Dates for your Diary

Week A

Wednesday 2nd May Parents Surgery 5pm-

6pm

Thursday 3rd May Year 10 Parents

Evening

Week B

Tuesday 8th May School Council

Meeting Duke of Edinburgh Presentation Evening

Wednesday 9th May Parents Surgery 5pm-

6pm

Thursday 10th May Year 10 Enterprise

Sporting Activity

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End of Spring Term Assembly At the end of every half term, Hassenbrook Academy has assemblies for all students and staff, as a celebration for students’ achievements and to reflect back on the past few weeks. The end of the Spring term was no different.

The assemblies are split into KS3 and KS4 so the content of the assemblies are tailored more to those students. We started the assembly off with a performance by our Year 10 Music students performing Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape Of You’. Ms Williams then continued the assembly, talking about our achievements as a school as well as individual successes.

Mr Scott also spoke, discussing the different meanings of ‘Active’, ‘Collaborative’, ‘Reflective’ and ‘Resilient’; four key terms that we use here at the academy on a day to day basis. We also has Finlay Challis (Year 7) perform a piece of music on the drums; it was definitely something to rock out to!

As always, we had the Active Learner Card draw which always gets everyone excited. This is a draw we do every half a term and we award someone with a brand new iPad! The winners for this half term were Tracy Gyasi (Year 10) and Ben Partlett (Year 8). Well done to them both. Ms Williams also ended on a very positive note, discussing some of the achievements we have made as a whole school and what our plans are for the next term. The perfect way to end the term!

Shakespeare’s Birthday

On Monday 23rd April it was Shakespeare’s 454th birthday! There is much bardolatry (idolisation of Shakespeare) here at Hassenbrook Academy and we decided to have a little birthday party in our school library that lunchtime. There were quizzes and competitions, a Shakespeare video game to play and a drama workshop kindly put on by Mr Lyndon. Mrs Smith even got students trying to name all of Shakespeare’s plays! They did a good job as well! Winners of the quizzes and competitions to be named very soon! Watch this space! We have a lot to be thankful for because of Shakespeare: there are over 1700 words attributed to Shakespeare that we know and use today! He has also provided us with timeless stories and poetry that still get studied in all schools around the world.

Here at Hassenbrook, the English department are proud to study his plays and keep new generations informed about Shakespeare; maybe sparking some more bardolatry in the process!

Mr Branchsmith would like to thank Mr Lyndon and Mrs Smith for their help.

Welcome Back Dear Parents and Carers, We welcome students back to the summer term. It is the time of year when student exams begin apace; not least Year 11. We would ask that you continue to support students with their homework with specific emphasis on revision in the coming weeks. Our new reception is now complete, we are very proud of it, and the message it sends to visitors of our school: that we are a good and improving school. The dining room will be complete in the next week! Our active learner cards remain a focus for us as a school, please ask to see students’ cards and encourage them to be independent learners. Best of luck to Year 11 in their forthcoming exams. Thank you for your continued support Regards Ms Williams

Rap Workshop

On Monday 23rd April Rap artist ‘Reveal’ visited Hassenbrook Academy for the day.

He worked with 30 students across years 7 to 10 to deliver a workshop in rap. Our students played word association games to help with their ‘freestyling’ and rapping to a beat. The students worked in groups to talk about topics they were passionate about.

Each student created an individual rap which they performed at the end of the day.

It was a fantastic workshop and the students loved it.

A massive thank you again to ‘Reveal’ for taking the time to visit us.

SEN Focus SEN is special educational needs, it describes the needs of a child who has a difficulty or disability which makes learning harder for them than for other children their age and it is something that we focus on here at Hassenbrook. We thought that it would be a

great idea to share some of the practices and information we have found. During the week of March 26th we celebrated Autism Awareness Week with a series of Assemblies delivered by Miss Waters to years 7-11. The assemblies talked about celebrating our differences and unique qualities. The students were shown a video of Brett from BBC’s ‘Employable me’ whose Autism and ability to communicate with others had prevented him from getting a job for nine years. We were shown his unique way of looking at the world visually and how this allowed him to solve a computer glitch in a company that no else had been able to fix, finally securing him a job and more importantly acceptance for the first time in a long time.

Miss Waters also raised £1,553 during Autism Awareness week for The National Autistic Society through a sponsored 15k night walk around London and various cake sales. Thank you to the

staff at Hassenbrook Academy for contributing £62 at their staff room bake sale.

