Welcome to year 9 at Applemore. We are a small year group with a huge personality. In year 9 we are preparing to make the first big decisions that affect the next steps in our education: our GCSE options. This takes place in the second term, and we are really looking forward to getting the ball rolling with this.

Our personal ethos as a year group is centred around three qualities:

Reputation

Resilience

Respect

It takes an awfully long time to build a good reputation but only seconds to build a poor one. We have been working hard as a year group to make sure that every choice we make every day is working towards creating a positive reputation both in the school and in the community. We also know that sometimes mistakes are made, but learning from those mistakes and accepting the consequences of our actions makes us better people in long run.

The past few years have been extremely tough for everyone, and this has affected hugely our resilience towards difficult situations. As the curriculum gets harder and the teenage years bring their own problems, it is imperative that our students work hard together to learn to tackle any challenge thrown their way. This includes ensuring that our attendance is as high as it can be, knowing that every day missed will make it harder to catch up.

A level of respect is imperative to being a success person. In year 9 we work extremely hard to ensure that we are showing a basic level of respect to all other students, school staff and visitors on a daily basis. Sometimes in can be hard to show respect when we feel that we are not being show it in return, however, will the philosophy of treating others as you wish to be treated we are working towards ensuring everybody acts towards other in a way we would expect our students to act.

Being in year 9 is a difficult time in a student’s life. Students are no longer the “new ones” not are they “top of the school”. If we can focus on our own agendas, ensuring that we respect everybody, resiliently refuse to give up, and continue to work towards being the positive reputation we deserve then I know that we will be an extremely successful year group.