Weekly email – 10 July 2026

A message from Mrs Rothenburg

Congratulations to the 83 students who auditioned for our annual production of ‘Frozen’ earlier this week. I know Mrs Sladen and Miss Longbottom were blown away with the standard and had some very tough decisions to make. The cast list has been shared with students today. You can read more from Mrs Sladen below.

On Monday, we welcomed Year 5 students from Knavesmire and Scarcroft Primary Schools to Millthorpe for our French Café Day. It was lovely to see our students working with and supporting the primary pupils throughout the day. A big ‘merci beaucoup’ to all the Year 5 families who joined us in the afternoon.

On Wednesday, we had a wonderful day of athletics, smiles and competition at this year’s Sports Day. Well done to all our competitors, event winners and record breakers and a big thank you to the PE team for organising this huge event. For the first time in many years, the whole school came out to support the sprint and relay races during period 5. It was such an amazing afternoon, with some incredible performances, lots of camaraderie, students proudly waving their handcrafted banners in support of their peers and a fantastic atmosphere. We’ll share the full story and more images next week, but here are a few pictures below.

This week we also welcomed in a team from Aviva for our Year 10 mock interviews – thank you to everyone who took part. Our students learned so much. You can find out more below.

Congratulations to those students who joined me for the final Principal’s Breakfast of the year this morning, including Jodie, Alice, Muhammad, Amber, Max and Ethan. We all enjoyed ice lollies for breakfast!

And finally, today’s Charity Day has been absolutely brilliant! A huge congratulations to our amazing Year 10 Student Leaders, who organised such a fun and successful day. I do, however, have one small complaint… I wasn’t entirely thrilled with the result of the gunging vote, as I ended up being one of the ‘lucky’ winners alongside Mr Beever and Miss Dukes. It was all for a great cause, though, and it certainly brought plenty of smiles and laughter! You can see a couple of photos below so that you can have a laugh too!

We look forward to welcoming students back to school on Monday for the last week of term and an ‘A’ Week. I hope everyone has a lovely weekend – stay safe in the sunshine.

Kavina Rothenburg
Principal

Dates for your diary

• Tuesday 14 July – Sports Awards evening
• Thursday 16 July – Summer Concert
• Friday 17 July – ‘Park’ events. School closes for summer break.
• Thursday 20 August – GCSE Results Day

What is my child learning at the moment?

Please see below to find out what your child has been learning about in recent lessons in order to have productive discussions about their education:

Year 7 – Maths
Conversation starters
As part of a statistics unit students will be asking the following questions.

• What does the ‘average’ Year 7 look like?
• What questions do you need to ask to answer this question? How can you present your findings?
• What different charts or graphs can you interpret and what are their advantages or disadvantages?

Year 8 – Science
Conversation starters
Year 8 have been studying two schemes of learning on Health and Wellbeing and The Science of York. The Health and Wellbeing scheme looks at diet, exercise, vaping, sleep and blue light. Science of York covers a variety of topics such as Seebohm Rowntree, the Tansy Beetle, Askham Bogs, horse racing and Nestlé chocolate – bringing to life the science all around us in our community.

Year 9 – Global
Conversation starters

• Computing: Students have been learning about cyber security threats in the form of social engineering. This week they are looking at Malware – malicious software designed to damage computer systems.
• French: Students have completed GCSE transition lessons on the topic of ‘hobbies’ and have consolidated their knowledge of tenses. They are now beginning a short film project on the film ‘Belle et Sébastien’. Can they talk about the characters they have seen so far?
• German: Students have completed GCSE transition lessons on the topic of ‘hobbies’ and have consolidated their knowledge of tenses. They are now beginning a short film project on the film ‘Balloon’. Can they give you some information about the Berlin Wall?

Year 10 – Humanities
Conversation starters

• History: Students recently completed their study of Conflict in Asia and sat their PPE answering questions on Germany and Asia. You could ask, “Did America lose the Vietnam War?” Also, “How did Congress respond differently to President Ford when he asked to return to Vietnam, compared to how they reacted to President Johnson after the alleged Gulf of Tonkin Incident?” We have commenced our third topic, “Britain: Health and the People.” Ask your child what are the seven big factors we will focus on throughout this study, and who was Hippocrates?”
• Geography: Students are continuing with their coast topic. Please ask your child what are the three different types of mass movement? What is the difference between them?
• RE: Students have just finished their Islam Practices unit and are moving onto the first theme of Paper 2 – relationships and families. They have important homework that has been set to allow them to fill in any missing gaps in their work booklets, so please do support them with this.

We hope that you will find this information useful when talking to your child about their learning. Additionally, you might want to take a look at the curriculum section of our website which has lots more information about what your child will be learning over the academic year.

Charity Day update

Today’s Charity Day has been awesome, with lots of fun, and gunging(!), in the sun!

