National champions and second in the country
National table tennis champion
Last weekend, we took a number of students up to Wolverhampton to compete in the English Schools Table Tennis Finals. On Saturday, we had Jakub Piwowar (Y9) Kacper Piwowar (Y7) and Aleksandra Treder (Y7) competing in the individual finals. All three players played brilliantly, with Aleksandra winning one of her matches and Kacper reaching the quarter finals of the U13 competition. Jakub was on top form and beat several top opponents to win the competition and become National Champion, which is an incredible feat especially as we was competing against boys two years older than him!
Team TA is second in the country!
On Sunday, the boys’ U16 team of Jakub Piwowar, Kacper Piwowar, Kai Fowler, Ivan Vaplak and William Bevan participated in the team competition. Against 3 other top schools, the boys competed brilliantly. After a winning draw (4-4) in their initial match, the team narrowly lost their second 5-3. TA needed a win in their final match to secure the silver medal and pulled out their best collective performance to win 5-3 and claim second place! A silver medal, and being the 2nd best U16 team in the country is an outstanding achievement. We are so proud of all of our Table Tennis players, who have performed so well this year. Below you can see the moment Will secured the silver medal.
Ten Tors Training
An early start from school and we were walking out on the North Moor with hundreds of other students who were also out on the last weekend of the Spring term. The 35 team set off well and managed to stay on track all the way to Postbridge which was a good achievement. The 45 team got a good speed on and made Postbridge mid afternoon and went on to Beardown and Holming Beam for their camp eventually pulling in after 9 o’clock which was a good days walking. Both teams pitched camp for a very cold night. Temperatures dropped below -3C and the morning was a little cool. These pictures were taken pre dawn as the children emerged and start to get on with warming up and getting going.
Sunday was another day and after the effort of sorting out camp all the students were on their way by 0730. Some good awareness of where they were, meant that some good navigational decisions were made and everyone was back in the minibus by early afternoon and we were on our way home after a successful weekend of walking navigating and team building.
They have one more walk to go and that is the big one where the team is finally chosen. The Ten Tors event looks like it is going ahead with a little extra as it is the 60th running of the event. The Army have been 3 years planning this one so we are hoping it will be one to remember.
Mrs Lynch’s art classes and Art Club
The Year 7’s art students have spent this year exploring the fascinating world of Bugs & Beasties.
The students have explored a variety of media and approaches including lots of observational drawing, tonal work, mark making, colour and some collage.
Here you can see a snapshot of some of their very impressive work.
Their latest pastel studies of bugs, will result in a collaborative textile wall hanging, that will grace the year 7 hub!!
The year 8 art students are looking at Street/Urban Art. Students have researched a variety of different artists from the UK and further afield including street art in Barcelona, Berlin and New York City. Students have recently been designing T-shirts and designer trainers for their street artists. This project has been a great success and has kept the students engaged and excited in their art lessons.
Mrs Lynch’s year 9 art students are now working on a textile/fashion unit inspired by the theme of ‘Structures’. Students have undertaken extensive artist research and have developed some unique and exciting designs, that will be made up into art corsets and waistcoats. The students are learning how to pattern cut, tacking, hand stitching and work on the sewing machine. These new skills will give them excellent opportunities to make their own clothes in the future.
The year 9 class that Mrs Lynch supports have had a treat recently, learning about art outside of the classroom. The students have been looking at Land Art and the work of Andy Goldsworthy. Students were given free rein to produce a meaningful land art piece that conveys ideas and responses to working by the sea.
Year 10 art students are currently working on a Hybrid project. Students are researching a number of diverse artists and crafts people to inspire their final outcome, which they will design and make during the summer term. Students are designing art shoes, art backpacks, 3D Constructed paintings and many more exciting art pieces.
Year 11 students have been busy completing their final year 11 art exams. As you can see from the images the students have explored lots of different media and directions including animation, textile design, posters, clay work etc.
Year 12 Photography students have made super progress exploring a number of different themes to inspire their photographic work. Themes include Time, Movement, Portraiture, nature etc.
The photograph shows new work by Tilly Skeffington, who is exploring nature and has printed onto fabrics, which she has stitched together, embroidered and painted to create a unique mixed media hanging.
Year 13 have been busy completing their exam pieces and writing their essays for their personal investigations.
Years 8, 10 and First Team reach their Devon Finals
National Tutoring Programme
Some of our 6th form students have been trained as tutors and they are working with groups of students in year 7 and 8.
