season greetings! - winchcombeschool.co.uk · season’s greetings! christmas lunch thursday 19th...
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WINCHCOMBE NEWS
December, 2019
A round-up of recent events in and outside school
Season’s
Greetings!
Christmas Lunch Thursday 19th December
Mary and her team in the kitchen served up their usual delicious turkey roast or Caramelised
Butternut Squash, Brie and Cranberry Tart for vegetarians.
Mary has to order ingredients at least a week in advance, so next year, if your child wants
Christmas lunch, please look out for the letter and order early!
In this issue:
Christmas Celebrations in School
Live Lounge Music Evening
Remembrance Day
STEM Science Show and Lectures
Careers News
Y10 Mock Interviews & Work Experience
Library & Catering
Le Théâtre Français (MFL Department)
WiSPA House Hampers Fund-raising
Health Awareness Day
Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme
PE Department Reports
Headmaster’s Message
Kitchen staff have every-
thing ready to go for when
the first sitting of Christmas
dinner starts at 1pm.
The chocolate fudge pud-
dings are all ready for
collection
Tables are laid for Christmas
dinner and waiting for stu-
dents to arrive back from
the Carol Service
School Carol Service—Thursday 19th December
We are always delighted to be able to visit Encounter Church on
Gretton Road for our annual Carol Service, which is large enough
(just!) to accommodate half of the school and their teaching staff.
Two Houses walk down to the church for each service, with Y11
prefects performing marshalling duties to help everyone to cross the
road safely. Mrs Turner organises the service, this year she was as-
sisted by Ms Broekman, our peripatetic strings teacher, who also
played violin with the student ensemble.
Rehearsing at school for Carol Service
Pastor Mark Bailey (above) ad-
dressed the students, staff and
parents who attended each of
the services and reminded us
that we are all loved.
Left: Encounter Church awaits
the arrival of students attend-
ing the first service
The service comprised congre-
gational carols (O Come All Ye
Faithful and Hark the Herald
Angels Sing) interspersed with
Christmas-themed poetry and
readings plus instrumental and
vocal pieces.
A fabulous start to the festive
season!
HOUSE DAY — WEDNESDAY 18th December
Well done to Sudeley and Langley who were the joint winners of the House debate on
Climate Change (thank you to Geography teacher Miss Hale, for putting together a thought
-provoking Power Point to help start the discussion).
Meanwhile in the gym, Years 7-9 played in a table tennis tournament, with Sudeley taking
the lead, next Cleeve in 2nd place, then Langley followed very closely by Prescott.
If any KS3 students are interested in playing table tennis, Mr Waller is still running his
Monday lunchtime club in the gym.
Live Lounge Music Evening
A colourful welcome to the Live Lounge !
Mrs Turner’s Live Lounge Music Evening in No-
vember was a student-led event, showcasing
over twenty talented students from all year
groups who performed a mix of cover versions
and their own compositions.
An enthusiastic audience also welcomed the
return of former students Izzy Winstanley (2017
Leaver), Molly Albutt, Ben Carley-McCauley,
Aidan Cheale and Isabel Cornwall (2018 Leavers).
Mrs Turner says that the money from ticket sales
(approx. £150) will contribute to the further
development of performing arts resources and
equipment - we look forward to watching anoth-
er musical production next summer!
The Lion Sleeps Tonight Ensemble
Remembrance Day 11th November 2019
Our Head Boys and Girls attended the Winchcombe Abbey Terrace Remembrance
Service on Sunday 10th November with Headteacher Mr Templeton and Assistant
Head Mr Young. A two-minute silence was held on Monday 11th November at
11am on the car park at the front of school. The whole school stood in their tutor
groups at a short ceremony in which four pupils who are members of the Bishops
Cleeve Air Cadets lowered the Union Jack to half mast as a mark of respect. Former
student Jerome Edwards (2017 Leaver) played The Last Post and Reveille.
Ed Cowper (Y10) was in the audi-
ence; he writes:
‘On Tuesday 26th November, many
talented musicians of Winchcombe
school, including ex-pupil Izzy Win-
stanley, performed in Winch-
combe’s Live Lounge with a variety
of different musical performances.
The pieces ranged from smooth
solos to a brilliant finale of “The
Lion Sleeps Tonight” performed by
y10 GCSE music students. They used
various instruments such as the
xylophone and the saxophone. It
was a brilliant evening which show-
cased the talent of Winchcombe
School’s Music Department.’
