A secondary headteacher living with endometriosis is calling for more frank discussions in schools about periods and women’s health.
Emma Lambden, who lives in Ripon and is head of Thirsk School, was diagnosed with the women’s reproductive condition in her early 40s, but says she had had problems with periods since her teens.
She said: “Diagnosis of endometriosis typically takes about seven years, so I just want young girls to have sufficient information that they will go to the doctor early if need be, rather than thinking they ‘just have bad periods’, like I did.”
The headteacher, who was educated at Ripon Grammar School, said discussions with groups of her own pupils had already yielded valuable feedback. Students aged 15 to 17 suggested the introduction of lessons about what periods look like, the emotional impact of periods, and the need to remove the “taboo” from talking about menstrual health.
Ms Lambden has also made sanitary products available on demand at three points in her school – a move that was prompted by some of her own sixth-formers, who wanted to combat “period poverty”.
She is now making that just one plank of a wider approach. She said:
“North Yorkshire County Council has put out guidance around menopause, and the teachers’ unions have created a menopause policy for staff. There’s a lot of talk around the menopause – and rightly so – but I’d also like to see us talk more about the other health issues women can face.
“I wanted to broaden the issue out to include our students, so as a school we’ve created a draft women’s health policy, and we’re looking at drawing up a men’s health policy too.
“This feels like an idea whose time has come. When talking about women’s health, everyone always sticks to the biology and emotions, but we need to talk more about the practicalities of it.
She added:
“It always feels as if periods are the last taboo – we just don’t talk about them. We need to be able to talk about these things without embarrassment.”
Children raise awareness of road safety issues affecting Ripon schools
Four pupils of Holy Trinity School in Ripon are working together to raise awareness of road safety issues on nearby roads.
Kofi, Seth, Arabella and Isla were so concerned about the potential risks posed by inconsiderate, careless and law-breaking motorists, using Church Lane and Trinity Lane, that they decided to take action.
The enterprising foursome, who have the support of their parents, teachers, governors and North Yorkshire Police, were appointed as the school’s first-ever road safety officers.
Illegal parking on Trinity Lane increases the risk for both children and parents. Picture: Adam Kitching
Through contact with the police, a meeting with Ripon City Council leader Andrew Williams and use of the Holy Trinity newsletter, they have been sending out messages designed to make life safer for fellow pupils and parents who walk to and from the school each day.
Kofi said:
“Each week in the UK there is an average of one death and 37 people seriously injured while going to school in the mornings or on their way home.”
Seth and Arabella both believe that children and parents on foot are put in danger by people parking illegally or stopping in the middle of the road to drop children off or pick them up.
Isla said:
“We just want people to be aware that they are putting their own children at risk as well as others, by behaving in a selfish way.”
Sue Sanderson, executive head of the Holy Trinity Federation of Schools, which includes the junior school on Church Lane and nursery on Trinity Lane, said:
“In a meeting I had with children they told me that road safety was the issue at the top of their list of concerns and that led to the appointment of our road safety officers, who have shown a great deal of initiative.”
Adam Kitching, who is vice-chair of governors at Holy Trinity and has board responsibility for health and safety, pointed out:
“Currently there is just one patrol at the crossroad between Trinity Lane and Church Lane and he does a tremendous job in looking after children and parents, but beyond that crossing point, we have Holy Trinity and St Wilfrid’s Junior School on Church Lane.
“As it is also a route for students walking to and from Outwood Academy and Ripon Grammar, there are in excess of 600 children, plus parents and grandparents on this stretch of road on each school day and we are concerned about potential accidents.”
Holy Trinity believes that an extra crossing patrol on Trinity Lane, combined with more no parking hatched areas and the introduction of short stay drop-off and pick-up bays, would make the road safer, but in the meantime, the message to all pedestrians is to take care when crossing the road.
Former Ripon student receives technical award at Oscars ceremony
Former Ripon Grammar School student Mark Hills has added an Oscar to the Emmy award that he received last year.