Duke of Edinburgh Expedition

11 of our Year 10 students have taken part in another Duke of Edinburgh expedition.

On Friday 27th April the students, along with Ms Heald, Mrs Baxter and Mrs Greenfield travelled to the New Forest. The students were split up into two groups and over the course of the weekend, they made several journeys, within their groups using their map reading skills.

Each journey time took them approximately seven hours to complete. And at each stop, they camped overnight. The expedition is a part of their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze/Silver Award.

We hope they had a great time and we can’t wait to hear all about their experiences. Keep your eyes on our social medias for more information about the expedition.

AQA English Workshop

On Monday 23rd April, 10 of our Year 11 students went to the AQA student conference organised by the English department. It was incredibly useful for the students and gave them lots of things to think

about when completing their English Language papers in a few weeks!

The day focused on improving answers so that pupils are achieving the top end of the available grades. As the speaker said, quite often this is about finding what will make the 'marginal difference'; it is not about completely changing how you answer a question but more about tweaking your original responses and about planning what you want to say.

The pupils were engaged throughout the session and came up with some brilliant suggestions for answers when asked to consider the language analysis question and also the more challenging structure question.

When the group started considering the writing questions there was some interesting debate around where to place punctuation depending on what you wanted the sentence to say, and made pupils very aware of the placement of punctuation. They did themselves proud. Well done!

Duke of Edinburgh Presentation Date

As you may remember, on Wednesday 28th February, Hassenbrook planned to have the Bronze and Silver Duke of Edinburgh presentation.

Unfortunately, due to the snow we had to postpone the event.

Although we are pleased to say that we have rescheduled and the presentation will now be taking place on Tuesday 8th May. Invitations are being sent out shortly with all the necessary details.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us. We look forward to seeing you on the 8th to help celebrate this fantastic achievement. Thank you.

PE’s Sport Corner

Football Match Reports

Our year 9 football team faced a strong Ockendon side last week. With some players unavailable, new additions stepped up to fill the gaps. The match started as an evenly contested affair, with both teams having opportunities to score. Martin Thorndike made some excellent saves to keep us on level terms and even braved a blooded nose for his troubles. Unfortunately, it was Ockendon who broke the deadlock with two quick fire goals before half time. Early in the second half, we put a lot of pressure on the Ockendon goal. That pressure finally paid off with a long range "shot" from our top goal scorer Billy Scott. Whilst pushing for that equalising goal, we got caught out and conceded another goal making the score 3-1 to Ockendon. Martin's superb performance was capped off with an assist for Callum Turner to race through on goal and place into the corner of the net, making the final score Hassenbrook 2 - Ockendon 3. The boys played really well but could not get a result from the game. Our man of the match was, without doubt, Martin Thorndike.

More importantly, our year 9s played against our partner school Gable Hall in the quarter final of the District Cup. As a game the boys really wanted to win, they were enthusiastic to start the game. With Gable Hall managing only 8 players, we agreed to play 8v8. This allowed lots of space on the pitch but a lot more hard work too. As expected, the game had a rapid pace to it. Both schools were searching for the first goal and it was Gable Hall to find it with a well worked team goal. However, our boys did not give up. They passed the ball around very well and were able to send Billy Scott through on goal, who unselfishly, passed to Marcio Graca to shoot into an open goal. With the score 1-1 at half time, the match was very evenly poised. Using our extra players, we were able to maintain a fast paced performance while Gable Hall started to tire. With only two minutes to play, Marcio Graca showed his

outstanding dribbling ability to get passed two defenders and into Gable Hall's penalty area. He was able to pass the ball across to Jamie Parker, who kept his composure to place the ball into the bottom corner of the goal and complete the comeback. The final score Hassenbrook 2- Gable Hall 1. Our boys showed great determination to come from behind and win for our first of the season! On we go through to the semi-final of the cup. Man of the match was Martin Thorndike, again for making some excellent saved at important times in the match.

Maeson’s Football Success

We would like to congratulate Maeson King (Year 7) for being chosen for the Tottenham Hotspur Football Academy team for the next two seasons.

Maeson has already been with the team for a year and has proven himself time and time again. He has shown great progression throughout this time.

We are so proud of him and wish him all the luck with the end of his current season and the start of the 2018/2019 season.

We will keep you updated on all of Maeson’s progress and achievements. Well done again Maeson!

