KINGS NORTON

HIGH TIMES

December 2009

IN THIS ISSUE

BOOKED UP

PASTRIES FOR PARIS

COMMUNITY DIG

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

Well, over the last twelve months we have had a pretty busy time! Here is just a flavour of it: • Last January we began our personalised learning plans to drive up standards

especially in English, maths and science and ran after-school lessons, Easter School and extended study days for year 11

• Over the year we ran a variety of trips including a remembrance visit to the National Memorial Arboretum, a trip to the Thinktank, a variety of events on our activities week in the summer which included a trip to France, walking, cycling, fishing and many more, took part in University of the First Age superlearners day, went on a trip to the Leicester Space Centre

• We helped our community by collecting plastic bottle tops to raise money and awareness for the needs of the disabled, sent our construction students off to do some gardening for the elderly and we ‘wore it pink, red and white’, not to mention moustached for a variety of medical and social issues

• We helped the world by raising money through a very successful Red Nose Day, ran clothing collections for developing countries and ‘did something different’ for Children in Need

• We celebrated our learners’ successes at a sparkling Awards Evening in July • We brought in a brand new catering company to provide healthy and tasty

meals • Ran maths and English breakfast clubs and a variety of sports and other

after-school clubs • We had our very first musical evening this month, in which more than 50

students performed • We got some early GCSE passes in years 9 and 10 – not just year 11! • We got our first batch of year 9s through an ‘asset language’ qualification in

French • We had a brilliant Ofsted visit report where progress was graded ‘good’ • We reaped the results of our standards drive by achieving our best GCSE

results ever, especially in maths and science which were outstanding improvements on 2008 (and even had 14% of year 10 pass GCSE maths a year early

… and that’s just a quick glimpse of what we have done, so … Well done KNHS on a very successful year! We would like to wish a merry Christmas and happy new year to all of our children, staff, parents, governors and school community. To our learners: enjoy your break and come back on 5th January 2010 with a perfect uniform, a driving ambition, the determination to succeed and a vision of what you could be! With those, there will be no stopping you. Denise Burns Headteacher

SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS, AND WHAT HAVE WE

DONE …?

The READ book

project collects

dusty old

textbooks from

the backs of

school store

cupboards.

They are sent off

to schools in

Tanzania that lack such resources.

At Kings Norton High School we have so far

collected more than ten boxes of books, which

were packed and loaded by a team of volunteers.

Textbook amnesty— If anyone has an old textbook

or two lurking under a bed, or propping up a

cupboard, please let us have them!!! Names will

not be mentioned, honest!, and they will be sent to

a good home.

Mr E Gerrard

www.readinternational.org.uk

READ BOOK PROJECT

On Friday 11th

December, some stu-

dents , with Miss

Mugnier, went over to

the Primrose Hill

Primary School Christ-

mas fair for a “Pastries

for Paris” event.

The students ran a cakes sale for a couple of hours,

selling their home made cakes and raised a grand

total of £35.00. The money raised is going towards

the Paris trip 2010, in

which all the students

involved will be

going.

The people who

came around to their

stall were very

curious about the

cause and the stu-

dents made amazing efforts to promote their trip and

raise as much money as possible.

FRENCH FANCIES

As you know earlier this term, as part of our safeguarding, we invited officers from Kings

Norton Police Station to come into school and screen all students with security

arches.

The police were very complimentary of the conduct, mature attitude and

patience of our learners, as they waited to be screened.

As I expected, it was not necessary for the police to confiscate anything of an ille-

gal or dangerous nature. However, the pastoral staff that supported the police

did confiscate a number of lighters which had been brought into school.

After Christmas we will repeat the screening for individual year groups so thank

you in advance for your support with our ongoing safeguarding..

