Remembrance, Oliver, art exhibition and photography
TA remembers
The CCF led our remembrance service this year. The service was held in The Platform and broadcast to all of the classrooms where the 2 minute silence was impeccably observed.
The last post played by Noah Butler:
The full service:
Mr Whelan has been delivering remembrance assemblies over the past week.
Oliver!
Our PAA students have been busy auditioning over the last 2 weeks for parts in this year’s production, Oliver! It’s been a painstaking few days of chopping, changing and swapping the cast list but we have finally got our cast.
We’d like to say a huge thank you and well done to all PAA members for their hard work and enthusiasm during the auditions, this is truly going to be a fantastic show to be part of!
DRUM ROLL PLEASE… here is our cast for Oliver Jr!
Oliver Twist – Nisha Cosslett
Mr Bumble – Paige Godwin
Widow Corney – Mya Edralin
Mr Sowerbury – Max Gamble
Mrs Sowerbury – Rose Bradley
Charlotte – Anya Page Dove
Noah Claypole – Kole Gjokolaj
Nancy – Olisi O’malley
Bet – Lottie Prowse
Bill Sykes – Will Bevan
Artful Dodger – Lizzy Cameron
Fagin – Jasper Domet
Charlie Bates – Ellie Jayne Scott
Nipper (Smallest Gang member) – Harrison Harkin
Fagins Gang – Imogen Jane Simmons, Erin Gifford, Cerys Lowe, Emma Mathews, Jemimah Jones, Ivy Hodgson Hunt, Sophia Box, Charlie Grimley, Summer Faulks, Mason Mitchell, Amber Dicken, Lyra Bowstead, Aliyah Smith
Mr Brownlow – Katie Packer
Mrs Bedwin – Bea Corline
Dr. Grimwig – Sophie Packer
Who Will Buy sellers:
Rose Seller – Emma Mathews
Milk Maid – Abi Jones
Strawberry Seller – Aimee Evans
Knife Grinder – Kole Gjikolaj
Old Sally – Millie Wigson
Matron – Halle Wotton
CROWD SCENES/NUMBERS – (Please note everyone will have to dance a little – Dancers will be featured)
Dancers: Mya Edralin (Dance Captain)
Eve Cameron, Olivia Mae Frank, Grace Halsey, Connie McMahon, Rose Bradley, Anya Page Dove, Frankie Skelly, Daisy Hellier, Sophia Burnham, Aliyah Smith, Katie Packer, Sophie Packer,
Chorus – Erin Gifford, Briony Pightling, Imogen Jane Simmons, Lydia Bevan, Abi Jones, Aimee Evans, Emma Mathews, Jemimah Jones, Charlie Grimley, Alex Harvey Jones, Summer Faulks, Halle Wotton, Amber Dicken, Bea Corline, Millie Wigson, Paige Clements, Amilie McCaul, Lyra Bowstead, Cerys Lowe, Paige Godwin.
Music Academy
The infamous golden audition invitations for our Music Academy were recently hand-delivered by Mr Pasternakiewicz and Miss Pappin to students on the Friday before half term. Our talented musicians have been auditioning over the last 2 weeks for a place in our prestigious academy which aims to challenge and develop our very best musicians. The provision is modeled on what students would find if studying for a music performance degree at university and is open to all students regardless of age.
We’d like to thank all students for auditioning, the standard was exceptional!
We are delighted to announce the following students have all been successful in gaining a place this year:
Drums:
Alfie Sams
Ben German
Olisi O’Malley
Bass:
Jack Manley
Kelsey Cresser
Lorenzo De Paoli
Keys:
Peter Holmes
Lewis Dewar
Guitar:
Luke Howard
Syd Yarde
Robin Pightling
Ben Arscott
Ellis Knowles
Vocals:
Eloise Simpson
Izzy Minty
Aimee Evans
Henry McManus
Kelsey Hawkins
Lottie Prowse
Erin Allen
Rhyanna Lewis
Violin:
Mason McCarty Payne
Saxophone:
Will Bevan
We can’t wait to begin rehearsals next Wednesday 17th November. First gig, the Christmas Concert!
CCF Ten Tors
A busy week for the Torquay Academy CCF (RAF) cadets. The start of Ten Tors training on Dartmoor was the beginning of the fun.
A 35 miles and 45 mile team set off from the Haytor Car Park with the aim to take out a few Tors. It’s been a little while for some so the distance was kept short to concentrate on home map reading skills. Well done to all that managed to navigate around the area.
