Celebration evenings, D of E and tie-dye for SummerFest

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Year 10 Celebration Evening

Mrs Low and Mrs Lancaster held the Year 10 annual awards evening on Wednesday. This was a fantastic opportunity to praise and award students who show dedication, commitment and great attitude to learning. Many different awards were presented including subject awards, effort awards and form superstars awards. Over 60 students and their parents were invited to celebrate this successful evening and were able to enjoy some fantastic performances from some of our year 10 music students, hear all about the 10 Tours training and a High School Musical performance. A really positive evening was had by all.  All students who attended should be very proud of themselves. Well done, year 10!

Year 8 Celebration Evening

On Thursday evening we celebrated the fantastic achievements of the Year 8 students at their annual awards evening. 56 boys and girls were acknowledged for their outstanding effort and attainment, and it was great to spend the evening celebrating all of their successes alongside their families. There were also some brilliant musical and dance performances, some speeches from the students and recognition given to their achievements outside of the classroom.

All of Year 8 will have their official Key Stage 3 Graduation before the end of term, and Mr Jones is extremely proud of all of the students as they move onto Key Stage 4 and their GCSE subjects next year.

Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Expedition

On the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd June, 25 Year 9 students undertook their Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Qualifying Expedition in the beautiful South Devon coastal area between Bantham and Start Point. The expedition involved the students planning a route to walk over the two days, organising food and camping equipment that they had to carry on their walk, cooking for themselves on Trangia gas stoves, and an overnight stay in tents in a local campsite.

Having had some practical training in navigation and camp craft skills, and having attended a practice expedition, when Saturday morning arrived the students were excited and eager to get going! Once kit and route cards had been checked it was off to the start point at Bantham Beach car park. A beautiful sunny day greeted the students as we arrived although they were nervously anticipating the forecast rain and possible storms on Sunday. Despite that, the students were in good spirits and the sun was shining!

All expedition teams made it successfully through a number of checkpoints, showing that they were following their route cards and navigating effectively.  I would like to thank the staff that gave up their weekend to man these,  All made it to the campsite near Salcombe on time and earned a well-deserved meal and rest in their tents.  The next morning threatened rain but was merely cloudy until some blustery showers between 11am and 1pm; these were markedly more pronounced on the coastal path but the students persevered! One team made it to their destination point at Start Point, a fantastic achievement considering the nature of the routes planned.  All others came close to reaching their planned endpoints. Some students were more exhausted than others, but all were proud of their accomplishments. All of our students have achieved their DofE Expedition as they fulfilled the required 6 hours per day walking and being on an expedition. Congratulations to them all!

Greenpower Endurance Race

Sunday morning saw the school’s Greenpower motorsport team head up to Castle Combe for their latest endurance race. It was always going to be an interesting event as it is the first track that we have raced at twice so would give a real measure of progress.

After a 4:50 start we managed to make it through scrutineering with no issues meaning we could use all of the free practice to to give experience to our rookie drivers and put the car, complete with its new motor through its paces. Our speed was very impressive, fourth fastest in class, seemingly with no issues. However, concentrating on driving and remembering key data such as motor temperature and amperage (key in electric car racing) was proving difficult to achieve!

Towards the end of practice, with an experienced Bradley Satterley at the wheel disaster struck and the car suddenly halted. The process of getting recovered to the pits can be lengthy and frustrating and we knew that even if the problem was minor we would struggle to be ready in time to take our place on the grid.  Finally the fault was traced to a burnt out relay which was replaced and the gearing was altered to reduce amperage at the expense of a little speed. But, as we’ve been telling the team, to finish first in endurance racing first you need to finish!  We weren’t ready to get to the grid on time so had to start from the pit lane, in last place. However, although we didn’t have the same pace as in practice our drivers made steady progress and managed to creep all the way up to 10th out of 31 in class, a huge improvement on last year and an achievement to be very proud of.

The team’s brains then started wurring, imagining just how well we could do in race 2 if we had no issues! This time we made it to the grid. However, once again with Brad at the wheel disaster struck again! Whilst pushing the car to the start a wire had inadvertently been pulled leaving the car without a working throttle. It took an agonising 23 minutes to get the car back to the pits for repairs, a huge chuck of the 90 minute race lost. Again we were in last place; this time by a long way! But, fantastic resilience was shown and an incredible 13th place was achieved.  Last year we managed a 13th and 14th so an outstanding achievement all round.

Getting ready for SummerFest

The build-up to our 4th TA SummerFest began this week with the first sales of our limited edition t-shirts.  Students were also treated to some sample sets from our Rave Cave DJs!  I am sure this year’s festival, which is organised by our Year 12 music students, is going to be amazing!

