Berlin, new astro and the return of parents' evenings...

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Berlin Trip!

Last Wednesday a group of 60 very excited Year 10 and 11 history students left Torquay Academy to start the long journey Berlin. After a night on the coach they arrived in Berlin and headed straight to the Berlin Wall. At the Berlin Wall, students were able to see first-hand how one of Europe’s most important cities had been divided, separating families and friends for decades into capitalist zones controlled by the US, French and British and the Soviet Union controlled communist zone. They also visited Check Point Charlie the infamous boarder crossing between the US sector of Berlin and the Russian. The visits to the Berlin Wall and Check Point Charlie are both areas studied in the Super Power Relations and Cold War GCSE unit studied in Year 11.

The rest of their time in Berlin focused on the Weimar and Nazi Germany GCSE unit of work studied in Year 10. Students visited the memorials to minority groups murdered by the Nazi’s including the Jewish and homosexual people as well as to political opponents to the Nazis. They also had an opportunity to see where Hitler’s bunker once stood – this is now a car park as in Germany there is no celebration or memorials to the Nazi legacy. Perhaps the most sombre part of the visit was to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, located in suburbs of Berlin. The camp was one of the earliest concentration camps to be established and a model on which the much larger death camps in Poland were based. Even though the visit had been difficult and they learnt about some shocking events that had taken place in the camp all students agreed it was important that they had visited. In the evening they visited the Reichstag, the home the German Parliament and scene of how almost 100 hundred years ago Hitler came to power in Germany.

Our final day was spent at Potsdam Park, the home of the Prussian Emperors. They visited the Sanssouci Palace, the home of Frederick the Great which showed the wealth and power of Germany prior to World War I and why their defeat to the Triple Alliance had been so humiliating. After visiting the palace students explored the Potsdam Park and had an opportunity to see the numerous royal palaces and mansions once owned by the royal family.

Their evenings in Berlin were spent in restaurants, they visited a German restaurant one evening and students were able to discover the culinary delights of German sausages, sauerkraut and apple strudel!

They arrived back in Torquay on Sunday afternoon, very tired but having had a brilliant time in Berlin. The students had been an absolute pleasure on the trip and a real credit to the school as well as themselves.

Astro Turf

It might have taken longer than we had hoped, but this week our students were able to start using our brand new, and perfectly flat, astro.  I am sure this will be the scene of many incredible matches in the weeks, months and years to come.

Parents’ evening

It was wonderful to be able to welcome families back into school this week for our Year 9 Parents’ Evening, our first face to face one since the start of COVID back in 2020.  This is an evening that I think we had taken for granted.  It was lovely to see so many parents who I had not seen on one of these evenings since their children joined the school.

Year 10 Fun Friday

This week was the turn of Year 10 to take over The Platform for a karaoke session. The lowlight was definitely Mr Chadwick singing Sweet Caroline!

Fire Cadets

Sam and Callum have been attending the Fire Cadets since March. It is based at Bovey Tracey fire station. Sam would like to follow this as a career. Sam said ‘I want to join the fire service and my teachers have been helping me get the grades I need to fulfil my dream job.’

Sixth Form

Our 6th Form student lounge looks amazing as the staff and students choose a new set of furniture to turn their relaxation space into a proper home!

Tubers

Art

Larna Waller, in Year 8, showed me this incredible piece of art she has been working on today.  Well done!

House News – Battle of the Brains -The Final

On Thursday, we held the long-awaited final of our year 7 Battle of the Brains final. Representing Pengelly were: Freddie Fenner, Matthew Campan, Poppy Sanderson and Millie Russell, representing Darwin were: Logan Watt, Katlin Jarvis, Kaelum Bowness and Lily Thomas. To get to this stage in the competition, both teams had already defeated two other houses in a series of general knowledge questions.

The final took place in our drama studio with house captains, heads of houses, Miss Main and all of 7P and 7D in attendance. Tensions were high as both teams were desperate to win the medals for themselves, the chocolate for their whole tutor group and, most importantly, the right to hold the house cup decked out in relevant house colours in their tutor room until the next competition.

Both teams answered Miss Risk’s very well, and all involved are to be commended on their general knowledge, however, ultimately Darwin were victorious. Students in 7D were jubilant-rushing up to congratulate their team members at the end of the match- and their sixth-form representative Felix Houghton stated that he was incredibly proud of the victory.

The tutor group celebrated on Friday morning by indulging in some well-deserved chocolate treats and the house -cup is now proudly on display in 7D’s tutor room.

