This article is sponsored by Ashville College Sixth Form.

We understand that choosing a Sixth Form can bring excitement and nerves in equal measure. To any young person, Sixth Form is a time of enrichment, commitment and increasing independence as they move closer to adulthood. They may even have heard from people close to them that Sixth Form was the best time of their school lives. It is not a decision to take lightly.

Ashville College’s Sixth Form Taster Day on Thursday, January 18 is designed to give Year 11s a taste of Sixth Form academic and social life, and to hopefully help them decide if we will be a good fit, both for them as individuals and in paving the way for their future plans.

Here are six things your child will discover on our Taster Day. If they don’t, we are not doing it right!

High-quality teaching

By attending pre-selected sessions, your child will gain first-hand experience of our range of more than 25 A Levels plus BTEC and Cambridge Technical qualifications and start to get acquainted with our teachers, who are specialists in their chosen disciplines.

What it feels like to be a Sixth Former

The feeling may be a little artificial as they haven’t officially started yet, but a Taster Day is as close to the real thing as possible. They can wear suits, experience the school environment, have exclusive use of the dedicated Sixth Form Centre, and taste the food!

A sense of confidence that we will help them get into their preferred university

In 2023, 94 per cent of the summer 2023 cohort of Upper Sixth pupils were awarded places at their preferred universities in the UK and around the world, based on their A Level results. Teachers work tirelessly to deliver the best possible academic outcomes for each pupil.

They will be known as individuals

We work with every young person to get to know them and help them realise their potential, whether that is in their chosen fields of study or their co-curricular pursuits.

There’s more to gain than exam results

Sixth Form can be synonymous with A Levels, but they’re only part of the story. At Ashville, ‘Future Ready’ provides experiences and skills that aim to assist our young people well into the future, and our strong Co-curricular Programme enables them to continue to pursue existing interests and discover new ones, aiding personal growth as well as mental and physical wellbeing.

It’s not just about work!

By spending time with the Ashville community, attendees will learn that we as a College believe that the Sixth Form days are about more than studying and exams, and that pupils learn best when they are happy.

So much awaits beyond the Ashville classroom, from the friendships they will make to the incredible trips and end-of-year parties. Sadly, our Taster Day can’t convey all the special moments ahead of them; they will have to join us to discover those!

Sign your child up now for an enjoyable, valuable and eye-opening day.

We look forward to meeting them. Click or Tap here to register now. 

A new head teacher has started at a Harrogate school.

Phil Soutar has taken the helm at Ashville Prep School, a fee paying school for children in years one to six.

The school also announced today it has become a member of the Independent Schools Association, which represents the heads of about 650 independent schools.

Mr Soutar, who is national chair of the ISA, said:

“I look forward to leading the prep school on the next phase of its development journey, and sharing my vision for the year ahead when our focus will centre on optimising creativity, excellence and opportunity for every pupil.

“Becoming a member of the ISA will help us deliver these aims by opening up a greater range of activities and creative experiences for our children.”

Mr Soutar was previously head at Rosemead Prep School and Nursery in Dulwich, South London.

Being part of the ISA enables pupils to take part in regional and national events for sport, art, music and drama and gives teachers access to courses and continuous professional development.

Ashville Prep School is part of Ashville College, which is an independent day and boarding school for boys and girls aged two to 18.

It consists of Ashville Acorns pre-prep, and Ashville’s prep school, senior school and sixth form.

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The mother of a 15-year-old boy seriously injured in a collision on the way to school in Harrogate has issued an emotional plea for road safety improvements.

Stephanie Talbot’s son Reuben was one of two Rossett School students hit by a pick-up truck on Yew Tree Lane on February 2.

Four months on from the collision, she has given her backing to a campaign to impose a 20mph limit on streets across a swathe of south and west Harrogate.

In a statement read by road safety campaigner and fellow parent Jenny Marks at today’s meeting of North Yorkshire Council‘s Harrogate and Knaresborough area constituency committee, she said:

“They were on the pavement [when they were hit]. My daughter was also involved in the collision as her car was hit by the same truck. My youngest son was right behind his brother on the pavement and so witnessed the whole incident.

“My husband and I were right there within a few minutes of the accident happening. Reuben’s body had landed in positions it should never be in.