Computer expert Mr Hills and and his colleague Jim Vanns, were rewarded for their work with creative studio Framestore, on the design and engineering of FQ – a technology-based management tool utilised by movie makers.
The pioneering system has been used for the rendering of images that feature in more than 120 films, including Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Mark Hills pictured at last year’s Emmy Awards.
The development of FQ was recognised at the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards for advancing the art of filmmaking and 42-year-old, Mr Hills, who left RGS in 1999 to study computer science at university, dedicated his Technical Achievement Award to his parents Greta and Peter, who live in Sharow.
Barbara Ford Grant, chair of the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards Committee, pointed out:
“Unlike the Oscars recognising the year in cinema, the Sci-Tech awards are unique in that they cover achievements that can take a decade or more of invention, refinement, engineering, and evolution to be recognised.”
The technical awards were presented ahead of last night’s Oscars in a ceremony held in February at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.
Last year Mr Hills won an Emmy award for his involvement in the creation of a ground-breaking audio production system credited with revolutionising the television industry.
The system has been used in the production of innovative soundtracks for hit TV series such as The Crown, The Queen’s Gambit, The Flight Attendant and Line of Duty.
Ripon pupils branch out to sell ‘repurposed’ trees
Enterprising students concerned about the amount of waste going into landfill have put their principles into action by “repurposing” storm-damaged trees.
The Ripon Grammar School sixth-formers, who set up their own company to make eco-friendly bags, have created a sideline making wooden keyrings from the branches of trees blown down in their school grounds and near their homes.
The hand-made keyrings, decorated with their student-run Totes My Bag company “orange slice” logo are now their best seller.
Ellie Currass, assistant managing director of Totes My Bag, said:
“One of our main goals is to promote a sustainable lifestyle to help reduce the amount of products and waste fabric going into landfill. Our tote bags are made from 100 per cent recycled cotton and our keyrings are crafted from reclaimed wood.”
Assistant managing director Ellie Currass and operations director Anna Bradley show off some the team’s keyrings, made from trees felled by winter storms.
The company’s sustainability director, Ollie Peacock, came up with the idea for the keyrings after spotting a fallen tree in Sharow, outside Ripon, and when two trees at school came down in a recent storm, the students decided they could also put them to good use.
They have now made several hundred pounds’ profit from selling eco-friendly bags, keyrings and also greetings cards in the school foyer at lunchtimes.
Preparing to compete in the Young Enterprise North Yorkshire area final in March, they plan to branch into exam stationery kits, jewellery and badges, in addition to developing new bag designs. The team recently bagged the Best Teamwork prize after attending the Asda Young Enterprise Trade Fair in Harrogate. Ellie said:
“It gave us a brilliant opportunity to practise sales techniques and interact with the public as well as giving us a sneak peek at some of our competition! We made a good profit and are very proud.”
“We have gained valuable skills such as teamwork, professionalism, time management and the all-important ability to compromise.”
The hand-made keyrings, decorated with their student-run company ‘orange slice’ logo, are now the pupils’ best seller.
Financial director Samarth Dasarathi said:
“We began in September 2022 as a student company: run by students, for students and feel a strong sense of community within our team and our message.”
The Young Enterprise team of nine, led by managing director Lucy Crum, work closely together to decorate their bags, using lino prints created by operations director Anna Bradley, and create stencils for the keyrings using the school laser cutter.
The wooden keyrings were made using the school’s laser cutter.
Creative director Neja Mirando, who helped Ollie craft the wood for the keyrings, also created a digital design for their company’s greetings cards.
Ellie added:
“The Totes My Bag team would like to give our wholehearted thanks to our head of careers, Mr Walker, without whom none of this would be possible. We are very happy with what we have achieved, grateful to all those who have helped and advised us and excited to see what the future will bring for Totes My Bag.”