PE’s Sport Corner

Year 9 Netball

Our year 9 netball team have had a fantastic netball season. They have all improved so much as the season progressed as individuals as well as a team.

Their commitment and dedication to training has been thrilling to see. This has paid dividends in their achievement and success against teams that were beating them last year.

They have won the majority of their games this seasons and our Netball coach couldn’t be more proud! #coachesdreamteamtoworkwith.

Year 7 Indoor Athletics

Well done to all the Year 7 athletes who participated in the Indoor Athletics Event. It was a fantastic event and the students all performed amazingly; some even gained personal bests! As a school we are very proud as it is the best we have achieved: 4th in the girls and 6th in the boys. Well

done to you all! Year 7 indoors athletics team

Leia Edwards’ 4 lap sprint

Carrick Johnson’s Speed bounce

Year 7 Netball

The girls have had a fantastic last few games of the season. Recently they played Harris Academy and Harris Riverside Academy and the team won both games.

The girls showed commitment and excellent team play throughout. Their encouragement to each other was brilliant to see and hear on the court, especially as we had three students that hadn’t played for the team before and want to play in the team again.

They have one last big push to end the netball season with the district schools Netball Rally on 1st May at Hassenbrook. Well done girls!

Terri Quirke, Macey Smith, Louise Norman, Niamh

Barlow, Bailey White and Molly Blake (C).

Sports Relief

As you may know, the Academy did some fundraising for Sports Relief recently. Our PE department along with our Sports Captains put together the ‘Sports Relief Mile Challenge’. Every student from years 7 to 10 took part.

The sports captains wanted to try something a little different so instead of running round the field for one mile they decided they wanted to have a Tri-Athlon with a difference.

The event was spilt up into stages.

Stage one – in groups of 4/5 you had to link arms and stay linked to run round the edge of the field.

Stage two – complete an obstacle that was half the length of the football pitch four times staying linked together.

Stage three – river crossing only using two mats and a lot of effort and brain power.

With the rules in place our students took part and it was so much fun and a huge success!

To help raise money for Sports Relief, our Sports Captains were selling the official Sports Relief wrist bands, and we raised £100.00.

Thank you to all the students, staff and our Sports Captains that help to organise and take part in the event and that bought a wrist band. We couldn't have done it without you all!

PE’s Sport Corner

Sporting Achievements Outside of School

Leia Edwards in Year 7 has been playing basketball for a few years now. Her team worked very hard and that has paid off with place to play in the final four teams in the country! Leia and the rest of her team will be travelling to Manchester on the 28th April to take part in this. We wish Leia and the team the best of luck, and we look forward to hearing all about it!

Dawson Langan in Year 7 took part in the Essex County Schools Golf Association Annual Handicap Championships on Monday 26th March. The championship collated an individual score over the 18 holes, calculating how many shots are played at each hole.

This is such an amazing opportunity for Dawson and he played very very well, and he enjoyed the day immensely. Well done Dawson and we look forward to hearing all about your golfing achievements throughout the rest of the year.

Emily, in Year 10 and Molly Blake in Year 9 have recently competed in a National Club Jujitsu competition.

Emily competed in the U18 at her belt and weight. Emily won gold for all four disciplines.

Molly competed in the U16 for her belt and weight. Molly won two silver and two gold medals.

We are so so proud of them and hope they are proud of themselves too! This competition has lead to the chance to travel later on in the year to compete the for National Team, such a great opportunity!

We will keep you updated with all of their progress and achievements.

Summer PE Kit

As the weather is getting hotter, students are advised to wear the correct summer PE kit.

If you have any questions then please get in contact with us.

Compulsory

White polo shirt or New Hassenbrook PE polo shirt

Navy Blue shorts or New Hassenbrook PE navy shorts

Navy football socks or New Hassenbrook PE navy football socks

Trainers – No converse/vans or similar

No leggings/ tracksuit bottoms/ Hoodies

Optional but we do advise;

Water bottle and sun lotion.

PE Clubs

Please see the updated PE clubs timetable. If you have any questions then pop along and see our PE department.

Cashless Payments Each student has a WisePay account which should be used to pay for things like school lunches and trips. There is a direct link to the WisePay website on our websites homepage. Here you can top up the account, see how much is left on the account and see what account overview looks like. We are aiming to be completely cashless by September 2018. As always, if you have any questions about this, about the WisePay website or log in itself, then please do get in touch with us. You can email us as admin@hassenbrook.org.uk or you may call us on 01375 671566.