“Pieces of wall had to be removed from his body and he had eight broken bones: arms, leg and back… I was later told that when the paramedics arrived his stats showed that he could easily have died while on the ground there.

“I will never get over what I saw and heard that day.”

Some members of the committee were moved to tears as Dr Marks continued to read Ms Talbot’s statement.

It said her daughter had never felt safe walking to school in the area and had even been hit by a car near Rossett Sports Centre last September – which also happened while she was on the path.

Ms Talbot said she felt a 20mph network around schools in Harrogate would make children and parents feel safer to walk and cycle around the area, adding:

“Putting action in place should not be done as a consequence to a child’s injury or even death, but this accident should be a wake-up call to all parents, grandparents and the community to know that we need to make a change in our beautiful but busy town to enable our children to feel safe.

“Seventeen weeks on and many aspects of our lives are still on hold because of these injuries. I cannot even explain the pain and trauma that we have all gone through and will live with for the rest of our lives.

“Please be the people that make a difference.”

Petition

Campaigners Hazel Peacock and Vicki Evans presented a petition at the meeting with 924 signatures from people in support of reducing the speed limit to 20mph across the Oatlands, Hookstone, Pannal Ash and St George’s areas, where around 9,000 children attend local schools.

Ms Peacock told the meeting that evidence from other projects around the UK showed the reduction could have a significant impact on the severity of collisions.

She added:

“You have just heard of the devastating effects of the collision on Yew Tree Lane in February, and you are also aware of the collision outside Oatlands Junior School, also on the pavement, in January.

“These awful events coupled with overwhelming evidence of the benefits of 20mph limits demonstrate why change is urgently needed.”

Hazel Peacock handed the petition to North Yorkshire Council last month, with support from councillors and campaigners

While councillors on all sides of the chamber gave their support to the calls for a reduced speed limit, the Conservatives highlighted the fact that a pilot project had already been requested.

North Yorkshire Council is developing a policy on 20mph limits around schools and other urban areas, and Cllr John Mann (Conservative, Oatlands and Pannal) said he was keen to see the results of that work guide how a lower speed limit could be used in the area.

Conservative Cllr Sam Gibbs of the Valley Gardens and Central Harrogate division said:

“I do have one very slight reservation: 99% of the roads that are in this scheme I don’t have an issue with. However, the main roads of Leeds Road and Otley Road would be a slight concern to me if they were brought in to 20mph.”

Read more:

• Blanket 20mph limit across south Harrogate ‘urgently needed’
• Harrogate school road safety petition handed in to council

Cllr Paul Haslam, the Conservative councillor for Bilton and Nidd Gorge, said there needed to be a shift in attitudes and behaviours to make the school run safer, adding:

“We can put in a 20mph speed limit, but at the end of the day it’s all about behavioural and attitude changes to this. When we did the stats on Harrogate in 2018, I think more than 60% of the journeys in this town are less than 1.8km – not even miles, 1.8km.

“Surely we should be able to walk those distances, and a lot of that is to do with school commuting.”

The Liberal Democrats put forward a motion in support of the petition, calling on North Yorkshire Council to deliver a 20mph limit on streets across the area.

The proposal was voted through and will be passed to NYC’s executive.

Liberal Democrat Cllr Matt Walker, representing the Knaresborough West division, added:

“This is an opportunity that we should not miss and we need to show the executive our views on this.

“This tragedy should not have happened and it’s within our gift to send that message on our views to the executive so that this does not happen to anybody else.”

A campaign to make travel to school safer in Harrogate has been reignited by a collision that left two teenagers in hospital.

The boys, both aged 15 and students at Rossett School, suffered serious injuries requiring multiple operations since the collision last Thursday morning.

A group of parents had already been asking for 20mph zones and safe crossing points around routes to school on Harlow Hill and now say the work is urgently needed before anyone else is hurt.

Dr Jenny Marks has spearheaded the campaign with fellow Harlow Hill resident Ruth Lily. They have spent more than two years putting together evidence and consulting with local people about potential changes to the roads around the area.

Their petition to create a ‘safe streets zone’ has more than 750 signatures.

Dr Marks said:

“We didn’t want to put an application in in isolation and it be unpleasant to the residents.

“So we went to the schools and sports centres and each of them had views on what should be outside their school.