Teachers’ strike: Closures across the Harrogate district
Teachers at schools across the Harrogate district will not be in the classrooms tomorrow in the first of a series of days of industrial action.
The strike has been called by the National Education Union (NEU) in a dispute over pay and conditions.
The union argues a 5% pay rise in 2022 was insufficient to combat the impact of inflation at 10%, leaving many teachers effectively facing a pay cut.
It argues low pay has been a significant factor in many teachers choosing to leave the profession, and has deterred others from joining it. The result, the NEU says, is more pressure on those who remain, particularly since the pandemic.
The union’s points were supported yesterday by Harrogate Grammar School headteacer Neil Renton, who appeared on BBC News to discuss the situation.
He said he was “torn between [his] head and heart”, seeing the difficulties faced by teachers while also wanting to keep the school gates open for pupils.
The issues the NEU raised, he said, affected schools directly too: a recent advert for an English teacher at HGS attracted just one applicant. He added:
“If this continues and we are not able to work with government and ministers to create an education for the future I would, as an educator, want to take steps to make sure we make a much brighter education for our children.”
The following schools across the Harrogate district have confirmed some of their teachers will be on strike and released details of how they will operate tomorrow.
The school said it is prioritising students taking exams this summer, and those identified as vulnerable.
Years 11 and 13 will be in school, along with children from other year groups who have been contacted individually.
Remote learning from home will be offered to years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12. Some live lessons will be led by teachers who are not on strike.
King James’s High School, Knaresborough
The school will be open to pupils in years 11, 12 and 13. Other year groups will be provided with online learning.
The school said it would liaise directly with parents of students with an EHCP about the possibility of provision in school.
The school will be open to year 11 and vulnerable students, while all other year groups learn from home.
Years 7 and 11 will be in school, but students are advised to bring additional work and reading material in case lessons cannot be taught by the subject teacher.
Students in years 8,9, 10 and 12 will learn from home, including some online lessons with teachers who are not on strike.
Year 13 students will be able to work in school if they wish, or revise and join live online lessons from home.
Any students with an EHCP, as well as boarders who can’t go home, can go into school as usual. There is also provision for students whose parents are critical workers.
Rossett School, Harrogate
The school is open to students in years 7, 11, 12 and 13.
Where usual subject teachers are on strike, younger students will have lessons covered by members of the school’s senior leadership team. Older students will carry out independent revision or private study in the sixth form centre.
Students in years 8,9 and 10 will have online lessons available to access from home.
St Aidan’s Church of England High School, Harrogate
Years 7 and 11 will be in school, with years 8, 9 and 10 asked to learn at home.
Sixth form students can work at home or use a supervised study area, if they tell the school they plan to do so.
Students in any year group with an EHCP can attend.
St John Fisher Catholic High School, Harrogate
Years 7 and 11 will be in school, with years 8, 9 and 10 asked to learn at home.
Sixth form students can work at home or use a supervised study area, if they tell the school they plan to do so.
Students in any year group with an EHCP can attend and will spend the day doing activities to develop their social skills, life skills and wellbeing. The school said there may not be sufficient staff available to have one-to-one provision for all students.
Details of how other secondary schools are affected will be posted as we get them.
The next strike date to affect the Harrogate district will be at the end of February.
Doctor warns Ripon students about dangers of vapingA senior hospital consultant has warned Ripon Grammar School students about the dangers of vaping.
More children are taking up vaping in the UK, with products easily available over the counter in supermarkets.
Dr Elizabeth Garthwaite, who is chair of governors and a parent at the school as well as a kidney specialist and clinical director for medical specialities with Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, told hundreds of teenagers she was among many medical professionals increasingly concerned about the impact of vaping on health.
Dr Garthwaite said:
“We are seeing increasing numbers of young people presenting to hospital with problems associated with addiction, but also medical problems which are associated with vaping.”
