ARK ACADEMY’S OFFICIAL MAGAZINE Issue #7 Autumn Term 2012
INSIDE
AUTUMN ADVENTURES!
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Welcome And “The academy’s core values are consistently reinforced via displays, assemblies, the immaculate state of the buildings, the positive conduct of staff and pupils and their relationships.” Delia Smith
So I believe work hard and be nice is alive and well. On that heartening note I will wish you all a merry Christmas and Happy New Year and hope the break is peaceful, safe and fun in equal measures.
Secondary Head Teacher
I always seem to say ‘what a term’ but it truly has been an action packed term. I am, I hope you agree, justifiably proud of this Arts and Culture Special, the performing arts, literature, art are all alive and well in Ark Academy. Participation is a key theme for success in life and so many of our young students throw themselves into everything and take full advantage of all the opportunities Ark Academy has to offer.
All my best wishes,
Delia Smith Principal
The recent charity events led by the different house teams, not only brought us laughter and joy, and warmed our collective hearts they also emptied many pockets—all in very good causes! We will be able to tell you the full sums raised and for what charity in January but I am pretty sure we will all be stunned by the inventiveness and generosity of all involved. Thank you, parents so much for supporting us in this.
New term starts Wednesday 9th January. Enrichment starts Monday 14th January.
This term has also been special in that as we grow we welcome not just a new year group but also new staff who have had to learn so much in settling in to a new environment and in return have given their all to the school. My thanks go to all our staff who every new year absorb so much and set an incredible standard of hard work and excellence so I was extremely pleased when our recent monitoring visit endorsed so strongly what we do here when they stated, “Teaching is engaging and challenging”
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Welcome When you consider at all the events included in the following pages you will hopefully reflect on what has been an amazing term. For these are just a few of the memories. There is so much more from all the school trips, the fund raising, the Kids’ Company events, the after school clubs and we still found the time to produce amazing academic results too!
Jacqueline Steele Primary Head Teacher
At this time of year we should also take the time to think about peace and harmony around the world and I would like to conclude by recognising that above all, here at Ark we are, I believe, a fine example of a community working together with a shared purpose, supporting each other along the way amidst a spirit of kindness, respect and responsibility.
It’s hard to believe that we have already completed a third of the academic year—we have achieved so much and packed so much in already! It seems like only yesterday that I was welcoming our new members of staff and our new reception children were arriving bright eyed and bushy tailed for their first day of the rest of their life at Ark Academy.
Thank you for all your support and contributions this term—I look forward with even more anticipation to my final term in January 2013. May I wish you all a peaceful and joyful Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.
In the first instance, therefore, I have to say a huge thank you to all the staff—our new colleagues who have so readily settled into academy life and taken on the vision and ethos. We all know how demanding life at Ark can be as we expect 100% in quality and quantity everyday— well they have provided this and more and already have made their mark and to all our less new colleagues who have continued to trail blaze and have worked so hard to maintain our expectations whilst also support our newer colleagues, keeping up their unstinting drive for improvement. We are now a major team and I am so proud of everything you do to continue Ark’s great success story.
Very best wishes,
Jacqueline E Steele Primary head teacher
The children have been a joy and remain a credit to us—they are so happy and keen to learn—it certainly makes our jobs easier and more fun! And parents! What can I say but thank you too for adding to the vibrant and happy community spirit that encapsulates Ark Academy.
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Autumn Term News
NEW BEGINNINGS! It only seems right that we start this edition of The Civitas by welcoming our fantastic new year 7s! They have quickly settled into life at Ark Academy after a busy induction week.
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Autumn Term News
NEVER FORGET
“Remembrance Day is important to us all as it allows us to remember all those who have led good lives by giving their lives in the line of duty.”
Ark Academy remembers those that have given their lives for us.
Maaryah Siddiqi 9DA
Students raised money and awareness for the British Legion by selling poppies in the lead up to Remembrance Day. A poignant Remembrance Day assembly also took place, which featured a number of student speakers. A roll of honour was read out to remember service personnel who lost their lives during the past year.
HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR VISIT Students were very lucky to have a talk from Holocaust Survivor Vera Schaufeld, who came to England from Czechoslovakia on the Kinderstransport when she was eight years old. This was a fascinating and incredibly moving experience for students, supporting their English work on The Diary of Anne Frank; and also for staff who came to listen.
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“It is also important as this special day raises awareness for all those soldiers who are fighting for our country now and to help those soldiers who have been harmed permanently.” Kassia Tavares 9DO
Autumn Term News
COURT IN SESSION
“ The Law Project was a great experience for everyone. I think that the one day introduction before the trip was a great chance to learn and find out more about crime and specifically knife crime. The drama activities were great as it gave us a better understanding of how other people might feel if they were guilty or if they were innocent. The actual law trip was exciting as we visited lots of old and special places such as the hall of robes where the judges’ robes were kept. When the mock trial began I felt like I was in a real court because everything except the judges was the same. Hannah, our tour guide, was very nice as she had patience with us and explained everything in detail.”
Year 9 students participate in the Theatre of Law project. This fantastic new project allows students to visit the Royal Courts of Justice and gain an insight into the workings of the justice system and the careers within it. Andrei Bogdan was one of many year 9 students who took part. Here he reflects on what he learned from the project:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Ark Academy celebrates its 2nd birthday! We can’t believe that it has already been two years since we opened our doors to our first cohort of students. We celebrated the milestone with balloons and cake!
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Autumn Term News
GELOSIA CHALLENGE! The annual Gelosia Challenge is not only great fun, but is also a very competitive house event, and this year was no exception! Socrates were this year’s winners in a closely fought contest. Curie were the runners up leaving Plato and Newton finishing third and fourth respectively. Curie were victorious in the teachers’ event. Ark Academy’s Nile Hutchinson took first place in the individual event. We are proud to announce that we also took first place overall in the Team Competition!
MATHS CHALLENGE Ark Academy hosted the ARK year 8 Maths Challenge. Students from ten different schools in the ARK network competed for the title of Team and Individual Maths Challenge Champions.
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Autumn Term News
CHARITY WEEK Charity week is an annual fixture in the Autumn term calendar, which allows students to give something back to society by helping those that are less fortunate.
Newton’s third annual Danceathon was great fun. They also held a secret cinema night at the same time for those that did not have the energy for dancing!
This year we had more events than ever, making it our biggest and most exciting charity week yet! At the time of writing this article, we were still counting all of the money that was raised (which is well into the thousands). However, it looks like we may be on course to break last year’s figures.
Curie and Plato were selling delicious cakes everyday. They were extremely tasty!
Socrates organised a charity football match at lunch time on the 3G Pitch.
This year the following charities were supported: Curie — Marie Curie Cancer Care Newton — The Uganda Lodge Primary School Plato — Great Ormond Street Hospital (YR7) — Guide Dog Charity (YR8) — Alzheimer’s Society (YR9)
“Charity week is important because it helps people realise that we should be grateful for what we have, since there are so many people who have nothing and live in poverty.” Olivia Sekloawu 9CH
Socrates — Action for Children
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Autumn Term News
Plato held another inter-house teachers basketball tournament. The sports hall was packed full of year 7 spectators who had great fun cheering the teachers on.
Socrates showed that the school is full of fine musicians , dancers and singers. Who would have believed that Mr David could break-dance and Mr Dainty could rap?! Ark Academy has definitely got talent!
Students tried to hit the cross bar from outside the penalty box. Only two students managed to do it!
Plato held an indoor 5-aside tournament.
Newton students got their own back on the teachers by placing them in detention!
“Charity week is important at Ark Academy because it is a week where we learn to give and not receive. It is a week where we put the needs of others before our own.” Klio Balliu 7DE
Curie danced and also washed the teachers’ cars. They definitely needed a good clean!
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Autumn Term News
OUT & ABOUT This term the primary school have been on lots of adventures!
The year 2s learned about life in Victorian Britain.
