ACADEMY NEWS9th MAY 2014

EXPLORE

SEND IN YOUR NEWS

BE YOURBEST

Best wishes

Sara DaveyAcademy Principal

We started the working week on Tuesday with a full Governors meeting where we said goodbye to Mrs Sally Westren who has been a brilliant advocate for the Academy for many years.

She was given a gift and our thanks for the loyal and helpful support she has given to the school for well over a decade. We also welcomed Mrs Erika Hewett and Mr John Harvey to the Governing Body. They will both bring specialist skills and expertise to strengthen the organisation. They will be joining the Leadership/Teaching committee and the Finance Committee respectively.

The Governors meet at the end of every semester to discuss and review the performance of the Academy. One of the areas discussed is the quality of teaching and learning. I am very pleased to report that in recent lesson observations of all teaching staff the quality has improved with over 50% of all lessons observed achieving an outstanding grade. As I visit classes across all the departments I have seen a considerable improvement in the quality of students’ academic and practical work since the beginning of the year. There has been progress in Literacy and Numeracy skills and I continue to see the innovative use of ICT with iPads aiding learning in a variety of contexts.

We are currently making plans for next year’s curriculum and timetable and we are considering a move to a four period day with three lessons in the morning and one lesson in the afternoon. Each lesson will be 75 minutes long and there will be a short break after each lesson for the purchase of refreshments. We do not plan to change the timings for the start and end of the day and we have no plans to change holidays. As soon as we have further details we will let parents and students know.

I wish you a restful weekend.

Principal’s Report

BEINSPIRED

Teach Meat

On the 6th of May Frank Linn from the Etherington Butchery Company came into the Year 9 Catering class to give a demonstration on butchering meat and the different tools used.

He first showed us what items of clothing are needed to give the necessary protection to factory workers and to stop cross contamination. He also showed us different tools, such as the butchers saw, steak knife and meat cleaver, and told us of their uses. This wasbefore showing us how to separate different parts of half a pigs carcass.

The experience was very educational and gave us a clear insight on where meat comes from and the effort it takes to prepare it.

Several students took part in hands on activities, and helped Frank produce some of the cuts of meat he showed us.

Frank also brought in 1lb of sausages as a prize for the person who could guess how long it would take him to debone a joint of meat. Ella Coxon was the lucky winner, guessing that Frank only took 55 seconds!

Report by Esme Campbell

BEINSPIRED

National Champions

Past and present students from Mounts Bay Academy were part of the Penzance Sea Cadets Corp who beat off fierce competition to become National Champions at this year’s National Sea Cadet Corps drill and piping competition.

The competition was held on May 2-4 at the Royal Navy’s New Entry Training Establishment, HMS Raleigh based in Torpoint. Boys and girls from Penzance Unit entered the un-armed drill section against six others teams, including the 2013 national champions - Lincoln Unit T.S Wrangler- and teams from Scotland, Liverpool, Northern Ireland, London and Poole.

The cadets also won an award for being the best dressed squad, as well as receiving s trophy for being the overall winners. Petty Officers (SCC) Matthew Bird and Alex Rodger, who trained the teams, said they were extremely proud of the young team, “Many hours of hard work have been put into training the team and without the support of many people the training would not have been possible, namely the parents of the cadets for transporting the cadets to the practices and for their continued support through the three stages of the competition.”

Penzance Sea Cadets thanked Pam Goss of Helston Dry Cleaning who worked tirelessly to ensure the teams’ uniforms were presented to the highest standard, as well as staff at 'Hair Force 1' in Penzance for providing a top class service with hair-cuts.

The team was as follows: Able Cadet Kerriann Young (squad commander), Ordinary Cadet Tom George, Ordinary Cadet VJ Nicholls, Cadet 1st Harley Judd, Cadet 1st Kieran Hughes, Cadet 1st Kaitlyn Terry, Ordinary Cadet Jack Knowles, Cadet 1st Ryan Colenso, Cadet Adam Oliver, Able Cadet Ben Scanlan, Cadet 1st Erin Billington, Cadet Alina Brown, Cadet 1st Tom Row.

eSafety

At a meeting in the lecture theatre at Penwith College, Simon Elliott, our Director of Digital Technologies, joined other eSafety Officers, Neighbourhood Watch Coordinators, Councillors, representatives of the Police and Fire services as well as Law and Politics A-Level students who were invited to participate in a question and answer session about community safety with the Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor.

Mr Elliott asked what the government was doing about the risk of unfiltered access to the Internet through smartphones, something which parents have raised at meetings in school.

Mr Grayling responded that, whilst schools have filtering and Internet Providers have added the ability to enable filtering on home broadband connections, ultimately only parents can have the final control of what their children have access to through personal devices and that education was important in assisting with this. He also added that they called on Internet Companies to control access to the more extreme materials and that pressure from the public and politicians was important in this area.

