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Keeping in Touch Lees Brook Community School’s Newsletter for Parents
A Founding Member of the Northworthy Trust
April 2017 Dear Parent Keeping in Touch It finally feels like Spring might be here and we are getting some sunshine. I am hoping that after the Easter holidays the students will be able to go out on the field during lunchtime and get some sunshine and fresh air. Record of Achievement Presentation Year 11 students have their examinations soon and then will be leaving Lees Brook. The Record of Achievement Presentation for Year 11 students will be held on Monday 15th May between 2.00pm and 3.00pm (week 2). As we are no longer in vertical tutor groups, we do not need to send the whole school home for the Record of Achievement Presentation as in previous years. A separate letter has been sent out to Y11 parents inviting them to this special event. Year 10 Work Experience The Year 10 students are due to go out on work experience on the weeks beginning the 3rd and 10th July 2017. I know there are a large number who have already secured places, however if your youngster still needs to find a placement, please urge them to make applications as soon as possible. Similarly, if you are able to offer a place for one of our students on work experience, please contact Mr Willan in school at [email protected]. Please be aware that a full health and safety risk assessment will be required before we are able to confirm any placement. Reader/Scribes We need to appoint additional readers and scribes to help with the forthcoming GCSE examinations. This involves working with students who qualify for additional support in their GCSE examinations. The rate of pay is £8.08 per hour and training will be given. Please contact Mr Taylor at [email protected] if you are interested in being involved with this. Adoption Please would you contact school to let us know if your child is adopted, as extra funding may be available to help your child in school. This information will be treated in the strictest confidence. Letter from Councillor Sara Bolton Please find attached a letter from Councillor Sara Bolton which she has asked to be circulated to parents/carers regarding the School Crossing Patrol Service. I have attached our latest extra curricular newletter, as you will see, it has been a very busy but exciting term! Best Wishes
Zoe House Headteacher
It’s Raining in Languages! This half term students have had a chance to experience some of the other languages that are represented in our school. Different students have prepared resources and are leading each session depending on their own expertise and experience. So far we have tried out Polish, Spanish and Swahili. Oh, and in case you were wondering why the umbrellas? Well ‐ we are learning the word for umbrella in a new language every week.
Sainsbury’s Active Kids Vouchers The Expressive Arts team are collecting vouchers to help with resources for the Dance Department. If you shop at Sainsbury’s be sure to save your vouchers ‐ we have a box near reception for students to hand in. UK Chess Challenge In January, 14 pupils started the first round of the UK Chess Challenge. Of these, the following seven players qualified for the Area Megafinals at the end of April. They are: Bartlomiej Dlugosz 7WAA Charlotte Townsend 9ZAI Leon Davenport 7WAA Alex Wills 7HAS Andrew Bridgewood 7HAS Charlie Johnstone 7WAA Dominic Sygnowski WAA Congratulations to all of them. We wish them well in the next round. Prom Bag Pack A selection of Year 11 students took part in bag packing at ASDA on Saturday 18 March 10.00am‐4.00pm to contribute towards the Prom 2017. There was just under £400 collected, thank you to everyone who supported this event.
Y9 History trip to the Staffordshire Regiment Museum and the National Memorial Arboretum Fifty Year 9 students went to the Staffordshire Regiment Museum where we were guided round a reconstructed WWI trench and shown weapons, uniforms and photographs from World War One. This really helped to bring our work on trench warfare to life. On the way back we went to the National Memorial Arboretum where we looked at some of the memorials to our armed forces. The ‘Shot at Dawn’ memorial to those who were killed by firing squad for desertion was particularly thought‐provoking.
Humanities Club Over the last term students in Humanities Club have been encouraged to get creative and to bring History and Geography alive. They have designed and created volcanoes using bottles, Papier Mache and paint, which we then had lots of fun exploding using bicarbonate of soda, vinegar and some food colouring. These created some great effects and gave students a good idea of how lava might behave after an explosion. They have also designed and created World War I trenches, complete with clay, barbed wire, duck boards and sandbags. These look fantastic and really show what a World War I trench was like.