Although originally designed as a form of nicotine replacement to help smokers break their addiction to cigarettes, vaping is far from harmless, warned Dr Garthwaite, who said:
“It was never designed as a safe alternative. The multiple chemicals used to create the vapes, and in particular the flavours and smells, are often dangerous and have unpredictable consequences.”
Dr Elizabeth Garthwaite
Dr Garthwaite talked about a sporty 17-year-old A-level student who is now using a wheelchair after suffering from acute nicotine poisoning and severe lung damage after vaping.
She added:
“Although there is no tar or smoke, the nicotine and other sticky carbonated chemicals are cancerous and will stick in the lungs and move into your circulation, causing significant damage to the whole body.
“As health care professionals, we are concerned that vaping is seen as safe and easy for young people. This is not what nicotine replacement was designed for. It was developed to enable those individuals who were addicted to cigarette smoking, and suffering the consequences of this, to reduce their exposure to the toxic smoke and tar released from cigarettes.”
Former Ripon Grammar School head boy wins BBC quiz show
A former head boy of Ripon Grammar School won a share of £1,250 for scoring zero after he and his grandmother took part in Pointless, the BBC quiz show.
The episode in which Nick Edwards and 82-year-old Christine Robson hit the jackpot was broadcast yesterday for a second time after previously being screened in May.
Those who have missed the programme can watch it on BBC iPlayer and see the pair coming up with the winning answer to the question: “Name any past winner of the Spanish, French or Italian Cup.”
Mr Edwards, who formerly lived in Copt Hewick, works for the sustainability team of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority in Leeds, where he runs the circular economy programme, which aims to reduce waste and prevent non-biodegradable items from going to landfill.
Speaking about the experience of visiting London’s Elstree Studios and taking part in the show hosted by Alexander Armstrong with assistance from Richard Osman, he said:
“My greatest success might be winning Pointless. More importantly than the show itself was the fact that I did it with my grandma.”
And what do they plan to do with their winnings?
Mr Edwards said:
“We agreed to spend it on a big family meal out, but we haven’t been able to get everyone in one place yet. It will happen at some point, I’ve promised them!”
And finally, what was the answer to the footballing question that foxed the 100 people on the Pointless panel?
It was Real Zaragoza – winner of the Spanish Cup, the Copa del Rey, on six occasions.
A man was rescued after he became trapped under a tree in Summerbridge today.
Crews from Harrogate, Knaresborough and Ripon were called at 9am to help the male, who got trapped after trying to fell a tree that was hanging dangerously over a road.
North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service’s incident log said:
“Male had been rescued by contractors prior to fire service arrival.
“Male was given precautionary checks by paramedics but was discharged on scene with bruising and grazing. No action was required by fire service.
Strong overnight winds uprooted numerous trees across the district overnight, including two at Ripon Grammar School (see below).
The Stray Ferret asked the school about the incident but has not yet received any details.
Tree fell Jan 2023
Ex-Ripon Grammar pupil discovers oldest map of stars
A former pupil of Ripon Grammar School has discovered the oldest known map of the stars hidden in an ancient manuscript.
Dr Peter Williams, who left the school in 1989, is a leading biblical historian at the University of Cambridge.
He made the discovery while researching a Bible manuscript belonging to the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. Dr Williams said:
The ancient parchment, which came from a monastery in Egypt, is a palimpsest – a manuscript with text which had been rubbed out and new writing placed on top. Dr Williams explained:
“In the early Middle Ages when papyrus had become scarce and the invention of paper in the west was still centuries away, there was a huge shortage of writing material.
“Consequently, if you found an old manuscript in a script or language you didn’t use you would probably rub it out to put new writing on top.
“Now modern imaging techniques are enabling us to read faint text that was rubbed out over a millennium ago, sometimes even if all the ink has been removed.”
The text underneath turned out to come from around the sixth century AD, with the text on top from the ninth.
Dr Williams had set his teams of summer interns at the Tyndale House research institute he leads the task of trying to decipher just what had been rubbed out 10 years ago and one student, Jamie Klair, discovered some of it was about astronomy.