To assist parents in being informed in the safe use of the Internet, we have included a leaflet produced by EE on our website. If parents reading this have concerns about Internet Safety, they can email Simon Elliott on esafety@mountsbay.org and he will endeavour to help. We will also be running more eSafety Awareness evenings in the future.

Click here to view eSafety leaflet.

BEINFORMED

BEINSPIRED

JLT

The Junior Leadership Team (JLT) have a vital role in the Academy. There are six members of the JLT: a Head Boy, Head Girl, and two deputies of each. We each have a section of the Academy which we have to go around twice each lunchtime to check. The purpose of this is to check that the Prefects are on their duty and are that everyone is doing what they are meant to be doing and sort out cover if needed. Each JLT member also has a certain day of the week where they have to do a duty next to the art block where we have to report the names of each student that arrives late.

Another role that the JLT has is to welcome visitors when they visit the Academy with our most recent visitor being Andrew George. Finally we helped the Senior Leadership Teampresent an assembly advertising the role of becoming a Prefect to the forthcoming Year 11s.

As a member of JLT I believe having this responsibility has a positive effect on both us and younger students. This leadership role gives us experience in managing people and helps our future college and university application forms. I believe seeing students set theexample in the academy instead of just teachers makes younger years aspire to become a part of the JLT and therefore have a more active role in the Academy.

ACE

House assemblies this week have challenged students to raise money for a local charity, Aiding Conservation through Education, or ACE. Mounts Bay have supported this charity several times over the last few years and some of our past students have been privileged enough to visit some of the schools in Uganda to see the positive difference that our fund raising has made.

This semesters challenge is to raise enough money to build two classrooms - about £6000.

Each house has been asked to come up with fund raising ideas and house points will be awarded at the end of the year for raising the most money AND coming up with the most creative fund raising idea.

A Typical Classroom

Artist of the Week

This week, artist of the week goes to both Perran Tustin and Bryony Podger. Both students have made an excellent start in the new Semester, developing their understanding of colour theory and mark making. They both produced a fantastic colour wheel and mark making grid, and are now considering effective ways of applying and manipulating these skills.

BECREATIVE

In connection with the year seven big idea, they have been taking creative risks in their drawing and studying challenging images within the theme of 'We Are Entomologists!'. Well done to you both, and also to the rest of Year 7 who have all started their projects with great effort and enthusiasm.

Molly Continues her Teenstar Journey

A bus load of Team Molly supporters will be travelling up to Southampton this Saturday to cheer Molly on when she sings for a place in the Grand Final of Teenstar 2014- previously won by Birdy and Luke Friend.

Molly is one performance away from singing in front of music industry judges (including Radio 1 DJs and producers from Universal Records) at the Birmingham NEC in July. Her journey started in January and she has competed amongst 10,000 other hopefuls who entered the competition. Molly told us, “The experience has been amazing, boosted my confidence and made me even more determined to be a successful singer/songwriter. I just love it.”

Surfing Success

Over the bank holiday weekend Leo Reeves took part in the U12s English National Surf Championships at Watergate Bay. He surfed magnificently against stiff competition, coming 2nd in the quarter finals, 2nd in the semi and in 3rd place in the finals!

He surfed against some very high standard, sponsored surfers.

Well done.

BECOMPETITIVE

Gold Medal Winner

Congratulations to Mrs Wheatley who was a member of the winning Mounts Bay Pilot Gig Club veterans crew at the World Pilot Gig Championships held over the Bank holiday weekend on the Isles of Scilly.

Mrs Wheatley’s crew beat 60 others in the Veterans race on Friday evening. Mrs Wheatley described the race, “We row out to St Agnes and row back. The start line is about 1 mile long. The officials are quite strict and have disqualified boats in the past, so on the start line we were quite a long way back.

Our start went well and after about 5 mins we had over taken all the gigs, the last ones being Newquay and Rock. We then got a couple of lengths clear and then eased off, as we wanted to save our energy for the next four races. The race lasted about 18mins. Conditions were really good, with light winds and a gentle sea. As we crossed the finish line we were about 4 lengths clear. We did the traditional celebration of the winning crew which is to raise our oars.”

The winning veterans then took part in the main event rowing four more times. They came in a very impressive 9th place out of 146.

Leo on the podium

Primary Athletics

Year 5 & 6 students from Mousehole Primary School had a morning of indoor athletics at Mounts Bay taken by our Year 10 Sports Leaders. They experienced high jump, relays, shot putt, javelin and long jump. All had a great time led superbly by our leaders!

BECOMPETITIVE

Cricket Leader

Congratulations to Kiera Graham, Year 10, who has successfully passed her Young Leaders award in cricket.

Show Jumping

At the weekend I competed in Helston Flora show in the unaffiliated British Show Jumping Association classes.