A brilliant opportunity came to both teams when to their surprise, Mr Beswick was in the area at a pre arranged location having set up an abseil for the cadets to go down. Everyone embraced the experience which was also backed up by Mr Butler who provide a briefing on safety on the moor using a bothy shelter.
Later in the week the senior cadets took up a Weapons Handling Test with the Cadet Air Rifle. Finishing off with some shooting at a paper target provided under the direction of the RAF staff. Meanwhile the remainder of the cadets carried our rehearsals for the following day Remembrance Parade.
Year 9, 10 and 11 cadets all formed up in the Platform in uniform preparing for the live broadcast around the school. Backed up by a very talented trumpeter, some emotional readings from the Staff and cadets, the parade was very respectful, remembering those who lost lives over many years.
Artizan Collective Winter Open Exhibition
The Academy entered a number of student’s artwork in the Artizan Collective Winter Open Exhibition. The selection process was done purely on the strength of the candidates work. We were absolutely delighted to receive the news that the work of three of our exceptionally talented students had been selected for the exhibition. Lottie Denning also achieved an honorable mention award for her sensational ceramic sculpture “Into the Depths”. Lucy Mangan-Smale for her beautiful and sensitive etching self-portrait. Also, Alice Reshad for her latticework ceramic bowl. The exhibition is on until the end of December and well worth a visit.
Lacie Wins Sailing Award
Lacie Benson, year 9, is a member of the Royal Torbay Yacht Club (RTYC). She goes sailing every Saturday and racing on Wednesday evenings. During her awards ceremony on Saturday Lacie and her partner Danni won first place in the fast fleet category and Lacie won Most Devoted Sailor. She received the award from Olympic sailing gold medalist Saskia Clark. She received a trophy, sailing equipment and a special T-Shirt from the Tokyo Olympics. Well done, Lacie!
Lit in Colour
We have been very fortunate winners of Penguin publisher’s ‘Lit in Colour’ selection of books. These books will offer our students a fantastic range of diverse authors and stories from around the world to enjoy. Opening all the boxes certainly felt like Christmas!
Year 9 Art & Design
This week sees our Year 9 Art & Design students exploring clay as an artistic medium. The students have been experimenting with creating small pots, using pinch and coil techniques. The students have been totally engaged in working with this new medium, and we are excited to see what they produce next. The workshops have been led by our very talented trainee art teacher Miss Nixon. It is wonderful to be able to welcome Miss Nixon back to TA where she studied before completing her Art degree and embarking on her teacher training.
House Charities
The Year 7 Student Voice Committee have recently been working extremely hard to select a local charity for each house and decide upon fundraising ideas for their charity. After much discussion and input from the respective heads of houses, the selected charities are as follows:
Brunel – The Children’s Society
Christie – Rowcroft Hospice
Darwin – Animals In Distress
Fawcett – Torbay Premature Baby Unit
Harrison – The Royal British Legion
Kitson – Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust
Nearne – The Red Cross
Pengelly – Purple Angels Dementia.
Our first fundraising activity was a non-uniform day which took place on Thursday 4th November. Students were able to wear their own choice of clothing in return for a donation made to their specific house charity. The day was very successful, students really enjoyed the opportunity and a large sum of money was raised for each of our house charities. This was just the first of our charity events and we will keep all our readers informed of what the Student Voice decide upon next. Our picture this week is of 7T9 sporting their own clothes to support worthwhile local causes.
A Level Photography
Year 12 & 13 A Level Photography students are now enjoying working in our newly updated, all-purpose Art/Photography workspace in The Creative Arts department. Students have access to specialist cameras, lighting, backdrops, art materials and a bank of 14 computers, which have Photoshop and Lightroom uploaded on them. This year’s students are making the most of this unique space and creating some amazing and thought-provoking work.
Samosas and Homity Pie
The students in Hospitality and Catering have been working hard to show case their knife and cooking skills in assessment week- chopping, dicing and slicing their vegetables to then practise and perfect their pastry skills. Year Tens focused on homity pie-using wholemeal flour for a different taste whilst year nine focused on developing the pastry and then challenging themselves in the complicated production of wrapping the seasonal ingredients in the pastry.
They tasted absolutely delicious- well done again!
