Effort boards, public speaking and 1st team back in action
New Effort Boards
The new effort boards were put up this week. As always, I am so impressed with how hard our girls and boys are working. The effort grades they receive are all thoroughly deserved.
Perfect effort
The Year 7 students are doing incredibly well as a year group, but I wanted to highlight this group of students who I had the pleasure of speaking to this morning. They have received 1s for effort in each of their subjects. Well done on this remarkable achievement!
Public Speaking
On Wednesday we held our first-ever Sixth Form Public Speaking Competition, hosted and judged over Zoom by the Torbay Rotary Club. Students had to speak for 3-5 minutes on a topic of their choice and we had some fantastic speeches ranging from topics such as the portrayal of body image in the media to whether salary caps should be used in sport. After much deliberation, Ben Harris was announced runner up for his speech on whether capitalism is the best economic system in a democracy, while Yuliyana Zhelyazkova won the first prize for her powerful and moving speech on whether society needs to be more caring and compassionate. Many congratulations to everyone who entered for the incredibly well researched and highly engaging speeches. Yuliyana then repeated her speech in the 6th Form assembly to great applause.
Grade 8 Drums for Ben
Year 9 student, Ben German, has achieved the highest graded practical exam in drumming! Ben was examined by Trinity College London and didn’t just pass the exam, he passed with the highest honour achievable, a distinction.
For the exam, Ben had to perform three pieces as well as a playback task. Grade 8 is the most demanding graded exam there is and Ben had to develop a range of skills and techniques including metre changes, multiple strokes on the bass drum, accent patterns and outro fills.
Grade 8 is regarded as the holy grail in practical music exams. There is only a small percentage of musicians that make it to the top and an even smaller percentage that do so at such a young age! This is a huge achievement and is a testament to Ben’s self-discipline, dedication and hours and hours of practice. Well done, Ben!
1st team back in action
This week saw the start of the summer series for our boys’ football programme. We have 2 months of fixtures to get our teeth into after such a long lay off. Wednesday was our first game since November so Mr Hogg along with the players were glad to be able to put all our training into game practice.
Our first game was against South Devon College, these games are always competitive so it was one we all looked forward to. We knew that we were more than capable of winning the game but we wanted to bring all the ideas and team performance from training into our first game. It was great to see how well we worked as a new team with many positives to take from it. After a shaky start to the game and conceding through a poor clearance we grew into the game and started to show our level of football and the passing improved with us looking very strong and scoring before half time. The goal came from a Jamie Passmore header after great play from Ethan Slater who played in Josh Parry to cross for the goal.
In the second half, we continued to play our attractive attacking football and caused them problems with our style of play. The winning goal came from another confident move starting from our keeper Matt Leighton who combined with fullback Ben Hopkins who after driving into midfield played a fantastic ball into our striker Jamie Passmore who composed himself to play a lovely floated through ball into the match winner Cole Harford, who finished with a delicate dink over the keeper as he rushed out.
This was a fantastic win to get us started and we now look forward to our next game against Bridgwater College next week.
You can watch the highlights below.
Fun Friday Winners…
This week students took part in a treasure hunt/code quiz. It was a lot of fun for everyone who took part!
Year 7
Millie Sneap
Amy Harrison
Emily Owens
Erin Bond
Year 8
Honey Buckingham
Sophie Brown
Ruby Denison
Lilly John
Ashton Jeffs
Year 9
Brooke Mortimore
Abigail Anderson
Year 10
Dara Kennedy
Kyle Thompson-Doyle
Ayeisha Moseley
Year 11
Ameisha Taylor
Jude Rockey
Leah Chappell
Isabella Spurle
Igor Sniegocki
Felix Houghton
Governor’s Gold Certificates
Year 7 – Millie Sneap
Governor’s Silver Certificates
Year 7 – Harrison Davies
Governor’s Bronze Certificates
Year 7 – Olivia Hosking, Lydia Bevan, Olivia Wilson, Anthony Hewitt, Brooke Tully, Keeley Enston, Agata Sadlick and Abigail Mealin
Principal’s Gold Certificates
Year 7 – Lexi Weller, Ellie-Jayne Scott, Joshua Rogers, Dolce Zulhayir, Phoebe Denbow and Kodi Wilson
Principal’s Silver Certificates
Year 7 – Darcy Reece, Letoja Hoxha, Toby Clark, Amber Dicken, Lexi Hawkins, Millie Edwards, Jacob Tripp, Rayan Nafim, Jamie-John Palmer, Bella Sherwood, Willow Kendall, Henry Tregea, James Hutt, Jacob Crago-Gould, Louis Rowe and David Wanstall
Year 9 – William Reed, Mia Denby, Coral Rogers, Kiela Weaver-Snarey and Cameron Sengupta
Principal’s Bronze Certificates
Year 7 – Simon Drost, Adam Wright, Layla-Ruby Stevens, Jessica Nicholson, Kyla Ridgewell, Olive Nunn, Owen Waller, Liam Woodward, George Peart, Lizzie Blackmore, Alex Hilton, Billy Botten, Kayden Whittred, Zac Evans, Noah Tyson, Emily Banks, Jaden Morris, Leo Helmore and Austen Bradshaw
Year 9 – Aj Sims, William Green, Jasmine Huxtable, Blair Jones, Felicity Chapman, Tilly Watson, Joshua Nagy, William Howard, Kieran Dale, Erin Allen and Ella Ryan
Students of the Week
Year 8 – Megan Sellick
Year 9 – Hannah Carr
Year 10 – Katie Packer
House Stars of the week
Year 7
Brunel – Harry Marsden
Christie – Dean Conway
Darwin – Summer Thompson
Fawcett – Jaccob Tripp
Harrison – Sammy Lock
Kitson – Jayden Trevelyan
Nearne – Lenny Mugliston
Pengelly – Charlie Pettit
Year 8
Brunel – Mollie Stanion
Christie – Jay Jay Henderson
Darwin – Jakub Piwowar
Fawcett – Josh Kenneford
Harrison – Ryan Hooper
Kitson – Klaudia Opel
Nearne – James Ferris
Pengelly – Alfie Walker-Fenner
Year 9
Brunel – Livvy Tysall
Christie – Archie Cox
Darwin – Jo Oborn
Fawcett – Freya Tripp
Harrison – Ella Breheny
Kitson – May Connolly
Nearne – Ruby Trewin
Pengelly – Tim Corbett
Homework Stars of the week
Year 7
Christie – Kodi Wilson
Darwin – Lola Cornock
Fawcett – Lucian Churchward
Harrison – Poppy Hedworth
Kitson – Emily Meloy
Nearne – Rayan Nafim
Pengelly – Austin White
Year 8
Brunel – Ruby Denison
Christie – Riley Skinner
Darwin – Gemma Ford
Fawcett – Rose Phillips
Harrison – Aliyah Davey
Kitson – Harry Watt
Nearne – Aleah Coombes
Pengelly – Shanice Rees
Year 9
Brunel – Matylda Bednarska
Christie – Max Beer
Darwin – Honey Stevens
Fawcett – Harley Stevens
Harrison – Aaron Goddard
Kitson – Lilly-May Bond
Nearne – Polluanne Mitchell
Sparx Leaderboards
Tassomai Leaderboards