“We created a map and presented that to the local residents’ association and made that the basis for the petition that’s running now. That’s what we have put into the application too.

“We’re doing as much as we can to get everybody’s ideas into one place.”

The pair have also joined forces with Oatlands residents Hazel Peacock and Vicki Evans, who have been working to get measures introduced around schools in their area too.

There are plans to set up schemes to reduce the volume of traffic around the infant and junior schools, including ‘park and stride’ using existing car parks in the area.

Oatlands Infant School. Photograph: Geograph, Derek Harper

All of the parents pointed out that, while primary school pupils often walk a short distance to school, they can be travelling much further when it comes to secondary education.

It is more common for secondary age children to walk to school alone, they said, so it was important for them to have acquired road safety skills from a younger age.

For that reason, they are pushing for a strategic approach across the whole area with coordinated measures in place – which, they also argued, would be more likely to be adhered to by motorists than a short stretch of 20mph zone that was never enforced, such as that on Pannal Ash Road.

Read more:

• Fundraising appeals set up for Rossett students injured in Harrogate crash
• Plan submitted for 20mph zones around five schools in Harrogate

The campaigners said they were frustrated by the lack of action on the issue since they began calling for change more than two years ago.

In November 2021, North Yorkshire County Council project engineer Paul Ryan wrote to Dr Marks to say the highways department was “considering a number of options and designs to implement traffic calming measures”, subject to funding.

However, he added:

This story is sponsored by Ashville College.

At Ashville Acorns Pre-Prep and Ashville Prep School, passionate and experienced teachers provide an encouraging and safe environment where children can be creative and curious, discover their strengths and interests, and are known and appreciated as individuals.

Parents with children aged two to 11 are encouraged to come along to the Acorns and Prep School Open Doors event on Tuesday February 7, 2023. Here are just some of the ways we help children to thrive:

1. We take the classroom outside

Ashville’s pioneering Outdoor Learning programme gets kids out into the fresh air, makes tricky curriculum topics easier to understand, and teaches problem solving and teamwork skills for life. Outdoor Learning Specialist Teacher and Consultant, Mr Paul Oldham, said:

“I have seen first-hand that outdoor lessons work. When you take children out of an enclosed room and into the outdoors, you open so many possibilities.”

Outdoor learning with Mr Paul Oldham

2. We provide confidence-boosting opportunities

Whether it’s taking part in an informal music concert, representing the school as part of the Swim Squads, or getting creative for a good cause in Charity Club, children get the opportunity to boost their confidence and shine in the areas they enjoy the most.

Pupils can choose to take on positions of responsibility from a young age, such as House Captains and members of the Prep School Parliament, helping to develop their leadership skills and appreciation for the ideas and opinions of their peers.

3. Pupils are part of a wider community

Ashville Acorns Pre-Prep and Ashville Prep School are part of Ashville College, an all-through school up to the age of 18. A sense of community is nurtured from the start; from enjoying lunch together in the Dining Hall to cheering each other on at numerous Competitive House events.

There are regular vertical links between Senior School and Prep School for the delivery of subjects such as Modern Foreign Languages, Music and PE, and achievements are celebrated, such as the Head Teacher Award, for pupils who go over and above in their contributions to the Ashville community.

Year 3, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Day

4. Regular, memorable experiences aren’t a one-off thing

Whether it’s the classroom being transformed into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, taking part in a real-life magic trick, toasting cinnamon-coated apple slices around a fire pit, or a trip to the Leeds Playhouse, no two school days are the same at Ashville.

You only go to school once, and the teachers ensure that each lesson is fun, stimulating and memorable, to nurture that love of learning every day.

5. Pupils love their School

When you see pupils skipping down the corridor for break, or getting involved in a learning activity, they exude positivity. From our youngest pupils in Little Acorns to our most ‘senior’ Prep pupils in Year 6, you can tell they’re happy to be here.

Pupils in Little Acorns

Mrs Charlotte Cryer, Head of Ashville Acorns Pre-Prep, which covers ages two to five, said:

“The beauty of an ‘Open Doors’ event is that it enables parents to see happy and engaged children taking part in activities and see the staff in action too. A child is the most valuable thing in a parent’s life, so they need to be able to trust the people they’re handing them over to.”