Spring Fayre
Over the past term the Student Voice Committee have been working extremely hard to organise an end of term charity event and yesterday we held a brilliant Year 7 Spring Fayre.
Each house had its own stall, decorated in house colours selling items such as cakes, sweets, biscuits, books, toiletries and jewellery. There was a raffle and competitions with prizes. Many students and staff brought in contributions to be sold in the aim of collecting as much money as possible for the house charities, which are: The Children’s Society, Rowcroft Hospice, Animals in Distress, Torbay Premature Baby Unit, The Royal British Legion, Torbay Coast and Countryside, The Red Cross and Torbay Stroke Support.
The students set up and designed their stalls, price up their items, organise payments and a cash float, encourage the rest of their year group to purchase from their stalls and tally their final totals. In addition to the Spring Fayre the committee has organised a non-uniform day where every student will wear their own clothes in return for a £1 donation. I would like to formally thank all students involved and Miss Risk, our Head of Houses, for all of their contributions and the efforts they have expended into making this event a great success and raising money for deserving local charities.
They raised an incredible £312.49 just for the fayre which led to a total of £1348.33 for the day
Charity head shave
To support the fundraising efforts Mr Chadwick sold raffle tickets to students to give them chance of shaving his head! He raised over £50 and actually looks quite a lot smarter…
TA Students helping Torquay Athletic U15s finish the season strongly
Will Reed, Tommy Aldous, Will Harrison and Aaron Goddard have all been putting in some amazing performances on the rugby pitch recently. Together with their team mates, they narrowly lost in the Devon u15’s 7’s final last weekend. Despite this disappointment, they can be proud that they played some incredible fast paced rugby on the hard ground, being unbeaten right up until the final.
This coming weekend they also play the semi-final of the Devon Plate competition at The Recreation Ground, Torquay. They are focussed on finishing this season with a bang, and have high hopes of making the final.
Their performances this year have been exceptional, especially as full contact rugby was so massively impacted by covid. Congratulations on your achievements so far boys, and good luck for this coming weekend!
Year 11 dance
The Year 11 students had their dance assessments this week. Miss Felton and Miss Walklin were very impressed with all of their hard work and how it paid off with some brilliant performances.
Mr Littler’s Business Class
Mr Littler’s Year 12 Business group have been studying hard for their exam in May. They have a 90 minute paper on Personal and Business Finance. In this lesson, they revised the areas of break even and cash flow, completing some short exam style questions for practice.
The students have also produced flashcards for the many formulae they need to memorise for the exam (over 30 of them). These are colour coded to indicate the type of formula they are – efficiency ratios, profit and loss, etc. Having these flashcards allows students to quickly test their ability to recall the key knowledge they need.
After a short time self quizzing and memorising the content of the cards, the students tested each other. When they could recall the formula perfectly, the card went into one pile. If they couldn’t, it went into another pile. After one round, the number of cards students needed to revise was reduced to the ones they found most difficult. After focussing on memorising these, we tested again, with greater success. The students are feeling really confident thanks to their hard work.
Word Millionaire
Congratulations to Finn Moncrief 8B and Noah Butler 8N on becoming our new word millionaires! Finn has clocked up an amazing 1,258,367 words and Noah is not far behind on 1,122,435 words. Students gain words every time they pass an Accelerated Reader book quiz on the book they have read. Well done Finn and Noah on a fantastic achievement.
Dartmoor Search and Rescue fundraising
Charlie Wise in 7F took part in a charity event raising money for Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team. This involved him walking from Haytor all the way to Shaldon along Templer Way, which is a distance of 18 miles! Charlie was the youngest participant and completed the challenge within 6 hours. He was rewarded with a recognition of achievement certificate and a medal. We are extremely proud of Charlie. Well done.
Pudding club
The Year 7s were also keen to share some of their successes from Pudding Club. This week they perfected their pancake recipes, had lots of fun making them and lots of fun eating them!
Mr Mellitt’s Charity Run
Mr Mellitt ran the London Landmarks Half Marathon on Sunday 3rd April. The course started in Trafalgar Square and proceeded to wind 13.1 miles around the famous sites of central London until it finished in Downing Street.
There were thousands of other runners and a huge level of support from onlookers. Mr Mellitt managed a personal best time for the distance, but has been seen limping around school ever since.
Food Technology
We have had a great week in Hospitality and Catering, firstly with a fabulous visit from the Navy where we employed our budding year 10 chefs to a competition to see who could produce the tastiest and well-presented spaghetti, meatballs and brownies. Secondly, they had huge amounts of fun making pretty spring / Easter cookies for an end of term treat.