Mr Punton, deputy headteacher

SAFEGUARDING SUCCESS

An amazing total of £624.69 has been raised to date so thank you to every for

your support and to those staff who joined the team and grew moustaches to

raise awareness of prostrate cancer. If you’d like to support the cause or

simply check out the pictures, in your web browser window type the link:

http://uk.movember.com/mospace/295806

Movember Team Kingstache

Congratulations to the following year 9 learners for their rewards for attendance, effort and attainment.

100% Attendance 95-99% Attendance Outstanding Behaviour

Shadhan Alsalami Shannon Britton Shadhan Alsalami

Agnes Birungi Romario Gauntlett Joshua Bird

Curtis Crooks Sonia Hewitt Agnes Birungi

Hayley Glendinning Elouisa Hudson Shannon Britton

Stephanie Greenstock Reno Hughes Romario Gauntlett

Sean Potter Luke Landsborough Hayley Glendinning

Keelee-Ann Rivers Jamie McCartney Stephanie Greenstock

Chay White Sian Mottram Sonia Hewitt

Shannon O’Neill Elousia Hudson

Improved Attendance Reiss Steele Reno Hughes

Blake Cole Josh Young Bader Ibrahim

James Jenkins James Jenkins

Humanities Sima Khan

Improved Behaviour Attainment - Samantha Moy Connor King

Craig Horton and Elousia Hudson Luke Landsborough

Sian O’Neill Effort - Samantha Meah and Samantha Meah

Chelsea-Ann Retema Shannon Mole Samantha Moy

Music Shannon O’Neill

Maths Attainment- Stephanie Greenstock Mark Richards

Attainment – Keelee Rivers Effort - Ionie Luke Phillip Richards

Effort – Shae Marchant French Sharna Samuels

Science Attainment - Agnes Birungi Kaleem Stewart

Attainment – Sima Khan Effort – Asma Suldan Samantha Stewart

Effort – Luke Landsborough ICT Asma Suldan

Drama Attainment - Elousia Hudson Nazar Sultan

Attainment – Reece Furley Effort - Josh Bird Chay White

PE Art

Attainment – Stephanie Greenstock Attainment- Agnes Birungi Head of Year Award

Effort – Hayley Glendinning Effort - Shannon Mole Stephanie Greenstock

Rewards - well done year 9!

On 17th November 2009, nine key stage 4 students attended the 2009/10 South Birmingham Leadership Academy

at Queensbridge School which was launched by world and paralympic

champion, Danny Crates.

The academy brings together the most exceptional and committed

sports leaders and volunteers aged 14-18 from schools within the Baver-

stock and Bishop Challoner School Sports Partnerships. The School

Sports Partnerships work to develop PE and sporting opportunities for

pupils within South Birmingham including the areas of Kings Heath,

Moseley, Kings Norton and Hall Green.

The purpose of the academy is to help support and grow students as

leaders and deploy them as active volunteers. Danny Crates who is one

of Britain's most inspiring paralympic athletes, provided the key note

speech for the launch evening, during which he shared his experiences as an athlete and inspired the students to

go out and make a difference in PE and sport within their local schools and community.

The leaders will receive training in courses such as first aid and child protection and have the opportunity to gain

qualifications in sport specific leadership awards. The leaders will work towards their ‘Step Into Sport Passport’,

which is an online resource to support the students as they are deployed as volunteers into school and community

based

projects. The passport will enable the student leaders to work towards other awards in which their work and

commitment as young volunteers will be recognised.

.

The event was hosted by four young ambassadors aged 16-18 because of their exceptional commitment to sports

leadership. The ambassadors aim to promote sport, physical education and healthy living to build on the excite-

ment of the London 2012 Games and will represent the Partnership in the projects. The Young Ambassadors are

relishing the challenges they have been set:

"We are thrilled to have been selected as young ambassadors. We all attended a conference at the Ricoh arena and

met famous sports legends. The conference was really inspiring and we are looking forward to getting involved in

lots of projects to inspire other young people including working with students on the Leadership Academy".

FUTURE STUDENT LEADERS

A grand total of £140.66 was raised for ‘Children’in Need’.

