D of E, speaking stars, spaghetti and leg it from lockdown

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D of E Expedition

Last weekend twenty Year 9 students undertook their navigation and camp craft training when they attended their D of E Practice Expedition. Ably assisted and trained by Mr Butler, Mr Whelan, Mr Beswetherick, Mr Adam, Mr Brett and Miss Wilding on Day 1, the four teams navigated from Ashprington to Totnes accompanied by staff, then walked independently to the campsite near Stoke Gabriel. The teams then had to set up camp and cook a hot meal for themselves on Trangia stoves. After feeding themselves and having a well deserved hot chocolate the group were in good spirits and enjoyed games of football and frisbee (provided by Mrs Scagell and her daughter who came to assist with the camp) despite the rain that came in around 7.30pm.  The students’ tents stayed mainly dry despite the heavy overnight rain, and it was just the staff that had to bail water out of the shelter they had put up for their cooking and relaxation!

Day 2 arrived and after some bleary eyed students had made their own breakfast, disassembled tents and packed away, the students picked up their full rucksacks again, for the next leg of the expedition. Sunday was a more difficult navigation challenge with the four teams setting off towards Brixham, following a given route taking them along the River Dart and through the Greenway House area. At a checkpoint close to Galmpton each team arrived at various times in the morning, filling up with much-needed water.  Each group showed excellent navigation skills of their route and all were confident in their plans for the next stage of their journey. With Mr Brett and Mr Adams observing each groups’ progress with trackers, each team seemed like they were well on track. Well, until they got to the Greenway House area! The footpaths are always difficult to find here, even for the best navigators, and each team did get a little lost. However, what was really impressive is that despite going off track each team were finding their way back onto the set route when the staff came to pick them up around 1.30pm. The tired students were more than happy to see the minibuses turn up!

All in all a most successful expedition, thanks to all the staff that made it such a success and well done to the following students: Penny Richards, Phoebe Lown, Oriana McCaul, Hannah Carr, Robyn Mitchell, Ava Sams, Elsie Tanner, Jasmine Huxtable, Will Harrison, Robin Pightling, Ed Fogarty, Dylan White, Zachary Jones, Ollie Hill, Oakley Hayes, Tyler Bayliss, Kole Gjikolaj, Joel Copping, William Reed, Ben Gosnell

They are looking forward to the Qualifying Expedition on the 3rd and 4th July. G ood luck to all with that!

English Speaking & Listening Stars

The English team has been absolutely blown away this week by some outstanding speaking and listening presentations in Year 9. We are so proud of our students who have overcome nerves and stepped up to the challenge of presenting on a topic they feel passionate about in front of their teachers and classmates. The topics this year have been diverse and really interesting. From the climate crisis to social media, eating disorders and health and fitness, students have worked really hard to become experts in their chosen area. We want to celebrate every single one of you but here are some special mentions that teachers have picked out for being fabulous and brave.

Lily Unsworth gave a brilliant presentation on the dangers of social media and Craig Mintern worked really hard to help us all understand the impact of palm oil on the environment in Miss Turner’s class. Miss Risk is particularly proud of Charlie Stevens and Max Beer for their excellent effort at every stage of the process. Dr Davies wanted to acknowledge Karolina Lagodzinska for her presentation on homelessness, Ben Puddicombe on generational inequality and Shannon Adamson on sexism in the army. Miss Brayne was really impressed by Hayden Gibson- Roche for his presentation on the Grenfell Tower disaster. Dr Jones was blown away by Kole Gjikolaj’s presentation on the climate crisis- complete with an impressive PowerPoint and very smart outfit! Miss Biggins would like to say well done to Tyler Bayliss for his emotive speech on our impact on the environment and Miss Pearson would like say well done to Gabrial Prior for his presentation on the freedom of speech and also to Joshua Jackson- Heritage for his speech about the end of the universe as we know it.

Well done, Year 9!

Leg It From Lockdown 2021

10 weeks ago Hannah signed up to the Koodos Active “Leg It From Lockdown 2021” challenge. She set herself a target of running 50 miles before 21st June & was pleased to reach that by week 8.

Featured House of the Week

In the second of our new weekly series, our featured house of the week is Nearne.

