NEWSLETTER 2nd November 2015

It has been a busy half term establishing our new school. There have been a great number of changes already to ensure excellence and there will be many more in the coming half term. The quality of behaviour has transformed in The Telford Park School and visitors have not failed to be impressed with what they have seen. The atmosphere in classrooms is calm and peaceful and teachers are now allowed to teach without disturbance. Our assertive discipline policy unfolds im-mediately after half term to turn the attention on the details of classroom behav-iour and expectation connected to learning and concentration. As Head I expect every child and member of staff to work hard to allow their light to shine and if the first few weeks is anything to go by we are well on the way to forging that ‘Team Park’ mentality so important to lasting success.

Lee Taylor - Head of School

STOP PRESS!!! HOT OFF THE NEWSDESK!!!

Some of our Year Elevens have come in for two days over half-term to complete their European Computer Driving Licence! This will give them an extra qualification!! This will be a rolling programme over the Year with all Year Elevens gaining ECDL by the Summer. What a great op-portunity for our Year Eleven students, to gain an industry wide recog-nised extra qualification. If you would like any more information about ECDL please contact Mr Mottram or Mr Hewitt.

A Huge congratulations to Mrs Rigby (our Assistant Head)

on completing the Birmingham half marathon in aid of the

Birmingham Children's Hospital on Sunday the 18th Octo-

ber. It took Mrs Rigby two

hours and twenty five

minutes to complete. Mrs

Rigby raised over £2000 and

would like to thank every-

one who sponsored her.

English News

Year 9 are enjoying a variety of poems in preparation for the unseen poetry GCSE exam. Our favourites are ‘Hunchback in the Park’ and ‘Death of a Naturalist’. We have created colourful art work which depicts the content of the poems which we have annotated using quotations from the poems. We are looking closely at tech-niques used by poets to create particular effects. We are looking forward to creating our own poems using these techniques.

Year 10 students are currently studying ‘An Inspector Calls’ by J.B.Priestley. This play will feature in their WJEC English Literature examination in Year 11. Students are learning about the idea of responsibility, capitalism, socialism and dramatic irony.

Year 11 AQA students are currently studying features of spoken language in order to prepare for a controlled assessment they will be writing which analyses the use of spontaneous spoken language in the workplace. Students will then be moving on to revise for their English Literature examination. Year 11 GCSE students have been preparing for their English Language examination by practising reading and writing skills. Students will be moving on to look at English Literature texts that will feature in their summer examination.

Languages News

¡Hola! The Languages department has had another busy few weeks and students have been doing fantastic work in lessons. Years 7-9 are all studying Spanish this year

and they have made a great start, keep it up!

On Open Evening the year 7’s opened up a French and Spanish Café to serve refreshments to students and parents and, quite literally, offer a taste of different cul-

tures. The students served brioche and pain au chocolat in the French Café and olives, chorizo and tortillas for the Spanish Tapas. The French food was a great hit and

attracted lots of customers but the olives did not go down so well!

The students also ran other activities throughout the evening, such as the Guess the Language Quiz and showcasing our Languages

IT software, and we had tons of volunteers to help us out who did the school really proud on the Open Evening. A HUGE thank you

to our helpers; Amber Ahmed, Abbie Adams, Leon Fox, Logan Humphries, Norrie Randhawa, Kornelia Waszak, Summer Forde, Kyra

-Leigh Winnerah, Huseina Musekhan, Amy Patterson, Charlotte Whitworth and Dylan Ribiero.

Watch this space for the Year 7 Foreign Language Spelling Bee coming up this half term!

Art News

Lots of exciting things have been hap-

pening in the Art Department so far

this term. Miss Metcalfe’s after school

KS3 club is underway and pupils have

started to make a huge textile piece of

work that is based on the artist Wassily

Kandinsky. Pupils are recycling old

CD’s to make woven circles that will

join together to make a group piece of

work that will be displayed

Year 9’s have started their Steampunk

project and are currently working on

mood boards. 9Art4 are pictured here

experimenting with materials and

paint effects, preparing their back-

grounds for some industrial drawings.

What a lovely lesson, well done!

COMPUTING AFTERSCHOOL CLUBS

Two afterschool clubs are run by our partner the Tablet Academy every week during term-time. The clubs are open to all students of The Telford Park School and local primary schools. These clubs have a strong educational focus whilst still being enjoyable to the stu-dents. They run every alternative Wednesday during term time starting at 3:00PM and finishing at 5:00pm. The first is a MINECRAFT Club run on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month and the second is PROGRAMMING run on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month.

The MINECRAFT club helps develop a range of academic and non-academic skills which include: Team Work, Maths, IT, Creativity etc. The school has its own Minecraft Server to ensure that students using it are safe as they are the only ones present in the Mine-craft world. Eventually it is hoped that we can develop a collaborative project for club members to rebuild Ironbridge, as it was in it’s prime – including furnaces, in a Minecraft world. Other activities include learning programming using Minecraft. The club is run by an experienced teacher from Tablet Academy and everyone is welcome.

