5th March 2012 - Issue 17

Chiswick Community School, Burlington Lane, London W4 3UN. Telephone 0208 747 0031

Also available online atwww.chiswick.hounslow.sch.uk

Student Services Direct Line 020 8747 6655 to report your child ill or late.

PARENTSYour Weekly Newsletter

C H I S W I C K S C H O O L

Diar y Dates

MARCHTue 6th

Year 11 Photos

Wed 21stYear 11 Study Skills day

Fri 23rdAdult Education end of term

Mon 26th - Tues 27thGCSE Drama tech/parents performance

Tue 27th - Wed 28thYear 10 Tetanus Injections

Fri 30thLast Day of Term

Author Val Bloom Visits Chiswick Schools Library

By MaryaM Khalifa

Last week, Chiswick had the pleasure of welcoming leading UK children's poet and author, Valerie Bloom to perform some of her work to a year 7 class.

When arriving at the library, I was over-whelmed by the laughter and positive atmosphere; Valerie was engaging the children and teachers in an interactive and entertaining performance; where she drew on her Caribbean heritage. It was incredibly entertaining and had everyone smiling!

"Me and my friends had lots of fun, be-cause she really involved us and was so funny!" said Ella Keegan Harris, a stu-dent who was in the audience.

Valerie Bloom's story was very inspir-ing; having trained as an English teacher in Jamaica, her first job was teaching a class of 'problem children'. 'I was unable to get through to them, I tried everything. One day I tried teaching them poetry and

they loved it! They loved it so much that we entered into the National Art Festival and won a gold medal! It was such an achievement, I was so proud' she told me.

She came to England and volunteered as a teacher, performing stories and poems, and before she knew it; she had schools calling her up, wanting her to perform. 'It was a dream come true! I'm doing some-thing I love-as my job!'

Meeting her was truly inspirational; she was funny and charismatic, and Chis-wick wish her all the best.

Students on Ski Trip

Little Shop of Horrors Review

The school put on its annual musical per-formance. This year, Little Shop of Horrors took to the stage to wow the audience.

The story follows Seymour, played excel-lently by Ellis Folkes who works at an un-successful florist, alongside owner Mush-nik (James Pavey). All too soon, he is the owner of a very successful one, thanks to a new ‘plant’ that grabs everybody’s atten-tion and brings people from all over to ob-serve. This plant is named Audrey 2 (after Audrey, Seymour’s dream girl played bril-liantly by Saba Shiraz) and is one that will survive, provided it feasts on human blood and flesh.

A chain of death, love and mystery pro-vided a very enjoyable experience. Singing performances from Nina Pryce, Dominique Thomas-St Ville and Evangeline Stanford also really helped to narrate the story. Oli-ver Omorationwan was a revelation as a

humorous mad dentist. Philippa Page of-fered a booming and daunting voice from the plant, Audrey 2.

The show would not have been possible without the excellent playing of the band ably directed by Ms. Raven and Mr. Hick-son.

Overall, a great play with an excellent soundtrack, great acting and catchy songs. Jacob Dorrington attended the event and said ‘I enjoyed this year so much, I’m re-ally considering going in for the auditions next year’. Benedict Segal summed up the evening by saying ‘This should go to the West End!’

alfie

Seven Year 9 students won a poster com-petition whilst attending Hounslow Youth Crime conference, an event to raise aware-ness of youth crime and build better rela-tionships between the police and our young people.

A variety of Hounslow Borough schools at-tended including Green, St Marks, Lamp-ton and Gumley and took part in various workshops all focusing on different areas of crime e.g. stop and search. The students learnt about their rights as young people, when talking to the police, including their right to refuse search.

Another area explored was domestic vio-lence, where the students watch a short hard hitting documentary then held a group discussion. The final activity was a theatre workshop organised by Chris Preddie who grew up on the fringes of gangs and drugs, yet at the age of 24, he is being awarded an OBE for his youth work. Everyone got involved and it ended in a big discussion on youth crime. This was voted at the end of the day to be the best activity.

There was a competition to design a slogan to prevent knife crime, which Chiswick won with their slogan “the only point in a knife is to take a life” which the judges loved. It will be used around Hounslow and on buses soon.

Ms Kaur described the event as an “inspir-ing and fun day that gave the students the tools to be able to understand the implica-tions of street crime and build better rela-tionships with the police and community.”

Chiswick Win Crime Poster Competition

The Launch of the New School LogoThis logo retains the essence of Chiswick

Community School, using a modified version of the Chiswick House motif; yet

looking ahead with the introduction of the “River” motif.

Sports SectionOff To The Slopes

In the 10th of February, Chiswick students and teachers left on the Annual ski trip, this time-in Austria.

It was a classic trip, with no injuries this year and plenty of snow! In fact, at one point there was so much snow that it was impossible to see past your nose.

Nearly a third of the trip were beginners and they made lots of progress (except Mr Patel); one student even 'wiped out Miss Emmett'. 'It was the best week ever!' said year 10 student, Nick Rebuffa.

The hotel and food was the best yet and there was iceskating, dinner out at a pizza restaurant and a disco, where everyone had a good time.

'I'm looking forward to next year already!' Mr Simpson told me.

Overall, it was a success and we're glad everyone had fun.

By MaryaM Khalifa