Head of House and House Captain – Fawcett

Volleyball in PE lessons

This week, Miss Felton’s Year 10 students have moved on to Volleyball in their PE lessons. This week they have been learning about and practising the ‘dig’ and the ‘set’, as well as getting used to which part of the arm to make contact with the ball.

The students have been working in small groups trying to keep the ball from touching the ground, before applying their new shots into a game based scenario. We have also learned some basic rules of the game, such as one person not being allowed to double hit the ball and only being allowed to touch the ball three times before it goes over the net.

We are excited to see how our Volleyball skills progress over the next few weeks!

Musical Achievement

Ollie Lucas passed his grade 7 on the piano in Exeter this week. Many congratulations to Ollie on his achievement. We look forward to a performance in the next Year 11 assembly!!

Year 8 English

Mrs Cole’s year 8’s have been completing tasks on a computer-based program called PowerUp in their English sessions this cycle. PowerUp coaches students through the study of words, grammar and comprehension to make texts more accessible to them. Mrs Cole’s class have engaged well with this software and we are already seeing great improvements in students’ reading skills.

During their literature studies, the students have studied a variety of gothic extracts from famous 19th century texts including Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde and The Raven. Mrs Cole has been impressed by how well her year 8s have considered the various interpretations of the language choices made in these texts and the students’ ability to link these ideas to context. Their recent assessments on Charlotte Gilman’s short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, had references to 19th century patriarchal oppression, gender roles and the repressed psyche! Well done Y8!

Year 7 Design & Technology

Take a look at our Year 7 students tackling a design and make challenge – programming a robot to pick up and move a glue stick!

Lord of the Flies 

This week Year 7 have been wrangling with the eternal dilemma of how we address mankind’s propensity for darkness, destruction and wrongdoing, which certainly seems to suit the ever-dwindling light of October.

A big part of our first term has been drilling the rhythms and routines of lessons at TA and within English. As such, we’ve worked on establishing a silent do now, showing our pens in readiness for purple pen corrections

and then using these to tick or make the necessary corrections to our work.

As life in Lord of the Flies descends into hunting and savagery, the class examined Chapter Eight of the text on Wednesday. We read about the character Jack’s attempt to gain control of the boys. We laughed at his red-faced humiliating failure to seize control, before turning out attention (and horror/glee depending on who you are the class) towards the boys hunting a sow. The Year 7s then created a summary of some of the main moments and ideas from the chapter.

This reading culminated in a short response in which the class considered Jack and Simon’s differences.

Maths with Mrs Dipode

Mrs Dipode’s Maths classes have been busy in the last week of the half term.
Her 10Q6 class has completed some excellent feedback work following an assessment. They have looked at how to unpick worded exam questions, using a highlighter to pull out key information as well as using mini whiteboards to get immediate feedback.

Year 11 have been preparing for their upcoming PPEs with some revision of complex ratio problems.

Finally the Year 12 Further Mathematicians have been deepening their understanding of Numerical Methods by analysing staircase and cobweb diagrams. Further Mathematics is one of the many A-Levels offered at Torquay Academy where students can deepen and broaden their understanding of Mathematics, seeing how the skills they learn in the classroom can be applied to practical problems.

Year 7 Girls Football

On Monday, the Year 7 Girls Football team played Eggbuckland in the National School cup. The girls played a great game, and considering it was the first time playing as a team they showed amazing unity and teamwork.

Unfortunately the game finished 7-2 to Eggbuckland, who also played incredibly well with some amazing midfield players. The TA girls kept their heads up and were fighting for every pass, tackle, and interception till the final whistle. Congratulations to Kayla who scored both goals on the day.

We will go away and work hard and come back fighting for our next fixture very soon!! Well done to the following girls who took part: Maria Nithyanova, Neeve Thompson, Evie Ford, Daisy Humphreys, Kayla Hadley, Lacey Redhead, Ava Mills, Poppy Bettridge, Bella Kendall, Ellie Bowden, Adalynn Abraham.

Year 9 TA Netball Academy

Year 9 TA Netball Academy have topped off a busy week of netball success, coming 3rd in their local pool in the U14 National Schools tournament. They played against four other schools, beating Stover School, Torquay Girls Grammar School and Paignton School and losing to Churston Grammar School. This meant that overall, the girls came runners up in their pool.
The girls then progressed to the play-offs, coming up against a strong Newton Abbot side who they unfortunately lost to 14-9 which meant that they would not progress to the next national round. However, TA finished strongly, beating Kingsbridge School 7-5 to take the 3rd place title. Congratulations to our player of the tournament, Isabelle Moxham, who put on a strong centre court performance which evidently contributed to several of Team TA’s wins throughout the day.