Year 7 Star Reading Certificates
The following students have received their bronze Star Reading certificates for tracking their reading for four weeks and completing one Accelerated Reader book quiz: Nyla Wakefield 7N, Lora Cadman 7K, Jack Slater 7H and Leah McClements.
The following students have received their silver Star Reading certificates for tracking their reading for eight week and completing two Accelerated Reader book quizzes: Grace Gibbings 7B, Edward Evers 7N, Maja de Carvalho 7N, Millie Swift 7K and Sunny Long 7H.
The following students have received their gold Star Reading certificates for tracking their reading for twelve weeks and completing four Accelerated Reader book quizzes: Grace Gibbings 7B, Lucas Quaintance 7D, Harrison Harkin 7F and Adam Copping 7K.
Year 7 Netball vs Churston Grammar
On Monday, the Year 7,8 and 9 Netball Academies played against Churston Ferrers Grammar School in a netball tournament.The Year 7 teams have had another fantastic fixture. Last week at training, we were looking at interceptions and going ‘on the fly’. There were some great interceptions in the games, and this comes from marking and tracking our players very well. Team 1 had a challenging opposition and narrowly missed out on a win but showed fantastic progress from previous games. Signalling and moving into a space really stood out to Miss Felton as a strength. Team 2 also faced a tough side, sometimes forcing us to use all 3 seconds to make our decisions. However, Miss Felton was really pleased to see how much the players have progressed with taking back and side line passes in a game, which can be a crucial moment in a match. Coaches players of the day went to Ellie Farthing and Larna Waller. Outstanding effort from all players, well done girls… keep up the good work!L – R (Back) Joss Full, Isabelle Voisey, Ellie Farthing, Maisie Sandercock, Grace Cartland, Millie Swift, Ashleigh Evans, Phoebe Smith (Front) Lora Cadman, Kelsey Drew, Ellen Scott, Chloe German, Anisha Kale, Larna Waller.
Year 8/9 Netball vs Churston Grammar
The Year 8 and 9 Netball Academies played against Churston Grammar School at home on Monday. The two teams played with consistency throughout all of the matches, retaining possession of the ball and getting 90% of shots on target. Consequently, the results showed this with TA winning two games and losing one game. Congratulations to our Year 8 player of the tournament, Amara Phillips and to our Year 9 player of the tournament, Ella McLachlan. Year 8 & 9 Netball Academy: Ema Kestell, Brooke Tully, Katie Rowe, Amara Phillips, Sophie Nicholson, Lydia Bevan, Amber Dicken, Jemimah Jones, Millie Sneap, Summer Connoly, Elspeth Herring, Tammy Westacott, Ella McLachlan, Emily Graham, Evie Reece, Maisy Green
U16 Netball Fixture vs TGGS
The U16 Netball Academy played against Torquay Girls Grammar School on Wednesday.
Years 9 & 10 Girls Rugby Festival
We took a number of Y10 girls across to Teign school for a rugby skills festival. The girls really enjoyed it and it was great to provide them with a new opportunity.
U15 Girls County Finals Competition
On Wednesday the year 10 girls football team took part in the County Finals at Devon County FA headquarters. The team started well in their first game but could not convert the chances they created and ended up drawing with St James school 0-0. The second game saw a far more clinical performance and two goals from Robyn Mitchell saw TA run out 2-0 winners over Newton Abbot College. The final game would see the winners progressing through to the next stages after Easter but unfortunately Lipson proved to be too strong. TA finished joint third over all which is an incredible achievement. Mr Grinsill is very proud of their hard work and efforts. Squad: Heidi Wright, Mia Denby, Elly Denby, Maisy Green, Jazz Povey, Abi Anderson, Emily Tucker, Ellie Chammings, Amy Wilson, Ava Mitchell, Maisy Green
Year 8 Football into the Devon Final
This week’s semi final game was one we were quietly looking forward to, Eggbuckland beat us in the National cup back in October and since then we have been hard at work on our training days building the team and growing every session. We started well and wanted to put pressure on early which paid off with us scoring after 7 minutes from a through ball by Harrison Hogg into Charlie Green who rounded the keeper and finished well under pressure. Going into the second half 1-0 up Eggbuckland had a real push to draw level but we matched their energy and nullified them when they had some momentum. They did eventually level the score after a miss timed clearance allowed their striker through whose shot was saved by Colby but they put the rebound away. A tense final 20 minutes saw chances for both sides but with 5 minutes to go a free kick from Bastian Johns-Kouadiogave Charlie Green a foot race with the centre back and Charlie got there first to calmly slot the ball into the corner to give us the lead. We defended so well to see the game out and the boys really deserve to be in the County final after all their hard work and dedication this season. We will now play the winners of Ivybridge and Newton Abbot College in the Final.
