Blog week ending 26th March
At Stone Lodge, we believe that every lesson is an opportunity to shine. House Points, Celebration Assemblies and our Golden Ticket Scheme celebrate the effort, creativity, and determination of our students.
These schemes ensure that recognition is spread widely across the school community, highlighting the everyday moments of brilliance that make our classrooms inspiring places to learn as well as those students who consistently get it right both in and out of the classroom. It’s about celebrating not only academic success but also the attitudes and actions that help everyone thrive. Our House Assemblies reinforce that culture of celebration with each year group.
In every lesson, one student is recognised with a Golden Ticket for demonstrating something special, whether it’s outstanding work, enthusiastic engagement, a spark of initiative, or simply going the extra mile. These tickets aren’t just pieces of paper, they are a symbol of the pride we take in our students’ achievements and the positive culture we’re building together. Each Golden Ticket recipient is entered into a House draw – with a winning ticket being selected by a student at random from each House box during our Celebration Assemblies. Each student drawn from the box receives a £10 Amazon voucher!
Our Non-Uniform House Point Challenge has proven extremely popular with our students! – who are competing to earn toward the 3500 House Point total to win a non-uniform day for their House. The students are really enjoying it and there has been a positivity boost throughout the school. The non-uniform day will be the last day of term, 2nd April (with a £1 donation to our PTA). House Points are presented in recognition of students work and community contribution in line with our RIDES school values of Respect, Integrity, Determination, Equality and Self-Management.
My prestigious Headteacher Award Certificates (and accompanying cookies!) are presented sparingly, recognising those students who raise the bar, making a positive impact, inspiring those around them and/or consistently ‘doing the right thing’. I present the Awards at assemblies so staff and students can all congratulate each recipient.
Thank you to all the parents and carers who attended our Year 11 Mock Results Evening. Your support makes a real difference to students’ confidence and progress. We are now in the final, most important stretch before exams. There are just 22 school days, 44 days in total, until the first English GCSE on 11th May. That means 132 lessons and 18 PM Intervention sessions, giving students 150 in‑school opportunities to improve, plus all the revision they do at home.
To help you support your child in these crucial final weeks, we are resharing the Parents’ Guide to Revision and sharing the Mock Results Evening slides. We hope these resources make it easier to guide, encourage, and motivate your child through the final stretch. These final weeks are a team effort. With students working hard, families encouraging them, and school providing support, we can ensure every student feels ready to achieve their very best this summer.
Ms Ayling’s A Level Politics students are currently recapping key topics ahead of their summer exams, paying particular attention to areas requested by students and highlighted by Ms Ayling following their in-class discussions and mock exam feed-back. In this lesson students have revisited Federalism – creating revision notes and prompt cards for salient points concerning the US Government sectors – Executive, Legislative and Judicial. One of Ms Ayling’s students, Flourish has been inspired by her studies to pursue a political career and is a Kent Youth Community Council representative for Dartford. Flourish was recently re-elected following a strong and universally supported manifesto .. and some enthusiastic campaigning from her peers at Stone Lodge School! Flourish is committed to giving young people across Dartford a voice at local government level with a specific focus on tackling child poverty and for all young people to feel safe and protected.
Miss Bess has been meeting with our Student Representatives from the Student Council. The meeting was called to discuss student requests for PTA funding and suggestions for raising additional monies to fund their ideas. Miss Bess was absolutely delighted with the high level of engagement, with clear priorities for spend and some incredibly well articulated ideas … Miss Bess was particularly taken with one idea raised by Annalei T, a PTA Colour Run! Annalei rightly said, these events are great fun, promote a healthy activity and are perfect for all ages! Riley was keen that this could be joined by a sponsored walk/run where we each commit to a ‘leg’ of a journey where we walk to Australia (well, we walk the equivalent distance to Australia!) These ideas, and many more besides are under discussion – if you would like to get involved and volunteer as part of our PTA please do get in touch. No matter how much or little spare time you are able to commit to, we will be very grateful! ptatreasurer@stonelodgeschool.co.uk. Pictured below, a small selection of our Year 9 Student Representatives … and our Students’ hope for a Colour Run!!
