Newsletters

24 April 2026

Weekly Updates from the Leadership Team

Welcome to this week's newsletter. We have had a really positive week here in school.

Every morning this week began with an exciting assembly launching our updated Rewards Shop. Students can now use their hard-earned reward points to 'buy' physical items or reward tokens from the School Shop. We believe it is essential to recognise and celebrate the students who consistently make the right choices, and these tangible rewards provide a fantastic extra incentive. While we already have a great range of prizes available to start with, we look forward to expanding our offers even further as time goes on. 

On Monday, we welcomed our Trust School Improvement team. They visited to celebrate our successes, see what is going well, and help us focus on our next steps. We are incredibly proud of our students for being so welcoming and for showing our visitors exactly what our wonderful school community is all about.

On Tuesday, Mrs Brear hosted a vibrant and highly successful Evening of Excellence in Modern Foreign Languages. Every participating student rose to the challenge of delivering a 1-to-3-minute spoken presentation entirely in French, showcasing remarkable courage, confidence, and talent. It was a true celebration of linguistic ambition and personal growth! A special thank you to our expert judging panel - Sarah Kane, Léna Gravis, and Sam Edwards-Labelle - for their time and support. The evening concluded with an inspiring keynote from Mark Walker OBE, who spoke passionately about the power of language learning to bridge cultures, strengthen relationships, and build international trust.

We are always keen to listen to parental feedback, and recently, many of you have shared your thoughts regarding the messages sent home about behaviour incidents. In response to this feedback, we will be turning off the commentary related to behaviour incidents. However, you will still receive notifications for reward points and detentions. We hope this update is welcome news to you.

Finally, thank you to our Year 7 parents and carers for your understanding regarding the postponement of Parents' Evening due to the recent road closures. All appointments have been seamlessly moved to the exact same time slots on Wednesday, 13th May.

We appreciate the whole community's patience with the current traffic situation and look forward to welcoming students back on Monday. Lastly, please ensure you have read the letter sent home this week regarding the amazing Mr. Rock, who is undertaking a 100-mile walking challenge next week!

Mrs Paul, Mrs Mursell and Mrs Sandiford

Executive Headteacher and Co-Heads of School

Young Writers competition

During the winter term, we shared how our students took part in the Young Writers competition, inspired by the magical theme Winter Wonderland. We submitted our entries and waited eagerly for the results... We are now incredibly proud to announce that all 15 of our young writers from Years 7–11 have been selected for publication. This is a fantastic achievement and a testament to their hard work, talent, and willingness to embrace new writing challenges. We would like to extend a huge thank you to Mrs O'Callaghan for opening up such wonderful opportunities to our students and fostering a love of both writing and books through our extensive school library. We look forward to seeing the poems in print and celebrating the students' success as a school community.

Evening of Excellence in Modern Foreign Languages

Medina College hosted a vibrant and inspiring Evening of Excellence in Modern Foreign Languages on Tuesday, celebrating students’ confidence, resilience, and linguistic talent. The school library was transformed into a French-themed setting, creating an immersive atmosphere for an evening in which students from Years 9 to 13 delivered spoken presentations entirely in French. Topics ranged from personal interests and daily life to complex historical and cultural issues, highlighting both the breadth of the curriculum and the courage of students stepping beyond their comfort zones.

The event showcased exceptional skill across all year groups. A panel of expert judges praised the impressive fluency and confidence on display, while guest speaker Mark Walker OBE delivered an inspiring message about the importance of language learning in fostering global understanding. The evening was widely celebrated as a powerful reflection of the school’s values—ambition, courage, and confidence—and a testament to the dedication of both students and staff within the MFL department. 

You can read more about the event and the students' presentations on our website here.

Songwriting with Creative Island 

This week, our music students kicked off their very first songwriting session with Creative Island! 
As part of a three-session journey, they’ve begun creating original songs inspired by their experiences of living on the Isle of Wight. In this first session, students explored harmony and started shaping the sound of their pieces. They will work on melody and lyric writing in the next session. 
In October, the students will perform their song live as part of Ventnor Exchange's Creative Takeover! More details will follow as the song progresses.
A big thank you to Maria Woodford for sharing her songwriting expertise and inspiring our students.

Mr Rock’s 100 Challenge 

There is just one week to go until Mr Rock’s 100 Challenge...and we can’t wait!

