PAA is back, Sports fixtures again and eSports

Listen

PAA is back!

We are delighted to welcome back existing Performing Arts Academy (PAA) members as well as our new year 7s. PAA has hit the ground running, launching straight into rehearsals for this year’s production. On Tuesday after school, we held auditions for Y7 & Y8s and were so impressed by all who auditioned we are delighted to offer everyone that attended the audition a place in this year’s PAA.

Mountain Biking

After a heavily disrupted year they’re back! The first ride has gone out with some Year 7s getting a chance to try out some of the trails at Haldon Forest. Later in the year, we’re hoping to be able to take more students out and start to take out groups from across the school. Keep listening out in line up and the announcements will come!

You can keep up to date with activities on Twitter – @OutdooredTA

eSports Club

Our eSports club kicked off this week in our new ICT suite kitted out with top of the range computers.

CCF Activities

Our CCF (RAF) section is going from strength to strength with both senior (year 11) and junior (year 10) cadets able to parade together for the first time following the easing of COVID restrictions.  The whole section has been working on developing leadership skills, working towards their leadership badges. Having been given tuition on RAF team briefing skills the cadets have been putting this training into practice to overcome challenges set by Mr Butler and Mr Adams. The cadets have been given scenarios using our MTA kits where they have had to demonstrate team and leadership qualities. They have really stepped up to the challenge over the last two weeks, with cadets all showing excellent team and leadership skills and a much calmer, coordinated approach to team working. More team challenges to come next week with even more exciting opportunities for our cadets on the horizon!

6 in 6 Reading Challenge

Our year 7s who completed the 6 in 6 reading challenge over the summer were excited to receive their first TA badges this week, and Mrs Mortimore, Mrs Aitken and Ms Rowan were very proud of them all. It has been brilliant to see so many students starting as they mean to go on and really enjoying their reading!

Library lessons for years 7 and 8 have also got off to a great start, with students completing their first accelerated reader quizzes and filling in their reading journal pages in their homework books. We will soon be releasing details of our first star readers – those who complete four weeks of reading and carry out a quiz will get their bronze badge.

Tarte Tatin

Hospitality and Catering students have been hard at work this week in their practical lessons focusing on developing pastry and knife skills in creating the most delicious and indulgent Tarte Tatin. The results were very impressive.. they tasted amazing!

Mrs Lynch Paddleboards for Rowcroft

Mrs Lynch paddled 10K from Totnes to Dittisham in a charity event for Rowcroft Hospice over the weekend.  She even managed to raise £250.00 for the charity.  Well done!

Featured House of the Week

This week’s featured house is Christie. We are particularly drawing attention to Christie this week to link in with Torbay’s annual Agatha Christie Festival which is just coming to an end. To celebrate, Year 7 and 8 students in Christie were treated to some mini muffins to celebrate the anniversary of Agatha Christie’s birthday on September 15th.

The colour for Christie is light blue. Christie has always been one of our most successful houses and is often victorious in sporting and academic events. When interviewing a student this morning and informing him of our featured house he stated: “Well Christie is the best!”

This year the new leader for Christie house is Mr Jones who is our Director of Sport; he is extremely competitive and has invented the “Christie fist bump” for students who have excelled within the house.

Christie obviously is named after Agatha Christie, “The Queen of Crime” (1890-1976) who has been credited as the best-selling author of all time.  Agatha Christie grew up in Torquay and her childhood home Ashfield once stood a short distance away from us in Barton Road. The house no longer exists but there remains a Monkey Puzzle Tree which once stood in its grounds. Agatha Christie always loved Devon and Torquay had the most prominent place in her heart.  Agatha Christie wrote 66 novels and is famous for the creation of the fictitious detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also penned the longest running play of all time, ”The Mousetrap”, which was only halted temporarily in London’s West End due to Lockdown restrictions.

The motto for Christie house is Be Creative. There are many opportunities for students to be creative at Torquay Academy – not just in English where our young people create stories, poems and other forms of writing but in Art, Drama and Music. All subjects involve some element of creativity, be it creating a solution to a problem or an answer to a question using specific knowledge.

Our featured students of the week are Miko Piasecki who won the Christie Student of the Week and Harry Paull who was awarded the homework star of the week. Congratulations also go to Ashton Williams from 8C and Jonathan Roper from 9C who are the Year 8 and 9 Christie stars.

Miko was able to provide me with a very articulate account of why he received this honour so early in his school career. He has been engaged and alert in all lessons, asked relevant questions and co-operated with others. Harry relayed how he spent lots of time on his homework and did not rush it through. He mentioned the importance of getting it finished early in the evening when he is still felt fresh and energetic. Tassomai was a particular favourite in terms of homework tasks.

Both boys felt they had been extremely creative in their art lessons where they had produced a piece of work inspired by the paintings of Van Gogh and were very excited that they were upholding the values of their house.

D of E Silver Expedition Practice

Last Saturday,18th September, ten Year 11 DofE Silver students were out getting some hiking and navigation practice before their upcoming Silver Expedition. The students were tasked with navigating legs of a route on the edge of Dartmoor close to South Brent. Despite some early persistent rain and low lying cloud making navigation difficult, the students navigated superbly well and were in good spirits throughout. All reassuring to Mr Brett and Mr Adams before their next adventures!

