duke of edinburgh road, teignmouth, devon, tq14 9hz : 01626 774091 | mill lane, teignmouth, devon,...

Exeter Road, Teignmouth, Devon, TQ14 9HZ : 01626 774091 | Mill Lane, Teignmouth, Devon, TQ14 9BB : 01626 772320For more news, why not visit our website www.teignmouth.devon.sch.uk

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IN THIS ISSUE

DUKE OF EDINBURGH

MILL LANE GARDEN PROJECTCafé 6 Branding

OUTSTANDING READING RECORDS

NATIONAL SCIENCE WEEK

READ WRITE INC

An outstanding achievement: the first model Read Write Inc School in Dev-

on. The headline feature in this edition of Wavelength recognises the excellent work of staff and students at Mill Lane in be-coming an example of outstanding nation-al practice in the best and most effective Phonics reading and literacy programme. The ability to read well and then write is a key gateway for all children in enabling them to understand all curriculum areas and to achieve success. The introduction of this programme, following intensive training for all staff, has been a cornerstone of the success at Mill Lane over the last

two years and it has been a real pleasure to witness first hand its implementation. It is immensely powerful to see the whole of Early Years, Reception and Key Stage 1 engaged in this for an hour each morning.Equally impressive in the last few weeks was the huge community response to the Ground Force Day at Mill Lane. Nu-merous volunteers including parents and friends helped the staff, children and Em-bercombe volunteers transform the chil-dren’s garden into a delightful, upgraded space suitable for growing and teaching. Many thanks to all who volunteered.At Exeter Road staff are focusing efforts on the last push towards public examinations success for Year 11, 12 and 13 students. Nu-merous extra classes and interventions are in place to give the students every possible preparation in coursework and examina-tion strategies, before the final events. So far predictions are very strong for the stu-dents but a lot is resting on the results for some. This year has seen the largest num-ber of our students apply for University

places and meeting their requested grades is an absolute priority for them. Sadly they will not have been able to take advantage of the purpose built 6th form centre, which is due to open after Easter, for their study facilities, but again, predictions for their results are nevertheless favourable.Finally I need to mention the Ofsted word. The secondary school (Exeter Rd) was giv-en extended time between the last inspec-tion in January 2010 and the next because of its continued success in examination results. However, it is now over four years since Ofsted visited and it is certain that the inspection will take place within the next year, possibly in the next term. At the min-ute, it is not certain whether an inspection would cover each school at the same time or just the secondary site. With this in mind I would like to remind you that the views of parents are sought by Ofsted and this will be done by request in written form at the time of the inspection or by electronic means on the Ofsted website at any time. The link to this is published on the home page of the website for your convenience. Following my last foreword which con-tained a paragraph about the storms and their effects on the community it is good to see the sun. I hope this continues for you and your family for the Easter break.

For more news, why not visit our website www.teignmouth.devon.sch.uk

FROM THE PRINCIPAL Dr A P Gray

During the summer term the annual reward trips take place for Years 7, 8, 9 and 10. Stu-dents who have accumulated enough mer-it points have already selected the exciting trip they wish to go on and payment will soon be due. As with all other school trips the best way to pay is via ParentPay. If you have not yet registered at www.parentpay.com please contact the Finance Office for your login details so that you can set up the account in good time. Details of the trip your child has chosen will appear on the Home screen of your ParentPay account once payment is required. Please note that the school no longer accepts cheques. ParentPay is also the most convenient way to pay for school dinners, uniform and other items such as revision guides that become available throughout the school year. Using ParentPay is as easy as any other form of online shopping and your card details are not stored by the system.

GOLD AWARD WINNERS

Congratulation to our Platinum and Gold award winners!