At 4:00 am on Thursday 30 April, Mr Rock will begin an incredible challenge: walking 100 laps of a 1-mile course on our lower fields to raise funds for the Huntington’s Disease Association. He will keep going through the night (with no sleep!) and aims to finish during the day on Friday 1 May.

This is the third major challenge Mr Rock has taken on for the HDA – a charity that supports families, including his own, affected by this devastating disease.

A few key reminders:

• All year groups will be supporting Mr Rock on Thursday morning by joining him for one or two laps. Students from other schools across the Island will join in the afternoon.
• Friday 1 May is a mufti day for all years. Students are encouraged to wear something green or pink and make a suggested £1 donation via Arbor. All funds will go directly to the charity. Payments are open now.
• Students in Years 7–10 will come out of lessons to celebrate with Mr Rock as he completes the challenge on Friday.

If you would like to find out more, or further support the fundraising, please visit Mr Rock’s JustGiving page: Mr Rocks 100

We are incredibly proud to support Mr Rock with this challenge. His resilience and determination are a truly inspiring example to our whole community!

Medina College School Shop   

Following a review of the student experience, we gathered our student voice to  seek ways in which we can continue to reward students for making the right choices. We are proud to announce that the Medina College School Shop is now open at break times for students to spend their hard earned achievement points on tangible rewards and experiences to celebrate their success in a meaningful way. The school shop is staffed by Year 10 students  who have responsibility for checking stock and monitoring purchases.

The first round of stocked items includes pens, pencils, stationery, raffle tickets, JigglePals and Queuebuster passes to be used in the canteen. Additional rewards will be available to purchase as the year progresses, including year group collaborative purchases. Simply put, students can spend their achievement points on items from the shop during Break 1 (11:20-11:35) and continue to celebrate their success. Note: your child's Arbor total will still accumulate, but their school shop spend will be deducted, meaning that your child's points will still be accurate.

Year 8 Rugby Tournament

The Year 8 rugby team delivered an excellent performance at the tournament on Tuesday afternoon. The “Magnificent Seven”, made up of six Year 8 players and one Year 7, scored a number of impressive tries throughout the competition.

Alfie, George T and Ethan T were particularly dangerous in attack, using their speed and strength to break through defenders and cross the try line. Meanwhile, Connor, George J, Lloyd and Ollie demonstrated great determination and power in their ball carrying, consistently maintaining possession under pressure.

All players contributed defensively, putting in some outstanding tackles and showing real resilience.

Well done to the team for their commitment, teamwork and positive attitude throughout the tournament.

The Medina Mekanix - First Tech Robotics Challenge

A group of keen and dedicated year 8 and 9 pupils have been participating in the First Tech robotics challenge. The challenge: to build and program a robot that will shoot balls into a basketball style goal. This is still a work in progress.

As part of the challenge, the group went to BAE Systems for a Scrimmage Day. They were taken on a tour of the BAE site, looking at some of the radar equipment they build. The pupils also took part in some workshops to see how BAE employees work, and especially the importance of teamwork, communication and collaboration. During the afternoon, the group got to meet the current First Tech national champions, and received some valuable hints, tips and advice on their robot build. They also got some help from a robotics expert to move the robot build forward.

The next part of the challenge is to complete the robot build and take part in the competition day which will happen in mid-June.  The pupils involved in the challenge are: Rhys, Ben, Malakai, Tehya, Lydia, Lucas, Taylen, Fraser, Freddie, Arthur and Amber. Supporting the team are Miss Whitchurch and Mr Gray. We have also had invaluable support from Kevin Snary, a software engineer from BAE systems, who has been helping our group with programming the robot. And more recently, we have also had the support of David Collyer, a systems engineer from BAE.

Annual IW Secondary Schools Rugby tournament

The Yr 7 boys took part in the annual IW secondary school rugby tournament this week, hosted at Medina.

This was the 1st time they were playing a full contact match and the commitment and endeavour was on show for all to see through some great tackling. Strong ball carrying was effective and the progress the boys showed from the 3 games was excellent.

Well played lads!

Whooping Cough guidance

An email was sent home today; please do check for this.

For further details to your letter and the attached guidance, you can also access information on the NHS website here.

Adult Community Learning are delighted to share their new programme of workshops and courses, for adults 19+ years.   Whether it is ICT, art, craft, health and wellbeing or careers advice, we have something for everyone.  Check out what’s on offer and book here, or call us on 817280. Come and learn something new in a relaxed and informal setting, at The Learning Centre, Westridge, Ryde.

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