Christmas concert, jumper day, lunch and assemblies
Christmas Concert – Music is Back!
After two long years without live events music is back! This Wednesday a sold-out audience of 300, lateral flowed, masked up and packed out the Platform for a well-needed celebration of arts across the school.
The night began with our fantastic Performing Arts Academy Choir performing renditions of Christmas favourites, Rocking around the Christmas Tree and Hark, followed by epic performances from our lower school students with an acapella Pompeii and blistering version of Hound Dog.
Next up our options students performed songs including Come Together, Hard Times, The Chain, Times Like These, with the Music Academy and Choir sandwiched between. These pieces were filmed as exam assessments for our year 10’s and 11’s and they gave absolutely everything, whipping the audience into a frenzy of cheers and applause.
A special mention for year 13 who changed the mood with an intimate performance of camp fire favourite Two Of Us On The Run. The Christmas concert may be the last public performance for these students as we wish them well for the rest of year and prepare them for their future at University.
Finally, our incredibly talented Academy and year 12 students performed a storming set including songs Figure It Out , Still Into You and Warrior Daughter from local heros Wildwood Kin. The night was complete in typical TA fashion with our House Band and Choir rockin The Darkness’ Christmas hit Don’t Let The Bells End, and with a flurry of snow the night was over.
We would like to take this opportunity to extend our congratulations to all of our performers and supporting crew. We are so proud of you all and the incredible work you have put in.
Have yourself a very Merry Christmas.
Performers:
Y7 – Briony Pightling, Ella Randall, Millie Wigston, Grace Gibbings, Ashleigh Evans,, Millie Swift, Abigail Hytche, Grace Green, Ben Jeffs, Faye Cassidy, Adam Sadlik, Joss Full, Rebecca Quarshie, Layla Loizides, Summer Holmes, Olivia Murr, Tallulah Houlahan
Y8 Lead Learners – Zac Evans, Aliyah Smith, Lisa Szewczuk, Tom Thorner, Eve Cameron, Daniel Eales, Charlie Porter, Kirah Clee
Y9 – Henry McManus, Syd Yarde, Oliver Boyce, Jayden Gardner
Y10 – Ava Sams, Klara Cornforth, Rose Bradley, Ben German, Callum Edwards
Y11 – Aimee Evans, William Bevan, Grace Cayford, Lorenzo Di Paoli, Emile Cartwright-Lomax, Dylan Weatherburn-Bird, Ena Brett-Wilson, Ellie Holloway, Josh Furze, Poppy Rogers.
Y12 – Alfie Sames, Luke Howard, Ben Arscott, Ellis Knowles, Rhyanna Lewis, Lottie Prowse, Kelsey Cresser, Olisi O’Malley
Y13 – Eloise Simpson, Peter Holmes, Izzy Minty, Jack Manley, Bronwen Price
Music Academy – Eloise Simpson, Rhyanna Lewis, Erin Allen, Luke Howard, Ben German, Olisi O’Malley, Lottie Prowse, Kelsey Hawkins, Freddie Kingdon, Aimee Evans, Ben Arscott, Robin Pightling, Aaron Cox, Mason McCarthy, William Bevan, Lorenzo Di Paoli, Peter Holmes, Alfie Sams, Izzy Minty, Erin Allen, Syd Yarde, Henry McManus.
Music Academy House Band – Alfie Sams, Luke Howard, Kelsey Cresser, Ben Arscott
Choir – Aliyah Smith, Imogen Simmons, Halle Wotton, Lottie Prowse, Olisi O’Malley, Will Bevan, Aimee Evans, Katie Packer, Sophie Packer, Charlie Grimley , Cerys Lowe, Amelie McCaul, Jess Mitchel, Amber Dicken, Summer Faulkes , Nisha Cosslett, Jasper Dommett, Abi Jones, Rose Bradley, Anya Page Dove, Emma Matthews, Jemimah Jones, Ivy Hodgson Hunt, Eve Cameron, Paige Godwin, Paige Clements , Ellie Jayne Scott, Leah Hope, Lydia Bevan, Mason Mitchell, Sophia Box, Ava Storey, Sophia Burnam, Connie McMahon, Kole GjIkolaj, Briony Pightling, Millie Wigston, Lyra Bowstead, Harrison Harkin, Bea Corline, Grace Halsey, Alex Harvey Jones, Aliyah Smith, Imogen Simmons
You can watch the incredible concert below (YouTube is still processing the HD version of the concert…):
Christmas Jumper Day 2021 – Helping Local Families
Every year we support our local charities in their appeal to help families for whom Christmas is a difficult time. On Wednesday, we had a Christmas jumper mufti day where staff and students brought in an item of food that was donated to Riviera Life Church, a group that supports the local community in times of need. Torquay Academy students and staff surpassed their efforts last year in terms of donations and getting into the Christmas spirit. A big thank you to the Head Girl and Head Boy, Anna Hobson and Ben Woodward, and the rest of our student leadership team for organising this year’s collection.
