Our school was buzzing with excitement on the 4^th November as we proudly hosted the Raytheon Quadcopter Challenge Regional Finals, welcoming teams from across the area to showcase their engineering and flying skills. The competition, sponsored by Raytheon UK, is a national STEM initiative designed to inspire students to explore science, technology, engineering, and mathematics through hands-on drone design, construction, and piloting.

Each team begins the challenge with a basic quadcopter kit and a mission brief. From there, they must design, build, and modify their drone to meet specific performance and presentation criteria. The challenge tests creativity, problem-solving, teamwork, and technical ability — all essential skills for budding engineers.

This year, two teams from our school took part after months of dedication in after-school clubs, where they worked tirelessly to refine their quadcopter designs, improve flight stability, and perfect their presentations. Their hard work truly paid off on competition day.

Both teams delivered outstanding performances, impressing the judges with their flying precision, innovative modifications, and professional presentations. The “Street Vets” team achieved an excellent third place, scoring 160 points, a remarkable result in such a competitive field. Meanwhile, our second team ‘Finders Keepers’ soared even higher — claiming first place overall with an impressive 179 out of 200 points, earning them the title of regional champions.

The atmosphere in the hall was electric as students, teachers, and visiting teams gathered to watch the drones take flight through a series of challenging obstacles and manoeuvres. The judges praised both of our teams for their enthusiasm, teamwork, and technical knowledge, highlighting how well they represented the spirit of the competition.

Now, our winning team will go on to represent the region at the national finals in London, where they’ll compete against the best teams from across the United Kingdom.

We’re incredibly proud of all our students who took part — their commitment, creativity, and collaboration have been truly inspiring. Hosting the event was a wonderful experience for the whole school community, and we can’t wait to see how our team performs on the national stage.

Well done to both teams — you’ve done our school proud!

Mr S Norris

KSHS/Carre’s STEM Leader

Last term following a very early departure to Stansted, the 55 Year 11 students enjoyed their first experience of Berlin as we walked to the Jewish Museum from our hostel. The museum details the life of Jewish people since the first settlers in Germany through to the persecution they suffered under National Socialism. We then walked to Templehof airport to look at one of the only remaining examples of oversized Nazi architecture. Today the airport is used for flying kites, family picnics and even circuses! We then walked up to Victoria Park where you get a lovely view of the city from the south. Dinner in the hostel was a warming delight and the students and staff went to bed early!

On Friday, we spent the day being driven around various sites which are important for the Historians’ understanding of Nazi Germany and beyond. We visited the Russian Memorial in Treptower Park, the East Side Gallery (a mile-long section of the Berlin Wall which has been maintained and artwork is regularly refreshed and updated) and then Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The students all reacted to this in different ways, but the overriding feeling was one of ‘we must never let this happen again’.

On Saturday, Mr Rooke and Mrs Constantine led the group on a guided tour around the city centre on foot and on the trains. We visited the German Resistance Museum and learnt about the ways in which different individuals and groups resisted actively and passively against National Socialism. We also visited the Siegesäule, the Victory Column built to commemorate the wars of unification between 1864 and 1871 and Checkpoint Charlie, the border crossing point between East and West Berlin which was strictly controlled by the Americans and Soviets. In the afternoon we walked through the area where the Nazi Headquarters were located, before visiting the dome on top of the Reichstag, built by Norman Foster post-unification. The students enjoyed the views from this vantage point, which were only to be beaten by a visit to the Fernsehturm, East Berlin’s TV Tower on Sunday morning. This was a new addition for this year and will certainly remain part of our plans going forwards. The viewing platform is 203m high and the views of the places we’d visited over the past three days were outstanding. Sunday finished with a visit to the DDR museum, an interactive museum which shows what life was like in East Germany between 1949 and 1989. The students enjoyed sitting in a Trabant and seeing what an East-German kitchen looked like.

The staff would like to congratulate the students on their exceptional behaviour throughout the trip and hope they enjoyed their time in Berlin.

A few statistics to finish:

We walked about 85000 steps which is roughly 58Km.

At least 15 “I love Berlin” T-shirts have been purchased and worn.

About 30 Currywursts have been eaten.

We have a new found love for lollipops and glucose sweets for lunchtime.

At least 20 bags of Ampelmann gummi bears have been bought (and maybe also munched!).

6 different museums visited.

4 train journeys completed.

55 apple strudels served, 5 consumed by one student alone!

1 ‘explosive’ copy of Jane Eyre

3 members of the public repremanded by Mrs Watts for using their phones without permission.

Mrs E Constantine and Mr L Rooke

Trip Leaders

Staff are invited to nominate students who have demonstrated a Growth Mindset in the past few weeks. This might have been in lessons, in clubs, tutor time or simply around school. Please note we already award bi-annual subject badges and merits for good academic work, effort and improvement. These Growth Mindset nominations recognise those who show resilience (academic or otherwise); who aren’t afraid to get things wrong and learn from it; those who have a go, take themselves out of their comfort zone or show that even if a task is tough, they will persevere.