MADE Project

There was an incredible performance today from our team at the MADE Project finals.  They delivered their presentation incredibly confidently – this did their whole presentation without using any notes.  This competition was part of the Big Bang Fair South West. Well done to the team on their innovative product promoting our partner company Dart Valley.

Year 8 PUMA Tests

On Tuesday, students in Year 8 sat their first ever exam in the Sports Hall. They sat the Mathematics PUMA assessment which will allow us to compare students against national performance at the end of Key Stage 3 and they will give an indication for students’ future potential GCSE grades in Maths.  We have done this for the first time due to our work with Sparx and the development of our Maths homework systems. We look forward to getting these results back and we will be sharing the results with students in September when they return in Year 9.

Black belt

I was delighted to hear that Abi Jones, in Year 8, passed a three-hour exam on Sunday in Bristol.  She has now been awarded her deputy black belt.

Mr Hegarty Comes into School

Many Students will recognise his voice… but this week we got to see the face! Colin Hegarty (who was shortlisted for the Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize) the brains and the voice behind Hegarty Maths.  It is a maths platform used by students in years 8 to 13 for maths homework and revision.  Colin visited TA as he wanted to talk to our staff about the brilliant work we are doing in our use of Heagarty Maths.

He spent an afternoon with Mr Jenner and Mr Thatcher, talking through how we use it and how Hegarty Maths could be developed further. He found the time really useful and is looking to build a closer link with our Maths department at TA so Hegarty Maths can improve further as can our use of the great resource we have.

Science Club

Our mini scientists have been very busy. We have spent a few weeks working on our CREST award, which is a STEM recognised award. This week, they visited the big bang fair in Exeter, where we could watch shows, meet real scientists and engineers, and try out some hands-on experiments.

Star Readers

The last Star Readers of the year were awarded today to the students who have made excellent progress with their reading. Over the year students will read books that have been specially selected for them and for every book they read they will earn a star towards their certificates.
To receive a Bronze award students will need to read 25 books, 50 books for a Silver award and 75 books for a Gold award.
Well done to everyone receiving their awards today. Keep up the reading over the summer.

Bronze: Bobbie Royal, Harvey Bates, Oriana McCaul, Ellie Denby, Bobby Western, Bradley Russ
Silver : Anna Brailsford-Dunn,Joshua Furze, Joshua Hawkings, Andre Derdiyok
Gold: Katie Harris, Amelia Batten

Students of the Week

Students of the week this week are: Mason McCarthy-Payne, Tamla Wells, Oriana McCaul, Sonny Harby

Principal Certificates

Bronze : (not in order) Madison Sturrock, Jack Sullivan Harvey Shaw, Amy Winston, Oakley Watkins, Angel Fox, Daniel Kersey, Judith Blackmore, Demi Breheny, Oliver Stoneman, Crystal Thompson, Jessica Hall, Kaja Kuryluk, Lorenzo Topaz, Keira Connolly 

Silver (not in order)  Samuel Sherwood, Harrison Shaw, Livvy Tysall, Samuel Cherman, Owen Greenwood, Danny Stanners, Freya Boote, Chloe Hunter, Sophie Clarke, Finn Drew, Max Gamble Harley Cartwright, Lottie Prowse 

Gold (not in order)  Lily Unsworth, Jack Alcock, Freddie Kingdon, Cody Lidster, Katie Bowyer, Dimitar Dinev, Sophie Wright, Yun Xin Liu, Mya Edralin, Michael Brooker, Ellis Knowles 

Governor Certificates

Bronze : (not in order) Lacee Kiff , Sophie Bastow, Niamh Dolan, Lucia Aguado-Georgian, Leo Dunkley

Silver: Joshua Furze

Gold: Ellie Mae Mitchell, Sophie George, Hollie Hand, Benjamin Gosnell, Oriana McCaul, 

House Stars of the Week

Year 7

Brunel –

Christie – Ben Puddicombe

Darwin – Sophie Denison

Fawcett – Rachel Breach

Harrison – Sophie Caton

Kitson – Tommy Aldous

Nearne – William Hemus

Pengelly – Maverick Milton

Year 8

Brunel –

Christie – Amelia Batten

Darwin – Angel Fox

Fawcett – Boris Pugh

Harrison – Hannah Moxhay

Kitson – Fynley Larcom

Nearne – Max Gamble

Pengelly – Olivia Walker

Year 9

Brunel –

Christie – Lucas Macfie-Jones

Darwin – Sophie Milford-Caddick

Fawcett – Keira Connolly

Harrison – Scott Rhodes

Kitson – Jack Barrett

Nearne – Rory Dooley

Pengelly – Archie Hodgson Hunt

Building update

The retractable seating was installed this week.  The theatre is really starting to shape now!