Fame, D of E Awards, Gliding and Rosslyn Park 7s...

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Fame!

What a show! On Wednesday and Thursday evenings this week, 45 boys and girls from our Performing Arts Academy took to the stage and put on, what can only be described as, our best production ever! The cast, consisting of students from Y7 to Y13, has been rehearsing twice a week since September in preparation for this week’s performances. With PAA bursting with so much talent, we decided to double-cast the show, giving even more of our boys and girls the opportunity to take on lead roles.

Show week began with a gruelling two days of dress and technical rehearsals, followed by a matinee performance to 95 Y6 students from Barton Hill Academy which finished with a Q & A session with the cast. After receiving incredible feedback from their first audience, the cast could not wait to take to the stage in front of their friends and family for the first evening performance on Wednesday. The blue cast wowed the audience with stand-out performances from Erin Giffard playing Carmen, Robin Higgins playing Iris, Lyra Bowstead as Mable, Emma Matthews as Schlomo and Anya Page-Dove as Serena.

Thursday evening saw the red cast tread the boards and the packed audience was treated to yet another extraordinary performance, this time with lead roles from Aimee Evans as Carmen, Kole Gjikolaj as Schlomo, Jasper Dommett as Nick, Ava Storey as Mable, Annie Aldous as Iris and Lottie Prowse as Serena.

It was an emotional evening for Lottie (Year 13) as Thursday evening marked her final PAA production. Lottie has performed in every PAA production since year 7 and will be joining Falmouth University in September. We wish her all the best as she embarks on the next chapter of her PA career and begins her Performing Arts degree. A huge thank you must go to our Year 12 technical crew, Dylan Weatherburn-Bird, Finn Drew and Tee Gaisford for their professional sound and lighting throughout the production.

I can’t wait to find out what production PAA are planning for next year but in the meantime, I am looking forward to The Review next term!

Bronze and Silver Duke of Edinburgh Award success

More Duke of Edinburgh success here at TA as we had a further seven students awarded their certificates. Four of these were at Silver level and three at Bronze.  It is a fantastic achievement by the students and recognises their efforts in learning or developing Skills, giving up their time to do a Volunteering activity, and their time in undertaking a sport or similar Physical activity. And of course undertaking the gruelling Expedition – at Silver hiking and camping over 3 days-2 nights, and at Bronze 2 days- 1 night.

The activities the students participated in were extremely diverse. In the Physical section students were undertaking activities such as cycling, basketball, gymnastics and dance. In the Skills section students were developing skills in learning musical instruments, navigation and acting and one student learned Criminology and Forensic skills! And in the Volunteering section students coached younger students in sports and in gymnastics, assisted teaching dance – and one student got involved in a waterway conservation project! Some amazing activities undertaken by TA students that really help and support their local community.

Congratulations to the following students:

Bronze Award – Aspen Keenan, Ruby Dension, Marcus Jenkins
Silver Awards – Lizzy Cameron, Will Reed, Max Beer, Charlie Fox

Some of the students have already enrolled for or expressed an interest in completing the next level award which is commendable and shows ambition and a level of maturity in the fact they are seriously considering their future prospects in university, college applications and future employment. Well done!

Whole Year Group Photos

It’s that time of year again!  Unfortunately it was too wet to enable us to take the Year 7, 11 and 6th Form pictures outside, but the students all looked impeccable in The Platform.

Gliding Experience

On Sunday, four cadets from the RAF Section travelled to Preddanack, near Helston, a satellite airfield of RNAS Culdrose, to complete their Gliding Induction Flights.

Although the weather was forecast to be blustery with frequent rain showers and fingers were crossed that flying would go ahead, it proved to be an awesome day for gliding. The cadets took part in all aspects of the flying – launching gliders including attaching the cable, retrieving gliders, and pushing back to launch positions, and wiping off any rain from the wings and canopies after showers.

Each cadet had two 10min flights, the first purely an experience with no hands-on controls and plenty of opportunity to take photos and videos. The second flight was instructional with the cadets taking control and straight and level flight and turning. By consensus, the high speed winch launch was way more impressive than any roller coaster ride!

With more gliding opportunities opening all the time, the next step for the cadets once they reach age 16, is to take on a residential Gliding Scholarship – 40 flights and instruction up to and including a First Solo trip!

Year 11 Dance Exam

Happy Easter from all at the Pudding Club!

3 Peak Challenge in Wales Success

This weekend Amy Harrison in Year 9, joined the Explorers training for Ten Tors and took on the Abergavenny 3 peaks challenge in South Wales.  They travelled up Friday night, sleeping on a scout hut floor, getting up at 5am ready for the 7.30 start. They covered nearly 35 km in 11 hours climbing a total of almost 1500m over the Blorange, Sugar Loaf, and Skirrid Fawr peaks of the Black mountains.  The weather was kind with only brief rain showers, lots of very steep muddy climbs.  What an amazing achievement.!She is back to the Brecon beacons next weekend for school Tens Tors training.

Year 8 HPA

This week the Y8 High Performance Academy met for their second academic conference of the year. Students gave presentations to each other on this term’s research projects in STEM including how humans could colonize Mars, how forensic science is used to solve crime and how robotics could be used to improve human life. One student delivered a talk on how forensics could be used to catch the criminal mastermind behind the Mystery of the Missing Waffle, which turned out to be me!

The quality of the research and presentations this year have been without doubt the best we have ever had and all the students surpassed themselves in what they produced. Well done to everyone involved. Awards for the best research went to Harrison Harkin, Rebecca Quarshie and Lauren Tanton, while awards for best presentations went to Oliver Cocker, Grace Halsey and Harrison Harkin.