Jordan BairdJamie BelfieldEllie BrooksAlexander Carpen-terMolly CarpenterMegan ChapmanJack DoxseySavannah EdmondJake EmmertonJessica EvansJodie FosterMaisy HarbertMilllie HeathEllen HuggonsonJo Woolner

Libby JamesChris KempCourtney KingLucy LefebvreBeth LibbyTom LibbyEloise LockyerJoel MoorsConnor NoycePhoebe OversonIzzy RackleyAmber RosserChristian SolwaySteven StaffordJasmine TickellIsabel Walker

PLATINUM AWARD WINNERS

Alice Aplin Rochelle Smith Jennifer Webster

22nd April – non pupil day (staff training)

24th / 25th April – GCSE PE Mod-eration Days

25th April – Year 9 & 10 Catering trip to the Exeter Food Festival

28th April – Year 13 Drama Exam

1st May – Year 11 GCSE Drama exam

5th May – Bank holiday

6th May – Drop Everything and Read

12th May - KS2 SATS week


On Thursday 13th March Mill Lane held a ‘Ground Force Day’ to

transform our Tides garden. We got Embercombe to come and help us and made sure that every child in the school got involved in what was a fan-tastic day. The sun shone all day and we had great fun whilst working really hard to completely change the garden.We cleared some existing beds of bushes and weeds, leaving lots of room for new plants. We made bench-es to sit on and sunk them into the ground. We made and filled lots of new raised beds that we are going to fill with fruit and vegetables; some of the fruit trees are already in. Every

child and lots of parents got stuck into the work and although we had the ex-perts to show us the way, we wouldn’t have got it all done if we hadn’t all

contributed. There were lots of different jobs to be done, so all children, from the smallest in Nursery, to the biggest in Year 6 could lend a hand. Jobs varied from dig-

ging, to nailing, from pushing wheelbar-rows to pulling up weeds, from planting trees to laying turf. Shovelling compost was a real favourite – we moved tonnes of it!Thanks to everyone who helped – there were lots of volunteers and some children came back after school and worked until 5 o’clock. The garden looks great now and will be even better once we have plant-ed everything – more news to follow.

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the New

Coffee Shop - Café 6

Thanks to a generous grant awarded by The Helen Foundation, we have been privileged to welcome Michelle Greenwood-Brown in school, as a vis-iting artist, to work with our Year 10 students. Michelle and the students have created the beautiful mosaic sign for Café 6, our new Coffee Shop facility which is open to Sixth From, Staff and visitors. The Café is proving increas-ingly popular since the installation of the new Italian coffee machine and is now being opened up at 8:00 a.m. to provide a breakfast club for all year groups. The sign was inspired by a de-sign submitted by Tom Chudleigh-Ev-ans who was awarded a prize by Roger

and Annie Kirk from The Helen Foundation, when they visited to view the work in pro-gress. Many thanks to Michelle for working

with the students and also to Miss Wilson, who co-ordinated the lessons and provided her classes with such a valuable experience.


NEW READING RECORDS SET AT MILL LANE

At our primary phase, library book issues have risen enormously – this academic year children have already borrowed over 8,000 books, which is more than the total issues from last year of 7,452 and we still have an-other four months to go! We have also seen a similar dramatic increase in Accelerated Reader quizzes taken – number of words read for 2012/2013 stood at 5,311,784. Currently, it has just tipped 20 million! Not surprisingly our primary library is busier than it has ever been, which is brilliant to see.In order to support the quizzing of short low level books, Exeter Road library staff delivered a brand new class set of 150 Ac-celerated Reader books to Class 3 on World Book Day. The set includes some lovely new picture books and reading books for

their classroom. These books are part of a pilot to see whether having a wide range of short Accelerated Reader books for younger children to read and quiz on in class time, will help to improve reading levels and ease the footfall in the library.

“The children are absolutely thrilled to have their very own ‘mini library’ and have taken great pleasure in reading the wonderful new books. This has given the children in my class the opportunity to supplement their reading with extra ex-citing new stories without having to wait until break, lunchtime and after school to borrow them from our busy library!”

Careers South West are now offering an online advice service to ALL Teign-mouth Community School students to support the information, advice and guidance offered by Careers and Per-sonal Adviser, Rachel Bolt, in school. The ‘Adviser Online’ service is available Monday to Friday, 12Noon – 8pm (ex-cluding public holidays). Students can chat with a Careers South West Advis-er who can offer information on career routes and subject choices, job searching, college courses, CV writing and more!

