England call up, local hero, a premier & effort boards

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Josh Parry selected for the ECFA men’s national team for 2019/20

Following a very competitive two-phase trials process, we are happy to announce that Josh Parry has been selected for the England Colleges National Team for 2019/20.  More than 300 players in total were nominated for the national team, which had to be whittled down to a squad of 26 players each for the men’s and women’s squads.  Congratulations to Josh on being selected, it is a great achievement and we hope he enjoys this fantastic experience.  The first fixture is a friendly in Slough on Sunday 24 November followed by a training camp at St George’s Park on 11 and 12 December, where they will take on the Independent Schools FA.

Josh has had a tremendous start to the season and his performances have been of such a high standard that his call up is fully deserved.

We will keep everyone updated on his progress over the next few weeks.

Chloe is a Local Hero

Chloe Martin in year 11 was nominated for a Breeze Local Hero’s award. The Breeze Local Heroes recognises inspirational and influential people who make South Devon great. The annual awards help to say a huge thank you to the ordinary people in the community who do extraordinary things every day. Chloe has been a young carer since the age of five helping care for her Mother. Chloe has faced many difficult challenges in her life but throughout it all has remained a kind, caring, thoughtful person helping others in the local community. Last year she won a Community Honours award, meeting Judi Spiers. Academically she’s doing very well in school and is hoping one day to become a Doctor as she loves helping people and is always thinking of others. Chloe was the deserving winner of the young person award. Huge congratulations Chloe – well done.

Mindfulness graduation

On Wednesday evening we were privileged to welcome Jem Shackleford from the department of psychiatry at Oxford University who hosted our year 7 graduation and provide parents and carers with an overview of the course content covered.

What is mindfulness?

At its basic level mindfulness helps train your attention to be more aware of what is actually happening, rather than worrying about what has happened or might happen.

We believe we have a duty to look after the mental health and wellbeing of our students. This .b mindfulness course gave students a life skill which they can use and practice throughout their life. It offers them strategies to help to deal with the challenge of modern life.   During the next learning cycle all our year 8s will undertake the course and benefit from practical ways of dealing with anxiety, worry, anger and all the stresses of being a teenager in 2019.  We will also be providing sessions for parents in the new year.

Effort boards

The new effort boards went up today and it was great to see an increase in the number of students achieving the top effort grades. I regularly tell students that putting in consistently good effort is absolutely essential for success. Being prepared for lessons, giving your full attention, trying hard and not giving up are things that everyone can do, and students find it makes such a difference to their confidence when they do these simple things. Well done to everyone who has moved up on the boards!

Thanks to Vice Principal, Mr Gale, who puts together the data and collate the effort boards. As you can see he is also quite pleased with himself!

Music Technology Premier

I was very impressed with the quality of our year 10 music technologists’ music for film compositions.  They are given a piece of film with no soundtrack and they have to design all of the music, sound effects and vocals. The inaugural screening event took place in The Platform.

GCSE Product Design

The unique place practical work has in the hearts of our students is never more obvious than in a GCSE Product Design lesson with a project nearing completion.  This clip gives you a unique insight into their lesson.  Brilliant bespoke bird boxes everyone!

BTEC Dance

Our year 9 girls are really enjoying studying BTEC Dance.  They have been rehearsing their first piece and gave an impromptu performance to some of our year 7s.

Maze

Numerous lunchtime sessions have been spent mastering 2D Design.  Alex demonstrated great resilience with the number of prototypes that were required to come up with this laser cut design for a ball bearing maze.

Spaghetti bridges

One more weight to seal victory in the spaghetti bridge competition…

And then this happens!

Team TA Sports Roundup

Netball

Another fantastic week for netball. Year 8 played in a CVL tournament at Paignton on Monday and were very pleased to come away with another clean sweep. 4/4 wins again for our TA girls. The girls played some brilliant quick attacking netball and defended exceptionally well. We did not concede a single goal the whole evening and this is a great achievement for us. We expect to have more challenging games next round but we will embrace this challenge and aim for another fab result. Congratulation girls, you’re doing amazing!

Player of the tournament was Lily Unsworth for outstanding defence in all four games.

Our Table Tennis Players Continue AMAZE us

Last weekend three our table tennis development team travelled to Grantham to compete at the 4 star Competition. Some were going with specific goals, others were going simply to gain more experience for the future.  It was a busy and tiring two days for the boys but also very effective in gaining National Ranking points.

