Crofton School has now entered its third year of Specialist College Status, building on the work of the last two years we aim to have a successful year.

The school is proud to be supporting the Jeans for Genes day charity. This charity supports the development of genetic science. Not only are they working on looking for cures for some genetic conditions but they also support children in improving the quality of their life if there is no cure for their condition.

On Friday 19th October the school wore their blue genes and contributed £1 towards the charity. It was very successful and is an event that will become part of Crofton's specialist college work.

The school website has been updated and many additional pieces of information have been placed on it. We hope this is now a much more informative and useful site, particularly for our new parents. Our Year 7 School Life videos are available to view now. If you have any comments or suggestions about how we could improve the website further then please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Badesha at the school.

As part of our Specialist College work on transition we will be holding our annual Year 6/7 Tea Party. This is an opportunity for our Year 7 students to showcase all the excellent work they have been doing over the last half term and to discuss their transition with their Year 6 teachers. This has helped our feeder school colleagues to have a better grasp of our expectations at Crofton but has also allowed some of the issues to do with effective transition to be dealt with.

This year due to specialist school's work we have introduced a new information management system. This will help us to monitor and track more effectively the achievements of pupils and allow the school to put appropriate strategies into place. The system allows electronic registration throughout the school day so any issues related to lateness or attendance can be picked up quickly. It also allows all communication about incidents, both positive and negative to be logged electronically so any member of staff in the school can track and monitor the actions of each pupil.

Your child's reports will also be produced using this system and we hope you will now receive much more detailed information about their progress in the full reports. Target grades and levels will also appear on your child's reports so you can support the school in monitoring the progress towards achieving these.

Our link with Malaysia is developing well. Year 11 are working on projects in PDL lessons and during tutor time. We are hoping to share the experiences of students at Crofton and to find out more about the different cultures and traditions in Malaysia.

Year 7 students are producing Christmas cards to send to Malaysia. These will explain the meaning of Christmas and inform them of the traditions we have in the United Kingdom. In return we will receive cards from Malaysia telling us about some of their traditions and celebrations in their country. Later this year we hope to apply for the International School's Award.

At Crofton School we value our cross-curricular work as it allows pupils to use skills learnt on separate subjects but also allows them to develop a wide range of other skills that are useful in the world of work. Our very successful rocket challenge will continue this year. Last year the School came in second place, so we are keen to try to better that this year.

We are also very excited about working with the computer company Microsoft to set up a small business venture selling 'bath bombs'. The company has given the school a budget of £1000, from this starting point a group of students must run their company and try to make a profit. To support them in this project the group have had support from a local accountant who has shown them how to track their expenditure and profits. We will keep you informed of their progress.

This innovative project was represented by Miss Tiltman at a worldwide Microsoft conference in Helsinki in October 2007 where she reached the semi finals - read more on the Business Links page.

Crofton School is always looking for ways to develop links with local businesses. If you would like to support the school in any way then please contact Mrs Badesha.

We are pleased to be building a strong partnership with Portsmouth University and our local secondary partner schools. The Science and Maths teams are offering and delivering CPD to trainee teachers and Newly Qualified Teachers. We believe that by sharing our good practice we can help to support the quality of teaching and learning of many new teachers.

Mrs Callen and Mrs Matthews are building up the range of CPD and activities with our feeder schools. Anne Dale have already been into Crofton this term to teach their students.

If you would like to find out more about any of the work of Specialist school's then please contact the Science team or Mrs Badesha at the school.