The Careers South West Adviser On-line is acces-

sible via the Careers South West web-site: www.careerssw.org/adviser-online.

Children, staff and directors at Mill Lane were celebrating at a special assembly last week. After introducing the Read Write Inc Phonics programme just over a year ago we have achieved their ‘model school’ status, the first school in Devon to do so.Leah Sanders, our RWI trainer, presented the certificate from the Oxford Universi-ty Press to Mrs Quinn and Dr Gray. Oth-

er schools will be able to visit us and find out how it is helping our children to become good readers and writers.The children d e m o n s t r a t e d

some classic RWI celebration moves un-der Miss Lilley’s able direction, then en-joyed milk and cookies with the visitors.

Log on to ruthmiskintraining.com to find us on their UK model school map!

Great news! Plym-outh University has funded Enact Solutions to tour the southwest with their suc-cessful Healthcare Drama presenta-

tion. This was for all Year 8 students (not just those choosing Health or Social Care).The tour was in our area on Friday 14th. The daytime performances have been funded by Plymouth University. A fun and thought-provoking show de-signed to engage young people to con-sider a career in healthcare, help them to realise their dreams, raise their as-pirations and inspire them to succeed. Healthcare Success is packed with in-

formation, advice and guidance. This was a fast paced, fun presentation.

LONDON PHOTOGRAPHY TRIP

On the 27th of February, as part of the Art & Design and Photography course, a hand-

ful of art and photography students man-aged to hoist themselves out of bed at an unearthly hour for a teenager, to venture up to London. Only equipped with a pen-cil and a sketch book the students sought to take inspiration from some of the lead-ing artists and photographers in the world, showcased at the National Gallery located on Trafalgar square, and the Tate modern on the South-bank. Tate Modern is the most popular art gallery in the world with over 13,000 students and art-enthusiasts alike flocking through the door each day.

After squeezing out of a busy Underground train we went to the Tate as a special exhibi-tion of Richard Hamilton was being shown. His work ranges from comical collages to satirical paintings, from the legendary ‘dirty protests’ to the war in Iraq. We were asked to draw some of the pieces we found in-teresting, but since my drawing skills are limited to very basic stick figures, I opted for writing down names. After looking at more artworks in the Tate’s collection, we hopped on a tube to Trafalgar Square to view paintings at the National Gallery. This was especially useful to the students who are using the brief of ‘Openings’ in their exam, as many paintings held religious themes. I chose ‘Disguise’ I did not the find this museum as fruitful but it was great to see some of the paintings that have in-spired the more modern works in the Tate. After such a jam-packed day, we jumped onto a train for the long jour-ney home, ready for a long write up of the events the next day. I actually managed to get out of bed in time for school!

By Callum Naish Year 11

20 pupils went to Arosa in Switzerland during the February half term holiday for the Teignmouth Community School Ski Trip. During the week the pupils either snowboarded or skied learning from ex-pert instructors for 5 hours a day. On the first day it snowed heavily which made the snow conditions perfect especially the untouched off piste powder. For most of

the week despite being 2500m above sea level and surrounded by snow there was glorious sunshine which made the views spectacular. Evening activities such as ice skating and a disco kept the pupils enter-tained après ski. There were prizes award-ed for most improved and top snowboard-er the winners of these awards were Lyle Seaton-Collins and Lewis Glanvill respec-tively. The top skier was Oliver Cannoni-er and the biggest jump award went to James D’Allen. The pupils had a great time and really enjoyed seeing their instructors put on a snow show on the final evening.

Students at Mill Lane have been studying Hot’n’Cold and went to Teignmouth Muse-um to look at how people kept warm through

history. We had a chance at dressing up to see what different materials wealthy and poor people used and how that affected their warmth. We tried some dishes from Tudor times that people would eat dur-ing cold winters including pease pudding and stew with dumplings. We were rath-er shocked to hear people even smeared their bodies with goose fat to keep warm!! We also had the chance to look at and han-dle types of historical hot water bottles.