The PROGRAMMING club helps support the Computing part of the national curriculum. Again it is open to all students and begins by teaching students how to create their own Mobile Phone Apps. In the future this will be extended to allow students to create Xbox games. Some time early next year EVERY year 7 will be given a programmable computing device by the BBC. This device is known as the BBC micro:bit. The programming languages taught in the club are the same as are used to program the BBC micro:bit and the teacher running the club is a Master Teacher Trainer taught by Microsoft and the BBC to teach teachers. As such students in the club are in good hands.

If you are a parent and think that this is something that either of these clubs would also be of interest to you, do get in touch as you will be welcome to attend alongside your son/daughter.

Music News

Our year 11 musicians have just got back from a fantastic visit to Dunfield House in Here-

fordshire. This year’s trip was a huge success with students having a very constructive and

enjoyable time. A lot of time was spent on practising and rehearsing music that will be

recorded as part of their GCSE Music course, along with enjoying wonderful food and

hospitality from the staff at Dunfield House. In the evenings the students took part in

team games and activities including an alphabet treasure hunt and Pictionary, also a game

of football where everyone joined in!

The swimming pool is always a desirable feature of the house and most students took the

opportunity to have a swim in the pool. We also had a competitive game of water polo on

the final day!

There were many awards given during the visit including a prize for best slippers, best

presented room, sports personality, most helpful student, and many more! Overall a

brilliant time was had by all, just ask

your friends who came! All students

have done our school proud and

shown excellent manners, behaviour,

effort and teamwork during the trip

and many vivos have been awarded.

Well done everyone!

Mr Anketell

Maths News

A big welcome to Mrs Sterling this week who has joined Mr Davies, Mrs Childs and Mrs Wragg in the Maths Department. Intervention days have now been arranged and are as follows :KS3 Tuesday, Year 10 Wednesday and Year 11 Thursday. Pleasing to see a good number of Year 11’s last Thursday and hope to see more of the same going forward. A reminder to all other years that the maths team are ready and able to help on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. Homework for all year groups will be appearing on mymaths on a weekly basis and pupils have a full week to complete the work. Mathswatch is also available online for revision for KS4 pupils, see Mr Davies for log in details. On a personal note I would like to thank all pupils for making me so welcome this term and look forward to a successful year.

Mr Davies, Maths

Congratulations to Nathan Jones in Year 8 (SY2) who won the Spooky Writing Competition. Na-than won two tickets to the Halloween Disco and a brand new book called ‘Get Shrunk Infini-ty Drake’.

Well done Nathan we are really proud of you!

Departmental News

Students have continued their great start to PE. The skills of the boys in rugby have been coming on brilliantly. The girls have been going from

strength to strength and are soon going to be competing in their first netball matches.

Coming this half term we have some gymnastics taster sessions from a local gymnastics club for students in years 7,8 & 9. This will lead to our new

Gymnastics Club starting on Wednesday 11th November.

England Rugby Football Union - All Schools

Following the successful launch of the RFU All Schools project at Telford Park, students have been making huge progress in rugby. This has resulted

in some boys playing in their first rugby games, representing the school at a Telford & Wrekin School Sports Partnership tournament for Yr 7’s and

The Marches School Rugby Festival for Yr 8’s. Both teams played incredibly well against some more experienced teams and learnt some valuable

lessons to help them develop their game. See below for upcoming fixtures.

Rugby shirt design

The students that attended the All School Shirt design day showcased their work to the whole school during the two house assemblies. This took

great courage for all the students to speak in front of their peers, well done!

Twitter

Please get on board with all PE dept news by following the Twitter feed: Follow us on: @TelfordPrkSchPE

The Varsity Match Trip

We have a trip going to watch the Varsity Match at Twickenham Stadium on the 10th December. This is a fantastic opportunity for any rugby fans to

visit the home of English rugby! See Mr Phillips for a letter as soon as possible!

New Club

Dodgeball club has now started on Thursdays after school from 2:40-3:40

Gymnastics Club – starting Wednesday 11th November – 2:40-3:40.

Fixtures:

We are in the thick of first round cup games for both the Presidents Plate and the Telford Schools

Cup. There will be more fixtures for other sports once these have been played.

Rugby:

7th December – Year 7/8 tournament at Telford Hornets

TBC – Year 10/11 V Ercall Wood & Wrekin College

TBC – Year 9 V HLC

Football:

3rd November – Yr 8 V Burton Borough –HOME

4th November – Yr 7 V Priory – HOME

5th November – Yr11 V Idsall School – HOME

6th November – Yr 11 V Shrewsbury School – AWAY

10th November – Yr 10 V Thomas Telford B- AWAY

P.E. NEWS

Year 8 boys who competed in The Marches

School Rugby Festival on 21st October.

Year 10 Boys who competed in the RFU

Emerging Schools competition at Telford

Hornets on 5th October