Year 9 Boys Football vs Coombeshead
Last week our year 9s played Coombeshead in the 1/4 final of the Torbay and district cup, the game was very tight with very few chances for both teams. The deadlock was broken with a cool finish from Jude Snell to put us 1-0 up, this was then followed up by a header from a corner by Liam Cartwright to give us a 2-0 lead. Coombeshead also scored from a corner near the end of the game but we secured the win to go into the hat for the next round.
Year 10 reach Devon Cup Final
On Friday the year 10 football defeated Ivybridge in the semi-final of the Devon Cup. TA started incredibly well when Will Green latched on to a long ball to lob the Ivybridge goalkeeper after just ten seconds. TA used this momentum and controlled the first half creating chances but failing to increase their lead. On the stroke of half time Ivybridge levelled when they caught TA with a counter attack. TA used half time to re-organise themselves and come up with a plan. The second half started just the same when TA took the lead again in the first ten seconds with a fantastic header at the back post from Josh Thompson. TA this time grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and dominated creating chance after chance. TA soon extended their lead with a great team goal finished coolly and superbly by Zac Rowland-Steele. The scoring was finished ten minutes before time when Harrison Shaw broke through the Ivybridge defence and riffled the ball into the roof of the net.
Year 7 Football vs Newton Abbot College
Last week our year 7s also played in the 1/4 final of the Torbay cup against Newton Abbot College. On a rock hard pitch we had to adapt our style of play but still managed to put in a strong performance to come out 4-0 winners to progress into the semi finals. Our goals coming from Thomas Ross x2, Charlie Wise and Ben Jolly.
Year 7 Boys Football vs Kings Ottery
This week the year 7s were busy again travelling to Kings Ottery to play their 1/4 of the County cup this time, another different experience for this talented group. With very strong winds and the ground being rock hard it took both teams a while to settle into how the game was going to be played. For a group of 11 and 12 year olds they showed great maturity to play to the conditions and secure a comfortable 3-0 win to progress into the semi final against Ivybridge after the easter break. Goals on the day coming from Ben Jolly, Oscar Mills and Mason Bryant.
Students of the Week
Year 7 – Ethan Anyon and Isabella Bentley
Year 9 – Jack Flay and James Lovell
Year 10 – Josh Hawkings and Amy Wilson
House Stars of the Week
Year 7
Brunel – Bella Bentley
Christie – Iabelle Kelly
Darwin – Hayden Halsey
Fawcett – Halayna Hussain
Harrison – Jack Slater
Kitson – Corey Batten
Nearne – Sienna Painter
Pengelly – Ellie Midren
Year 8
Brunel – Christian Cornforth
Christie – Harrison Hogg
Darwin – Jessica Nicholson
Fawcett – Simon Drost
Harrison – Alex Coates
Kitson – Jemimah Jones
Nearne – Harrison Davies
Pengelly – Millie Sneap
Year 9
Brunel – IvanVaplak
Christie – Cleo Fry
Darwin – Luca Cronje
Harrison – Jarad Silk
Kitson – Daniel Thomas
Nearne – Oliver Reeves
Pengelly – Taylor Reynolds
Homework Stars of the Week
Year 7
Brunel – George O’Hanlon
Christie – Connor Dean
Darwin – Layla Loizides
Fawcett – Rebecca Quarshie
Harrison – Eden Nelson-Minns
Kitson – Ollie Cooper
Nearne – Nancy Brown
Pengelly – Ben Tucker
Year 8
Brunel – Finn Moncrieff
Christie – Mya Hoskin
Darwin – Erin Wiseall
Fawcett – Amy Harrison
Harrison – Bella Kirby
Kitson – Will Jackson
Nearne – Amelie McCaul
Year 9
Christie – Isabella Aguado-Georgian
Darwin – Elspeth Herring
Harrison – Merissa Farrington
Kitson – Oliver Stevens
Nearne – Kara Wills
Pengelly – Aspen Keenan
University Offers this Week
Surname |
Forename |
Provider name |
Course name |
| Collet-Evans | Jack | University of Southampton | Film Studies |
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