Our term was brought to a close by a tasty turkey dinner, where the turkeys were hand reared by our students, a Christmas concert full of good cheer and the close of our Year 11 examinations. Year 11 have done us proud with the way in which they have conducted themselves throughout the period and we think moving the mock examinations to before Christmas has worked well for them. It has been my privilege, to meet over 60 students at our Headteacher breakfasts this week. At the breakfasts we had the opportunity to thank students for their commitment this year – the school is a better place because they study with us.
If you haven’t already seen the plans for our new build this Summer please see the article
‘See first design images of new state-of-the-art sports facility at Thomas Alleyne’s High School’ in the Derby Telegraph.
We wish you all a wonderful Christmas and New Year and look forward to seeing students back on the 8th January.
Uniform
A reminder to all students, parents and carers.
Hooded sweatshirts are not part of the uniform at Thomas Alleyne’s High School. We encourage all students to wear a v necked blue or black school sweatshirt over their shirts, especially now that the weather has turned cold.
We encourage them to also bring outdoor coats, and gloves. If they do bring hooded sweatshirts to school and wear these beneath or over their blazers these will be removed from them to be collected by parents as they are not part of the school uniform. We appreciate parents support with ensuring these sweatshirts, which are not part of our uniform are not brought to school.
ART GCSE EXAM EVENING
Students and their parents/guardians are invited to attend the art deptartment ART GCSE exam evening Wed 9th Jan 6:30-7:30pm in the school canteen. A reminder that the art GCSE papers wil be given out on this date plus lots of helpful tips and advice about preparing over the exam period before the 10hour controlled conditions in May.
ART GCSE COURSEWORK DEADLINE
ART GCSE coursework deadline is Monday 14th January 2018, 3:05pm. This forms 60% of your grade, the other 40% is the Externally Set Assignment (exam) unit which starts in January- please attend the evening on 9th Jan to receive your exam paper plus tips and advice.
Reports
Year 9, 10 and 12 reports are available on Insight.
Year 11 and 13 Mock Examinations
A huge well done to our students in Year 11 and 13 who have now reached the end of the mock examination period. We very much hope that your hard work has paid off.
Year 11 Mock Exam Results Day will take place on Thursday 17th January, period 5.
Year 9 English and Maths Internal Examinations
Please note, Year 9 exams will take place as follows:
Tuesday 14th January (English language)
Wednesday 15th January (Maths)
Thursday 16th January (English language)
Year 9 examinations are for English and Maths only and are internal examinations. This means that the results will be used by English and Maths teachers only to support intervention where required, and do not go towards final Year 11 GCSE results.
The additional purpose of these examinations is to help prepare our Year 9 students early on for Year 10 and 11 examinations by sitting assessments in examination venues instead of in their usual teaching classrooms.
The assessments will take place in the school theatre.
BTEC Animal Care
A reminder that the external exam for this subject will be taking place on Monday 14th January. There will be NO external exam for this subject in June. The specification and past papers have been given out to the students to help with their revision over the holidays. These have also been set on INSIGHT in case any students have lost them.
Revision sessions will take place in room 81 on the following dates in order to help students prepare for this exam:
Tuesday 8th January 3.05-4.00pm
Thursday 10th January 3.05-4.00pm
Monday 14th January 8.00-8.40am
BTEC Applied Science
Y12 Unit 3 Exam
The practical part of this exam will take place on Friday 11th January followed by an externally moderated assessment on Monday 21st January. Students will need to revise all the work covered this year over Christmas in order to fully prepare for this. All students have revision guides and past papers have been set via INSIGHT
Y13 Unit 1 Exam
There will be a series of three exams for this unit as follows, with each being 40 minutes long:
Tuesday 15th January pm – Biology
Wednesday 16th January am – Chemistry
Wednesday 16th January pm – Physics
All students have got a revision guide and packs of past exam questions to use as part of their revision. They will need to be revising for these exams over the Christmas period.
Online Safety
The impact of social media can be amazing – the promotion of events, the re-connection with friends from times past and the sharing of memories – are all fantastic ways of communicating.
Unfortunately social media is not always used in such a positive way.
Advice regarding uploading pictures:
Only upload pictures that you’d be happy for a parent to see (the internet is a public place). Don’t post pictures of you or your friends wearing school uniform (this lets people know where you will be). Tick the “no pic forwarding” option on your settings page – this will stop people forwarding your pictures to anyone without your consent. Who are you communicating with? Do you know? Do you really know?? Have you met them? If you know someone… who knows someone… who knows someone….. it doesn’t make them your friend.
Advice for students:
What you put on social media sites is there forever. Consider the information you share – you don’t know who your friend’s friends are… or your friend’s friends’ friends… Be aware that information on your profile could potentially be viewed by anyone. Consider you photo – what info does it give about you? Understand the meaning of ‘joint enterprise’ Be aware that university admissions and employers WILL check your internet activity.
In the event of an emergency with your child, have you got a new phone number (especially mobile)? Have you moved? Has there been a change in your circumstances? Has there been a change regarding any medical information for your son or daughter? If so, it is vital that you alert school so we can change the details on our system. Please contact school as soon as possible.
Need to Talk?
Need help and advice? Then follow this link for more information.
The PTA would like to give a huge thanks to all those who donated raffle prizes and bought tickets for our hampers. We managed to make 5 beautiful prizes which were raffled off last night at the Music Concert. We raised over £400.00 and the students and staff really do appreciate your contributions. We also have some exciting new projects coming up in 2019 and will be letting you know how you can continue to support our students through the PTA.