Stem - news from the science department
Mr Squire, Head of Science, writes:
“On Monday 25th November we welcomed the STEM roadshow team once again. They
represent the combined effort of the RAF and BAE in bringing Science, Technology, Engi-
neering and Maths (STEM) into schools. Each year they bring in exciting real life examples of
STEM careers and cool gadgets to engage audiences in years 7 and 8. This year they brought
in Sphero robots, silly hats and a full size Zorb to explain concepts of mobile phone commu-
nication, programming and encryption. Thanks once again to the roadshow team for an
exciting, educational and engaging show. We hope to see them again next year.”
Tom: STEM visited and talked about
Engineering in the Navy and RAF and
how computation is valuable and rele-
vant to everyday life. It didn’t feel like
an ordinary thing because of the inter-
action they showed, making things
relatable and easier to engage in. Hover
boards were part of the show and it
was cool watching them race around
whilst they were talking. They were all
quite funny because they were using
puns and play-on-words to get their
point across.
Another side of the visit was under-
standing mathematics and equations.
To demonstrate how many circumfer-
ences it takes to get from one side of
the room to another, one of them
climbed into a large inflated ball and
was rolled by students to the other end
of the room.
A cool new gadget was tried out by
lucky students: a small ball that could
change colour and roll every which way
at the click of a button. After that in-
credibly interesting and informative talk
I am definitely considering a job in
STEM.
Jasmine: The STEM show was a lot of
fun and taught me and others a lot
more about phones and new technolo-
gy.
Before the show, I wasn’t interested at
all in STEM but afterwards I was more
interested in it and wanted to learn
more. I liked how they included us in the
experiments - not a lot of shows do this,
so it was nice that we could get in-
volved.
My favourite part of the show was
when they got the giant zorb and
pushed it to the other side with one of
the presenters inside filming it so we
could see her on the screen.
They explained the show well so that
everyone could understand.
Jasmine Phelps and Tom Hunter (both 8CL) watched the show; here are their
impressions:
Year 8 Trip to The Gloucestershire Schools’ Christmas Lectures
A group of very keen Year 8 budding scientists
headed off to Dean Close School at the beginning
of December for the Christmas Lectures. Put on
by the Cheltenham Festivals team, they aim to
inspire students in future STEM roles (Science,
Technology, Engineering and Maths) with exciting
and innovative presentations.
The first lecture was by Antonia Forster and she
looked at ‘The Secret Stars of the Space Race’. As
a scientist working in the field of virtual reality,
we found out about
how the lunar land-
ing of 1969 was
broken down into 5 main problems and how each of these was
solved.
As part of this, we saw two of our students picked by Antonia, to
demonstrate the difficulties of computer programming. Arianwen
had to program a blindfolded Tom, to make a sandwich with just
simple code. Who knew caramel biscuit spread worked so well
with barbeque sauce? Tom even tried it just to see!
Mrs A Hamblin
Stem - news from the science department (continued)
If students have been inspired by their introductions to STEM and want to attend a
specialist Engineering, Design and Digital/Cyber academy after finishing GCSEs at Winch-
combe, SGS Berkeley Green Technical College (near Stroud) are now accepting applications for
post-16.
https://academytrust.sgscol.ac.uk/sgs-berkeley-green-utc
Careers news
Or would you prefer to join
the farming industry?
We’ve heard from the Three
Counties Showground in Mal-
vern that there is a bursary avail-
able to 18-25 year olds living in
Gloucestershire who are plan-
ning to study an agriculture-
related subject.
Maybe someone in your family
would like to apply - or perhaps
one of our current students
might find this useful in a couple
of years’ time if the Society con-
tinues to offer bursaries in fu-
ture years. Worth a look!
Careers news (continued)
On Friday 15th November, we were delighted that over 20 local volunteers with experience of
interviewing in the workplace were able to visit school to give our Year 10 students an oppor-
tunity to practise their interview technique.
The students had previously been asked to complete a ‘mock’ job application form, which was
then reviewed by their interviewer. Each student spent around twenty minutes being inter-
viewed and receiving feedback.
There will be a further opportunity for current Y10 students to practise in March 2020, when
we’ll ask them to review the Personal Statement part of their application form.
If you have experience of interviewing at work and would like to become involved in similar
future events, please contact [email protected]. It is a very positive experi-
ence for all involved!
Sarah Edwards
Isabella Carter (10PR) was one of the students involved; she writes:
My mock interview experience was very beneficial, it helped me to understand what a
real interview would be like and the interviewer was very polite and he was interested
in what I had to say about my future plans and school life.
The interview made me more confident in terms of speaking to an employer and I think
it has made me feel more prepared for when I have a job interview in the future.
