Oliver was nominated by Mrs James who said: “Oliver has excelled in Art throughout Richmond School. His talent is exceptional and his ability to render his ideas in any materials he is given has consistently impressed every member of the Art department who has taught him.  

Oliver's current sketchbook work is outstanding, and he clearly devotes hours to refining and improving his work to a technical standard beyond GCSE level. 

As well as being amazingly talented Oliver demonstrates an unbelievably strong work ethic and is also incredibly humble about his work. Outside of school Oliver also pursues his own original, creative ideas which are equally impressive technically. 

Oliver embodies the Richmond school values of Excellence and Creativity in Art and is fully deserving of recognition in the form of the HTCVA.” 

Earlier in the week, Richmond School Sports Partnership proudly hosted the U11 Boys’ and Girls’ North Yorkshire County Football Tournament.  

This tournament brought together the top school teams from each area to compete for the title of County Champion. Despite the bright but bitterly cold conditions, the atmosphere was electric, and the level of football across both competitions was outstanding. Every team demonstrated incredible skill, teamwork, and determination, making it a closely fought tournament. 

The event was expertly officiated by Richmond School’s Year 10 Sports Leaders, whose professionalism and enthusiasm contributed greatly to the success of the tournament. 

The results of the tournaments can be found on one of the images at the link below. The winning team from each tournament now qualifies for the regional final in March. 

More photos can be found at the link below: https://photos.app.goo.gl/b7mt16HEDNVYR31N7

A while ago we received a message from Katy, mum of Ethan Howe, Year 8 student at Richmond School. She told us about a visit that she and Ethan had recently made to RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, home of the Red Arrows. They had visited with a small group and had some pretty exclusive access – they chatted to engineers and pilots, sat in on a pre-sortie briefing, looked around a Hawk T1 aircraft and even got to sit in the cockpit! Katy’s message was accompanied by some excellent photos of the group and especially the aircraft. 

We wanted to find out more, especially how they came to be in what looked like quite a privileged position, so we caught up with Ethan to ask him a bit more about the visit: 

RS: So, Ethan, tell us how this came about – not everyone gets to visit RAF Waddington to visit the Red Arrows! 

EH: That’s true! My mum was ordering some photography equipment from The Flash Centre, and she entered a competition, which she ended up winning. The prize was this visit, for her and a guest – she took me. There were about ten other people who’d also won places on the visit. 

RS: Ok – that's quite an exclusive group. I can see from the photos that you got to meet some of the pilots. 

EH: We did – there are only 11 pilots – the reds, but over 100 in the support team – the blues. There are weapons technicians for the ejector seat and canopy, all sorts of different engineers, even specialists who make the coloured smoke they use during displays. I talked to some of the blues – this is a photo of me talking to a flight engineer about the hydraulic rams in the Hawk’s landing gear. This was in a big hangar originally made for the Boeing E3 Century, a big radar aircraft based on a Boeing 707 from the 1960s – they still fly for the US Air Force. They don’t fly from Waddington anymore, though, so this is where they service the Hawks. 

RS: You come across as someone who’s very interested and knowledgeable about aircraft, Ethan. Tell us a bit about where that’s come from. 

EH: Yes, I am! I started getting into aircraft by watching YouTube videos, only about a year ago – I'm more into commercial aviation, but these military aircraft are still really interesting. I hadn't been up close to many aircraft before this visit – we've got plans to visit some airports in the future so I can see more – Newcastle soon, hopefully. We also have a family friend who is a retired RAF engineer. He’s building a small plane, so I’ve been able to help with some things recently, like fitting the wings! He’ll take me up for some flights in the summer.  

RS: Let’s go back to the beginning of the visit – you drove down to Lincolnshire in the morning and arrived at the base – how did the visit start? 

EH: We went through security to start with, then we were escorted to the car park. We drove through a residential area on the base and past the runways – we got a good look at them as we went past. At this point, we had an idea that we weren’t going to see the Red Arrows fly a training sortie because the weather was so bad, which was a bit of a shame. They need a cloud ceiling of at least 1000 feet for training, but it was much lower than that – only about 650 feet at midday when they were supposed to fly. They need to be able to see each other when they’re flying so close – any low cloud makes that difficult and dangerous. The RAF photographers also need to be able to see them fly as every flight is filmed from the ground and air to aid training.  

RS: That certainly makes sense! 

How was the day structured after you arrived? 