Well done everybody!

Thank you to our year 11 construction group who helped to restore the garden

at Calthorpe House. A long two hours were spent weeding and tidying up so the

residents can once again enjoy the view.

Ryan Freelove, Daniel Hawkins, Curtis Clarke and Sean

Shrimpton were a credit

to the school.

The residents enjoyed having us as you can see from

the pictures and sent some chocolates to the boys as a

thank you and a donation to school fund.

GROUNDFORCE—KNHS STYLE!

At Kings Norton High we made

period 5 off timetable to raise

money for Children in Need. We did

a range of activities such as penalty

shoot-outs, basketball, badge

making, playing the wii and much

more. We rose a lot of money for

the charity. I spoke to several

people after the activity and they all

really enjoyed it!

Chay White

Year 9 learners will shortly be asked to

choose their options for Key Stage 4. I

would like to ask all year 9

learners and parents to start looking to

the future – what do you want to see?

If you need help with careers advice

please use the KUDOS website or speak

to Mr Benham, Mr G. Taylor,

Mr McCay or one of the Connexions ad-

visors in school.

In October we had a free period to help raise money for Children in Need. This was really good

because most of the school took part in the activities. Most of the children really did enjoy this be-

cause there was a variety of things to do. There was sports in the gym and lots of different things to

do in the main hall. To make things even better we had the opportunity to play the Nintendo Wii,

which Mr McCay demonstrated, for us. I think that overall this was a really great day because every-

one got involved in something and even some teachers got involved in the sports events. In this overall

activity we raised a lot of money.

Stephanie Greenstock

COMING SOON KS4 OPTIONS

The assembly hall was full of excitement courtesy of David Graham’s Natural High presentation. The audience was in full swing, dancing, clapping and singing to the lyrics of David’s own composition, ‘Natural High’. He also had some of the pupils on stage competing in football and dance competitions. David’s message was loud and clear and he wanted everyone to understand that drug taking only leads to fake highs which are short-lived. He tested our knowledge in ‘The Risk Factor’

game to show us that alcohol was actually the drug which caused the most deaths in a year. Some of the audience were quite shocked by this and it certainly gave them something to think about. Natural High is all about using our own talents and experiences to get a real buzz and feel happy. In one of the competitions, pupils had to think about the presentation’s message and come up with a catchy slogan. The presentation was absolutely brilliant and that was the view of everyone in the hall.

Healthy Lifestyles Natural High

During the month of January KNHS will be lucky enough to have Woman’s Aid come into school and work with

learners from year 7 and year 8 about the dangers of domestic violence. The sessions will focus on respect,

gender awareness and domestic violence.

After the joint project between the Humanities Faculty, Drama and Women’s Aid, the learners will produce a

play about the dangers of domestic violence.

KNHS has already helped raise awareness of domestic violence through an assembly by Graeme Phillips and

many members of staff wore a white ribbon during Domestic Violence Awareness Week.

SAY “NO!” TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Our sports hall was recently turned into a careers fair. The stalls were staffed by

people representing further education and careers for our year 9, 10 and 11 stu-

dents to visit.

They had an opportunity to find out about careers ranging from the Fire Service to

engineering and the National Health Service. There was also chance to investigate

college opportunities, what it is like at university or how to enter employment

through an apprenticeship.

Years 11 and 10 had already completed some preparatory self profiling using a

computer based careers program which they can access until they are 23 years old. All

students had an investigative worksheet to complete as they went round the event which is designed to help them

plan some sort of plan for work.

Every student showed a mature inquisitive approach to the event and the exhibitors were very complimentary about

our pupils. Comments included-

“All listened politely and most stayed to the end of my presentations”.

“(The students were) generally interested and did approach the stalls and had interesting questions”.

“I appreciated the efforts made by the school to welcome and thank us”.

Bournville College were particularly complementary about our careers fair saying that

they would love to come back. They said that this was the best school they had

attended. Gordon Franks Training were impressed with the number of students who

might now consider employment via an apprenticeship

.