Christmas Lunch
On Wednesday we had our Christmas lunch. We treated all of Year 11 to a Christmas lunch as a reward for their amazing efforts so far this year.
Christmas assemblies and house champions
On Friday, I had the privilege of hosting the end of term assembly is. Christie house won the overall has championship award again this year congratulations to them.
We were treated to a musical performance from each of the year groups as well as the traditional elf videos!
Cinema and Christmas quiz
Years 7, 8 and 9 enjoyed watching Home Alone in The Platform this week whilst nibbling on a number of treats as their reward for their incredible work so far this year. The year tens had a Christmas quiz hosted by Mr Grinsill in the sports hall.
VIP Pizza Party
Today we had a pizza party for the top students in year 7 and 8 for Accelerated Reader quizzes our Word Millionaires and our top students for Power Up. Well done everyone!
Word Millionaire
Ella Randall in 7B is the latest Word Millionaire. Ella has clocked up an amazing 1,110,034 words congratulations!
House News
As you will have seen in last week’s blog, our hugely successful TA’s Got Talent was won by Harrison house. Their students performed a rendition of Michael Buble’s Its Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas accompanied on the keyboard by Emilee Payne. Our house cup is currently beribboned in orange and has taken pride of place in 7H’s tutor room.
The whole of Year 7 and the heads of houses were in attendance and enjoyed every act tremendously. Over 50 students performed and the audience waved specially designed posters and applauded as loudly as possible to influence my manipulation of our new clap-o -meter (designed by Mr Foulds and Mr Hadley)
As we have finished the term on such a celebratory occasion with house allegiance being so clear, I have asked each head of house to say a few words on what their role means to them:
I am immensely proud to be Head of Pengelly House. It is a duty that I take extremely seriously and probably the most pleasurable aspect of my job. Seeing the enthusiasm of the students and the desire to contribute positively to Pengelly house is great. We always compete and the rivalry between the houses brings out the best in everybody. Since taking on the role I have found myself buying everything and anything purple including jackets, ties, pens and even purple hair dye for the few hairs I have left! (Mr Chadwick)
Being head of Darwin house means a great deal to me. The theory of evolution has always been one of my favourite areas of Biology and when one of the houses was named after the great man I immediately requested to be head of that house. The students within Darwin have always been hard working and I’m proud that they strive to do the right thing in and out of school. My favourite part of the week is putting on my red suit and going around the Darwin tutor groups to celebrate the stars of the week with the students. (Doctor Hocking)
I am extremely proud to be head of Fawcett House. I get to work with the most amazing students, who try hard in lessons and show kindness to each other throughout the day. They truly demonstrate the house characteristics of determination, hard work and having an adventurous spirit. My favourite part of the week is giving out certificates and badges every Friday to the stars of the week. It is great to go into the different tutor groups and catch up with everything that’s been going on. (Mr Gale)
Being head of Harrison house means I get to celebrate the successes of the brilliant students in Harrison every week. It means I get to feel proud about the achievements of the amazing students in Harrison House every day. It means I get to marvel about how they are wonderful ambassadors for Harrison House and the values we stand for all the time. (Mr Penrice)
I am honoured and privileged to be the Head of Christie House. I am proud of how enthusiastic and passionate Christie students are for their house. We are phenomenal in the sports’ events and always contribute heavily to sports teams. Christie students are always achieving highly when it comes to house points each week, awarded for the hard work they put in every day. Our students wear their Christie blue colours with pride and act with integrity at all times. (Mr Jones)
In Nearne house we talk about being loyal. I’m proud of students in Nearne because not only do they do the right thing day in, day out, working hard to climb the mountain to university; they are also loyal to each other. They look out for each other and support each other in whatever they are doing. The amazing support they showed for each other in the brilliant TA’s Got Talent event is a great example. (Mr Littler)
I have been extremely impressed by the enterprising nature of the students in Kitson house and the way they use their skills to provide solutions to every day challenges. Kitson has been the top house on several occasions this term and I have been very proud to don my green waistcoat and tie when I congratulate our students every Friday morning. I really enjoyed our act for the talent show and was surprised it was not selected as the winner. (Mr Bindon)
In Brunel we need no gimmicks; we are consistently at the top of the leader board every week. This is due to the hard work and resilience of all our young people. Students is Brunel are bright, keen and alert. I must say that our singing/dinosaur dancing combination for Ta’s Got Talent was something that had never been done before. What an inventive idea-echoing our motto. (Mr Pugh).
