Year 7 Bake off, revision, sculpture and lots of learning...

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Year 7 Bake Off 2022

On Wednesday, Year 7 students competed in our annual House Bake Off competition. As always, the event was very popular and many students wanted to participate. House captains had the difficult job of selecting just one dish out of the many suggested by their tutees. The brief was to design an afternoon tea item which could be enjoyed by me.  I had the delicious, but difficult, job of judging the event.There were delightful dishes such as New York Cheesecake, chocolate brownies, scones and cinnamon rolls were all put forward by enthusiastic bakers.

Under the supervision and support of Mrs Haines, 16 students, two from each house, whipped up their dishes in the short space of just an hour. At 4.30 the dishes were presented to me and I had the enviable job of tasting each and deciding upon a winner based on both taste and presentation. The Year 7 students had to keep straight faces during the tasting as I had no idea which dish belonged to each house.

Ultimately the winning dish was New York Cheesecake created by Kitson students: Harry McCarthy, Lilly Robins and Ollie Martin. It was such a difficult choice to make as all the dishes looked and tasted fabulous. The winning students received gingerbread making kits and all those who took part received some chocolate for their brilliant efforts. The House Cup is now decked out in green ribbons and is proudly on display in the Kitson tutor room.

Frosty mornings….

We have certainly had some cold mornings this week and this has left the site looking very frosty.  Even the astro has been coated with a deep frost!

Rainbow over the school

In addition to the cold we had a beautiful rainbow over the school.

Year 7 Lunch with the HOAP

Miss Main met with her students who received gold effort scores for this quarter.  She is rightly very proud of the efforts and they have made a great start to life at TA.

Year 10 Revision Sessions

All year 10 took part in revision etc technique sessions on Friday. They were shown  use of Flash cards and mind maps by Mr Pugh and read, write cover check by me.  They were also reminded of the Sparx independent online resource they have to use to revise for Maths.

Year 11 Dance

Students have been working very hard on their performances in recent weeks.  Miss Walklin is very proud of their efforts and results so far.

Fantastic Sculpture

Bella Kerr in Year 8 considered the plight of the homeless and less fortunate in the run up to Christmas. She produced a beautiful and sensitive sculpture in a single art lesson with Mr Haring.

Year 7 Cooking

Year 7 are continuing with their “breakfast on the hop” topic this cycle. This week they have been cooking tasty breakfast wraps.

Art with Mrs Lynch

Mrs Lynch is delighted with the ‘Christmas Manniquin’ that has been designed in art club by the very talented Sonny Long in year 8.

Sadly Sunny has been away from school this last week, so two year 11 art students Hollie Hand and Melisa Piper have stepped in and helped complete Sonny’s vision. The work looks absolutly brillinat in Mrs Lynch’s art room, please pop by and take a look if you are passing.

Level 3 Health and Social Care Students

To culminate the Unit 9 Learning Disabilities coursework, students were warmly welcomed by ex-TA Teacher Alan Tilley at his new community kitchen venture at Victoria Park Methodist Church in Plainmoor. This sees disabled individuals putting together recipes and ingredients that can be purchased by everyone in our community. Pupils had a guided tour, met the workers and also discovered the additional plans to create a warm hub with free tea and coffee and also a food bank. This will open in the middle of January, we have been invited back to see this next section in action which we are greatly looking forward to. It was humbling and also inspirational to see the fabulous work that Alan does in the community. With a 2 day meal plan for a family of 4 (main meal and pudding included ) costing only £4.50, it provides an invaluable service and is open to everyone. Follow the link below if you are interested in using this service and to find out more about the many projects Alan has.

https://www.turningheads.org.uk/community-kitchen/

Science with Mrs Horton

This week in Mrs Horton’s Yr10 science class the students have been learning about some of the gases that can be produced during a chemical reaction. Today they got to test for them during a practical, as you can see the students very much enjoyed the results (Warren!). The students got to test for Hydrogen using the squeaky pop test, Carbon Dioxide using limewater and Oxygen using a glowing splint that relights.

Year 7 PE with Mr Jones

Over the past few weeks, Year 7 have been working on team building and problem solving. In Mr Jones’ class this week, this involved trying to work out how to get their team from one side of the sports hall to another. This required students to devise strategies and communicate these clearly with one another. They had to cooperate and ensure they listened to and supported each other throughout.

Year 7 have been really enjoying this unit of work, and whilst it has been competitive, it has been a lot of fun!

Maths with Mr Hobbs

Students in year 8 have been learning about negative numbers, sequences and the nth term. They are now delving deeper in to algebra with expressions, substitution and solving equations. Every lesson begins with a “Do Now”. “Do Nows” are short activities that focus students on starting work as soon as they enter the classroom, setting a positive learning environment. In Maths the “Do Nows” are a selection of varied questions used to review and recall previously learnt concepts and skills (Negative numbers and nth term in this case). Using these retrieval exercises, students can better remember these concepts in the long term. The work in books is always corrected in purple pen so that modelled examples can be quickly and easily found and used as references.

