Enterprise, maths challenge, climbing and ballet

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National Champions back in training

Our team continue to prepare to defend their crown.  Failure didn’t deter Rebecca and Nina.  Numerous attempts and adjustments to their program led to success and that sense of satisfaction when a plan comes together!

Maths Challenge

On Thursday, our Year 12 and 13 A Level Maths students took part in the UK Mathematics Trust Senior Maths Challenge.  Thousands of students aged 16 and over from across the world also participated. Students with the top scores will qualify for a certificate and those with the best scores may also qualify for the next round.

As soon as we find out the results we will post another blog entry. Good luck Sixth Formers!

Lizzie performs in The Nutcracker

Lizzie Cameron was selected to perform with the Vienna Festival Ballet company In The Nutcracker at The Princess Theatre this week.  She performed brilliantly and is such a talented young lady.

Auditions, Auditions, Auditions!

It’s been an intense 2 weeks for our Performing Arts Academy with the casting process for this year’s major production well underway. Members have been put through their paces with singing auditions, followed by acting auditions and finally culminating with dance auditions last night. Miss Pappin says she is blown away by the incredible levels of enthusiasm, talent and most importantly passion that this year’s PAA members have shown since September. I couldn’t believe that after only 1 hour our students had made this much progress! (see video). Aladdin is already shaping up to be our best production yet. We can’t wait for the first showing in April next year.

KS3 Music Technology Club

Music Technology club has begun for ks3 students in the Imac Suite every Thursday lunchtime.   Lead by two of our sixth-form Music Tech students (Sam Beer and Charlotte Povey), our first week saw 30 students attend to make use of our world-class facility.

KS3 Music Technology club will be open for all Ks3 students every Thursday lunchtime.

House Climbing Finals

The house climbing finals for the Year 7s took place on Wednesday at Exeter’s clip and climb centre. Students have been training and competing on our fantastic new climbing wall for qualifying places. The event involved practising on all the different climbing walls before racing on the speed wall. Students had 2 speed races each with their fastest time counting. Congratulations to all the students involved as they all gained points for their houses. Below are the results for the top 3 boys and girls.

Girls
1st – Emily Graham
2nd -Tia May Anderson
3rd – Taylor Renolds

Boys
1st – Harry Lawler
2nd – Tyler Jay Stirling
3rd – Lennon Bolton

A level product design

Our A Level Product Design students have been getting stuck into their latest design and make project, laminated birch plywood salad servers! There are some strong signs of creativity showing.  I look forward to seeing their finished results.

Greenpower Motorsports

Mr Foulds has been working with a select group of our Sixth Form students and talking all things Greenpower, in particular how we begin our Greenpower trust 24+ scratch build entry for 2020.  He is being rather cryptic at the moment but tells me to watch this space!

Year 7 enterprise

The enterprise department have been having fun with our Year 7 budding Design Technologists this week making their own keyrings. What a great way for our students to spend a lunchtime! Fantastic work Megan, Michelina, Nikola and Nina.

Year 9 GCSE Product Design

It is great to see our GCSE Product Design Year 9 students taking such care putting the finishing touches to their wood joints box projects.  They are really developing their skills.

Team TA Sports Roundup

Year 9 Rugby

Our boys were dominant Tuesday night at The Spires for a round robin against St Cuthbert Mayne first then Spires.  We started with a game against Cuthbert was relatively easy scoring 26 points to 0 with Ollie laker scoring 2 tries on his debut for the school. Oliver Waring came off his normal position on the wing to plug the gap at 9 and Cameron Wannell filled in for the 10 shirt to lead the charge from fly half, Cameron made several strong runs through the middle and feeding his back line with great ball going forward to allow the team to score 4 well-worked tries.

