National Quarter Finals, Ten Tors, Y8 Dance and Y7 robotics

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Ten Tors Festive Shakedown

The morning weather report! They could see it was going to be a wet one, but that didn’t stop the spirit of the Ten Tors Teams.

An 8am start at the school car park, with a briefing for the day and hitting the road bound for Dartmoor. An hour later they arrived; thankfully the rain had stopped, well for at least a few moments. Waterproofs on, they continued on our route.

Morale was high even as the wind and rain were lashing down on them. Underfoot was the challenge for the day. Keeping their feet dry from the sponge like moor. Nothing deterred the enthusiasm of the teams. Everyone was grateful to shake off the festive season and focus on the Ten Tors training challenge.

Some members of the teams enjoyed the Dartmoor more than others as they introduced themself to the boggy parts of the moor. Even losing a boot for 5 minutes and discovering that when laces come undone, they need to be tied back up!

A lunch break on top of Great Mis Tor was short-lived as the weather started to show itself again. Heading down and back to the mini buses. All were grateful to see the buses and spirits were still very high.

The next couple of months training is going to be challenging but very rewarding. Team selection is high on the agenda. All the students are working hard to secure a place. With 5 teams being entered, this year is going to be very busy.

We all look forward to the next training session out of Okehampton. Fingers crossed the weather will be our friend.

Year 8 Dance

This week, Year 8 had their first Dance lesson in core PE with Miss Lewis. The girls focused on how to utilise their bodies in order to create specific letters and shapes which led to them forming a small routine to perform to the class. Whilst some letters may have been more obvious than others, the girls danced with smiles on their faces and are looking forward to the next lesson, where they will be trying out Bollywood dancing!

More Duke of Edinburgh Award Success for TA Students

This week another nine students were presented with their DofE Certificates and badges. Fantastic recognition of the efforts they have put into their chosen Physical, Skills and Volunteering activities, and the Expeditions they completed last year. A wide range of activities were completed including beach clean-ups and helping manage a community garden for volunteering, cooking and learning the piano for skills, and sports and activities such as rugby, dance and football for the physical section.

Seven of the students were awarded their Bronze Award certificates, in which they completed a 2 day 1 night expedition, and two of the students achieved their Silver Award certificates, which involved a 3 day 2 night expedition. Congratulations to the following (left to right): Bella Lester (Bronze), Daisy Gibbings (Bronze), Nina Hocking (Bronze), Megan Sellick (Bronze), Oriana McCaul (Bronze), Phoebe Lown (Bronze), Leah Harman (Silver), Jema Soby (Silver), Dimitar Dinev (Bronze).

Year 7 Robotics

Mr Weaver’s Year 7s have been working hard to perfect their robots this week.

Year 10 Health & Social Care

Year 10 Health and Social Care students were given a fabulous opportunity this week with a visit from Natalie Herring (interim Deputy Chief Nurse) and Lucy Jane Waring (Clinical Site Manager) from Torbay Hospital. Students discovered what the role of a health professional actually means and explored the values and skills that goes alongside it. Natalie and Lucy also looked at the different pathways into Nursing , finishing with some Role play scenarios to discuss and act out.

Brunel House News

In the final instalment of our featured year 7 house groups, Miss Risk had the privilege of interviewing Alfie Speed, Allanna Butler, Kiara Ujj, Barley Mudge and Luke Smith-Harding as representatives of Brunel House. She could, however, have interviewed all of them students from Brunel as everyone wanted to put themselves forward to praise their house.

The students were extremely forthcoming with all the positive things they had to say-particularly about Mrs Haines, their house captain. ‘Mrs Haines is nice, cheerful, kind, competitive but also accepting if we don’t win an event. She helps us with our homework and is very generous. We get lots of house points; in fact Mrs Haines sometimes gets accused of giving us too many house-points but that’s only because other houses are jealous hen we win.’

‘One of the aspects which is so positive about Brunel is that we all want to take part in everything. So much so that it sometimes becomes difficult for Mrs Haines to select our representatives. A recent example of this was when we all wanted to take part in the Bake Off but it was limited to one entry per house. Everybody just wants to be a willing volunteer for their house. Everybody just wants to win.’

We have a really good mixture of people in our group but people are generally competitive, smart and sporty. Johnny, Will and Euan are our sports’ stars, Chloe is always really helpful, lots of people have certificates due to their high number of house-points.’

‘Mr Pugh-our head of house-always wears a top hat just like the original Brunel when he comes around to give out our certificates. Mr Pugh is always pleased if we win but he just really wants us to try our best. He gives us strategic moves to improve such as -just getting a couple more house-points each.’

‘We are often the top house in the year or the school and we are certainly always in the top three. Brunel is -without a doubt-the best house.’

Science with Miss Martin

In their science lessons, this week Year 7 have dissected chicken wings and a heart as part of their study of the human body.