Sixth Form University offers this week…
Year 13 students are starting to see offers arrive from the universities they have applied to. We couldn’t be more proud of all of the students who have received offers already.
| Surname | Forename | Provider name | Course name |
| Holmes | Caitlin | Cardiff University | English Literature |
| Holmes | Caitlin | University of Exeter | English and Communications |
| Woodward | Benjamin | University of Bristol | Mechanical Engineering |
| Woodward | Benjamin | University of Exeter | Mechanical Engineering |
| Harris | Ben | University of East Anglia UEA | Physics |
| Mahoney | Owen | University of Southampton | Computer Science |
| Billing | Evie | University of Gloucestershire | Electrical and Electronics Engineering (with placement) |
| Billing | Evie | University of Hertfordshire | Electrical and Electronic Engineering |
| Giles | Beau | Queen Mary University of London | Economics and Politics with a Year in Industry |
| Giles | Beau | University of Surrey | Politics and Economics |
| Baczynski | Mateusz | University of Plymouth | English |
| Baczynski | Mateusz | Plymouth Marjon University | Psychology |
| Holmes | Peter | University for the Creative Arts | Composition for Screen |
| Locke | Dominic | Bournemouth University | Mechanical Engineering (Integrated Master’s) |
| Locke | Dominic | Bristol, University of the West of England | Mechanical Engineering |
| Locke | Dominic | University of Exeter | Engineering and Entrepreneurship with Year in Industry |
Fun Friday!
There were Egg and Spoon races today!
County Table Tennis Championships
On Wednesday we travelled to Eggbuckland Community College for the Devon Table Tennis Championships and did exceptionally well. We had 4 teams of 4 players, and ended up leaving Plymouth with 2 winning teams and 2 runners up! Our winning teams were the U16 boys made up of Will Bevan, Jakub Piwowar, Ivan Valpak and Kacper Piwowar and the U13 girls team of Lydia Bevan, Caitlin Large, Aleksandra Treder and Amelia Wisniewska. These teams will now represent Devon in the Regional stage of the competition, hoping to progress to the National finals.
Our U13 team of Finley Allnut, Norbert Tomsia, Lewis Phillips and Will Godfrey did themselves proud by qualifying to the final round, whilst the U19 team of Nick Turner, Igor Sniegocki, Kai Fowler and year 7 Thomas Connolly also pushed hard in the final.
All of the students were a credit to themselves and the school. Particular achievements to note were the U16 team not dropping a single set all day, year 7 student Kacper Piwowar beating all opponents in the U16 competition and year 7 Thomas Connolly stepping in to help the U19 team and winning the majority of his matches against 6th form students, in his first ever table tennis competition. I look forward to reporting some more good news after the regional finals have been played!
Year 9 Netball National Tournament
Ten players from TA Netball Academy were selected to play in the first round of the U14 National Schools netball tournament. The girls played exceptionally well, winning 3 games and losing 3 games, unfortunately meaning that they narrowly missed out on a place to qualify into the next round. Overall, the girls have developed so much and the PE department is extremely proud of their performance. Well done ladies!
The team of 10 were: Summer Connolly, Elise Pile, Evie Reece, Elspeth Herring, Emily Graham, Brooke Tully, Lydia Bevan, Amara Philips, Rosie Mahoney-Billis and Ella McLachlan.
Year 7 Netball
This week two Year 7 Netball teams attended a friendly games afternoon along with Paignton and Churston Grammar. The girls thoroughly enjoyed their afternoon and played very well. They have lots to take away and are looking forward to getting stuck into training next week!
Year 10 Rugby
The year 10 boys completed the short journey up the road to TBGS this week for a County Cup fixture. After weeks of solid training, the boys were itching to take the field. However, they got off to a slow start with TBGS taking an early lead with a flowing move down the wing. After a stern team talk under the posts and with rejuvenated energy, the boys ploughed their way upfield to grab a try back of their own. A well-worked move involving both forwards and backs working well together to secure the ball and resulting in us diving over from close range. The game then ebbed and flowed with TBGS bagging a few tries of their own and Team TA answering back with a couple of tries. Team TA were constantly learning the game and gaining valuable experience of their individual positions and as the game progressed so did our confidence. Considering this was their first game since Year 8 the team performed brilliantly. Although TBGS ended up the eventual winner, the boys thoroughly enjoyed the game and lost with great dignity and outstanding sportsmanship throughout, battling hard right to the final whistle. They were an absolute credit to themselves and the school. Training continues on a Tuesday after school and is open to anyone who wants to get involved.
Year 8 Rugby Training
Year 9 Boys Football
The score line does not reflect the game. It was a case of St. Peter’s taking their chances and TA not. We dominated the first half creating numerous chances without converting. Unfortunately 5 minutes before half-time TA were caught cold with two quick fire goals. TA changed tactics and formation second half gambling on being able to get back into the game. For fifteen minutes TA camped in the St. Peter’s half with high-intensity football and pressing the ball ferociously. Unfortunately, TA couldn’t convert any of the numerous chances they were creating and again were caught cold. This sucked the life and confidence out of the side and eventually the game finished 5-1 with Amari Hadley grabbing the consolation goal.