The year 4s saw historical re-enactments at the Tower of London.
The year 4s discovered more about Britain’s visionary health reformer.
The year 1s experienced life in a an iron-age round house!
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Autumn Term News
The year 2s carried out an archaeological excavation!
The year 1s had a fun day out learning about the history of toys! Lots of gifts have been donated to Operation Christmas Child.
GOOD DEEDS They have also been very Civitas by supporting lots of charities!
Our bounce-a-thon raised an amazing ÂŁ2,382.83 for Children in Need!
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Arts & culture special
Art Academy Ark Academy has been bursting at the seams with Arts and Culture! This edition of The Civitas looks back at what has been a very creative Autumn term.
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Arts & culture special
POETRY SLAM We celebrated National Poetry Day 2012 in style, by holding our second annual Poetry Slam, hosted in the Learning Centre. Miss Lipner, our school librarian, reflects on what was a fantastic event. A huge total of 49 students participated in the event, which required them to perform a poem of their choice to peers, teachers, and of course our three judges, with the hope of winning points for their house. This year, a large number of students performed poems which they had written themselves, and the standard was exceptionally high. Students from all three year groups took part, and the result was an entertaining, moving and incredibly impressive lunch break for performers and spectators alike. The maturity of poems, and the obvious time taken by students to prepare and think about their performances was clear for everyone to see and appreciate. By the end of the slam. The whole Learning Centre was bursting with spectators, all enthralled and excited by what they had been a part of. After a weekend of deliberation, the judges decided the winners were: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Ugne Plekaviciute Veesha Gajjar and Dhruv Gajjar Saratha Umasuthan Pragya Negi
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Arts & culture special
RAINBOW BOOK Ten Ark students have had their short stories published in an exciting new book. In October, members of Ark’s Book Club entered a creative writing competition open to all Brent students, celebrating Black History Month. The winning stories were published in a book called ‘The Rainbow Book’; a copy of which is held as part of the British Library collection. The theme of the competition was cultural diversity, and students were asked to write a story or poem about this topic. Students wrote mature and interesting stories, discussing issues such as racism, bullying, and successfully integrating into new communities . We are proud to announce that the following ten Ark students have had their creative writing entries published in the rainbow book: -Fatima Ahmed–Sultan -Taif Awadh -Tegan Bramwell -Jordan Groves -Hasiba Husseini -Shadia Nur -Poonam Pattni -Aleeyah Siddiqi -Mehek Tanvir -Matthew-David Tate Tegan and Aleeyah also received awards for excellent writing—their stories were placed 1st and 2nd out of all the entries. 14
Arts & culture special
AUTHOR VISIT Ark Academy was visited by author, illustrator and performance poet, Laura Dockrill. On the 21st November, the author Laura Dockrill visited the school and took five amazing creative writing workshops with classes from years 7, 8 and 9. The students absolutely loved the experience of meeting an author—they were queuing up in the library to get autographs! “It was amazing— she has inspired me to do more poetry”
“It was great because she was so much fun. Meeting an author was really cool because you got to learn about how to write and still be happy and relaxed.”
“It was life changing. I will always remember this.” “It was amazing, interesting and funny— I hope she comes again.”
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Arts & culture special
SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL Ark students wowed the crowds at this year‟s Shakespeare Festival. Mrs Geary, reflects back on the school‟s production. For the second year in a row Ark Academy students have taken part in the Shakespeare Schools Festival. This is a nationwide event which allows students the opportunity to perform a Shakespeare play in a professional theatre. This year we performed The Winter’s Tale. A challenging play with an intricate storyline, reminiscent of a fairytale. During the initial explorations the cast agreed that setting the play in two contrasting places would work well— so Sicilia soon became London and Bohemia became Bollywood. We think William Shakespeare would have enjoyed the Bollywood style dancing, music and costumes! The students worked very hard for three months leading up to the performance. Many of them were working behind the scenes as well as on the stage creating costumes and props for the show. We even trained up two girls to be the lighting and sound technicians, and a wonderful job they did.
