A Week of National and International Successes

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Lego Robotics Challenge

On Tuesday, Mr Hadley and Mr Broome had the pleasure of taking eight enthusiastic Year 8 students to Airbus HQ in Filton, Bristol for the South West Regional Finals of the Tomorrow’s Engineers Lego Robotics Challenge. Over 400 schools are taking part in the competition, with regional heats being held in over 25 locations in the UK.

The final consisted of 5 main sections:

Speed challenge – This was a great start for us, with our robot averaging a time of 2.37s over 4m.

Challenge mat – Despite not completing all of the challenges, we won this section of the competition.

Presentation – Brooke McCann, Azize Isufi and Emily Mahoney-Billis deserve special recognition for their part in presenting TA’s ideas for ‘How science and engineering can solve the humanitarian issue of clothing?’. TA students wowed the judges with their innovative solutions, involving the use of auxetic fabrics that stretch in all directions so clothes can grow with the child (see Petit Pli http://petitpli.com/)

Robot Design Interview – The judges were blown away by the knowledge of the team. The students had researched and prepared answers to every possible question asked by the judges. This meticulous attention to detail is sure to be one of the reasons why our robot was so successful.

Team Challenge – By far the hardest section of the day. Upon reflection, the students realise that planning and communication are areas to improve on for the final. The team showed great resilience to bounce back and continue with their winning performance despite this setback.

As a result of our win, TA have been invited to represent the South West as one of only 40 schools to take part in the National Final on Friday 16th March at the Big Bang Science Fair in the Birmingham NEC!

This is tremendous result and is fair reflection of the determination, dedication and talent TA students have to offer in the STEM subjects.  Mr Hadley and Mr Broome are so proud of the achievements of the students in the team. They conducted themselves in the best possible manner, as recognised by the judges and organisers on the day.

Rest assured, they will be working tirelessly to hopefully bring home more silverware!

TA Robotics team:

Brooke McCann
Azize Isufi
Emily Mahoney-Billis
Kacy Fairhurst
Louis Mellitt
Antonia Standen
Marcus Stanley
Archie Hodgson-Hunt

Well done!

Ex-Student selected for Great Britain

Last week Miles Cawood was in Ruhpolding, Germany at the International Biathlon Championships.  He did an amazing job there and won all of his races.  As a result of these incredible performances, he has been selected to represent Great Britain in the Youth and Junior Biathlon World Championships in Otepaa, Estonia, as the only GB entrant. This is an incredible achievement for him and we wish him the very best of luck.  Who knows, we may see Miles in the winter Olympics in a few years time.

Good luck, Miles!

Effort Boards

The effort boards show students’ average effort grade from their attendance, behaviour and readiness to learn, homework, and mindset for learning. I was particularly pleased to see that this time there is a far greater number of students achieving the top grades, which means more and more students are putting in excellent effort day in, day out.

Introducing… The Music Academy!

After an arduous audition process here are our final 12 Music Academy members! Out of the whole school 25 students were invited to audition for a place in the elite academy for which they had to perform a piece of music lasting between 3-5 minutes and then undergo a 1-2-1 interview with Miss Pappin and Mr Tame.

The Music Department tell me that the were extremely impressed with the standard of the auditions and having to decide on the final 12 was an extremely difficult and lengthly process. However, they are over the moon with the final 12 and already impressed by the attitude, work ethic and quality of performances. I have already heard one of the bands perform in the whole school assembly last half term and can’t wait to hear the other in this month’s #LiveMusicLunch.

Pictured; George Swift Y10, Peter Holmes Y9, Silbury Peakman Y10, Sam Harris Y9, Jack Manley Y9, Tom White Y10, Noah Johnson Y10, Lisa Marie Langer Y12, Hannah Allpress Y13, Amy Mealing Y13, Elle-Mae Rodger Y13. Missing from photo Eloise Simpson Y9.

Musical performances from assembly

At the end of the last half term we were treated to some incredible musical performances.  I promised to share their performances – here they re!

Year 8 Band;
Somebody by Kings of Leon
Luke Howard – Guitar
Alfie Sams – Drums
Michael Brooker – Bass
Millie Partridge- Keys
Rhyanna Lewis – Vocals
Isabelle Pollard – Vocals
Ellie Mitchell – Vocals

Year 13 6th Form Music;
Own Composition
Laszlo Topaz – Drums
Elle – Mae Rodger – Piano
Amy Mealing, Hannah Allpress, Reece Taylor – Vocals

The Music Academy;
Money (That’s What I Want) by Barrett Strong 
Silbury Peakman, Y10 – Keys
George Swift, Y10 – Bass
Sam Harris, Y9 – Electric Guitar
Cameron Westwood, Y12 – Drums
Elle – Mae Rodger, Y13 – Vocals
Hannah Allpress, Y13 – Vocals
Amy Mealing, Y13 – Vocals
Lisa – Marie Langer, Y12 – Vocals

Year 9 Group;

Human by Rag ‘n’ Bone Man

Declan Ball – Drums
Bronwen Price – Guitar 1
Ben Shewell – Guitar 2
Eloise Simpson – Vocals

Team TA Sports Roundup

This week it is very pleasing to report that students in the PE world have excelled in their academic studies as well as on the sporting front. Poppy Bell and Josh Moules have done fantastically well to achieve a Distinction grade in their recent BTEC Sports Studies exam (see picture below) To put this in context their are very very few Distinctions awarded across the Country each year so they have done very well indeed. Congratulations to both.