We are always looking for new members and would welcome anyone who is willing to help out no matter how small an amount. To get in touch please email:
This week’s Science Students of the Week selected by Mrs Faizey are:
Year 9
Mollie Beresford and Sam Bennett
Year 10
Victoria Morut and Ashton Bagley
All students were selected for their excellent effort in Chemistry.
This week’s Animal Care Students of the Week selected by Mr Gilson are:
Year 10
Abbey Moore and Alfie Clowes for relishing the opportunity to pluck and dress a turkey.
Year 11
Josh Buckley and Joseph Porritt for hard work and effort in Animal Care.
Well done!
PE
Girls Football Vs Australia
Thomas Alleyne’s hosted the touring John Curtin Football Academy on Monday afternoon. First half our girls were given a masterclass in football from the socceroos, who passed the ball around and created many scoring opportunities. Klaudia Siwek made many saves to keep the score respectable.
Second half we mixed the two teams together to create an even game and to create some friendships. There were many conversations about accents and different cultures following the game
On Tuesday our swimmers competed in the annual Moorlands swimming gala held at Biddulph Leisure Centre.
All the students excelled in their races and put in 100% effort against other strong teams.
After a hard fought competition Thomas Alleyne’s were placed 2nd overall with the year 9 boys and year 10/11 girls placing first.
Lots of gold medals were won by the following swimmers:
Year 9 Boys 50m Backstroke – Adam Bulmer
Year 9 Boys 50m Freestyle – Ben Twynham
Year 9 Boys I.M – Ben Twynham
Year 9 Boys Freestyle Relay – Duncan Craven
George Arnold
Adam Bulmer
Ben Twynham
Year 9 Boys Medley Relay – Duncan Craven
George Arnold
Adam Bulmer
Ben Twynham
Year 9 Girls Freestyle Relay_ Maddy Egerton
Zoe Hunter
Issy Punchard
Louisa Page
Year 10/11 Girls Medley Relay – Olivia Gregory
Rowan Hall
Jemima Pope
Harriet Bebbington
Year 10/11 Girls Freestyle Relay – Issy Foster
Rowan Hall
Jemima Pope
Harriet Bebbington
Year 10/11 Girls 25m Butterfly – Harriet Bebbington
Year 9/10 Girls I.M – Olivia Gregory
A huge well done and thank you from all the PE staff.
Have a lovely Christmas and see you all in the New Year.
ART DEPT HELP PLEASE!
Please could you help out the art department and our students by collecting the following items we intend to reuse and re purpose into some exciting art works.
1) thin card- cereal box type. We are looking for the insides to be white, brown or grey. Please flatten the boxes and drop off in the art dept. Year 9 will be using these to create relief collages.
2) GOLD wrappers. the type often found on chocolates- foils and cellophane. Please flatten out the cellophane/ foils and return to the art dept. One of 6th formers is doing a project next term called “ all that glitters is not gold” and intends eventually to make a fashion piece using these wrappers.
3) Fruit Netting. The packaging satsumas and lemons often come in! Again this is for a 6th former student who will want to use these in their work- based on “plastics and sealife ecosystems.”
4) Empty drinks cans. –These MUST be rinsed out so not sticky when used, and NOT crushed. We reuse the metal to create embossed designs.
THANK YOU so much in anticipation of any help you can give us.
Business Studies
Well done to all of 10D for fantastic presentations this week to our guest judge. They worked so hard to create new and origional ideas for a chocolate product and their presentations were all of a great standard. Thank you to Dawn Shirley for coming in to judge and also well done to Jacob White for taking part as a class judge, we were really impressed with your involvement.
Congratulations to Dylan James, Sam Spooner and Josh Campion who won with their idea of Choc o-lates! They designed an amazing chocolate bar and even brought in a sample for the class to try. The judges were very impressed, as were the class with the taste of the new bar. Well done!
Maths Puzzle
Answers to November Puzzle 65,72 and 97. There were no correct entries.
This months puzzle for December is
Christmas Car Sales
‘How’s the motor business’ asked Ian. Chris smiled ‘Its not usually good leading up to Christmas but sales have picked up again. We sold 56 in the first 3 weeks. The difference between the number we sold in the first and second weeks, multiplied by the difference between the second and third weeks, comes to the same as the number we sold in the first week’.
Ian was stuck as he was not in a top set maths class at school.
How many cars did Chris sell in the third week of that month?
Answers to Mr Askey
Christmaths!
In maths this week some classes have been completing maths activities with a Christmas theme.
We have been plotting coordinates that make Christmas trees, Rudolf or Father Christmas, we have been decoding Christmas messages and one group have been investigating fractals especially the Menger Sponge, Koch snowflake and Sierpinski tetrahedron all put together to make a fractal Christmas tree.
Have a look at the photos of some of our work!
Past Art Student Returns!
As ever, the Art department is thrilled to hear of our past Art & Photography students who are embarking on careers in the visual arts. Erica Poyser studied Maths, Art, Craft & Design as well as Photography whilst at TAHS, gaining a direct place on several university degree courses based on the strength of her portfolio of work created during A level Art & Photography.
Erica has just started the first year of her 3 year BA Hons Design Crafts degree at De Montfort University in Leicester. So far she has been exploring ceramics including throwing pottery, plaster casting as well as glass, casting, blowing and shaping the glass. The exciting course allows students to develop further skills in a variety of areas. We look forward to seeing what work Erica does over the next few years!
Any other past students who are working in the creative and visual arts sector and would like to keep in touch – please contact the office.
Links
Follow the links to; School Website, Facebook, Twitter & our Online Shop
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Thomas Alleyne's high school 