The performance received high praise from Lydia Lewison (Regional Manger of the Shakespeare School Festival) who said: “The Winter‟s Tale is a tough play to stage and you did it beautifully. Your production hit all the notes of light and shade; the story-telling was perfectly clear and you raised the stakes enough to make the banishment and emotion of the reconciliation believable.”
The students thoroughly deserve the praise they have been given and everything they have learnt on the journey has impacted upon them, I hope for the rest of their lives. 16
Arts & culture special
OLD VIC NEW VOICES TRIP Ark students travelled to the Old Vic to see an inspiring performance of Hedda Gabler. Before travelling to the theatre, students participated in a two hour workshop which introduced them to the story and characters of the play. They were then treated to front row seats and saw a performance that definitely lived up to the reviews.
Samir Hussain 9EL
“The people that took the workshop were very nice and provided us with a good understanding of the story. We later realized after watching the production that many of the workshop activities were based on scenes that were in the play. The theatre performance was great and it was made even more special because we had front row seats!�
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Arts & culture special
HOUSE ART COMPETITION The theme of this year‟s house art competition was „who do you think you are‟. As usual, the standard of the competition was extremely high and it produced some fantastic individual and group entries. Socrates clinched victory this year with this fantastic sculpture of a tree. This piece was created by Christina Filon, Pragya Negi and Iqra Abdi who are all in year 8. The tree represents all four house colours and the Socrates success stars can be seen scattered across the trunk.
1st Newton were awarded second place for this ambitious piece of artwork. Every member of Newton house was involved in the creation of the ship and it is therefore fitting that everyone is depicted on board. The ship is sailing across the ocean towards the students’ long term goal, which is to study at university.
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Arts & culture special Plato secured third place with this brilliant model. A mortarboard sits proudly on top of a desk. This shows the goal that we are all working towards, which is to reach university. Plato students have also merged the flags of the world together, which not only symbolises unity but also acknowledges that our school community is made up of different nationalities.
3rd Curie can be proud of the fact that they had more entries than any other house, which shows that they strongly believe in participation—one of our core values. Curie represented the house system as being like the solar system—at times separate, but ultimately together as one.
4th
PRIMARY ART Pupils in the primary have also been busy creating some impressive artwork!
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Arts & culture special
THE SOUND OF ARK Mrs Cooke, our head of music, looks back at the wonderful sounds we have been hearing around school during the Autumn term. YEAR 9 SONGWRITING PROJECT Year 9 have been studying the fertile question: 'Does music have power?’ They have been looking at the history of the 'Protest Song', listening to a wide variety of music from Billy Holiday to Public Enemy. This half-term pupils have been composing their own 'protest songs'. I'm really impressed by the quality of some of the lyrics and the musicality of some of the song writing. I'd like to have a concert in the new year that showcases some of these songs as year 9 have definitely got something to say! SCHOOL ORCHESTRA I'm really finding it hard to fit all the musicians in the one room this half-term as our school orchestra continues to grow. We've been playing Mission Impossible, We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer this half-term. Pupils performed as an accompaniment to the festivities at the Christmas Fayre. VOCAL WORKSHOP On Friday 30th November 50 pupils got together to form what will become the 'Senior Choir'. We rehearsed all afternoon, focusing on Christmas music for the Christmas Fayre and end-of-term assembly. Pupils began singing confidently in 3-part harmony and they sounded fantastic. I hope to begin rehearsing every week during enrichment with them and am looking forward to some festive carol singing too. GALA GROUP They don't want to be called the Gala Group any more, so if anyone has a suggestion for a name then do let me know! We saw another impressive performance from this group of Emelie Sande's song 'Read all about it' last week at Mr Benson's assembly. The group have been very committed to rehearsing and are becoming very impressive musicians. Keep practising guys!