The second game against Spires was more challenging with Spires displaying a very robust defence, however, the deadlock was broken by Euan Smith who broke several tackles to score in the corner. Spires were very resilient and fought back to earn a well-deserved try soon after. With the game evenly balance a well-worked set move off the line out saw Josh Furze throw to Xanda Tostevin who popped it back to Josh on the run around to feed Marcus Griffiths to gallop thirty metres to the try line. A well deserved win and we look forward to the return fixture at TA in a fortnights time

National trials

Good luck to Josh Parry and Finlay Pearse who have been selected to take part in the English Schools national trials this weekend in Bristol.

Year 7 Netball

This week we have had a variety of different netball fixtures. Year 7 have played Teignmouth and STCM and year 8 and 9 have also played again STCM earlier on on the week. We won 2 of our games this week, which is brilliant as the girls have experienced success when they have been playing their best netball. Others we have lost but essentially we are happy as a netball club to be making positive steps in becoming a club who can compete against the better teams in the bay. It’s lovely to see so may girls attending netball club after school on a Tuesday and also staying for extra training with Kate late into the evening. Keep up the good work girls.  The girls all thoroughly enjoyed the games and were a pleasure to take. Special mention to Summer, Tammy, Megan, Bobbie and Elise for some great performances.

Football

Year 8 through round 4

On Friday the year 8 football team travelled to Plymouth to take on All Saints Academy. The whole squad put together an incredibly dominant and professional performance running out 9-0 winners. TA controlled the game from start to finish and were relentless and ruthless with their whole performance. the goals came from Josh Thompsn x2 Will Green x2, Zac Steele x2, Frankum, Stevens and Alcock.

Man of the match Aiden Bovey.

Year 7

The boys year 7 B team travelled to Ivybridge to play in the 2nd round of the ESFA cup after beating Exmouth in the 1st round. The game was very even in the 1st half with both defences looking solid. The second half opened up after we took the lead through a good strike by Damien. A mix up 5 minutes later allowed Ivybridge to get one back to make it 1-1. The introduction of Jude gave us a lift and he was instrumental in the next two goals scoring one and setting up Sean for the other. With 4 minutes to go and leading 3-1 we made some silly decisions trying to score more allowing Ivybridge to break twice and score late in the game to end 3-3.

Another game against Ivybridge that would go to penalties to get a winner. Both teams took their 5 penalties but we had to go to sudden death as both teams had one saved.  It ended up going on until we had taken 8 penalties each but unfortunately on our last penalty the Ivybridge keeper pulled off a great save to give them the victory. It’s definitely a learning curve for our boys and we will come back stronger next time.

Year 11 Cup game replayed

On Monday the year 11 team had to replay their national cup game with West Exe after they fielded ineligible players. With the team still upset after the 4-3 defeat they at West Exe they put their energy into a ruthless performance running out 17 -2 winners in the replayed game. It was 3-0 after 10 minutes and 8-1 at half time before finishing 17-2.

The goals came from Denby x5, Green x2, Wilson x2 Thomas x2 Edwards x2 with Shaw, Watt, Steele and Higgins all grabbing a goal each.  Man of the match – Harry Denby

Year 11 Out of the National Cup

On Thursday the year 11 football team crashed out of the national cup to a very strong St Peters team. The team fell on the wrong side of a 5-2 scoreline. The TA goals came from Harry Denby and Ryan Wilson. the side will now have to concentrate their efforts on the South Devon cup.

Girls Football getting stronger all the time

Last week we saw some incredible games for our U13 and U16 girls.  A terrific performance for our U13s resulted in a 7-1 victory against Cuthbert Mayne with the goals coming from – Ellie x2, Ava x2, Robyn x2 and Abi with one. The girls demonstrated such a wonderful team spirit and coupled with their quality made it an enjoyable game to watch even with the torrential rain throughout. The vote for Player of the match went to Mia.