Mini white boards are an incredibly useful tool for assessing a class’s understanding. By having relatively quick fire questions, a countdown to showing boards and an expectation that everyone shows at the same time regardless of their answer or without an answer, if they don’t know. In this way I am able to quickly see who understands and who needs further teaching or help. Students don’t feel as much pressure as they just rub off and try again on the next question. Overall it can be used to check on the overall class and also see which individuals may be struggling as well as highlighting any misconceptions. Some students were happy to show their faces others not so much (Maybe too board?), but all were happy to show their answers!

Mrs Hosking’s A Level Media Lesson

This week, Mrs Hosking’s A Level Media Studies group have been working on their coursework. Each student is expected to create their own cross-media production pieces from scratch, using original photography and text. Some are producing a front page and a double page spread from a regional newspaper reporting on a social and/ or political issue of interest to its broad local audience:

Others are creating the homepage and two further pages of a film news and review site. Their site should target a niche audience identified as being fans of a specific genre, series or style of film:

Mrs Hosking loves to see how creative and skilled the students are when they put all of their expert knowledge and understanding of the media into practical use.

Fun Friday

Fun Friday today was Pin the Nose on Mr Chadwick and me. Students had to wear the festive blindfold and do their best to find their way back to the perfect position. Year 10 pinned the nose to Mr Chadwick this afternoon and they even got Mr Carter involved (although he may have been led slightly astray).  Funnily enough, I haven’t included a picture of pinning the nose on me!

Year 7 Rugby

The year 7 rugby team continued their development at the South Devon rugby championships at Churston last Friday. The majority of the team have just been introduced to the sport in September and have shown excellent progression. A great team spirit and attitude was demonstrated all day!

Played 6, won 4, drew one, lost one

Well done to all involved it’s been a real pleasure for Mr Welsh to work with them.

Indoor Athletics

On Sunday, Grace & Hannah travelled to the National Indoor Athletics Centre at Cardiff Met University and ran 200m on the banked, indoor track. It was the Welsh Athletics Junior Indoor and Southwest Regional Championships. There were 11 heats & they were allocated lanes. Grace had the inner Lane 1 & ran a great pb, Hannah had outer Lane 4 on the raised bend and ran a fast lap. Both girls enjoyed the experience and will be back there in January for 60m sprint and shot put. Well done girls!

Year 11 through to round 2

On Monday year 11 took on Ilfracombe in the first round of the Devon Cup. Credit had to be given to the away side after they travelled all the way to TA with just eleven players. It was always going to be a tough ask for them against a very strong TA side and this was supported by the end result. TA played with ultimate discipline and respect for their opponents and eventually ran out 10-1 winners. The goals came from Harry Clarke x3, Will Green x2, Finley Herbert x2, Charlie Stevens, Reef Beer and Vinny Poynton. TA will now be at home to the winners of Exmouth or Coombe Dean in round 2.

Milan Ujj

Milan Ujj took part in the SW Club Levels 1-4 Championships on 27th November in Newton Abbot and acquired a gold medal. Well done, Milan we are very proud of your achievement!

Basketball

The year 8 and 9 basketball team travelled to Penryn College on Tuesday. It was a hard fought game against a strong side. The development of our team has been outstanding. Training continues on Thursday, new players always welcome.

Students of the Week

Year 7 – Benjamin Nicholson and Jessie Mountstevens

Year 8 – Indy Evans and Liam Anthony

Year 9 – Dolce Zulhayir and Harrison Davies

Year 10 – Samuel Eaton

Year 11 – Grace Povey and Ben Puddicombe

House Students of the Week

Year 7

Brunel – Alanna Butler

Christie – Jamie Tully

Darwin – Leon Snell

Fawcett – Aleta Stojic

Harrison – Dolly Gagg

Kitson – Ollie Martin

Nearne – Hattie Gamble

Pengelly – James Beer

Year 8

Brunel – Oliver Welsh

Christie – Scarlett Huxtable

Darwin – Ruby Sellick

Fawcett – Aleksandra Treder

Harrison – Kelsey Drew

Kitson – Faye Cassidy

Nearne – Briony Pightling

Pengelly – Amy Rogers

Year 9

Brunel – Buster Watson

Christie – Oliver Jones

Darwin – James Billingham

Fawcett – Theo Hardman

Harrison – Kowen Essiful

Kitson – Liam Trapp

Nearne – Lenny Mugliston

Pengelly – Erin Bond

Homework Students of the Week

Year 7

Christie – Caleb Harford-Brown

Darwin – Lewis Graham

Fawcett – Bella Pomerville

Harrison – Archie Norcott

Kitson – Max Warner

Nearne – Bodhi Williams

Pengelly – Mia Hawkes

Year 8

Brunel – Ashleigh Evans

Christie – Anna Pearn

Darwin – Daisy Hellier

Fawcett – Charlie Wise

Harrison – Larna Waller

Kitson – Ethan Lynch

Nearne – Oscar Mills

Pengelly – Carla Lawrence

Year 9

Brunel – Bayley Woodger

Christie – Mya Hoskin

Darwin – Lucas West

Fawcett – Daniel Billingham

Kitson – William Jackson

Nearne – Harry Smith

Pengelly – Paige Clements

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