Year 10 Football

On Friday of last week, the Year 10 boys progressed into the next round of the national cup with a solid 3-0 win over Coombeshead.
Squad: Dylan Nock, Elliot Mills, Alfie Walker-Fenner, Liam Cartwright, Alfie Porter, Sam Hext, Jude Snell, Ollie Clarke, Sean Crawford, Fin Anderson, Finley Herbert, Tyrone Ross, Max Lee, Milo Marshall, Bobby McCallister

Year 7 & 8 Girls Football Festival

Our Under 13 girls travelled to Mount Kelly College in Tavistock to compete in a girls football festival against 6 other schools. The team were brilliant and put on superb performances against all the other schools winning 5 games and drawing 1.
All in all the day was really positive for girls football and everyone came away with a positive impact.
Squad: Frankie Skelly, Tallulah Houlahan, Leela Cartwright, Farah Ambrose, Kayla Hadley, Evie Ford, Ava Mills, Neeve Thomson, Poppy Bettridge and Ellie Bowden

County Table Tennis

On Wednesday we travelled to Eggbuckland to participate in the county table tennis finals. We took a lot of new players who were experiencing their first taste of competitive table tennis and they all did fantastically well. The U13 girls have qualified for the regional round whilst the U13 boys finished joint 3rd and the U19 boys 4th.
Squad: Ben Jeffs, Sonny Cayford, Norbert Tomsia, Ben German, Lee Stevens, Tom Connelly, Caleb Hardof-Brown, Igor Sniegocki, Kai Fowler, Frankie Skelly, Amelia Wisniewska, Aleksandra Treder, Scarlett Finley-Squires

Year 9 Football

Year 9s had a fantastic performance against Sir Bernard Lovell Academy in Bristol. The elite national cup is always a tough competition but the boys were great and deserved their 3-1 win.

Goals coming from:

Austin White ⚽️

Charlie Green ⚽️

Charlie Porter ⚽️

Girls Rugby

It has been great to see our girls in Years 7 and 8 getting involved in some rugby sessions out on by Exeter Chiefs Community Coach, Aron.

Students of the Week

Year 7 – Katie Peryer and Sophie Peryer

Year 8 Students of the half term – Barnaby George, Ava Storey, Aliviya Lawerence, Oliver Cocker, Nicholas Heale, Grace Halsey, Oscar Mills, Maya de Carvalho, Charlotte Burton, Ethan Lynch, Frankie Skelly, Lucas Chappell, Joe Boyce, Grace Green, Orley Copeland, Charlotte Little and Analais Biggs

Year 10 – Logan Churchward and Kaitlin Wright

Year 11 – Ellie Chammings and Charlie Stevens

Sixth Form – Luis Viscaino and Bailey Denyer

House Stars of the Week

Year 7

Christie – India-Rose Faulkner

Darwin – Alesha Black-Mattehws

Fawcett – Ellie Simpson

Harrison – Georgee Westhead

Kitson – Heidi Bowers

Nearne – Lexi Cave

Pengelly – Freddie Fenner

Year 8

Brunel – Toby Waring

Christie – Harry Paull

Darwin – Ellie Farthing

Fawcett – Lili Budavolgyi

Harrison – Sunny Long

Kitson – Florence Mills

Nearne – Briony Pightling

Pengelly – Jake Knight

Year 9

Brunel – Bayley Woodger

Christie – Isabelle Moxham

Darwin – Lewis Watt

Fawcett – Sara Mills

Kitson – Ollie Coleman

Nearne – Lexi Hawkins

Pengelly – Toby Lee

Homework Stars of the Week

Year 7

Brunel –

Christie – Lewis Allington

Darwin – Alanna Barrett

Fawcett – Scarlett Connolly

Harrison – Archie Harman

Kitson – Harry McCarthy

Nearne – Bella Kendal

Pengelly – Ella Weeks

Year 8

Brunel – Ben Jolly

Christie – Maddie Kenyon

Darwin – Ruby Sellick

Fawcett – Amelia Wisniewska

Harrison – Barnaby George

Kitson – Ollie Cooper

Nearne – Daniel Piper

Pengelly – Isabelle Voisey

Year 9

Brunel – Finn Moncrieff

Christie – Oscar Hughes

Darwin – William Denega

Fawcett – Abigail Mealin

Kitson – Jessical Mitchell

Nearne – Nelly Siuchninski

Pengelly – Gregg Hindom

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