Year 10 Work Experience
Year 10 students also spent a week out of school early
in December at Work Experience with a large variety of
employers.
Theo Young (10SU) was lucky enough to secure a place-
ment at Swansea City FC Media Centre and his work
was published in the programme for the Championship
match Swansea v Blackburn Rovers, which was tele-
vised on 11th December.
Well done Theo!
Mrs Barnes and Mrs Cowper have been or-
ganising Christmas-themed activities in the
library, with Christmas pictures, letters to Santa
quiz, card and gift box making and a Christmas mu-
sic quiz - one event each lunch break.
Mrs Barnes says, “There has been a fantastic amount of reading done this term. Nearly 63
million words were read by KS3 pupils and we already have 8 word millionaires! At our as-
sembly yesterday we celebrated the effort and achievement of our pupils, most of whom are
fully participating in Accelerated Reader and are completing their 20 minutes a day reading
each evening. We very much look forward to next term and the opportunity to introduce
pupils to all the lovely new books we have just added to our well-stocked library.“
What’s been happening in the
library Recently?
A Request from the Catering Department
Mrs Brooks asks - if you happen to have any unwanted sweet tubs
or tins after Christmas - such as those pictured right - please could
you send them into the Catering Department for students to use to
take home their cooking? Thank you!
p.s. Ms Paxton in Science is also collecting plas-
tic milk bottle tops for a friend who uses them
to raise money for guide dogs.
MFL: French play (le theatre Français)
Following their resounding success with previous year groups,
Mrs Playfair (Head of MFL) arranged for Onatti Productions to visit the school in mid-November
with their French language play, Ecris-Moi (’Write to Me’). All Y7 students watched the perfor-
mance.
Reviews have been submitted by Imigin-Mai Perry, Anabelle Martin, Jessica Hall & Skye Dunlop,
Amber Herbert and Philippa Fleck. Thank you to all of them for sharing their views with us.
Imigin-Mai Perry: I really enjoyed the French play about René and Ashley it was especially
good because I could hear really well and see really well because I was at the back. Did you know
that Ashley lives in Cardiff and Renée lives in France? I felt they were very organised and it was
very entertaining when they got everyone involved and embarrassed the students. In the play
there was a man and a lady and they were emailing each other but one was French and one was
English so they had to know how to write in a different language. The lady invited Ashley round
and she was looking for him at the train station with a sign in her hand saying his name, he was
hiding behind a magazine. Finally when she found him they thought they were the same gender
so they didn’t want to hang around. Ashley thought it was the worst trip ever. In the end they
liked each other and visited The Eiffel Tower and many more places.
Over all it was a really good play and I would recommend it very much to the new year 7s. I give
it 5/5 stars.
Annabelle Martin: This play was one of the best plays I have ever watched. One of my favour-
ite parts was when they came into the audience and got people to hold up signs so they could
visit all their favourite places. It was also quite fascinating to find out what they eat. Renée [the
girl from France] eats snails almost every night. However Ashley [the boy from England] eats
normal English dinners including burgers and pizza.
The funniest part of the play in my opinion was when Ashley accidentally broke Renée’s toy di-
nosaur [I think it even made the teachers laugh!]. I would definitely recommend this group of
actors to different schools. I would give this play a 5 star review!
Jessica Hall and Skye Dunlop: The play was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen. My favourite
part was when they came into the audience and chose different people to hold up the signs. I
also liked the fact they performed it in French and English. The Onatti actors were amazing and I
thought it was very entertaining. The French actress was called Renée and the English-speaking
one was called Ashley. They started by emails and then they met up in Paris.
The play was very funny; I thought the funniest part was when Ashley knocked Renée’s dinosaur
off the bed.
Amber Herbert: On Thursday 14th November at about 9.30, the Ecris-Moi play by Onati started
and I would 100% recommend it to soon to come Year 7s. It was about a boy named Ashley from
Cambridge and a girl named Renée, who were pen pals.
My favourite part was when the actors got volunteers to hold signs of places and acted like they
were going there and it was quite funny. Another one of my favourite party were when Ashley
found out that Renée was a girl and Renée found out that Ashley was a boy.
I thought that it was very well organised as well as the quality. I could tell that the actors had
practised as the costume changes were very quick. I also thought that the actors were very con-
fident with their lines. Overall I would give the play a 5 star review.
Philippa Fleck: On Thursday 14th November, Onatti Theatre Productions came to Winchcombe
School to perform to the whole of Y7, leaving everyone with a smile on their face.