RAISING MONEY FOR CHARITYFor RNLI SOS day pupils at Teignmouth Community School raised £855. As well as all pupils wearing non uniform 8APB did a Sponsor our Silence and 8KEM did a wa-

ter themed photo shoot to raise money. Megan Chapman, the Student Voice repre-sentative from 8APB, presented the cheque to Barrie Behenna from Teignmouth RNLI.

Other money raised around the school included £26.70 for CLIC, £26.50 for Dev-on Air Ambulance, £135.95 to be split be-tween leukaemia research and Marie Curie and a further 35.50 for the RNLI. Excellent efforts from our 6th form and 8 KEM.

National Science and Engineering Week took place 14th – 23rd March 2014. The Exeter Road site marked the occasion by hosting several lunchtime sessions which were open to all students. Activities in-cluded a chance to plant some seeds and

also an exploration into static electricity using the Van der Graaf generator, which is a truly hair-raising experience. Later in the week students were offered the chance to make putty and to ignite methane bubbles and produce huge flames. The week end-

ed with a session of dissections, looking at the structure of hearts, kidneys and eyes.In addition to the school activities, Mr Gage took 2 groups of students out on trips. On the Monday 45 year 7 students went to the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth where they were treated to a behind the scenes experience. They learnt about the importance of pH in ma-rine tanks, medicines that are derived from ocean creatures, how marine birds are adapted to fly great distances, eco-logical sampling in the ocean and how the Fibonacci sequence appears in na-ture, designing and creating their own nautilus shells. They then finished the day watching a dive show in one of the aquar-iums largest tanks and discovered how divers communicate when under water. On the Thursday some Year 10 students went to Plymouth University for a show called ‘Supermarket Scientist’. The idea of the show was to demonstrate to students a range of scientific principles and theo-ries using only products you can purchase in a supermarket. Activities included how

to make and use a pH indicator from red cabbage, how to make visible longitudi-nal waves using a plant pot as an air gun and the properties of non-Newtonian flu-ids using cornflour and a loud speaker.At Mill Lane, students were treated to a visit by Elfic the Jester, who ran sessions on gravity and recycling, using his circus skills to enhance the learning experience. Each class also had the opportunity to do some extra science activities, including making lava lamps and rocket balloons, and taking part in a mini-bug microscope challenge.

On Friday 21st March the Arts Centre was full to the brim with over 90 orchestral in-struments and players who spent the day preparing for a collaborative concert. Dev-on Youth Symphony and Concert Orchestra played alongside students from Teignmouth Community School, Coombeshead College,

and respective feeder Primary schools.The day was led by Paul Painter and his tutors from the County Music Service. It was a great success with a wonderful concert for the parents and students at the end of the day.Kip Pratt, Music Liaison Officer for Teignmouth Learning Community, said “ The day was great fun with a real sense of community through music.” If you are interested in being involved in the next project or would like more infor-mation on music at Teignmouth Commu-nity School please contact Patrick Satur-ley, Curriculum Team Leader for Music.


MILL LANE TRIP TO YARNER WOODChildren from Mill Lane were taken on a trip to Yarner Wood. The trip was based on the topic “natural disasters”. We had to do some map reading and shelter building based on the fact that some natural disas-ter had forced us to leave our homes! Andy

Bailey, who led the session, tested our shelters for strength and resistance to wa-ter. We then finished the day learning how to build a camp fire. It was a fantastic day!

Year 2 went on a trip to Powderham castle as part of their ‘Princesses and Knights’ top-ic. They explored all of the different parts of the castle and even found some secret

passages! They learned about the history of the castle and handled some artefacts.

i-DAT is a lab for playful experimentation with creative technologies and has been delivering world-class research and cultur-al activities since 1998. i-DAT became an Arts Council England National Portfolio Or-ganisation in 2012 and continues to evolve its research, pushing the boundaries of digital arts and creative media practice.On the 26th February the Year 12 Creative Media went to Plymouth University for the Digital Art and Technology workshop. Stu-dents were shown around the university’s impressive iDAT facilities. Activities includ-ed game design and immersive media in the dome projection room. Throughout the day students participated in several lectures covering topics from internet safe-ty to game design. A fun day was had by all, where students made their own games and were gently introduced to the cod-ing culture. It was a great opportunity to meet coders, game designers and people who have gone on to work in the industry.