Year 4 Sherwell Valley Visit to make Muffins

Year 4 from Sherwell Valley have been learning about a balanced diet in food technology and used the wonderful resources at TA to create some delicious muffins. The children had a wonderful time and very much enjoyed eating the end result. It was a pleasure hosting them.

English with Miss Turner

It’s been all about Shakespeare for year 9 and 10 during cycle 3 in English and the students in Miss Turner’s classes have been showing off all their fabulous knowledge and skills in their final assessments this week. Year 9 have completed some very impressive GCSE style essays on the female characters in Hamlet and year 10 have blown Miss Turner away with their outstanding critical essays that debate Macbeth’s heroism. Miss Turner is looking forward to celebrating the results with her classes during feedback lessons after the Easter break. The students will be given another opportunity in assessment week to show off their new knowledge in the Shakespeare knowledge tests. Well done for all your hard work this week 9Q7 and 10Q9!

Rosslyn Park National Rugby 7s

This week the year 9s travelled to London to compete in the Rosslyn Park National Rugby 7s tournament. With a very early meet time the bus was loaded with kit and some sleepy year 9 boys and was on the road by 6am. After a long journey we arrived and due to a horrendous traffic jam missed our first game only for it to be reshceduled for 4 minutes after eventually arriving! With a quick warm up (running to the pitch) the boys got stuck straight into the rugby fest. The day was a brilliant experience for all involved and the boys did themselves and their school proud. Whilst the result might not have gone our way we played some great rugby at times and learnt a great deal. One of the teams in our group, Cheltenham College, ended up making it to the semis finals and lost only to the eventual winners, Eton College. The boys were up against some tough opposition and some potential future England players. There were 240 teams competing and nearly 800 games played across the two days in the year 9 age group tournement. The boys will remember that day for the rest of their lives. A fantastic effort by all involved.
Squad: 1.Ollie Drinkwater 2. Charlie Green 3. Greg Hindom 4. Harrison Hogg 5. Austin Howells 6. Ollie Jones 7. Bas Johns-Kouadio 8. Charlie Knight 9. Josh Sandeman 10. Tom Thorner 11. Austin White 12. Josh Rogers

Year 11 Devon Cup Semi-Final

On Wednesday the year 11 Football team fell just short in the Devon Cup Semi-Final against Ivybridge. It was an extremely competitive game with some great football on show as well as some tremendous individual performances. The winners of the game knew that they would be favourites to lift the trophy going into the final as both sides were in the tougher half of the draw. TA started well but found themselves 1-0 down after 10 minutes after Ivybridge scored a well worked goal. TA rallied and 10 minutes later found themselves level after good work from Will Green saw his cross finished expertly well by Charlie Pope. TA and Ivybridge then spent the rest of the game throwing everything they had at each other and just before half time Ivybridge took the lead from the penalty spot. The second half was just as competitive as the first and Ivybridge scored early to double their lead. TA threw everything they had at Ivybridge but unfortunately without any reward.

Mr Grinsill and the team would like to congratulate Ivybridge publicly on their victory and wish them every success in the final.

House Sport

This week all students in Years 7-9 have participated in a sports competition to earn points for their house! It was a lot of fun and the PE department were thrilled by the engagement (and competitiveness!) of them all!

Year 8 Football – ¼ final win

Our year 8s took a step closer to the final with a victory over Dawlish Community College this week. In very wet and cold conditions, they played some lovely football and were ruthless in front of goal.
The game gave us confidence and sets us up for our semi final game against Torquay Boys’ Grammar after Easter.

Goals on the day came from – Ben Jolly 5x⚽️, Thomas Ross 3x⚽️ and Joshua Parkinson⚽️

Students of the Week

Year 7 – Ashton Lynch and Hattie Gamble

Year 9 – Ellie-Jayne Scott and Josh Sandeman

Year 10 – Oliver Huxtable and Shanice Rees

Year 11 – Josh Nagy and Charlotte Sweeney

Sixth Form – Felix Houghton and Ellis Knowles

House Students of the Week

Year 7

Brunel – Euan Miller

Christie –  Ella Fordrey

Darwin – Riley Gilmour

Fawcett – Zakariyah Haridi

Harrison – Archie Norcott

Kitson – Sanije Hoxha

Nearne – Kayla Hadley

Pengelly – Keisha Powell

Year 8

Christie – Blake Adamson

Darwin – Layla Loizides

Fawcett – Harrison Harkin

Harrison – Hannah Brazier

Kitson – George Luscombe

Nearne – Bella Williams

Pengelly – Chloe German

Year 9

Brunel – Joshua Kittow

Christie – Isabelle Moxham

Darwin – Jessica Nicholson

Fawcett – Pedro Pestana

Kitson – Phoebe Denbow

Nearne – Harry Smith

Homework Students of the Week

Year 7

Brunel – Will Wrathall

Christie – Sophia Preyer

Darwin – Ashton Lynch

Fawcett – Mason Findlay-Peers

Harrison – Georgee Westhead

Kitson – Mollie Peters

Nearne – Warren Biggs

Pengelly – Freddie Fenner

Year 8

Christie – Josh Henderson

Darwin – Sonny Bond

Fawcett – Brody Cooper

Harrison – Eden Nelson-Minns

Nearne – Abigail Yau

Year 9

Christie – Daisy Faulkner

Darwin – William Denega

Fawcett – Theo Hardman

Kitson – Ava Shobbrook

Pengelly – Leo Helmore

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