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Your March 2025 Round-Up of Other News...
In this edition...
- World Book Day | Staff Dressing-Up.
- 'Animal Farm' theatre trip.
- Visit by our local MP.
- Girls Football Tournament.
- New School Partnership.
- Boys Football Wins.
- 'SPEAK OUT' Regional Finals.
World Book Day 2025
Mar 6th
This year, staff at Canons demonstrated their personal love of books and reading by dressing up as well-known literary characters.
The school always promotes the importance and enjoyment that books and reading can bring to all, but an even more determined and positive push was applied around World Book Day.
It couldn't have been easy teaching a lesson dressed as the Cheshire Cat or Mad hatter from 'Alice in Wonderland, but for the students, it would have been unavoidable that today was a special day all about books and reading.
The staff gathered for a group photo at break time, minus a few who were on duty, (still dressed up of course. Where else might you see a 'Where's Wally' in a hi-vis?!
Winning a prize for the best dressed individual was Ms Matomby, who struck a quite stunning 'Cleopatra'.
Our Media Resources Team won a special 'Spreading Happiness' prize for their simple but effective home-made Costumes.
Mr Fowler is 'Mr Happy' and Ms Rawlings is quite literally 'Little Miss Inventor'.
A Staff Room book 'Bring-and-Buy' sale was also organised, with proceeds going to the World Book Day organisation.
Many books were snapped up as soon as they hit the shelf, whilst the remainder will keep the staff occupied for months to come.
Mrs Mann dressed as Death, or to be more accurate, 'Mort' from the very funny book of the same name by Terry Pratchett.
She is accompanied here by her little friend, 'Death of Rats', the rodent equivalent of Death.
Sounds morbid? Read the book, it's hilarious, all will be explained and it will introduce you to the amazing 'Discworld' books that the late, great Terry Pratchett left to us all.
Who's Afraid?
On the look out for any wolves as 'Little Red Riding Hood' was Psychology teacher Ms Wu.
'Where's Wally?'
There were very few problems finding 'Wally' that day, as the whole of our Senior Leadership Team (SLT) had dressed up as this popular character.
Winning the Best Dressed Department prize was our fabulous English Department.
'Alice in Wonderland' was obviously their theme with Head of Department Mrs Kang as the Queen of Hearts, but who is that behind the Cheshire Cat mask?
"Four legs good,
two legs bad!"
Mar 6th
Drama students trip to see 'Animal Farm'.
"Like Never Before!"
Our GCSE and A-Level Drama students travelled to the Stratford East theatre to watch George Orwell's classic political fable, 'Animal Farm'. It was a new amazing stage adaptation, being performed like never before.
This new theatrical adaptation by award-winning playwright Tatty Hennessy brings Orwell’s powerful tale of rebellion, greed, and the loss of identity to life on its 80th anniversary.
Gone is the usually portrayed cosy, countryside farmstead, with its open farmyard, hens running free, quaint outbuilding and a big wooden barn. The 'farm' is now a modern, industrial monstrosity of wire cages, concrete floors and corrugated steel panels.
Our students really enjoyed the performance, for all of its painful conclusion. We had obtained free theatre tickets and tube travel so the whole visit was a win, win.
While Orwell intended a parallel with 20th century Soviet Russia, and its less than perfect realisation of the communist ideal, it’s not hard to make the leap to today's politics here: fake news and conspiracy theories abounding, politicians flat-out lying or accusing their enemies of their own crimes, and, the prevailing message of the evening,..
...all animals are equal,
but some are more equal
than others.
Visit to Canons by Local MP
"Nice to see you again Bob."
Mar 10th
We welcomed our local member of Parliament, Bob Blackman CBE MP to Canons High for a friendly visit and a meeting with our Student Government.
He joined them in our conference room for a friendly Q&A session where no doubt the subject matters ranged from how much an MP gets paid to what does he think about the terrible situation in Ukraine.
Adults, including teachers and MPs are often struck by what matters are foremost in the minds of our younger generations and what is worrying them.
Bob Blackman MP has been the member of Parliament for Harrow East since 2010.
He has been the Chairman of the 1922 Committee and Chair of the Backbench Business Committee since 2024.
This is certainly not the first time he's visited Canons High, but the first time that he and our current Principal David Bullock have met; and what better way than showing off how our great school is looking now including our new Canons Learning Hub.
Thank you Bob for coming to visit us.
First Big Football Tournament for our Key Stage 3 Girls.
by Coach - Mr A Conway
On a beautiful sunny day our 16 strong squad - the biggest ever - set off to Nower Hill School for our first tournament of 2025.
Expectations were high but our first opponents Hatch End proved to be very capable indeed and brought us down to earth, or astroturf, as it turned out.
Next up was Sacred Heart, another strong team. Canons rallied well but the low sun in our eyes was rather too strong and hampered our defence: we lost 2-0.
In game 3, now with the sun on our backs and determination in our hearts we really played well, sorted out the defence and played some excellent football to bag a 1-0 win versus deadly rivals Park High with Halle’s excellent finish topping off some superb team play. So whilst we did not progress beyond the group stage, finishing 3rd out of 4, a truly great time was had and we really learned from the experience.
Everybody there played their part but special mentions must go to Super ‘keeper Aimee, tireless Ilva, Player Of The Tournament Daria who was tougher than a rock in defence, Reyginnae who like Ilva made a big difference up front and played on despite injury (we found out about it afterwards), and Most Improved Player Emima. Golden Boot: Halle."
I think the tournament was fun and we made some friends from other schools which was nice” - Haifa S
“The tournament was really fun and I enjoyed it “ - Emima P
“It was challenging and we learned a lot” - Daria G
“It was fun” - Natasha A
“The tournament was fun and taught us more things as well” - Jessica K
Our Squad were:
Emima P, Julia P, Reyginae M-B, Reykylie B, Jessica K, Daria G, Alyazia D, Halle S, Yasmine H-A, Abigail F, Natasha A, Ilva B, Aimee W, Nevaeh M, Haifa S & Saffa B.
We have a showcase match against Nower Hill coming up soon.
We’ll be ready.
New School Partnership
We enjoyed a visit to our new partners at Saracens High School at the beginning of the month.
Saracens High, part of the Saracens multi-academy trust, are based in a fantastic new building which opened in 2021.
Whilst they are only a few miles away from us in NW9 (near the Hendon RAF museum), that places them in the London Borough of Barnet. We are a Harrow school, tied closely to Harrow Council, but we are also an academy with all the freedoms and independence that allows us, so we are very glad to be forming this new partnership of cooperation and sharing with our new neighbours.
Boys Football Wins!
Mar 12th
Our Boys teams have just achieved two excellent wins in the Harrow Borough Cup competition.
Firstly, our Year 9 squad beat Whitefriars 2-1, followed by our Year 11s who beat Whitmore High School 1-0 with an outstanding defensive display!
Great playing guys. We are so proud of you all.
Jack Petchey SPEAK OUT Regional Finals.
Mar 12th
Huge congratulations to Rahma and Aryan for their fantastic speeches as part of the Jack Petchey SPEAK OUT regional finals.
They are pictured here with [L to R]
Teachers Ms Di Giuseppe, Dr Shah (JP Coordinator), their Head of Year 10 Mr Brown and Principal Mr Bullock.
They attended to offer their support, along with the students families and friends. They were also extremely proud and pleased at how well our competitors represented our school.