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House News Socrates Maalik Stephenson 9 CH
Curie Maaryah Siddiqi 9DA
Roda Abdirahman 9CH
Andrei Bogdan 9DA
Remi Jeffers Issacs 9 DI
Fabien Reid 9DA
Sara Elbana 9DI
Sian Peart 9OR
Jai Stewart 9CH
Maaryah Siddiqi 9DA
Anithya Balachandran 9CH
Amanda Nzekwue 9OR
ROLES & RESPONSIBILTIES We welcome our new house, debate and sports captains. Newton Triston Pryce 9BR
Plato Cullen Holas 9EL
Sally Gurung 9DO
Ashley Okpalajiaku 9AU
Sesan Russell 9BR
Alfie Gordon 9EL
Kiara Taylor 9DO
Te’Rique Dover-Lloyd 9AU
Antwayne Plummer 9BR
Cullen Holas 9EL
Kassia Tavares Marques Monteiro 9DO
Shivani Khatri 9EL
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Sport
SPORTS RESULTS
Ark students continue to demonstrate excellence in football and netball.
FOOTBALL
NETBALL
YEAR 7 FOOTBALL RESULTS 6-6 Draw against Capital City Academy 7-1 win against Alperton 5-2 win against Queens Park 2-1 loss against Langley Academy 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss We are extremely impressed at how quickly they have gelled together as a team.
YEAR 7 NETBALL RESULTS 2-1 win against Kingsbury 1-1 draw against JFS 2-1 loss against KHS 4-3 against Queens Park 4-2 loss against Claremont 1 win, 1 draw and 3 losses The YR 7 girls finished 4th in the Brent School Competition
YEAR 8 FOOTBALL RESULTS 6-6 draw against Capital City Academy Landslide win against Nower Hill 1-9 loss against East Barnet 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss There has been some good team performances by the YR 8 boys.
YEAR 8 NETBALL RESULTS 4-0 win against Alperton 3-0 win against Claremont 2-0 win against Preston Manor 3-0 loss against Queens Park 1-0 loss against St Gregory’s 3 wins and 2 loses Three YR 8 teams entered the tournament. They were placed 4th in the A competition and 3rd and 5th in the B competition
YEAR 9 FOOTBALL RESULTS 1-2 loss against Wembley High 1-3 loss against Nower Hill 0-0 (won 5-4 on penalties) against Glyn School 3-0 win against Orleans Park 0-1 loss against King Edward Grammar 1 win and 3 loses The YR 9 boys showed persistence in all of their matches.
YEAR 9 NETBALL RESULTS 7-1 win against Alperton 5-1 win against Preston Manor 8-1 win against Kingsbury 13-0 win against Wembley High 4 wins and 0 loses The YR 9 girls are Brent Champions!
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Student voice “My h ig term w hlight of th e week as induction as we did lo great ad a tech a ctivities in f s of nd sci ood ence” Klio B alliu 7 DE
YOUR SAY! Ark students share their Autumn term highlights.
“My highligh t of was performin the term g „Read all about it‟ by E mile Sande during year 7, 8 and 9 assemblies. I thought it was a really fu n experience.”
rm was ht of the te g li h ig h all y “M e Ark footb th n o it g d in mak t was a goo a th e m r o team. F s cause I wa y left moment be m n n injury o carrying a that kle. I think n a d n a e e kn e e a lot mor t of there will b th g in e res in m o c ts h ports highlig ecially on s p s e , r a e y the day.” U dayomi 7E Charles Fa
Darshan Pate l9
BR
“My hig hl meeting ight of the term w Laura D ockrill. I as liked ho w re by dress she expresses h ally erself ing how she wan ts...” Devante Kearney 7AR
“My highlight of the term has to be scoring five goals whilst playing football during PE.”
“My highlight of the term was becoming house captain of Plato for the second year running. It was a proud moment.”
Rithik Gohil 7EC
Cullen Holas 9EL
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Everyone here at Ark Academy would like to thank you for all your support and wish you a Happy Christmas.
The Civitas magazine was edited and designed by Colin Knott. Thanks to all contributors. Special thanks: Emma Franklin for much of the Secondary photography. Pushpa Hirani for printing. John Kirkman for the original 24 Civitas design template.