EH: We had a bit of an introduction, then spoke to the pilots and listened to a presentation about the Hawk T1 and the role of the Red Arrows. We then got to sit in on the pre-flight briefing, even though they knew they weren’t going to fly. They went through all the manoeuvres and aerobatics on a massive whiteboard. It was fascinating to hear the details of their flight. They usually fly in a V formation with their wingtips really close – one wrong move could spell disaster! It was interesting to realise how differently each aircraft has to move, for example, the middle aircraft in the V only has to move a bit, but the ones at the tips of the V have to move much more to stay in formation. 

To read more, head over to our Facebook page.

Niamh was nominated by Miss Tucker who said: “Niamh is one of those students who is just excellent all of the time. So far this year, she has received 159 CREDITs and 0 Cs. She turns up at muster every morning with a smile on her face, her uniform correct and all of her equipment, ready for the day ahead. 

Niamh is also always respectful to others. There are too many instances to name them all, but here are a few... Niamh has been a Sports Leader in primary athletics and cross-country events where she enjoyed working with younger students. She was a meet and greet volunteer at Year 6 open evening, showing families around school with that ever-present smile and warm encouragement. Niamh is a services child who gets involved with lots of events and this year laid the wreath for the school at the Friary Gardens remembrance ceremony. On the day, Mrs Cheesbrough said she was very mature and respectful and a delight to talk to that morning. Niamh is always respectful in lessons too, being a hard worker and always following instruction. Amongst her peers, Niamh is always considerate of others and is supportive when others are upset. 

Niamh only joined Richmond School in the Easter of her Year 7 after a tough time at a previous school. To come to Richmond with such a positive mindset and to go on to represent us on many occasions is a credit to her constant excellence.” 

Last term we found out that Summer Taylor, Year 9 student at Richmond School, was heading down to London to perform with the charity Never Such Innocence’s Military Kids Choir. This would involve an evening of rehearsals, followed by a full day of performances at a variety of different venues, including the world-famous Royal Hospital, Chelsea, to sing for the Chelsea Pensioners. 

We caught up with Summer to find out more about this amazing trip! 

RS: Before we talk about the recent trip, Summer, tell us a bit about the Military Kids Choir and how you came to be involved with it. 

ST: So, when I was in Year 5 at Le Cateau primary school, some people came from the Never Such Innocence charity to do a poetry and songwriting workshop, and to see if anyone wanted to sing in their Military Kids Choir. I joined the choir and quite soon afterwards we appeared on Britain’s Got Talent and got to the semi-finals! After that we’ve been to so many different places to perform - military awards, the Royal Albert Hall, the Chelsea Pensioners a few times. 

RS: Wow - Britain’s Got Talent! That must have been quite an experience – what was the bit that you remember best? 

ST: It was amazing – I remember the Golden Buzzer! And all the people just watching and clapping and cheering us on. 

RS: Ok, let’s get a bit more up to date – you've obviously been performing with the choir for some years now, but what about this most recent trip to London? There was an evening of rehearsals first – when did you travel down? 

ST: Everyone travelled down to London independently on the Tuesday – I went with my mum. There are about 50 singers in the choir, but only about 25 made this trip. We took the train down to King’s Cross, then made our way across London – I love London! - to meet up at a hotel near Paddington. The rehearsal started at about 6pm and lasted an hour. 

RS: Ok – that sounds quite short for a whole day of performances the next day – I guess you’re all very familiar with the songs? 

ST: Yes – because the singers are from all over the country, we only meet up in person when we’re going to perform, but we meet up on Zoom calls much more often. We rehearse and discuss the songs and our performance programme – there's always lots to talk about. It’s great when we meet up in person, though – it's like a big family! 

RS: I can imagine – you've all known and performed with each other for ages! 

Ok. Tell us about Wednesday – you did quite a few performances? 

ST: Yes – we started at the hotel with a community performance. We sang a selection of our own songs – we've got two albums worth of songs now – a normal military one and a Christmas one. We sang our Christmas songs and some of our BGT songs. Then we went to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea and performed our Christmas songs for the Chelsea Pensioners. We also gave them the Christmas cards and bracelets we’d made for them during the rehearsals the night before.  

To read more, head over to our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/RichmondSchoolandSixthFormCollege

To see the original BGT audition, go to this link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s_VUcwKUJM&t=116s 

To see their semi-final performance, go to this link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkvCT-IBb74&t=6s