But it was during last year’s covid lockdown, as Dr Williams was studying a page which his teams of scholars hadn’t managed to crack, that he realised he was seeing star co-ordinates, which turned out to be of the constellation Corona Borealis.
He discovered it was a fragment from the 2,100-year-old catalogue of the stars by the Greek astronomer and founder of trigonometry Hipparchus, a much noted chart of celestial bodies which was thought to be lost to the ages.
They are the earliest star coordinates preserved in any manuscript. The resulting paper co-authored by Dr Williams and published in the Journal for the History of Astronomy, said:
“Hipparchus’s lost Star Catalogue is famous in the history of science as the earliest known attempt to record accurate co-ordinates of many celestial objects observable with the naked eye,”
“This new evidence is the most authoritative to date and allows major progress in the reconstruction of Hipparchus’s Star Catalogue.”
The fragment has enlightened our understanding of ancient astronomy, which appears to have been a remarkably accurate discipline, with Hipparchus’s measurements correct to within one degree of the stars’ actual positions. Some 300 years later, the Greek mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy wrote his Almagest, the oldest star catalogue known to historians before this discovery.
Dr Peter Williams during his Ripon Grammar days
Dr Williams studied Greek, Latin and music at A-level at Ripon, where he was deputy head boy.
He went on to read classics and Hebrew at Cambridge, and now combines his love of old languages with research on the Bible.
Having studied for an MPhil and PhD at Cambridge, apart from a brief residency as senior lecturer in theology at the University of Aberdeen, Dr Williams has remained at the University of Cambridge, where he is an affiliated lecturer in the faculty of divinity, since leaving Ripon.
Ripon Grammar named top northern secondary school againRipon Grammar School has been named Secondary School of the Year for academic performance in the north – for the tenth year running.
The school claimed the top spot – again – in Parent Power, The Sunday Times Schools Guide 2023, published online today and in print on Sunday.
Ripon Grammar School headmaster Jonathan Webb said:
“We were delighted with this year’s results, given the disruption our students faced to their education during the two years of intermittent lockdown. They coped superbly well with the blended demands of remote learning and face-to-face schooling.
“My congratulations go to the students who worked so well and the dedicated staff this school is so fortunate to have.
“Our results at A-level actually strengthened on 2020’s and 2021’s results, while GCSE results were on a par with those years, despite the fact that grading was recalibrated nationally to a mid-point between 2019-21.
Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate, at Thorpe Underwood, was named Independent Secondary School of the Year in the North for academic performance.
The other northern winners in the ranking were: Prince Henry’s Grammar School, Otley (Comprehensive School of the Year); and Sheffield High School for Girls (Independent School of the Year).
Nationally, schools in London and the south east outperformed the rest of the country. Wycombe High School in Buckinghamshire, St Peter’s Catholic School in Guildford and Francis Holland School in London were named Secondary School of the Year, Comprehensive School of the Year, and Independent School of the Year respectively.
Henrietta Barnett School, a grammar school for girls in Hampstead, was named the overall top secondary school for academic performance, and St Paul’s Girls’ School took the equivalent title in the independent sector.
Godolphin and Latymer, Hammersmith was named International Baccalaureate School of the Year.
The Sunday Times Parent Power guide has been published annually since 1993 and has a searchable online database of 1,600 schools across the UK.
Helen Davies, editor of The Sunday Times Parent Power guide, said:
“These have been a challenging few years for teachers, pupils and their parents, and the success of many in our league table is testament to the stamina and support shown by all concerned.
“It is also clear that more attention is being placed on well-being and mental health – from meditation rooms to counselling support, even therapy dogs – and schools are being proactive to bring about positive changes.
“League tables are not the only criteria a parent can use when choosing a school, but they are a good starting point. We want to celebrate excellence. We want to champion schools that are doing wonderful work.”