Jakub Piworar, Year 7, played 24 matches during the weekend won 22 and lost 2.
* Jakub won the U13 Boys,
* finished equal 3rd place in the U15 Boys losing in the semi finals to the Dutch No 1 U15 player,
* won the U18 Band 1
This performance has seen him rise up the national rankings. Well done and congratulations for your determination during the two days of competition.

William Bevan, Year 9, and Ivan Vaplak, Year 7, both fought for every point, and they were very determined to win a match and get some Ranking points and they did it. They now know what they need to work on and we believe they will only improve. Well done boys, keep training hard it will pay off in the long run.

Fantastic Win for our Under 14 Basketball Team

On Thursday of this week our Under 14 basketball team continued with their national league campaign with a game against Churston Grammar School.  Historically Churston have been the powerhouse of the South Devon basketball scene so we knew we were in for a difficult game. From the start it was clear that this was going to be a game that went down to the wire.  In the first quarter the scores were very even, the only negative from our point of view was losing Sonny Houlahan, one of our senior players, to an ankle injury.  He was not able to play any further part in the game which meant that fellow senior players Alan Kumiega, Finley Burn and Freddie Kingdon had to step up to the mark.

As the game progressed it was clear that they were very much responding in the right way. At the end of the first half we were 10 points to the good but with Fin and Alan racking up the personal fouls it was clear that we had to play an intelligent game from now on in. An early surge from Churston at the start of the second half saw them come to within 1 point of our score.  Xander Tostevin was having the game of his life both in defence and attack ably assisted by Owen Woodcock who ran up and own the court shooting and blocking at will. Kian Bowness and Riley Houlahan were introduced to the fray at various times throughout the game, in what was only their second game for the team and they certainly played their part in what was going to turn out to be a momentous win for the team.

As the game progressed we were able to open up another 10 point gap and we were cruising to what we thought would be an easy win, however there were more twists and turns to come.  With an 8 point advantage both Finley Burn and Alan Kumiega were fouled out of the game, meaning our 3 most senior players were left to sit on the bench and watch the action unfold. Thankfully Freddie Kingdon, who went on to play all 40 minutes, was playing the game of his life, particularly in defence.  The addition of newcomer to the team Evan Kinghorn did not stop our momentum and he was able to settle in and enjoy his first game for the team. Inevitably Churston were able to claw their way back into the game and with 12 seconds to go trailed us by 2 points.  With their possession deep in our half it seemed the writing was on the wall and the game was destined to go into overtime.  Fortunately the whole team defended like their lives depended on it and we were able to steal the ball back from Churston and close out the game with 4 seconds to go. A fantastic effort from ALL of the team but if one player had to be singled out it would be Freddie Kingdon who played tirelessly from start to finish. Well done boys.

Students of the Week

Students of the week this week with me are: Josh Spencer, Amber Kennard, Harry Clarke, George Swift, Izabelle Pollard, Elisha Perrow

House Stars of the Week

Year 7

Brunel –

Christie – Cleo Fry

Darwin – Alex Hollings

Fawcett – Lucy Mangan-Smale

Harrison – Emily Chamberlain

Kitson – Tammy Westacott,

Nearne – Dan Flight

Pengelly – Ollie Sillis

Year 8

Brunel – Ellie Denby

Christie – Courtney Dowen

Darwin – Ben German

Fawcett –  Aidan Stapleton

Harrison – Sam Kelly

Kitson – Pierce Gerring

Nearne – Layla Batten

Pengelly –  Millie Randal

Year 9

Brunel – Summer Bayliss

Christie -Dean Lynch

Darwin – Josh Furze

Fawcett – Emilie Cartwright-Lomax

Harrison – Katie Packer

Kitson – Jasmine Armour

Nearne – Olivia Simpson-Lewis

Pengelly – Katie Taylor

Homework Stars of the Week

Year 7

Brunel –

Christie –  Elliot Lawton

Darwin – Mia Weston

Fawcett – Alaric Wills

Harrison –  Lauren Catt

Kitson – Tia-May Anderson

Nearne – Thomas Stimpson

Pengelly – Alfie Porter

Year 8

Brunel – Timika Kenneford

Christie – Shania Blades

Darwin – Honey Stevens

Fawcett – William Harrison

Harrison – Bobby Royal

Kitson – Jamie Dyer

Nearne – Robin Pightling

Pengelly – AJ Sims

Year 9

Brunel – Kieran Towell

Christie – Mya Green

Darwin –

Fawcett – Kezia Stanley

Harrison – Adam Pac

Kitson – Troy Riley

Nearne – Cameron Wannell

Pengelly –