At around 9.15am, students gathered in the hall to watch a French play by Onatti. The story was
about an English boy called Ashley writing to a French girl called Renée They get on well through
Email until Renée invites Ashley over to Dordogne. When Ashley gets to France they don’t rec-
ognise each over as they are looking for different people. After a while they find each other and
go back to Renée’s house both disappointed. They don’t speak to each other until the last full
day when they go shopping around France. This introduces marvellous places and gets the audi-
ence involved by acting out the landmarks, this made the audience laugh a lot. When they get
back they realise that Ashley must go home to Cambridge again, but before he leaves Renée
invites him back in the holidays. This ends the play and the whole audience gave a giant round
of applause to them. I would highly recommend this play to other year 6’s and year 7’s as it is a
fun way to learn French.
WiSPA Christmas Tombola and House Hampers
Thank you for your generous
donations for the House
Hampers as well as the
Chocolate Tombola stall at
the town’s Christmas Fayre.
You have helped us raise
around £1,000 for the school!
Carol Service 2019
If you have any final online Christmas
shopping to do, please take a few
minutes to sign up to our Easyfundrais-
ing account (Winchcombe School Asso-
ciation - Glos). If you visit Amazon,
Argos, John Lewis or M&S, we may get
a percentage - as another retailer says,
every little helps!
WiSPA also collects used inkjet cartridges, which we
send to Recycle4Charity, who pay £1 for certain
types of printer cartridges: Canon, Dell, HP,
Lexmark, Neopost and Samsung. So if you have any
of these, please bring them into school.
Health awareness day in school
On 21st November, a number of different organisations, including the police, nurs-
es, drugs counsellors and youth support groups visited school to talk to KS3 stu-
dents in an informal setting. Cora Bolton 9LA gives us an insight here:
Throughout the day, classes were given the opportunity to visit different stations in the school
hall focused on mental health and wellbeing. These included information about young carers,
drugs and police work, smoking, school counselling services and first aid.
At the first aid station, we all learned how to do CPR on
adults, children and babies. For babies, you need to use two
fingers to press down on the chest. We found out that every-
body needs 100-120 compressions per minute and that chil-
dren and adults require 30 compressions per 2 breaths.
I found out that a young carer is a child who is responsible
for caring for older or younger mem-
bers of the family. They may require
help and emotional support with this responsibility.
From the police I learned about the different jobs that police dogs do,
such as using scent to detect drugs and catching and holding criminals. I
also got some police dog Top Trumps!
There was also a wall displaying post-it notes describing different strategies to help maintain
good mental health, such as doing sport, talking to relatives and people you trust and listening
to music.
Overall, the experience was beneficial and helped spread awareness of health and wellbeing in
a memorable way.
Next WiSPA meeting is 21st January.
Quiz fans - watch out for our next
one which we hope to hold in March!
Duke of Edinburgh’s award
Mrs Caroline Russell is delighted that Year 9s have chosen to undertake such an
amazing assortment of volunteering, skills and physical activities as part of their
Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.
Helping at Rainbows / Scouts / Brownies / Cubs
Youth work Missing Maps organisation Fund-
raising charity work Cookery Club
Library Reading Buddies Helping with after-
school clubs (netball, football, hockey, rugby)
Helping the elderly /children / grandparents
Helping the community Guide dog training Gar-
dening Working in local café / radio station /
riding school environmental work Teaching
others a foreign language (French / Japanese)
Teaching dance / music / the ukulele.
Running Swimming Tennis Rugby Walk-
ing Street Dance Hip Hop Dancing Horse
Riding Football Netball Athletics Fitness
Gym Hockey Table Tennis Karate
Taekwondo Golf Climbing
Clay pigeon shooting Music Playing an
instrument Refereeing Umpiring
Drawing Pet Care Learning about Ma-
chinery Cooking Agriculture Learn-
ing a Foreign Language Rock Climbing Knots
Drama Horse Handling Gardening
Singing Cricket batting in Nets Netball
Shooting
The question is: Where will they go for their ??!
Charity fund-raising in school
During the final week of term, the Midwinter House Day (non-uniform/Christmas Jumper Day)
on Wednesday 18th December has raised just over £350, to be split between Save the Children
and ScooBDoo, supporting Gloucester Hospital’s neonatal care; these two charities were cho-
sen by the School Parliament students as this year’s beneficiaries. If you still owe £1 for wear-
ing non-uniform, please bring it to Finance asap.
Mrs Staddon’s Coffee Morning and silent auction for staff
(held on Tuesday 17 December) for Crisis, the homeless chari-
ty, has raised an amazing £460, which equates to funding for
15 places at a Crisis shelter this Christmas.