U16’s

Our U16s played Ivybridge in the National ESFA cup last week.  It was a game that had everything, plenty of individual skill, good team play, loads of goal scoring opportunities, all in all a great advert for girls football in the area.   The first half was quite even with both teams working hard and having spells of being on top.  The second half saw Ivybridge pile on the pressure after we took the lead through a cool finish by Siana. Ivybridge created many chances but couldn’t get past our keeper Ellie who was outstanding on the day. It must be said that both keepers were excellent and kept the score to 1-1 at the fulltime whistle.

Extra time passed with no more goals taking us to penalties to decide the match. It’s always hard for a team to go out this way but we had to get a winner. With Ellie in goal you are always confident that she will pull something out of the bag and she did exactly that, first saving the 4th penalty from Ivybridge and then composing herself to take the 5th penalty herself and score taking us through to the next round.

Table Tennis – County Runners Up in Two Age Groups

Our Under 16 and Under 13 boys travelled to Plymouth on Wednesday to take part in the Devon County Table Tennis Championships. After both groups dominated their preliminary leagues they found themselves in the finals. All games were very close but the Under 13 team were unable to overcome Colyton GS and came away with the Silver medal. Our Under 16 team were so close to winning the championship, they lost out by the narrowest of margins to Eggbuckland School, so narrow in fact that one point out of 8 games played decided the result. All of the boys played extremely well and can be proud of their achievements.

Basketball

Out Under 14 Basketball team started their National League campaign this week.  To date they have played Ivybridge CC and Treviglas Academy (Newquay) and unfortunately results have not gone our way so far but we are improving and learning every game.  I look forward to reporting some successes in the near future.  Up next are Uffculme School who we beat last year and Penryn College. Our players cannot be faulted for the enthusiasm, effort levels and commitment.

Hannah had a busy weekend of trail running

Saturday evening was a 5k night run at Burrator reservoir on Dartmoor. Not surprisingly it was very wet and muddy but Hannah claimed 1st place in the 12-17 female category.  Sunday morning was a sunnier 1 mile trail race at Stover school. Hannah finished 3rd in the under 13 girls event. Impressive results, Hannah.

Students of the Week

Students of the week this week with me are: Finley Herbert,, Hollie Hand, Alicia Lindley, Daniel Pratt, Thomas Gabl, Ewan Smith

House Stars of the Week

Year 7

Brunel –

Christie – Summer Hapgood

Darwin – Dudley Tarrant

Fawcett – Alaric Wills

Harrison – Woody Ronson

Kitson – Amalia Mihai

Nearne – Issac Jacobs

Pengelly – Kasha Lily Borge

Year 8

Brunel – Livvy Tysall

Christie – Shania Blades

Darwin –

Fawcett – Matt Budavolgyi

Harrison – Ella Breheny

Kitson – Joel Copping

Nearne – Aiden Bovey

Pengelly – Tim Corbett

Year 9

Brunel – Rae Makinson

Christie – Lucia Aguado-Georgian

Darwin – Marcus Griffiths

Fawcett – Cody Lidster

Harrison – Sofia Evans

Kitson – David Waddington

Nearne – Max Gamble

Pengelly –  Mason McCarthy Payne

Homework Stars of the Week

Year 7

Brunel –

Christie – Coral Stewart

Darwin – Curtis Poynton

Fawcett – Nisha Cosslett

Harrison – Brooke Bowden

Kitson –  Daniel Thomas

Nearne –

Pengelly – Mia Keenan

Year 8

Brunel – Isabelle Clarke

Christie – Archie Cox

Darwin – Sophie Denison

Fawcett – Ollie Lucas

Harrison – Mathew Hilton

Kitson – May Connolly

Nearne – Heidi Wright

Pengelly – Shelby Astley-Rubin

Year 9

Brunel – Ella Sandbrook

Christie – Grace Cayford

Darwin – Kayla Potts

Fawcett – Bethany Coker,

Harrison – Joshua Robinson

Kitson – Kelsey Hawkings

Nearne – Toby Clark

Pengelly – Emily Harris