Litter Pick in Local Community On 3 March, four Year 7 and one Year 8 student took part in a local community project in Chaddesden, led by the City Council. The project was to increase awareness of the issues of litter. The five students despite the heavy rain collected and filled bin bags full of dropped litter. Thank you for giving up your lunch hour and helping.
Reading Week Reading Week was a huge success! Books, poems, letters, and newspapers ‐ reading anything is what the week was about. We held our first ‘Books and Bagels’ event (our first ever reading group involving students and the local community). The books were good: the bacon butties were too! A young local singer songwriter Josh Kemp came in to lead a song writing workshop and inspired our students to write their own material: one of our students has even had the song he wrote in the workshop professionally recorded.
On Wednesday and Thursday our Year 7 & 8 students took part in our Harry Potter event. They were ‘sorted’ into houses, (Hufflepuff were the overall winners over the two days and both year groups) and made magical beasts – using the texts to create the most accurate creature. There were some amazing designs. They also wrote poems and designed a new challenge for the Triwizard Tournament. On Thursday Sam Rush (Derby County’s Chief Executive) visited us and led a reading workshop that was specifically targeted at Year 9 boys to encourage them to get reading. Sam loves reading and talks about ‘Fever Pitch’ by Nick Hornby as being one of his favourites. We hope the boys have been inspired to read ‐ not just to support Derby County!
The hugely successful week culminated in a ‘Celebration of Reading’ in the library on Friday afternoon. There were lots of parents, governors and other visitors who joined us to celebrate and to present awards to the winners of the 500 Words Short Story Competition. A very special well done to all the award winners: some of the stories were nothing short of brilliant. But a worthy mention to the overall Year Group Winners, Megan Barnett in Year 8 and Madison Barker in Year 7.
Tomorrow’s Engineers Roadshow On Friday 3 February, the 'Tomorrow's Engineers' roadshow visited Lees Brook. The event, funded by Rolls Royce, provides students with an insight into cutting edge Design and Engineering, including Product design, Programming and Robotics. Students had the chance to compete against each other operating robots, to solve real world design problems and at the same time, learn about the career opportunities available in Design and Technology. Students had an excellent time and went away with a better understanding of what Design and Engineering involves in the 21st century.
Google Expeditions On Monday 20th February Google Expeditions came into school. Google brought 60 sets of their Google Cardboard virtual reality resource for us to use in lessons throughout the day. Expeditions included 'A Trip to the North Pole', 'Time Jump: Beyond Domesday', 'Recycling/What happens to our trash' and 'Borneo Rainforest'. Students really enjoyed experiencing some of the areas we have been studying in Humanities, MFL and Technology.
Raising the Grade –University of Derby Revision Mathematics Workshop On March 9th, a group of Year 11 students spent a day at the University of Derby taking part in revision workshops for their forthcoming GCSE Maths examination. During the day students joined in revision sessions which were tailor‐made to cover parts of their GCSE course. The sessions were delivered by university tutors who commented on our students’ positive contributions and enthusiasm for the work undertaken. Our students and staff felt the day was useful and provided some valuable time for revision in a new environment. Hopefully this experience has supported their exam preparation and will contribute to their future success.
Going to the West End performance of the ‘Lion King’ was a great experience. It opened lots of doors to the many different opportunities available in theatre and the trip gave us a clearer understanding of what goes into making shows. It has taught us things that we would never learn in the classroom. It was a great experience we will never forget. Reviewed by Natasha Neale, Brooke Townley‐Jones and Ellie Dumelow
Students Perform at Chaddesden Park Primary School A group of performing arts students performed during Chaddesden Park’s morning assembly. They were a fantastic audience; really interested in how the students had started playing or dancing and asked Lees Brook students lots of questions. Our students were exemplary, aspiring a young audience. A very pleasant morning was had by all. Musical Evening Parent and students were entertained with a superb performance from students who are currently having musical tuition or studying dance at school. The evening took place in the Post 16 Centre which was acoustically perfect for the event. For the majority of students this was the first time they had performed to an audience. Well done!