The colour for Nearne is turquoise. Students display this colour on their ties and PE tops. I am very aware that lots of the students who are joining us in September are really excited about both the colour and joining Nearne house. Our house leader is Mr Littler and he is incredibly proud of the students in Nearne.
Nearne takes its name from Eileen Nearne (1921-2010) a woman who lived a courageous, exciting and ultimately tragic life.

Eileen Nearne was a representative of the UK’s Secret Operations’ Executive during World War 2. She served in occupied France sending secret messages to help the resistance movement against the German army. Towards the end of the war, Nearne was captured and tortured by the German Gestapo but never gave away her secrets or betrayed her country. A very sad fact is that when Nearne died alone in her Torquay flat in 2010, her body was not discovered for several weeks-a very sad end for somebody who was such a heroine.
The motto for Nearne house is Be Loyal. We ask students to exemplify this value by being loyal to Torquay Academy, taking pride in belonging to it, promoting the school at every opportunity and giving back to the school whenever they can. We also ask students to be loyal to their house and embody the values of the incredible woman it is named after.

Our featured students of the week are Lisa Marie Szewczuk from 7N, Skye Williams from 8N and Jack Sullivan from 9N. All three students are this week’s Nearne house stars. Lisa Marie is very proud that she is the first person in her house to achieve the award for the second time. She told me that she has made a conscious effort to make all the right choices and her teachers have described her efforts as outstanding. Skye -in Year 8 has just started her options and received her award due to her promising start in Health and Social Care, BTEC. Sport and History. Skye is wearing mufti in her picture as the whole of Year 8 have been granted this privilege for exemplary behaviour. Jack states that he has made a concentrated drive to improve punctuality and effort. When asked what being loyal means to him Jack explained that it was important to be trustworthy to those who support you. All three students have epitomised the values of being loyal to their house and school and I am sure Eileen Nearne would be very proud of them.

Annie is on the stage

This week the Year 7s have taken to the stage in The platform to finalise their rehearsals.  It promises to be a great couple of nights!

Cooking chicken

I had a lovely moment this week seeing Mr Hadley describing to his Year 7s how they would be baking a healthy spiced chicken dinner.  He took great care explaining the healthy approaches to cooking and how cooking at home was beneficial.  After this, he was told that they were basically making a KFC!!

Whilst resourceful Callum cooks up a treat!

I’ve been so impressed to hear about Callum Cliff in Year 7 and the initiative he demonstrated over the last few days. Callum has unfortunately had to self isolate this week but it didn’t stop him getting in touch with his teacher to ask for a copy of the recipe of the dish he was due to cook in his lesson. Not only did he cook up a delicious dish of oven baked southern style chicken with extras, he also shared the photo with his teacher. What a great job Callum, well done!

COVID

This has been a difficult seven days in school as we have dealt with cases in both Year 12 and 10.   The positive test results have come into us at all hours of the day and over the weekend.

I would like to sincerely thank our parents and carers all for their support and understanding, especially when receiving calls from colleagues and myself either early in the morning or late into the evening.

Table Tennis – National Training!

Ryan Jenkins from Table Tennis England visited the school again this week to work with Year 8 student Jakub Piwowar as part of Jakub’s preparations for the European Championships in Croatia in July. Another excellent 3 days for Jakub who has seen a real improvement in his game since Ryan started coaching him. It was also a great chance for our other Table Tennis Academy students to see how a top level player is coached and to see how hard they need to work to get to that level.

The video shows Jakub and another year 8 student Ivan Vaplak being put through their paces in an intense session. We would like to thank Ryan again for giving up his time this week.

Fun Friday

It was spaghetti towers this week.  There were definitely different levels of success, but that could have been down to replying upon marshmallows to build them!!

Students of the Week

Year 7 –

Year 8 –

Year 9 – Gabriel Prior

Year 12 –

Governor’s Platinum Certificates

Year 7 – Harrison Davies, Amelia McCaul and Eve Cameron

Governor’s Gold Certificates

Year 7 – Lydia Bevan and Lisa-Marie Szewczuk

Governor’s Silver Certificates

Year 7 – Keeley Enston, Amara Phillips, Amelie McCaul, Norbert Tomsia, Summer Faulkes, Phoebe Denbow, Lottie Davis and Olivia Walters

Year 8 – Kevin Vieira

Year 9 – Hannah Carr

Governor’s Bronze Certificates

Year 7 – Ben Charters, Sam Alcock, Daisy Faulkner, Alfie Mahoney-Billis, Oliwia Tuczynska, Laila Heavens and Ollie Coleman