Back to the sporting exploits of our students, this week we have been treated to fixtures at football, netball and indoor athletics. Our Year 7 boys football team set the ball rolling with a resounding victory over Dartmouth Community College in the South Devon Cup, playing some very attractive football along the way, these boys are developing into a really good side and it will be interesting to see how they develop over the next 7 Years. At the other end of the age scale and indeed the country,  our sixth from 3rd XI travelled all the way to Lands End on Wednesday for their fixture with Truro and Penwith College.  The journey was not in vain as we ran out 4-1 winners with an excellent display of flowing football.

On the Netball front we have had fixtures for our Year 7, 8 and 9 teams and once again the girls have acquitted themselves very well and like the Year 7 boys all of our netball teams are developing into a force to be reckoned with as we near the end of season we look to continue with some summer netball and then onto next season. Finally we attended the Devon School Indoor Athletics as representatives of Torbay and South Devon, as you can see from the report below we did very well to finish in the top 8 against some very good athletics schools. We did manage to finish as the best Torbay and South Devon School which is pleasing.

Indoor Athletics

The indoor athletics squad traveled to Plymouth Life Centre on Thursday to compete in the Devon finals. The squad won the Torbay finals in December to qualify.  There were some excellent performances throughout the day with some great wins against outstanding competition. We didn’t win the event to qualify for the Nationals however we finished a respectable 8th out of 16.

Well done to all the athletes and especially to the following students won 1 or more of their races.

Ben Aldous
Issac Astbury
Ellis Knowles
Ryan Johns Kuadio
Caitlin Graham
Emma Harrison

Netball

On Thursday after school the Year 9 girls made their way to TGGS to take part in their final SVL tournament of the season. Throughout the season the girls have demonstrated a real desire to improve and challenge all opponents we play.
The girls as always took to the court egar to win as many matches as possible. Our first game was against Paignton who we had recently lost to in a practice match a few weeks ago. This did not put the girls off, demonstrating great resilience to perform well, great control down the court from Wiktoria and super attaking movement from Mya Miles kept TA in the game. The game was a very close game and both teams were evenly matched. Unfortunately time was not on our side and Paignton scored in the last minute giving them the win 3-2.  Our second game was against strong opponents TGGS, we always knew this was going to be a tough match as they are a very strong drilled team, but the girls battled well and came away with a closer score range than previous.  Our final game was against Totnes, the girls lost a bit of control during this game and made far too many unforced errors which was a shame due to how well they had been playing in the previous matches. However as always they fought hard to regain possession through fantastic interceptions from Georgia and managed to convert some of their attacking chances into goals thanks to Gessaley and Mya shooting well. However due to too many mistakes and not converting every chance we had into goals we ended this game with a draw 2-2.  The girls have been an absolute credit to the PE department and school throughout these tournaments and have been a pleasure to work with.  They ended up finishing 6th out of 13 schools entered which is a fantastic achievement. Well done, girls.

Year 11s Working Hard

This week the year 11 students have been issued with their final cycle Knowledge Organisers which comprises of all subject topics they need to revise for their exams.

To support their independent revision the students have taken part in ‘How to Revise’ sessions in the Sports Hall this week. The year 11 students were shown by subject specific teachers how best to revise for each subject. The 4 sessions left the students equipped with a variety of different resources and techniques of how best to revise for Maths, English, Science and RS. It was fantastic to see so many students taking on board the advise given to them and producing their own revision material.

Study Centre

Over the half term the transformation of our Study Centre took place.  We now have an amazing environment that is open to all of our boys and girls, before school, during the day and after school.  It is overseen by our new Study Centre Manager, Mrs Aitken.  It is a perfect place to get on with homework and practising the knowledge organisers and questions.

Students of the Week

Students of the Week this week with me and Mr Chadwick are : Elizabeth Cameron – Yr 7, Thomas Murr – Year 9, Alex Roberts – Yr 10, Jack Barratt – Yr 8, Marshall Harvey – Yr 11

Principal Certificates

Bronze : Ellie Mitchell, Tallulah Robson, Ellis Chapman, Macie Simmonds, Aurora Rosser, Oliver Cartwright-Lomax, Samantha Gourlay, Poppy Rogers, Indi Johnson

 Silver : Aimee Evans, Emily Johns 

Star Readers

Well done to Star Readers : Rebecca Lovegrove, Jayde McAllister, Brooke McCann, Corey Milton, Alfie Sams, Joshua Furze, Madelyn Palmer-Kerslake, Sian Burton, Dakota Robinson, Erin Colclough, Kelsey Hawking, Leoni Bailey

Mindset for Learning

Well done to : Kieran Parker, Daisy Poole-Crampton, Silbury Peakman, Daniil Sherry, Mateusz Baczynski, Jessica Mitchell, Beau Giles, Annie Mills, Sonny Prior, Ellie Mitchell, Noah Johnson, Ena Brett Wilson, Hannah Mabbutt, Maddie Wannell, Samantha Gourlay, Kelsey Hawking, Shannon Crawford

Building Works Update

It has been a busy couple of weeks on site since the last update.  17 truck loads of concrete have been used for the foundations.  Since then they have been getting on with the block work; the footprint of the building is now clearly visible.