British Science Week is a celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths. All scientific discoveries and advancements begin with a spark of curiosity, and this year’s theme Curiosity: what’s your question? encouraged our students to think deeply about the world around them.
Our Science and Technology lessons challenge students to think like scientists: spot patterns, ask bold questions, and explore the “why” behind everyday phenomena. Curiosity isn’t just a feeling; it’s a skill, and our students practise it in full. It’s the spark that makes us wonder why the sky changes colour, how medicines work, or what the world might look like in 50 years. When students learn to ask good questions, they learn to shape their own understanding of the world.
Mrs Masoud (and the rest of the Science Department!) are supporting Year 11 students as they make the final preparations ahead of their GCSEs. In this featured Physics lesson students were deepening their understanding of energy transferal, in this case waves. In this practical investigation, students measured the wavelength, frequency and speed of a water wave using ripple tanks – their findings are applied in various fields such as engineering and communications systems where waves carry both energy and information.
Library update: Science Week at the Library, and 2026 was fantastic!
We had a wonderful time celebrating science and technology in conjunction with British Science Week. Students asked questions about Artificial Intelligence and learned about an extraordinary physicist and chemist, Maria Sklodowska-Curie, the first woman to win Nobel Prize and a pioneer in radioactive research.
The theme for British Science Week 2026 was ‘Curiosity…what’s your question?’, inspiring children and young people to think about what questions they have about the world, and maybe even how those questions could lead to a future career.
To inspire our students, our Library was turned into a mini lecture hall. Year 8 students listened to a short lecture by Professor Michael Wooldridge – Professor of AI at the University of Oxford and Director for AI at The Alan Turing Institute in London. He talked to our students about Artificial Intelligence, how it will change our world, how younger generations will use AI in the future and explained what he thinks might happen to future job markets.
This was followed by a lively discussion about what things we should machines trust to do for us. Year 8 students took part in activity where they had to think about the risks involved in machine learning, but also how they can be useful and enhance our lives. They were presented with different types of machine learning jobs and had to sort them based on how much they would trust them to do the job.
Year 7 looked at the science of laughter and discovered what happens to our minds and bodies when we’re giggling or laughing. We examined the science of laughter to better understand what’s going on when our funny bones are tickled… Year 7 students had a great time completing a lovely activity about what makes them happy and what brings a smile to their face.
Our library has a brilliant section dedicated to Science and students are encouraged to explore it. Happy reading! Mrs Nguyen
Our Latest Careers Newsletter details free resources and information including a careers library on Unifrog and potential work placements for Year 11 (following their exams) – all can be read here Careers Newsletter 2
Become a School Governor. Our school governing bodies represent different groups of people who have an interest in the school: staff, parents, carers and the community. Serving as a school governor is a highly rewarding experience, offering numerous personal and professional benefits. While we do not have any Parent Governor vacancies at the moment, we do have some Community Governor vacancies in other schools across the Trust. If you a looking for an opportunity to use your experience and skills to help make a difference within your local community and to help shape people’s futures, please contact governance@endeavour-mat.co.uk for further information on the role of a school governor.
Easter Break family activity ideas.
Ever dreamt of flying an RAF aircraft?! The RAF Manston History Museum is located in Manston, Kent, dedicated to preserving and educating the public on the history of Manston as an airfield.
Their annual Open Cockpit event is on Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th April this year. This event is one of the most popular events and they open up some of their favourite museum aircraft and you can climb inside and view them as if you were the pilots.
Forthcoming Dates;
Year 9 Deadline for Options Forms to be completed online – 23 March – please click here to complete
Year 8 Parents/Carer Evening – 26 March 4-7pm
Last Day of Term 4 – Thursday 2 April
First Day of Term 5 – Monday 20 April
Best wishes,
Catherine Cusick
Headteacher