Thank you to everyone who bought a raffle ticket or contributed a prize. We have raised a fantastic £301 to go towards the purchase of new outdoor equipment for students to use at break and lunchtime. We are delighted to announce the winners are:

• Red Ribbon Hamper: Marianne Lowson, 8ALO
• Yellow Ribbon Hamper: Ella Croft,10RPR
• Purple Ribbon Hamper: Stanley Ryan, 8ANE

Parents/carers will need to collect the hampers from the school office please.

As of lunchtime, the running total of money raised from all other Charity Day activities for York Mind is £263.55. Money can still be donated to this great cause via ParentPay – this will be open until next Friday morning when we will announce the final total.

Uniform expectations

With the warm weather set to continue, the adjusted uniform arrangements will continue until the end of term: no ties needed and plain black or navy shorts can be worn. Please see Tuesday’s email for full details.

September attendance challenge

National research tells us that the first four weeks of the academic year are crucial when it comes to attendance. Not only are students readjusting to life back in school after a long summer holiday, they are meeting their new teachers, sometimes new classmates, and beginning their new courses in earnest. The research shows that students who attend every day for the first four weeks are much more likely to go on to have positive attendance throughout the school year and this is something that we are really keen on.

As an extra incentive, we are launching the first of our half-termly attendance reward events “Popcorn and Pictures”.

Students simply need to attend for the first 20 days of the academic year (9 September to 7 October) to qualify for the reward. As always, students with underlying medical conditions (where we hold medical evidence) will still be welcome to attend, and any students who have authorised absence for genuine reasons that we are aware of may also be invited. The aim is for your child to get the next academic year off to the perfect start with 20 full days in school, and on time. Please note that if a student arrives after 9.10am, they lose half a day’s attendance due to DfE stipulations, so punctuality is crucial. If your child does not manage this and you feel their circumstances require special dispensation, please email attendance@millthorpe.elt.org.uk and we will consider it on a case-by-case basis. However, we are completely confident that the overwhelming majority of students will be able to attend for 20 days in a row from 9 September and therefore qualify.

Please can we also take this opportunity to remind you that we are not able to authorise family holidays in term time. This is directed by the government, and we can only authorise them in truly exceptional circumstances. Unauthorised holidays are referred to the Local Authority and are highly likely to result in a Fixed Penalty Notice. We are obliged to comply with the law and are not able to offer any leeway on this. Thank you for your understanding.

We will be holding an attendance reward event every half term next year – you can see the details below.

Millthorpe’s inaugural “Party/Picnic/Play in the Park!”

As you will be aware, we have successfully hosted several attendance reward events this year, and these will be a half-termly celebration moving forward. But, we are also keen to ensure that all students can have some fun together before we break up for the summer. We have therefore worked hard to create Millthorpe’s first ever “Party/Picnic/Play in the Park”. This will take place on the final day of the year (Friday 17 July) and there are no criteria or qualifying windows. Every single student who is in school on this day will be invited to attend.

Students will be able to choose which of the events they wish to attend and they are also free to move between the events, as they will all take place on the main field and MUGA. This has been, or will be, explained to students in Form Time before the event and we hope that there is something for everyone to look forward to.

If your child is interested in “Play in the Park”, please remind them to bring their Astro boots. If they are interested in “Picnic in the Park”, feel free to send them in with a picnic blanket and a few extra snacks/drinks/treats to enjoy. Please remember that we are a nut free school so please do not send them in with any items containing nuts.

For all students, please check the weather forecast and send them in with a water bottle, sun cream and a hat if desired.

We are looking forward to having some fun with all students on the last day but please also note that all lessons in the final week will remain purposeful and enhance their learning. Aside from this celebration event, students will be in normal lessons and will be learning key content and skills, right up to the end of the school year. We look forward to seeing them in school every day to benefit from this.

C

Year 10 mock intreviews

On Tuesday we welcomed in colleagues from Aviva to support our students by putting them through a mock interview. Last week students were given the opportunity to prepare for the interview seeing the questions in advance. Questions ranged from ‘tell me your strengths and weaknesses’ to ‘explain when you have had to change the way you communicate with people to get a successful outcome’.

Students drew on areas that they had learnt in school, such as their work experience projects, but some were also able to give examples from activities they do outside of school. Where students struggled to provide answers, the interviewer supported them by going through the question again and guiding them with structure. Each student will receive personalised feedback from their interviewer.

A huge thank you to the 19 members of Aviva staff that came in to support our students, and to Rachael Ware who was instrumental in organising it.

French Café experience

This week our Languages department hosted a French Café experience for Year 5 pupils from our fellow Trust primary schools, Scarcroft and Knavesmire. The pupils immersed themselves in the French language during the day, creating fantastic café stalls and selling delicious French treats to their families and visitors – all in French of course!