Active Learner Cards

As you may know, all students are given an Active Learner Card. These cards are designed to promote active learning in the classroom. We don’t want students to be simply passive learners, we want them to actively participate in lessons and acquire a ‘thirst’ for knowledge.

We feel that the four criteria, being ‘collaborative’, ‘resilient’, ‘reflective’ and ‘active’ learners are four traits necessary for students to get the most out of each lesson that they attend.

Students displaying one, some, or all of these characteristics in lessons will receive signatures from staff, reflecting their participation and on completion of a card will be entered into the prize draw for an iPad!

If you have any questions then please contact us.

Collaborative Resilient

Reflective Active

Year 11 Exams On Monday 23rd April the Year 11 exams started with the Modern Foreign Language students taking part in the oral exam for both French and Spanish. This is just the start of the exams. We know that this is a crucial time for all students and we want to help support all the best way we can. If you have any questions, concerns or something you just want to run past us then please do get in touch with us on 01375 671566 or you can email us at admin@hassenbrook.org.uk. You can also privately message us on our Facebook page.

Revision Timetable We are almost half way through the academic year and it’s around this time that revision becomes key. There are always revision materials available from the subject teachers but we also run a lot of after school revision sessions. These sessions are a great way to make the most of the day, revising in a relaxed, familiar environment. Please see the timetable for the revision sessions below. We are also working on getting a end-of-term revision timetable planned out, so that our Year 11 students can make the most of their two weeks off. More information about this timetable will be available soon. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the revision we offer as a school then please get in touch with us and we will be happy to help. As always you can check out our website for the latest revision timetables, exam timetables and information. http://www.ortu.org/Hassenbrook-Examinations

Vivo Rewards

Vivos are Hassenbrook’s way of rewarding students in school. All students have an account and are encouraged to check their progress regularly. The points awarded can be exchanged for a variety of fun gadgets, stationery, vouchers and more! Form Tutors advise tutees of who has the most Vivos in their

year group weekly with certificates for King and Queen! Below are the reigning champions for the whole school year so far. Mrs N Braybrook

WELL

DONE! Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 PLC

Queen Sofija

Satkovskaja Grace

Catterick

Yasmine Mohamed-

Sleczek

Elizabeth Asubiojo

Emily Blake

KING Ronnie

Ager

King Jozef

Urbanowski Aaron

Holman Dylan Edgar

Ben Lloyd

Ben Smith

KING Andrew

Thompson

As part of the Safeguarding Guidelines at the Academy, parents should be

reminded that they should endeavour to drop pupils off in a safe and

considerate manner. Hassenbrook Road becomes too congested and young

people are having to negotiate many parked vehicles. If you need to come

into the site, this should be via the main gate as visitors can be seen on

camera. We have large buses that drop pupils off in the designated area, they often have

difficulty negotiating both residents' and visitors' vehicles. Although this seems a small

matter to some, the safety of our pupils is a very important element of our responsibility.

Parking on the zigzag lines around schools means that children cannot see over your car

when trying to cross the road. If you park in a dangerous place, you may be issued with a

penalty charge notice. We thank you for your support with this matter.

Do you, or someone you know have a talent or

achievement that deserves recognition? Please get

in contact with us at:

academyinaction@hassenbrook.org.uk

Remember to check our website, Facebook and

Twitter accounts for updates, school letters,

notices, reminders and much more!

Bully Stop

Our most important aim: to show respect to each other by the way we speak to and treat each other. If you have a problem, tell either a friend, teacher, parent or a trusted adult. Telling about bullying is not ‘telling tales’ or ‘grassing’. Instead, report it online anonymously and email bullystop@hassenbrook.org.uk. At Hassenbrook Academy students should enjoy a caring and safe environment. Be free from fear of humiliation, oppression, verbal, physical, social, sexual or racial abuse. We are committed to identifying and dealing with any form of bullying, being proactive and taking action to stop bullying. If you have any questions then please contact the Academy.

Hassenbrook Attendance League

Don’t forget, we are running our Attendance League. This is a competition that we are going to be running weekly. Depending on what your attendance percentage is for the week depends on if you get

entered for the prize draw at the end of each half term. Posters explaining the Attendance League will be up in tutor

rooms. If you have any questions, please ask your tutor or Mr Ruck.