THE PORTFOLIO Holder for Education, Diana Hale shocked her opposition colleagues after describing the Thurrock Learning Campus as "two portakabins stuck on top of each other." The comments came in a heated exchange at the childrens services committee. The question of the cuts to the Thurrock Adult Community College came up for discussion.
The report illustrated that with heads such as Martin Cowpland taking over at Quarry Hill for their amalgamation and highly regarded head, Mark Jones at Thameside, the schools were, in many ways heading in the right direction. The report laid bare many of the academic challenges still ahead with a number of worrying statistics showing Thurrock primary schools lagging well behind the national average.
THE DAYS of Thurrock students getting the bus to school appear to be over as the council have pulled the plug on the annual bill of nearly £400,000 spent ferrying teenagers back and fro from college.
YourThurrock knows only too well that the school is always awash with activities and interests. This was never more apparent than at the open evening where from the arts to music to history and science, the school illustrated the work they do with a series of fascinating and dynamic activities.
Samantha entered UK Sports nationwide Tall and Talented Competition last year. The competition is aimed at athletes aspiring to represent Great Britain at the 2016 Olympics. Samantha sailed through the trials for basketball and rowing. She was unsuccessful in basketball but was one of 40 to secure a place onto the GB Rowing Start Development Squad.
A number of organisations became involved in her case but the mother was particularly scathing regarding the performance of her primary school. She said: "There attitude seemed to be to just drag her into school. They always seemed to be too busy doing something else."
The mother's point was underlined by the dramatic turnaround in her daughter's attendance once she went to secondary school in September. She said: "My daughter now had 96% attendance. The school are superb and have a fantastic support structure.
COUNCILLOR Charlie Curtis joined staff and parents at the Culver Centre to welcome the students home from the U-Project. Once again it was down to the hard working Tom Flynn and his staff that the project was a success as well as the students who were taken out of their comfort zone as they spent a week on outdoor bounds in Wales.
COLLEGES must now work much harder at realising the growth opportunities still available to them, improve their business processes to become more efficient, maximise their spending power to get best value and raise more income through fees and full cost provision in order to manage the outcomes of the spending review, says Jan Hodges, Principal & Chief Executive of South Essex College of Further & Higher Education.
IF YOU ever have the great fortune to be in the presence of south african Siya Twani then listen to what the man says. He is one of those south africans of whom you ask:"How can you be so happy after all the troubles you have seen" The simple answer it is that indomitable spirit that saw Siya past the dark days of the apartheid era.
Sometimes there are events at open evenings that we fear could end up on the cutting room floor. We have made an exception for the singers at Ormiston Park Academy.
THE ROYAL Opera House took students from Thameside Infants down to the Port of Tilbury to bring to life Black History month in Thurrock. The setting was appropriate as sixty two years ago, the Windrush ship brought people from the West Indies to settle in the United Kingdom.
Cllr Eddie Hardiman, Deputy Mayor of Thurrock, helped promote the campaign by acting as the school crossing patrol outside Little Thurrock Primary School, Rectory Road, Grays, on Monday morning. He said: “School crossing patrol officers play a vital role in making sure schoolchildren are provided with a safe route to and from the school.
Thurrock Music Services at the Culver Centre, South Ockendon is engaging in one of its most ambitious programmes of half term workshops for many years. Monday 25 October and Tuesday 26 October 2010 will see Orchestral Workshops for both The Thurrock Youth Training Orchestra and the Thurrock Youth Orchestra.
OPEN evenings are fascinating. Each school that we work with manage to present what they do in a unique way. Hassenbrook had the new Stanford and Corringham sixth form centre to display as well as many other departments. Needless to say, the young prospective students were fascinated by the scientific experiments as well as the futuristic i-lab.
WHEN you interview Mr King, you always pay attention because you have a terrible fear that he may be asking questions at the end and heaven help you if you don't know the answer! Headteacher of Gable Hall and William Edwards, John King will be retiring at the end of the academic year. Both schools know that the new choice of Head will be a vital vital decision.