Year 8 – Enrika Vasiliauskaite, Jarad Silk, Curtis Poynton and Ryan Hooper

Year 9 – Shania Blades

Principal’s Gold Certificates

Year 7 – Jess Silvester, Austin Howell, Molly Burns, Jacob Tripp, Mys Hoskin, Charlie Green, Jacob Crago-Gould, Harrison Hogg, Liam Trapp, Paige Clements, Gregg Hindom, Tom Thorner, David Wanstall, Jayden Field, Faith Batham, Emily Owen, Albie Baker and Naomi Redmond

Year 8 – Tammy Westacott, Rebecca Galsson, Alfie Slater, Maddy Fairhurst, Lily Lewis-Shermer, Emily Chamberlain, Oliver Boyce, Lilly John, Oliver Keating, Alfie Walker-Fenner, Elliot Lawton, Henry McManus, Jasmine Evans and Harvey Squires

Year 9 – Shelby Astley-Rubin, Ella Ryan, Cameron Sengupta, Karl McMahon, Bogdan Pamfile and Millie Randall

Principal’s Silver Certificates

Year 7 – Emily Banks, Alex Hilton, George Peart, Billy Botten, Dylan Breslan, Toby Lee, Nebi Zorel, Lilly-Anne Hughes and Erin Wiseall 

Year 8 – Caden Somerset, Jacob Tarr, Thomas Stimpson, Nina Hocking, Jmaes Lovell, Kasha-Lily Borge, Marcus Jenkins, Nikola Drygiel, Wiktoria Pacholska, James Ferris, Amelia Read, Kaitlin Wright, Verity, Griffiths-Howarth, Serena Iordache and Klaudia Opel

Year 9 – Felicity Chapman, Andre Derdiyok, Taylor-Anne Floyd, Jemima Holt, Joshua Batham, Charlotte Sweeney, Frankie Cuss, Gareth Mufford, Jack Howlett and Livvy Tysall

Principal’s Bronze Certificates

Year 7 – Oliver Drinkwater, Ellie Temo, Isabel Towell, Oliver Denison, Calie Hardy, and Layla Stevens

Year 8 – Riley Skinner, Kieran Taylor, Daniel Flight, Isla Howarth, Clara Godderham, Gemma Ford, Sophie Brown and Mollie Stanion

Year 9 – Ben Puddicombe, Rose Bradley, Katie Williams, Ava Mitchell, Steve Fitzpatrick, Archie Cox, Charlie Stevens, Adam Pac, Stephen McMullen and Brooke Mortimore

House Stars of the week

Year 7

Christie – Isaac Knowles

Darwin – Nebil Zorel

Fawcett – Daniel Eales

Harrison – Poppy Hedworth

Kitson – Wojcjech Tabaczuk

Nearne – Harrison Davies

Pengelly – Olivia Walters

Year 8

Brunel – Ivan Vaplak

Christie – Rosie Mahoney-Billis

Darwin – Sam Stimpson

Harrison – Emily Chamberlain

Kitson – Marcus Jenkins

Nearne – Isaac Jacobs

Pengelly – Clara Gooderham

Year 9

Brunel – Lucas Washbrook

Christie – Lily Unsworth

Darwin – Charlie Pope

Fawcett – Danny Dryden

Harrison – Redd Benson

Kitson – Francis Breslan

Nearne – Amy Wilson

Pengelly – Karl McMahon

Homework Stars of the week

Year 7

Christie –  Daisy Faulkner

Darwin – Sara Santos Martin

Fawcett – Emily Banks

Harrison – Albie Baker

Kitson – Laila Heavens

Nearne – Amelie McCaul

Pengelly – Ethan Lane

Year 8

Brunel – Isabelle Davis

Christie – Isabella Georgian-Aguado

Darwin – Phoebe Hewings

Fawcett – Fearne Harby

Harrison – Lauren Catt

Kitson – Kaitlin Wright

Nearne – Amari Hadley

Pengelly – Harry Russell

Year 9

Brunel – Livvy Tysall

Christie – Ben Puddicombe

Darwin – Freya Davies

Fawcett – Owen Woodcock

Harrison – Melissa Piper

Kitson – Evie Heron

Nearne – Ollie Hill

Pengelly – Jamie Nunn

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