Well done to everyone who took part and thank you to our Language Ambassadors and Student Leaders who played an important role in supporting staff with food preparation and delivering the language sessions.

Young Carers drama performance and workshop

On Wednesday, Year 7 and Year 8 students will attend a Theatre in Education drama performance by local drama charity Next Door But One. The focus of the production is the challenges faced, and resilience shown by Young Carers. National data suggests that up to one in five school children are a Young Carer and whilst we have many identified Young Carers in our school and they have access to a wide range of support, we are hoping that this event will educate the students and might even result in a few more children coming forward and identifying themselves as a Young Carer as our own numbers are much lower.

If you or your child wants to access the Young Carers support at Millthorpe, please contact Mr Baybutt (Young Carers Lead) either on youngcarers@millthorpe.elt.org.uk or your child can speak to him in person in school (he is on duty every break and lunch time).

Summer Concert

It is less than a week until the Summer Concert! The concert, which takes place on Thursday 16 July at 6.00pm in the Main Hall, features our choir, orchestra, brass group, woodwind group, rock bands and lots of extra ensembles who are excitedly rehearsing for their last big performance of the year. Tickets are for sale on ParentPay priced at £5 for adults and £3 for under 16s.

We hope to see you there!

Frozen auditions – update from Mrs Sladen

Miss Longbottom and I began this week with two full days of back-to-back auditions for our December production of ‘Frozen’, and what a privilege it was to be able to see (and hear!) the incredible talent that our students have to offer. Thank you to everyone who put time into preparing their audition pieces – from incredible vocals to full dance routines and even a collapsible cane and straw boater (you know who you are!). We saw it all and were thoroughly entertained for the whole two days.

This, of course, made the final decision of casting the 83 students who auditioned down to 13 principal speaking roles incredibly difficult. But, after much discussion, we did manage to compile a final cast list and I shared this with auditionees this morning. Congratulations to all students who have been cast in the show. Some of you told me in your audition that it was the first time you had ever sung solo in front of anyone outside of your home – you found something difficult and did it anyway – what an achievement! Auditioning for any show is always challenging and naturally results in some people coming out of the process feeling disappointed that they did not get the part they wanted. I’m so sorry for the students who will be feeling this way but please be reassured that we will find a space in the production for all of you who auditioned. We want everyone to be involved and to be able to enjoy being part of the show team and performance experience.

Please now save the dates in your diaries – Disney’s ‘Frozen Jr’ will be coming to Millthorpe’s Main Hall stage on 15, 16 and 17 December and judging by the auditions we have seen this week you are all going to be in for a treat!

Mrs Sladen

Year 9 adventure trip to the Ardèche

We are delighted to announce that Millthorpe School will be running an adventure trip to the Ardèche in the South of France with PGL in May 2027, for students who will be in Year 9 next year.

For full information, please read our letter.

Year 9 students shine at international Futsal tournament

Congratulations to Year 9 students Immy B and Maisie M, who have just returned from competing in the prestigious Montesilvano Futsal Cup in Italy.

Representing Bootham Futsal Club Under-15s, the girls competed against teams from across the world and delivered an outstanding performance, finishing third in their age group.

A fantastic achievement on the international stage – well done, Immy and Maisie!

Job of the Week – Deckhand

Deckhands work on ships that hunt for fish and prepare them for general sale. Being a deckhand could see you catching fish using a range of equipment as well as preparing the fish for eating before storing them on ice or in tanks. The role will require you to work well with others and take care of the ship. You can apply for a traineeship without any qualifications.

Watch this video for more information about becoming a Deckhand.

Futures for All – inspirational talks

Futures for All (previously Speakers for Schools) is an incredible social mobility charity which empowers state-educated young people by opening doors to -changing opportunities. In addition to their work experience programme, Futures for All also regularly broadcast live inspirational talks which are recorded and then hosted on their website.

As the summer holidays approach, we know that students are likely to have more time on their hands. We’d like to encourage them to put down their devices and spend more time outside, and this talk from naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter and author, Chris Packham, explores the many benefits of being in nature.

In ‘Why nature is the answer – engaging with the natural world for your mental health’ Chris talks about the importance of taking care of nature, and your own mental health. He also shares his own experiences in wildlife filmmaking, advocacy and activism, alongside some simple ways that you can take action to protect our planet and look after yourself.

This talk is perfect for everyone who loves the natural world, and might be interested in careers in wildlife, media, advocacy and activism, mental health and more.

Chris’ new book, ‘Nature is the Answer’ is a guide to help young readers understand eco-anxiety, build resilience, and make sure their demands for the future are heard – discover why it is so important to have a voice, and to use it!

Just click the image below to view.

The Island – opening for new referrals

The Island is a charity in York providing islands of space and time for children and young people, aged 8-18 years; building confidence, self-esteem and unlocking potential through positive mentoring relationships and unique programmes.