So onwards and upwards to the Practice Expedition 1st October-3rd October and then to the main event the Qualifying Expedition the first weekend of Half Term 23rd-25th October.  Well done to the following students: Dimitar Dinev, Harvey Bates, Josh Furze, Sebastian Grute, Finn Drew, Nathan Bayliss, Lizzy Cameron, Abi Jones, Milla Schwarz, Sam Foley, Gareth Mufford, Alexander Green.

TA Netball Academy

TA’s Netball Academy training is well underway with our Year 7,8,9 and 10 squads back at it.  We are currently preparing for a busy season ahead and the PE department can’t wait to see the girls in action taking part in competitive fixtures!

Tammy Westacott – Netball

Following on from Tammy’s success in helping her netball team to achieve a place in the Regional League, she has received an invitation to Devon County Netball Academy trials! Tammy was talent-spotted during the regional qualifying tournament. Well done, Tammy, and good luck in your upcoming trials this Thursday.

Fun Friday!

First fixtures of the season

It has been another fantastic week of competitive sport and recreational activities for our students. In addition to all of our thriving Super-Curricular clubs, we have also had our first fixtures of the season. It has been an incredible feeling seeing our students back out wearing the Team TA blue and competing against local schools. This week it has been the boys football teams in the first round of the National Cup. Read about their games below.

Year 9 boys football v Ivybridge

The Year 9 boys put on an excellent performance away at Ivybridge on Tuesday, beating them 4-1.

Year 10 boys football v Ivybridge

Year 10 took on Ivybridge in the Elite National Cup. It was a new look squad after some had departed for South Devon College. Will Hemus made his debut in goal and had what can only be described as an outstanding game. TA started well but were soon under sustained pressure from a much bigger, more physical and well drilled Ivybridge side. TA took the lead whoever after a well worked counter attack saw Will Green slot home from close range. This only added more pressure from Ivybridge and after ten further minutes they were on level terms. Just before half time Ivybridge took the lead from a goal scored direct from a corner after a concession of corners had TA under a great deal of pressure. TA started the second half much better and were on the hunt for an equaliser when Ivybridge caught them on the counter to extend their lead. This knocked the wind out of the TA sails and the game ended 3-1. There were plenty of positives from the game and TA will look to build on these in their next game as they continue to rebuild after the loss of so many of the previous squad.

Year 8 boys v Coombeshead

In their first ever football match for Team TA due to the coronavirus, the year 8 boys had to really be on their game to beat a strong Coombeshead team on Thursday. The team were outstanding and came out on top with a 5-2 win.  Well done to all of the players, thank you for your efforts and we hope you enjoyed the game!

Escape From TA Fitness Lessons.

This week students in Mr Richardson’s and Miss Felton’s classes have been attempting to ‘Escape from TA’ during their fitness lessons. This involved students demonstrating sound Teamwork by working in small groups to complete the most amount of kilometre/miles on the various cardio machines in the Fitness Suite. The students worked in small teams and set about trying to get the furthest away from TA as possible! (disclaimer: no students actually left TA!) There were also some body weight challenges that the students could complete in order to gain kilometre credits as well. At the end of the lesson, the individual totals we added up and the team with the furthest collective distance won the Escape from TA challenge. All students demonstrated great Teamwork and Integrity when completing the challenges.

Extracurricular clubs

It is such a joy to see so many of our boys and girls taking part in after school clubs together again – there are hundreds of students taking part every week.

Students of the week

Year 7 – Tegan Ross and Harrison Richards

Year 8 – Last week – Liam Trapp and Ellie Jayne Scott

Year 8 – This week – Jasmine Hayman and Lenny Mugliston

Year 9 – Cameron Sturtridge and Alice Holt

Year 10 – Grace Povey and Bogdan Pamfile

Year 11 – Lucia Aguado-Georgian and Gareth Mufford

House Stars of the week

Year 7

Brunel – Toby Waring

Christie – Anna Pearn

Darwin – Emilia Hunt

Fawcett – Connie McMahon

Harrison – Hannah Brazier

Kitson – Darcey Mellish

Nearne – Oskar Demkowski

Pengelly – William Kelly

Year 8

Brunel – Olivia Riches

Christie – Brooke Tully

Darwin – William Denega

Fawcett – Isla Aldworth

Harrison – Austin Howell

Kitson – Benjamin Watts

Nearne – Lenny Mugliston

Pengelly – Ivy Hodgson-Hunt

Year 9

Brunel – Finn Mallen

Christie – Mollie Macfie-Jones

Darwin – Gemma Ford

Harrison – Marcus De Lucis

Kitson – Bella Lester

Nearne – Maddy Fairhurst

Pengelly – Kasha-Lilly Borge

Homework Stars of the week

Year 7

Brunel – India Evans

Christie – Maddie Kenyon

Darwin – Samuel Johns

Fawcett – Aiviya Lawrence

Harrison – Jasper Franklin

Kitson – Lora Cadman

Nearne – Kyron Connor

Pengelly – Amy Rogers

Year 8

Brunel – Alfie Eccles

Christie – Norbert Tomsia

Darwin – Sara Santos Martins

Fawcett – Agata Sadlik

Harrison – Olivia Hosking

Kitson – Lottie Davis

Nearne – Amelie McCaul

Pengelly – Oliver Nunn

Year 9

Brunel – Jasmine Evans

Christie – Elise Pile

Darwin – Samuel Stimpson

Fawcett – Lexi Silvester

Harrison – Grace Dicken

Kitson – Tia May Anderson

Nearne – Igor Piewiszko

Pengelly – Shanice Rees

Sparx Leaderboards

 

Tassomai Leaderboards