The talented Mrs Sutton (Exams Officer by day, but clearly a
cake decorating super hero when she gets home!) created this
Christmas fruit and nut cake as one of the auction lots.
Congratulations!!
If you have news about your child’s success outside
school and want to share it with the school community,
please do email details to their Head of House.
Sports Fixtures News (autumn/winter term)
Netball results (from Mrs Russell):
25/10/19: Congratulations to the Year 10 girls who played against a challenging team of Year
10/11 girls from All Saints’ Academy and managed a draw. Also to the Year 8 girls who scraped
a win against ASA year 8 girls.
Well done to all girls for managing to keep their cool and for representing Winchcombe school
with a positive and respectful attitude. I’m proud of you girls - well done!
7/11/19: Congratulations to the Year 7 girls who played 5 matches in very cold conditions last
at ASA. The B team came 4th and the A team just missed out by 1 point to come a very close
runners up. Well played everybody, fantastic effort.
Rugby results (from Mr Coles and Mrs Marsh):
23/11/19: Year 7 team entertained Pittville Year 7 boys at Winchcombe today. Pittville got off to a great start catching the Winchcombe boys asleep and scored from the start of the game.
Then the Winchcombe boys started to take control with great runs by Louis Hockey supported by Alfie Kennard with scrum half Liam Hockey supplying the back line with quick ball.
Charlie Bingham started controlling the back line with Jacob Organ showing great pace on the wing with Winchcombe coming out the winners: 20 points to 5.
Well done boys - great performance!
12/12/19: Mrs Marsh took 14 boys from Year 9 to an inter-schools’ Touch Rugby Festival to celebrate their hard work. Mrs Marsh says they were fantastic ambassadors for the school and finished third in the tournament. A special mention to James Roles and Ted Deacon who both scored two fantastic tries; Ted was also awarded ‘Team Player’ for his effort, support for his team mates and fair play during all his games. Well done to all!
House Hockey results (from Mr Young):
25/10/19: Great House hockey competition tonight in terrible weather!!
Sudeley won the final against Langley, so are the Autumn champions.
1st Sudeley 2nd Langley 3rd Cleeve 4th Prescott
13/12/19: Winter House Hockey results (Sudeley still at the top of the table!):
1st Sudeley 2nd Cleeve 3rd Prescott 4th Langley
Badminton results (from Mrs Edwards):
18/11/19: Well done to Lara and Emily Chilton, Cora Bolton and Lily Stanton for their super
performance in the Gloucestershire Schools’ KS3 girls’ badminton tournament at Bournside
School. The team came second, ahead of both Cheltenham Ladies College and Pate’s Grammar
School. They worked extremely well together in terms of court coverage and communication
and were congratulated by the Gloucester Badminton organisers for the evident improvement
in their game since last year!
A Message from the Headteacher:
Mr Templeton and all staff wish you
a lovely Christmas and look for-
ward to seeing you back on
Tuesday 7th January (Week 2)
December 2019
Dear All
As my first full term draws to a close I just want to say a big thank you to all
the students, parents and local community who have made me feel so welcome
since joining the school in September. As you have no doubt seen it has been a
really busy term with students taking part in such a diverse range of activities.
What is not always acknowledged is the daily life of the school. Students have
been working hard in lessons under the excellent instruction of our dedicated
staff. I have been so impressed by the positive and fruitful relationships that all
staff and students have.
Thank you particularly to the members of WiSPA who help at so many school
events with refreshments. Their fundraising activities support the school in being
able to ensure that students have the very best opportunities. It is a real positive
to have such a caring and supportive group of parents. I know that they are al-
ways looking for extra pairs of hands so please do get involved if you can!
A personal highlight for me were the activities around Remembrance week. The
atmosphere as 500 students and all staff stood in silence as our flag was lowered
to half-mast was truly powerful. A ‘thank you’ to a returning student, Jerome
Edwards, for his excellent playing of ‘The Last Post’. I was also lucky enough to
be involved in the Remembrance Sunday march in Winchcombe. It was wonder-
ful to see a whole town come together to remember those who gave their lives
for us. A special mention to all students involved in the event, including our
wonderful Head Girl, Ellen Twine, who gave the reading with such confidence.
There have been so many excellent activities that I’d like to add a special thanks
to the staff who help plan and run them. Without their willingness to go the
extra mile, the enriching activities we are able to offer would be greatly reduced.
Finally, let me take this opportunity on behalf of myself and all at Winchcombe
School to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope
that you have time to spend with those that you care about. We look forward to
welcoming students back on Tuesday 7th January 2020!
Best wishes
Mr Templeton