Purple Pinkie Day and other news

In assembly today, as well as the usual exhortations to work hard, I presented BTEC certificates to another eleven CCF Cadets.  The BTEC first diploma is an internationally recognised qualification, well respected in both the workplace and in higher education. Course components include: Awareness of Public Services (roles and employment); Land Navigation by map and compass; Leadership; Adventurous Training and Expeditions and Interview technique, and the award recognises the dedication, hard work and performance of these talented youngsters.

Matthew Bignold, Ben Dagger, Chris Ingham, Dominic Mistry, Mark Roper, Paul Thomas, Liane Brodie, Sam Leung and Alex Lesser all achieved Distinction * which is the highest award a cadet can achieve - this was partly through their involvement with DofE. Lizzie Salmon and Laura Hill both achieved a Distinction, proving that it is possible to do well at the award even if you haven't completed Gold DofE. I hope this inspires others to gain the qualification.

Well done to them all and well done too to Ben Ruddlesdin who has just had his work published in Emag, the English and Media Centre's Advanced Level English magazine, which has a national circulation. A talented young man, Ben's article was his AS English Language coursework submission about 'Writing for a Magazine'.  Emag select very few of these pieces to reproduce as excellent examples of writing of this type at A Level, so to have Ben's work accepted and published is high praise indeed and a first for Arnold. 

The 23rd of February is designated as Purple Pinkie Day and, during this week, organisations will be staging events to contribute to the elimination of the crippling disease of Polio world wide.  Although incurable, Polio is not difficult to prevent and, when a child is vaccinated against Polio, they have a purple stamp put on their little finger. For a cost of just 50p, the child is then protected against this terrible disease for life. Through one of the world's biggest immunisation programmes, Polio has been 99 per cent eradicated so one last push could destroy the disease for good.  On Friday, to show our support and to raise funds for this very important cause, the children will be invited to donate £1 and have their finger marked purple just as the children do in India to show that they have received their vaccine. We support many worthy causes and so I am sure we will raise significant funds on this occasion too.

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Date: Tuesday 23/02/2010

  • Purple Pinkie Day and other news