Year 7 Geography
Mr Chadwick has been working with the Year 7s looking at energy, climate change and global warming with a focus on how humans have impacted upon this through burning fossil fuels, population increase, deforestation and agriculture. The students were amazed that scientists are able to accurately find out and record the temperature and climatic conditions from 500,000 years ago using ice cores, sediment cores and tree rings.
Here is a photo of Daisy Hellier’s book which I know Mr Chadwick often uses as an excellent example of perfect presentation. He often shows it under the visualiser as it is far better than his own work!
Mr Thatcher’s Year 10 Maths Class
In Mr Thatchers’ Year 10 Maths class this week the students have been building on the solving quadratics work they have been covering recently. Previously they had been solving quadratic equations by factorising, using the quadratic formula and this week they have been looking at solving quadratics using a method called Completing the Square.
Firstly it was introduced to them using algebra tiles. WIthin the maths department, teachers often use manipulatives so the students can see the mathematical concept represented in the pictorial, so the students can develop a fluency in the skill making connections even within harder questions and having a far deeper understanding of the mathematics as a result.
Firstly the students looked at algebraic expressions that made perfect squares, before moving on to expressions that did not make a perfect square so they had to look at how they could ‘Complete the Square’.
Mr Thatcher was also able to model the use of the algebra tiles under the visualiser so the students could see on the board how this process worked.
It was great to see how over a couple of lessons the students were able to move from the pictorial to the concrete with this topic, using the completing the square method to solve quadratics, find the turning point of quadratic curves and sketch accurate diagrams of quadratic curves.
Netball success
Congratulations to Millie Sneap in Year 8 for winning a medal for being the player of the team at her game on Monday evening!
Mr Mellitt’s Year 10 Physics Class
Year 10 are currently learning about the particle model of matter which is used to explain a range of physical properties such as the states of matter and the transitions between them.
This lesson was focussed on using the model to explain the processes of melting and boiling, with reference to the motion and arrangement of particles, the energy stores and transfers involved in heating, and the energy required to break bonds between particles allowing them to change state between solids, liquids and gases.
A particularly key piece of understanding is that when heating a solid (for example a block of ice), its temperature stops rising as the thermal energy being supplied is used in the process of breaking bonds between molecules and it is this that causes the change of state.
Students need to be able to explain state and energy changes with reference to technical graphical representations called heating and cooling curves. All of these concepts, together with ample practice opportunities, are carefully sequenced in our bespoke workbooks to ensure that students have every chance of success in the subject.
The class demonstrated that they had made good progress on the concepts in the “check for understanding” tasks which occur at various points during the lesson.
Year 9 Students of the Half Term
Year 9 spent some time today highlighting the efforts of a number of students over the half term. Congratulations to: Daisy Bond, Roberta Bankes-Fay, Nikola Drygiel, Elise Pile, Dylan Nock, James Lovell, Sean Crawford, Ollie Clarke and Ollie Boyce
Students of the Week
Year 8 – Toby Lee and Millie Sneap
Year 9 – Aleah Coombes and Sam Stimpson
Year 10 – Lilly-Anne Winterton and Jamie Nunn
House Stars of the week
Year 7
Christie – Halle Wooton
Darwin – Sam Johns
Fawcett – Harrison Harkin
Harrison – Ava Storey
Kitson – Adam Copping
Nearne – Mason Mitchell
Pengelly – Chloe German
Year 8
Christie – George Scrimgeour
Darwin – Ellie Temo
Fawcett – Emily Banks
Harrison – Albie Baker
Kitson – William Jackson
Nearne – Tessa White
Pengelly – Erin Bond
Year 9
Christie – Elise Pile
Fawcett – Ellie Eggleton
Harrison – Libbie Green
Kitson – Tyler-Jay Stirling
Nearne – Lily Lewis-Shermer
Pengelly – Harry Russell
Homework Stars of the week
Year 7
Christie – Maks Adach
Fawcett – Adam Sadlik
Harrison – Jack Slater
Kitson – Darcey Mellish
Nearne – Gracie-Mai-Tolley
Year 8
Christie – Mya Hoskin
Darwin – Adam Wright
Fawcett – Isla Aldworth
Harrison – Olivia Hosking
Kitson – Aliyah Smith
Nearne – Lisa-Marie Szewczuk
Year 9
Christie – Riley Batten
Harrison – Woody Ronson
Kitson – Harry Hollomby
Nearne – Sophie Brown
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