

Event. Radio 4 aficionados – one of whom was Arjol Kociu – recognised his voice and his name. His presentation was very inspiring and Duke’s Year 9 students weren’t at all fazed by the presence of LAET’s A-Level champion linguists.

Chris Dennis shared with us how his linguistic skills (he did a degree in French and Mandarin, and learned – after graduating from University – German & Spanish) enabled him to get an exclusive interview with Kodjovi Obilale, a Togolese former footballer.

The ‘take-aways’ from the talk were that Learning a Modern Foreign Language is very useful because:

 

Not everyone speaks English

Languages open doors and minds

They are key to relationship building

They make travelling more fulfilling

They are life-enhancing and life-extending

They add value to your life and to your future career.

They provide you with more opportunities in life.

 

I was proud (in a humble way!) of the question posed by Saad Khan, who asked Chris what

made him decide to become a journalist. The answer was intriguing; Chris stated that two

character traits motivated him to be a journalist: being nosey and his love of story-telling.

Many of us at Duke’s can identify with these traits. How many potential journalists are there among us?

 

Now that Duke’s has now forged links with the MFL Department at LAET, we look forward to a wealth of activities in the future.

Watch this space!

Á suivre!

¡Mantente atento!