Year 10 Resistant Materials students were visited by Richie Windsor from yoyoz.co.uk and shown a variety of skill toys such as Yo-Yos and Diablos as part of their skill toy project. They were shown the development of Yo-Yo design and the wide range of designs that are available.They were then allowed to play with the toys that were brought in carrying out product analysis on them learning what works and how they could be improved. They will now begin designing their own toys for Richie to look at after Easter.The first Bronze Duke of Edinburgh ex-

pedition took place the first weekend in March, with 2 teams of students tak-ing part. The teams walked all or part of the Templar Way on Saturday and then camped in the glorious sunshine. On Sunday they walked parts of the coast-al path to Exeter in very wet conditions but completed it in high spirits. For many this is the last section of their award as they have already completed their vol-unteering, skills and physical activities.If anyone is interested in signing up for the Duke of Edinburgh, bronze, silver or gold awards, both students and staff aged 14-25 please see Miss Hellier or Mr MolyneuxMany thanks to Miss Lihou who was the Assessor for the expedition.


SPORTS NEWSYEAR 3/4 GYMNASTICS FESTIVAL

On Tuesday 28th January around 200 Year 3 and 4s came to Teignmouth Community School’s Sports Hall for two and a half hours to take part in a Gymnastics Festival. Stu-dents from 6 of the 7 local primary schools

came together to form groups of 8-10 so that the students could experience social-ising and working with others. In the first half of the festival, groups rotated around 5 different stations including: rolling, jumping, weight on hand, balancing and pair work.

A group of Year 7 girls ran each of the stations independently or with a part-

ner. The level of leading was extremely high; they were all able to give positive feedback and instruction, and work with their group to get the best out of them.It was a great sight seeing 200 young students being led by Year 7s, all do-ing gymnastics at the same time. The level of work produced was brilliant. While students rested, the room was trans-formed into tracks for vaulting and floor rou-tines. In the second half of the festival new groups then learnt the floor routines and vaults that many of them will be using in the tournament later in the term. The students had the choice of completing 2 floor routines and a number of vaults that varied in difficult-ly. On the hardest vault students had to use a

spring board to get on or over the box vault.The Year 7 leaders were fantastic and all of the students really enjoyed the festival and will be building on their skills in les-sons throughout the term in preparation for the Partnership Gymnastics Tournaments.

Well done to the Year 9 and 10 netball team for participating in a netball fixture against St Cuth-bert Mayne. The Year 9 match was a tough game re-

sulting in a 17-0 loss and the Year 10 girls lost 9-5 but the result did not reflect the game at all. Both teams demonstrated some excellent netball skills so keep com-ing to practice on a Monday night ready for more fixtures we have that are coming up!

GIRLS’ FOOTBALL TEAM

On Monday 10th February our Year 7,8 and 9 girls’ football team played St Cuthbert Mayne at home in cold, wet and windy conditions! They worked brilliantly as a team and played a great level of football taking a 1-0 lead in the first half due to Amber Sullivan’s (8KEM)goal. Unfortunate-ly, although Teignmouth were the stronger team, we managed to as-sist 2 goals for the other team los-ing 2-1! This was unlucky but well done girls you played a good game!

WELL DONEDan Taylor 10 DL has been selected to rep-resent the Western region in the National Regatta Trials. This is a tremendous achieve-

ment and if his team wins they will be repre-senting GB at the next Olympics. The trials will be starting on 25th of April in Not-tingham. We all

look forward to see-ing how Dan gets on. More exciting news :Alfie Kelly Stac-ey 9JER has been short-listed to com-pete in an Interna-tional Boxing Tour-nament in Finland.

duke of edinburgh road, teignmouth, devon, tq14 9hz : 01626 774091 | mill lane, teignmouth, devon,...

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