Mr Asa Firth, Head of Ashville Prep School, added:

“The children at Ashville Prep School inspire me on a daily basis; they are polite, confident and open minded. I am very proud of our School and how it has developed since my arrival last April.”

We would love to see you on 7 February. Take a tour, see our pupils on a normal teaching day, meet the staff, and find out more about how to apply. To sign up, click here.

A Harrogate teenager has become the youngest competitor to complete a gruelling trail run in the French Alps.

Alex Fennah, 17, was given a special exemption to take part in the ITRA (International Trail Running Association) Trail Marathon Championship in Chamonix, which is usually only open to over 18s, because of his track record in other events.

Setting off from the village of Montroc, the race saw competitors complete a 15.8km section of the 42km Mont Blanc route, with Alex finishing in two hours and 40 seconds.

He said:

“It was really great taking part in the ITRA Trail Marathon Championship in Chamonix. Whilst it’s reserved for those aged between 18 and 22, I was given special permission to take part – and by doing so I have become the youngest person ever to finish it.

“I started running two years ago and trained with the Wetherby Runners, and like everything the more you train the easier it gets. I go out four times a week and will run a total distance of about 70km. I’ve previously run two 100km races back-to-back.

“When I start something I tend to become a bit obsessive, and that includes my running, and my ultimate goal is to complete an ‘iron man’ challenge.”

That ultimate aim — consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, 112m bike ride and 26.2m run — may not be on his calendar yet, but plenty of other events are.

The Ashville student is in training for the 35km Sierre-Zinal in Switzerland and the 66km OCC in Chamonix, both in the same week. He will also run the Double Sahara Marathon – 40km on consecutive days – in October.

Meanwhile, he’s hoping to study experimental psychology at Oxford once he has completed his A levels.

Read more:

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Former Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls was quizzed by students about politics and life with a stammer during a visit to Harrogate’s Ashville College.

Mr Balls visited last week at the invitation of sixth former Thomas Grattoni-May, who is an advocate for stammering children and youth panel member of the charity Action for Stammering Children.

The former politician and TV personality, who is vice president of the charity, spent half an hour chatting to pupils about their studies, interests and aspirations.

Students from St Aidan’s Church of England High School in Harrogate and All Saints Roman Catholic School in York also attended and were able to take part in a question and answer session.

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Thomas Grattoni-May, Ed Balls and Leanne Norton, head of sixth form at Ashville College.

Leanne Norton, assistant head of sixth form at Ashville College, said:

“He showed a real interest in our learning support department and how the team helps pupils like Thomas throughout their school life, and prepares them for the next stage in their careers, be it further education or into the workplace.

“It was also a fantastic opportunity for our pupils, plus those from St Aidan’s and All Saints, to hear from a former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer about his own personal experiences. In the audience were our own Year 11s who have opted to study our brand new government and politics A Level in the 2022-23 academic year, so this was a great insight into what a life in government can be like from someone who has experienced it first-hand.”

Thomas Grattoni-May said:

“I am incredibly grateful to Mr Balls for taking time out of his busy schedule to visit Ashville and to help promote Action for Stammering Children. He is a superb advocate for the charity, and it was fabulous having him here.”

Adventurer Jamie Ramsay will be sharing tales of astonishing feats of human endurance in Harrogate next month.

Mr Ramsay, who has completed more than 43,000km of human-powered adventuring in 31 countries and 25 different adventures, will be appearing at Ashville College as part of the annual Kendal Mountain Tour.

The tour features adventure films and guest speakers at venues across the UK, and Ashville is once again one of the chosen locations.

The highlight of the Harrogate event on February 19 will be Mr Ramsay’s appearance.

He will tell the audience about his Atlantic to Andes cycle touring adventure, which started in São Paulo, Brazil, and passed through Paraguay before entering Bolivia and then saw him cycle over the Andes to the Salar de Uyuni and on to La Paz, covering 3,700km in 28 days.

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Festival director Steve Scott will compere the event, which anyone can attend,

Anna Rakusen-Guy, Ashville’s events and lettings manager, said:

“It’s superb to be welcoming the Kendal Mountain Tour back to Ashville College next month, with what promises to be another evening of superb films and fascinating talks.”

Tickets are available here.