Tuesday 29 March saw the long awaited performances of Treasure Island finally go ahead and, wow, it was worth the wait! 

In this wonderful pantomime, the famous Long John Silver, his parrot Polly, and a gang of pirates set sail in search of buried treasure in the Caribbean. Jim Hawkins and Jenny Trelawney strive to outwit the wily seadogs with the help of Jim’s mum and her friends from the local Women’s Institute. 

The whole cast worked so well together to bring the show to life and kept the audience engaged and entertained throughout. Their delivery was described as ‘hilarious’ and everyone in attendance would agree that it was a roaring success. 

Covid has certainly thrown a few spanners in the works along the way as enhanced lockdown restrictions meant that the original performance dates at Christmas had to be postponed. Previous to that, restrictions within schools meant that no live performances could take place, so this was the first time that students had performed live on stage in at least two years. Year group bubbles also meant that students had not worked with anyone outside of their own year group for two years. 

Treasure Island gave our students the opportunity to work together as a team and it has been fantastic to see the students bonding and developing new relationships. Since rehearsals began in September 2021, we have seen the confidence of every student involved soar and it has been a delight to watch. 

The cast worked very closely with the Medina College cast and supported each others’ performances by taking on the ensemble role for each other. 

Huge thanks to the following: 

• Mr Lyle, Mrs Peckham, Mrs Shorrock and Miss Elkin for their expert leadership, direction and choreography
• Mr Winsor for supporting and playing in the band
• Ex-student Harry for his expert help with lighting and sound
• The Art Department for their help with props and set
• The Food Tech Department for providing the interval refreshments
• The Bushell family for all of their help with costumes
• Blackgang Chine for the loan of some of the set and props
• Our Year 10 Stage Crew for being amazing and working hard throughout
• Our Year 9 hair and make up artists 

Mrs Lythgoe is so proud of year 7 as they have embraced the CPR Training and worked so hard during the sessions.

Dana Edkins-Wherry, who is training our year 7 students, is so impressed with how mature they are being and how engaged they are. Great questions and discussions are coming out of the sessions. 

A huge thank you to Dana for sharing her knowledge with our students and giving up her valuable time to teach our year 7 students such a valuable skill. 

Year 11 have been working really hard to organise an Easter themed raffle to raise funds for their prom. Please support them by buying a ticket! They are £1 per strip and can be purchased on School Gateway.

Prizes include:

• Wax Melts Kindly donated by Sarah’s Lush Melts
• 1 Family Swim at Leisure
• Tapnell Farm park entry for 4
• £50 Domino’s voucher
• £25 Castle Inn
• £25 Valentino’s voucher
• £10 Mr T’s Voucher
• Lot of Easter Eggs
• Easter Egg Hamper
• Cuddle Easter Rabbit
• Warm Velvet Throw
• Sweet Cones
• Oreo Chocolate Bouquet
• Bunny Jar full of eggs
• Easter Egg donations From Asda
• 2 boxes of cupcakes- Donated by P041
• 2 tickets for Bar 74 for an evening out
• A voucher for 4 Ice Creams from The Plaza Ice
• Cream Van
• Commodore Cinema- Family voucher

The draw will take place in school at 12.30 pm on Wednesday 6 April 2022. 

We were privileged to be able to take a group of year 9 students to Southampton University for a careers event this week. Whilst we were there, the students were shown around the university and able to talk to student ambassadors about life at university. It was really useful to be able to ask questions and see what a real university looks like. Most of the students were blown away by how big the campus was but also the range of courses and things to do.

During the day, the students competed against three other schools in challenges run by a company called UNILOC. These were designed to encourage communication and teamwork skills. In the afternoon the students had to design an app for future students to use to help guide them through making career choices. They had to identify the main features that would be most useful, design a logo and talk about how the app would function. Once they planned this they then had to present a five minute presentation to some course leaders and answer questions in a dragons’ den style format. Carisbrooke stole the show and came first after an amazing, animated and confident presentation. We are pleased to say that Medina followed closely in 2nd place.

On Thursday 17 March 2022 the Isle of Wight Schools Basketball Tournaments were reinstated for the first time in three years.  It was the year 7 tournament that took place first with other year groups taking part over the next few weeks. 

Five teams in total took part and the tournament was played in good spirit and sportsmanship throughout.  Carisbrooke opened their account with a confident win over Medina 8-0 thanks to some excellent shooting from Shai B, Liam G and Charlie W.  In the second game, Christ the King College were our opponents but, again, some excellent shooting from Daniel P, Shai B and Charlie G gave Carisbrooke the win 8-4.  However, it was the firm defence throughout by Lincoln O, Theo N and Liam D that supported the team in preventing Christ the King from getting more opportunities.

In the third game, Carisbrooke put on another quality display to beat Ryde A 8-0 with Liam G and Mason S-T adding to the score sheet and Jack G trying his hardest to prevent Ryde from scoring by tying his shoe lace in the middle of the court.

In the final game of the tournament Carisbrooke were to play the favourites, The Bay, who had so far crushed every team they had played.  However, after the first 6 minutes Carisbrooke were 6-4 up thanks for a fantastic team display both defensively and offensively. Liam G and Shai B again shooting brilliantly throughout.  However, with a few minutes left Carisbrooke started to get tired and The Bay began to find some easier bakets close to the hoop and eventually ran out 18-8 winners leaving Carisbrooke to claim the runners up position. 

Carisbrooke were outstanding throughout and really impressed everyone watching.  Oakley W who helped coach and support the team throughout was a credit to the school due to showing such commitment to the basketball programme at Carisbrooke. 

Well done to all of you, you made a coach very proud.

A group of year 10 students have been working on a journalism project in partnership with Independent Arts as part of the year-long Creative Biosphere project — a partnership of five cultural organisations, five schools and colleges and five artists have been brought together through the Isle of Wight’s Cultural Education Partnership to inspire creativity in young people through the Island’s UNESCO Biosphere Status.

Grace, Jenson, Oliver, Devon and Lily attended the IW Story Festival at Quay Arts on Friday 25th and Saturday 26th February to interview authors, illustrators and presenters as well as members of the public, before working together to combine their efforts which they then submitted to the Isle of Wight County Press. It was a very tight deadline but they completely rose to the challenge. 

You can read their article here: https://www.countypress.co.uk/news/19960439.isle-wight-story-festival-inspires-young-creatives/

The group are now in the process of pitching their ideas to the editor at Style of Wight magazine where their article will feature in their April edition.