Year 7 Rugby
The year 7 rugby team travelled to Cuthbert Mayne on Wednesday for both an A and B fixture. An impressive 22 students made the trip with a lot playing for the first time. The B team won 60-10 with some stand out performances led by Charlie Astbury. The A team had a very close game and ran out winners by just 2 tries 60 points to 50. Our attack was outstanding as we needed to score nearly every time we had the ball due to the size and strength of two of the Cuthbert players. Toby Waring, Thomas Ross and Oscar Mills were causing massive problems for the Cuthbert defence scoring numerous tries between them.
Word Millionaire
We have our second Word Millionaire Tallulah Houlahan 7F with 1,179,790 words. Well done Tallulah this is a fantastic achievement!
Star Reader certificates Year 7
The following students have been awarded their bronze Star Reader certificate for tracking their reading for four weeks and completing one Accelerated Reader book quiz: Isabelle Voisey 7P, Tallulah Houlahan 7F, Felicity Adams 78F, Harrison Harkin 7F, Leon O’Connor 7D, Daisy Hellier 7D, Harry Newman 7B, Daisy Cosh 7K, Kesey Drew 7H, Roxy Johnson 7H, Abigail Yau 7N, Rylan Chambers 7N and Riley Calland 7N.
The following students have been awarded their silver Star Reader certificates for tracking their reading for eight weeks and completing two Accelerated Reader book quizzes: Isabelle Voisey 7P, Tallulah Houlahan 7F, Abigail Yau 7N, Ivy Hodgson-Hunt 8P and Naomi Redmond 8B.
Star Reader Certificates Year 8
Congratulations to the following students who have achieved their bronze Star Reading certificate for tracking their reading for four weeks and completing one Accelerated Reader quiz: Noah Butler 8N, Oliwia Tuczynska 8N, Lexi Weller 8N, Niamh Coker 8F, Madison Findlay Peers 8F, Olivia Hosking 8H, Kacey Young 8H, Lana Northcott 8H, Millie Sneap 8P, Ivey Hodgson-Hunt 8P, Lyra Bowstead 8P, James Hutt 8D, Eve Cameron 8B and Naomi Redmond 8B.
Students of the week
Year 7 – Lora Cadman and Fredi Tuci
Year 8 – Oliver Denison and Brooke Tully
Year 9 – Olivia McCormack and Kieran Taylor
Year 10 – Lily-Rae Hooper and Max Beer
Sixth Form – Flynn Brown and Caitlyn Holmes
House Stars of the week
Year 7
Brunel – Caine Dickinson
Christie – Harrison Richards
Darwin – Leah McClements
Fawcett – Tallulah Houlahan
Harrison – Jasper Franklin
Kitson – Sophia Box
Nearne – Oscar Mills
Pengelly – Josh Parkinson
Year 8
Brunel – Caitlin Large
Christie – Liam Baillie-Hogan
Darwin – Lewis Watt
Fawcett – Ben Poston
Harrison – Connor Fortune
Kitson – Oliver Los
Nearne – Lexi Weller
Pengelly – Bella Giffard
Year 9
Brunel – Mckenzie Hassanein
Christie – Owen Houghton
Darwin – Jack Flay
Fawcett – Lexi Silvester
Harrison – Ryan Hooper
Kitson – Daisy Bond
Nearne – Maisy Green
Homework Stars of the week
Year 7
Brunel – Ashleigh Evans
Christie – Halle Wotton
Darwin – Taniesha Hippolyte
Fawcett – Harrison Harkin
Harrison – Naphtali Phinehas
Kitson – Corey Batten
Nearne – Bella Williams
Pengelly – Phoebe Smith
Year 8
Brunel – Sophie Nicholson
Christie – Brooke Tully
Darwin – Katie Rowe
Fawcett – Daniel Eales
Harrison – Austin Howell
Kitson – Amber Dicken
Nearne – Willow Kendal
Pengelly – Millie Sneap
Year 9
Christie – Elliot Lawton
Darwin – Beatrice Corline
Fawcett – Sean Crawford
Harrison – Ollie Tillen
Kitson – Kaitlin Wright
Nearne – James Ferris
Pengelly – Kasha-Lily Borge
Sparx Leaderboards
Tassomai Leaderboards
Accelerated Reader Leaderboards