Enterprise with Mrs Lancaster

Year 7 Food Technology

This week in Year 7 Food Technology lessons with Mrs Lancaster, the students have been making breakfast wraps where they have been dicing vegetables and making an omelette to roll in a wrap and practising their knife skills, creating colourful fruit salads. These are the last lessons in our “Breakfast on the hop” topic before we go on to learn about “A taste of Takeaway” where we will be replicating different takeaways but a lot healthier!

Year 11 Health and Social Care

This week in Health and Social Care lessons with Mrs Lancaster the Year 11s have been working hard towards their exam on Monday 30th January. We have been focusing on creating improvement plans and analysing the barriers people may face when trying to implement a health improvement plan and different ways these barriers can be overcome.

Year 13 Health and Social Care

Year 13s have been revising hard for their Unit 3 Exam on Health and Safety which they sat on Wednesday afternoon. A mixture of long answer questions on the visualiser, past papers, spider diagram notes and flashcards have helped them to feel really prepared for their first 6th form exam.

 

Joshua Furze – District Cadet of the Year

On Saturday 7th January, one of our Year 12 students, Joshua, travelled up to Exeter to compete in the annual District Cadet of the Year Competition for Devon. During the course of the day he had to take part in a presentation on a given topic, a first aid scenario, an interview, a team task as well as a communication activity. These were all assessed by a panel of judges. At the end of the day the District Youth Team decides on the new District Cadet of the Year. Joshua was awarded this title and now must travel to Nottingham to compete in the National Competition against cadets from all over the country! Well done, Joshua.

National Elite Cup Quarter Finals for Year 7 and Year 9

This week highlighted how far we have come as a football programme in the school, reaching the quarter finals of the English Schools Football Association Elite national cups in both years 7 and 9. We have only ever achieved this stage nationally once before so it was a very proud moment to see us do it with two year groups this season.

The 7s played Northampton Boys School and the 9s played Aldenham School from London. Both of these schools have a great reputation and have won national titles on many occasions so we knew it would be a big challenge but one we looked forward to.

Unfortunately we couldn’t make it a step further losing both games but we did show that we do belong to be around these other schools with great footballing reputations. The boys and coaches have had a taste of what it takes to go to the next step and are now more hungry than ever to go one further next year, small margins being the difference on the day. They now focus on the County and District cups and hopefully see some silverware at the end of the year.

I couldn’t be more proud of the boys and what they have achieved so far this year.

Year 7

Year 9

Year 11 Football – Through to the Quarter Finals

On Thursday Year 11 took on Coombedean in the Devon Cup. TA put in a solid performance and made it through after winning 5-1 against a solid and well-organised side. The notable performances came from the year 10 boys who stepped up and made their debuts for year 11. Finley Herbert and man of the match Liam Cartwright. Goal scorers Zac Roland-Steele, Will Green, Finley Herbert, Josh Thompson and Jack Alcock.

Athletics Success

On Sunday, Hannah & Grace travelled to the National Indoor Athletics Centre at Cardiff Met Uni to participate in the Welsh Athletics & Southwest Championships. They both ran a fast 60m time but it was shot put that dominated their day. Grace threw a fantastic PB & claimed Silver in the U17, Hannah threw well and claimed Bronze spot! Great experience up against the best Welsh and Southwest athletes. Well done girls!

Students of the Week

Year 7 – George Evans and Sydney Summers

Year 10 – Elise Pile and Mitchell Watkins

Year 11 – Aiden Stapleton and Sophie Caton

House Students of the Week

Year 7

Brunel – Ruby Chamberlain

Christie – Ava Wilson

Darwin – Kaitlyn Jarvis

Fawcett – Dylan Tripp

Harrison – Lee Stevens

Kitson – Amy Cooper

Nearne – Milan Ujj

Pengelly – Ethan Lewis

Year 8

Christie – Oscar Tallon

Darwin – Leon O’Connor

Fawcett – Connie McMahon

Harrison – Darcey Mellish

Kitson – Susie Lester

Nearne – Oscar Mills

Pengelly – Kai Chalmers-Wood

Year 9

Brunel – Jj Cossey

Christie – Poppi Marshall

Darwin – Sara Santos-Martins

Fawcett – Torrin Byers

Kitson – Oliver Los

Nearne – Tessa White

Pengelly – Leo Helmore

Homework Students of the Week

Year 7

Brunel – Oliver Ayres

Christie – Lola Reece

Darwin – Max Weston

Fawcett – Talia Street

Harrison – Lily Campbell

Kitson – Jacke Forte

Nearne – Charlie Sanderson

Pengelly – Finley O’Leary-Black

Year 8

Christie – Lauren Tanton

Darwin – Tegan Ross

Fawcett – Lewis Phillips

Harrison – Tom Connelly

Kitson – Olly Payne

Nearne – Sienna Painter

Pengelly – Ayden Goldsbrough

Year 9

Christie – Isaac Knowles

Darwin – Lucas West

Fawcett – Ruby Bovey

Kitson – Lottie Davis

Nearne – Lida-Marie Szewczuk

Pengelly – Faith Batham

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