I had a really successful day, I got placed 1st out of 30 in the 70 cm class, with a jump off time of 39 seconds. I also got placed 3rd out of 20 in the 80 cm class, with a jump off time of 35 seconds.

I hope that I can emulate these results throughout the season.

Report by Laura Laskey

BEADVENTUROUS

Rona Sailing Trip

This week 9 students from Year 9 and 10 went on a voyage of a lifetime. On a 62ft sail training yacht they spent the week crossing the English Channel and visiting the Channel Islands. From Southampton they sailed to Yarmouth, across the Channel to Alderney, Guernsey, Sark and then to the French port of Cherbourg before returning to the Solent. It wasn't all plain sailing; on the first Channel crossing the conditions saw to it that nearly everyone was sea sick! Luckily they found their sea legs and no one suffered 'mal de mer' again.

This was no holiday trip though. All the work on board was carried out by the students; from hoisting sails, steering, keeping lookout, cooking and cleaning. All on a four hour watch system which meant being on deck for the night sail back across the Channel.

Everyone put their all into the week and all nine were rewarded with a Scott Award which the Rona Sailing Project only gives to those who have 'given of their best'. The Skipper was very impressed with everyone and commented that they were one of the best crews he had sailed with.

They also achieved their RYA Competent Crew certificate, which is an internationally recognised benchmark of sailing knowledge and ability.

The students were: Francis Pengelly, Harry Simmonds, Olivia Harvey, Olivia Saunders, Sophie Temby, Imogen Gray Williams, Laura Pape, Jess Ellwood and Arielle Fitkin.

Well done All!!

Report by Mr Fish

BEA WINNER

Translate the word of the week from either French, German, Spanish or Italian and send your answer to ktripp@mountsbay.org to be entered into the weekly competition.

Use the word of the week in your Language lesson and get a credit from your teacher!

Maths Quiz

This Week’s Puzzle:

What is the largest possible people at a party if no two of them have their birthdays in the same month. Extension for Bonus Points:

Find a number whose double exceeds its half by 99.

Last week’s solution: If you stay in the same location it would be midnight in 72 hours time and as long as you were not near the north or south pole during the local summer it would be dark. Therefore the sun would not be shining in your location.

It is also true to say the sun is alway shining.

Extension: Ages 5, 7 and 8.Therefore in 10 years they would be 15, 17 and 18.Multiply these together to make 4590.

Could you write next week’s puzzle?If you would like to set the numeracy puzzle for a future week click here. You will win house points.

Win an iTunes voucher

For each correct answer throughout this semester we will put your name in the hat for a chance to win an iTunes voucher – the more correct answers, the more chance of winning.

House Competition

Green: 14 PointsPurple: 9 PointsOrange: 4 PointsYellow: 2 PointsBlue: 2 PointsRed: 0 Points

Click here to submit your answer

Last week's answer was jewellery.

The winner was Pyper Oxendale.Well done!

MFL Word of the Week!

parler parlare

hablar sprechen

BEA WINNER

To enter, simply write an original sentence correctly using the word feisty. Send in your sentence using the link below.

All correct entries will receive House points, and the winner will receive a WH Smith gift card as well as an additional House point. The winner will be chosen from the correct entries received each week.

Competition

Congratulations to Vicky Jager who wins a WH Smith Voucher.

Click Here to enter the competition

Vicky receives her prize.

This week’s word is: gibberish

Definition: Noun[MASS NOUN]Unintelligible or meaningless speech or writing; nonsense: he talks gibberish.

Etymology: Early 16th century: perhaps from gibber (but recorded earlier) + the suffix -ish (denoting a language as in Spanish, Swedish, etc.).

CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR WEBSITE CONTACT US

Our Year 6 student guest have been undertaking some great learning in our classrooms today, with activities ranging from Textiles to Photography.

Deep Learning Zone News

This week's Accelerated Reader raffle winner is Tyler Jackson Roberts of 7 Orange. He has won a £15 book token for The Edge of the World Bookshop.

This year Patrick Ness's novel A Monster Calls won the Kernow Youth Book book award. This is an award voted for by students in Cornish schools and we are getting involved for 2015.

The long list has been sent to me and students are asked to select up to six novels for the short list. This year Ironheart by Alan Burroughs and After Eden by Helen Douglas are both on the long list and we have been fortunate enough to have had visits from both authors.

If you would like to be involved in KYBA please pop into the library and see Miss Knowles or Mrs Marsden.

Primary Outreach Today

CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR WEBSITE

BECHARITABLE

SEND IN YOUR NEWS

CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR WEBSITE

BECHARITABLE

SEND IN YOUR NEWS

Pirate Dress up DayFriday 23rd May

(Non-Uniform)

£1.00DonationAll

Proceeds to

Cake Sale