Interface17 Year 10 dance students were successful in representing Derby City East which secured them a place at the County platform in Chesterfield. The day was a great experience for all, in the beautiful Pomegranate professional theatre. The evening performance proved to be a very high standard and our students really raised the bar with a fabulous performance by all. Well done Year 10!
Youth Summit – Pride Park On Tuesday 21 February, 6 students had the privilege of spending the day at Pride Park at the Youth Summit. This event was hosted by Derbyshire Police and it was centred on Project Zao (preventing knife crime in Derby). They sat overlooking the pitch and listened to five speakers over the day; the speakers had in some way all been involved in knife crime. Two had previously been involved in gangs and had committed crimes involving knives, they spoke about the dangers they used to face and how they have turned their lives around by making the correct choices, being brave and courageous and standing up for what they believe is right. They both help young people now who are in similar situations to what they were in, one fosters children and the other travels the world with his youth theatre company working with vulnerable youngsters. Another speaker was a mother of a victim who had been stabbed and murdered; she spoke about the impact of losing her son and her grandson losing his dad. A doctor spoke about the impact knife crime has on emergency staff who work tirelessly to try to save people’s lives and the devastation it causes to families. The final speaker was a Police Sergeant who had lost his brother to knife crime and the impact that it had on all of his family and dealing with the press and the court case of his brother’s killers who were 12 & 13 years old. In the afternoon the students took part in discussions with local Police Officers and talked about what they could do within their school to make their peers aware of the dangers and devastation of knife crime. Tweets were sent out to let their friends know what they were taking part in too. It was a great day, Mrs Stubbs, Miss Peck and Miss Woods were very proud of the students, they represented the school brilliantly.
BBC News School Report BBC News School Report gives 11‐16 year‐old students in the UK the chance to make their own news reports for a real audience. Our students in Years 8, 9 and 10 joined thousands of others across the country in making the news for a day. After an editorial breakfast, reporters got to work on creating their own news. They decided what kind of things matter to them and their readers and began researching. They had international, national and local news stories to prepare and developed their stories through interviewing. With the help of two Year 10 Editors, students not only wrote their news stories but also produced news bulletins which have been filmed to create a short news broadcast. A huge focus of the project this year across the BBC has been mental health and we were able to watch school reporters across the country taking part in a debate with mental health professionals, MPs and parents.
Visit to Cadbury World In February, as part of their Geography work on globalisation and Fairtrade, Year 9 students enjoyed a day trip to Cadbury World. They spent the day discovering how chocolate is made, how it is ethically sourced and of course, tasting it! They represented the school well and the trip really helped them in their lessons.
Visit to Jaguar Land Rover Factory On Friday 31 March, 49 students from Years 7 to 10 visited the Jaguar Land Rover factory in Birmingham, to learn about manufacturing processes and careers. Students were taken on a guided tour of the production facilities, seeing how a car is produced through each stage of manufacture, including body panel press shop, assembly line and final trim. During the visit, students also took part in a production line challenge, competing against each other to build a model car in the quickest time. Students were also given a talk by a Jaguar Land Rover Apprentice, to find out about careers at Jaguar Land Rover which was inspiring for many. We plan to run another trip to Jaguar Land Rover next academic year. Students who wish to find out more information about this should see Mr Waterhouse.
Spring It On 2017
In recognition to all students who took part in Spring It On 2017, it was extremely well received. The art and technology work was outstanding, Destiny Patel and Alexandra Ballard won the Technology and Art prizes through having most votes from the audience. A number of staff gave their time to support the evening and students showed dedication to their subject during rehearsals. We performed two matinees for our local primary schools and were fortunate to have Chaddesden Park Primary and The University of Derby performing; this showcased the transition of Dance through the Key Stages. We were joined by Derby Major Linda Winter and Councillor Sara Bolton on Wednesday evening. Sara made the following comments about the evening; It was a great show and the young people performed with confidence and professionalism. We both enjoyed your own Ant and Dec as their individual sense of humour shone through.
Huge congratulations to all involved!