Students are once again celebrating after another successful year of Sixth Form study. Year 13 students have achieved particularly well and all students have gained the necessary qualifications to support them as they move into Higher Education, training or employment.

King James has been awarded the British Council's prestigious full International School Award for the second time, in recognition of our work to bring the world into the classroom. The award is a badge of honour for schools that promote international education, for example through visits, projects and links with partner schools overseas.

This Half Term, students will be able to take part in an exhilarating Zorbing taster session in conjunction with Consett and District YMCA.

This year we want to make working with primary schools one of our priorities. We will be offering a range of short courses for students in Years 5 and 6, and sharing our fantastic new facilities to enhance learning opportunities for all primary schools in our local community.

Improving literacy is high on our agenda and our students can look forward to a number of new and exciting literacy initiatives.

Each year at King James we offer a free fun-packed Summer School for all our new Year 7 pupils who will be joining us in September, culminating in a confidence-building residential visit. This year, we improved our programme even further to offer two exciting destinations - Peak Venture in South Yorkshire and Cartagena in Spain!

King James has been awarded the Young Carers' Charter following working with Glenys Newby from Family Action's The Bridge Young Carers' Project. Glenys visited the school last term to speak to students about the role of young carers, how they might be identified and about the support available to them.

A Level Law students have recently enjoyed a visit from representives of Durham University's Law School, who came to discuss the opportunities open to them should they choose to pursue a career in Law.

This year's trip to France was yet another resounding success, with 36 students in Years 7 and 9 travelling to Paris for an action-packed, four day break.

Following nomination by a number of our Sixth Form students for the Journal's prestigious North East Schools Awards 2014, Linda Dixon was declared winner in the category of Support Worker of the Year.