We hope to repeat the event next year, making it even bigger by increasing the range

of careers on offer.

Thank you to all who helped in any way to make this a successful event.

Mr Taylor and Mr Benham

(Work Related Learning Coordinators)

A Visit to the Fair

• is a national programme run by Booktrust and supported by the Department for Children, Schools and

Families.

• It encourages and supports reading for pleasure by providing every year 7 student in England with a

free book from a list of 12 specially selected titles.

• Last year’s programme was a huge success with over 672,000

children receiving a free Booked Up book.

• In November, five regional events were held at which students

had the opportunity to meet some of the 2008 Booked Up au-

thors.

• Have a look around the website and find out more about this

year’s books and authors. Check out reviews to help you make

your choice, enter competitions, or write your own review of your book.

Booked Up . . . .

This year’s anti-bullying focus was cyber-bullying.

Increasingly, we are seeing teenagers using digital communication de-

vices – mobile phones, x-box, laptops etc to communicate with their

friends whilst sitting comfortably in their bedrooms. Social

interaction sites such as MSN, MySpace and Facebook allow

teenagers to share messages and photographs with friends quickly

and easily.

Unfortunately, these methods of communication can also make bully-

ing much easier and more harmful. Because the bully and victim are not face-to-face, often a

simple comment can become a serious issue, and it may not be until the teenagers return to

school that the real impact is realised.

During Anti-Bullying Week we focused on Cyber-bullying in our ICT lessons. Students

discussed how they should behave in a chat room or when using IM / text messaging and what

they should do if they feel uncomfortable with the conversation. We discussed the rules of

chat room etiquette.

Here are some simple rules to follow when chatting with friends in cyberspace:

STAY SAFE IN CYBERSPACE Anti-bullying week - 16th to 20th November 2009

In the lead up to Christmas, students from

Kings Norton High School visited several

primary schools to perform in assembly. We

sang and played instruments and gave a

preview of our Christmas concert to spread

some Christmas cheer.

Students involved were Amy (me), Lovinia,

Cherise, Kadey, Shalom, April, Amy and Jodie

singing. Sinead, Tolu, Amy, Caitlin, Stacey and

Mr Firth played instruments.

By performing to the primary schools, we had

the opportunity to rehearse in front of an au-

dience and gain the confidence to perform in

front of others.

Everyone involved had a

great time.

Amy Moore

Year 11 GCSE drama performed ‘Kidnapped at

Christmas’ by Willis Hall at the Christmas concert.

They were marked on their performance and these

marks will count towards their drama GCSE.

Look out for photos of

us performing in in the

next edition!

Citizenship has been brought to life for both KS4 and KS3 students over the past few weeks. Years 10 and 11 have been studying the facts, myths, dangers and realities of HIV/AIDS. However, the KS4 students were not happy with just learning about AIDS – they wanted to help inform others about it too! HUMANA Theiproject started with a presentation by three volunteers from a charity called HUMANA. The volunteers had just returned from a six month trip to Namibia, where they worked with and helped families affected by HIV/AIDS. During their presentation, the HUMANA volunteers gave a picture of what life is like for people in Namibia. They provided an insight into how large the problem of HIV/AIDS is in some African countries. World AIDS Day Assembly After watching the presentation from HUMANA, two year 10 learners, Ropa Muguta and Norma Andrews, asked if they could prepare and present an assembly to the whole school about HIV/AIDS. The two girls put together an absolutely brilliant assembly which everyone in the school really enjoyed and found iinformative. Well done Ropa and Norma! Active Citizenship To carry on the theme, some year 10 and year 11 citizenship classes have planned and delivered lessons

to several KS3 classes. Their lessons have been well planned and shown that they understand the key

problems faced by individuals and governments in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS. The lessons

were that good some of our teachers are beginning to get worried about their jobs!!!

Well done to everyone involved!

AIDS AWARENESS @ KNHS