They will be opening for one-to-one mentoring referrals on Monday 13 July at 9am and welcome referrals from both professionals and family members of young people.

Capacity is normally reached within 60-90 minutes of opening the form. To give your referral the best chance of being considered, please complete and submit the form as soon as referrals open.

How to make a referral
At 9am on Monday 13 July, the referral form will become live on The Island’s website. You can read more about the referral process on their website. If you have any questions, please contact The Island team on enquiries@theislandyork.org or call 01904 628449.

SEND CENTRAL

SEND CENTRAL will be opening in person on a Wednesday and Thursday throughout the summer holidays with the following offer:

Parent Carer Forum York Navigator Drop in 9.30-4pm – no booking needed
Wednesday 22 July, Thursday 23 July, Wednesday 29 July, Thursday 30 July, Wednesday 5 August, Thursday 6 August, Wednesday 12 August, Thursday 13 August, Wednesday 19 August, Thursday 20 August, Wednesday 26 August, Thursday 27 August, Wednesday 2 September, Thursday 3 September.

Youth Forum Summer of Fun (see poster for details)
1-2.30 or 3.30pm book via SENDCENTRAL@york.gov.uk – booking required

Wednesday 22 July, Wednesday 29 July, Wednesday 5 August (1-3.30pm), Wednesday 12 August (1-3.30pm), Wednesday 19 August, Wednesday 26 August, Wednesday 2 September.

Parent Carer Forum York Catch up and Cuppa
1-2.30 or 3.30pm – no booking needed.

Wednesday 22 July, Wednesday 29 July, Wednesday 5 August (1-3.30pm), Wednesday 12 August (1-3.30pm), Wednesday 19 August, Wednesday 26 August, Wednesday 2 September.

School Wellbeing Service – Parent Carer Drop in for support around young people’s wellbeing and/ or transitions
1-3pm- no booking needed

Thursday 23 July, 30 July, 6 August, 13 August, 20 August.

Rainbow Tots Inclusive Stay and Play
10- 11.30 0-6 years- siblings welcome. 

Thursday 6 August, 13 August, 20 August, 27 August, 3 September. No booking needed

SENDIASS – In Person Bookable slots 10am – 2pm
Thursday 6 August, 27 August. Booking via SEND CENTRAL

Elective Home Education Information Session 11am – 12pm
Thursday 13 August. No booking needed.

Elective Home Education Session drop in for families already home educating 1pm- 2pm Thursday 13 August. No booking needed.

Post 16 Education and Employment Pathways with Specialist Learning and Employment Advisors 12pm-1pm
Thursday 20 August. No booking needed.

Wellbeing In Mind Home Educating Workshop will continue on Mondays 11am – 12.30. 
Monday 20 July, Monday 27 July, Monday 24 August, Monday 7 September. No booking needed.

Survey – helping to improve the Local Offer Website

The team at City of York Council want to make sure the Local Offer website works well for families and would love to hear your feedback.

Your views will help them improve the information, accessibility and overall experience.

The survey only takes a few minutes to complete and can be found here.

FACE – sessions for parents

FACE are providing the following sessions over the next couple of months – please visit their website for further information. (Please note: the school does not have membership.)

Free Creative Summer Workshops for Girls Aged 11-18 in Rowntree Park

Make Space York is running a series of free creative workshops for girls aged 11-18, led by professional artists and makers.

Designed with teenage girls in mind, these small-group sessions (maximum 12 participants) are a chance to try something new, meet other girls, get creative and spend time outdoors in a relaxed, welcoming environment.
Workshops include:

• Nature journaling
• Needle felting
• Collective art
• Creative mapping
• Mixed media art

Click her for more info and to book places.

Leeds Rhinos Netball Camps

Leeds Rhinos Netball Camps are taking place over the summer with availability for those aged 7-11 and 12-16.

The camps are designed to provide players with a fun and enjoyable experience, giving them the opportunity to develop their netball skills, stay active, and make new friends along the way.

For more information and to book a place, please click here.

Online support for students and parents

We wanted to remind you about our online support app called Padlet, which is a directory of support available for students and parents.

Padlet signposts the user to a range of websites and resources, providing support and advice relating to mental health, exam stress, online safety, self care, managing emotions, young carers, family support and more.

You can visit the Padlets by scanning the QR codes or clicking the links below.

Visit the Parent Padlet
Visit the Student Padlet

Safeguarding

If you have significant concerns for the welfare of a child, in addition to being able to contact Mr Beever, Miss Gater or your child’s Progress Leader during school hours by emailing safeguarding@millthorpe.elt.org.uk, you may wish to make direct contact with York MASH (Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub) on T: 01904 551900, option 3. They operate an out-of-hours service so concerns can be raised with them at any time. In a mental health emergency, please call York CAMHS Crisis Team on 08000516171.