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Telephone: 01304 201151 Absence Line: 01304 200155 Fax: 01304 200152 E-mail: admin@astorcollege.org.uk
the
LINK Spring 2012
Dear Parents/Guardians It has been another successful and busy term with fantastic early entry English and Maths results reflecting the hard work of many students with the support of staff and parents. The Astor Powerlifting team took part in the Great Britain Junior Powerlifting Championships in Coventry last weekend and returned with two British Champions. Andrew Dixon took first place in the 66kg/U20 class, as did David Cridland in the 120kg/ U18 class. The three remaining Astor lifters achieved second placings with Cameron Keyes in the 84kg/U18 class, Liam Wilson in the 105kg/U18 class and Daniel Fletcher in the 120kg/U18 class. This is an amazing achievement and confirms the team as one of the strongest in the Country. The dedicated and successful coaching team are always looking for new members and further information is available from Mr Clubb in the PE department. Year 11 do not have long before they sit their final exams and the last Key Stage Review Day was at the end of this month. Please do not be afraid to contact Mr Clue, Director of Year, the Personal Tutor or Subject teacher if you have any concerns over this important period. I hope you will support your sons and daughters in reminding them about revision timetables and all the extra support sessions that are available every night after College, at lunch times and during the holidays. Year 11 are also looking forward and making plans for the end of year Prom. It is with regret that every year, students who misbehave or have poor attendance during this important time, are refused entry and I hope this will not be necessary this year. The application process for our 6th Form has begun and please remind your son or daughter to complete their application to me and Mrs Walton. Finally, I am sure we are all pleased with the recent improvement in the weather but can I remind you that full uniform must be worn. This includes: plain black shoes; blazer; white shirt with collar and top button done up; plain black trousers and tie. The College policy on uniform is very clear and with your support I am sure we can avoid the necessity to use any punishments to enforce it. Very best wishes
Mr E Pallant Head of College
Federation Students visit Spain Comenius Regio project “Building bridges between schools and families” The Dover Federation for the Arts participates actively in finding new ways and means to develop communication strategies between parents, students and teachers in building better links between school/College and home. “Building Bridges…” is a bilateral project between the UK and Spain, with the ultimate objective to raise standards through closer collaboration and better understanding between schools, pupils and their families. It is widely agreed that parents play a vital role in influencing their children’s attitudes towards learning, both at school and at home. Parents act as the link between school and home, and when respected as partners in education, allow students to fulfil their highest potential. The project aims to improve the school/family dynamic and ease the transition between Primary and Secondary levels, through the close investigation of the current feeling amongst parents, teachers and students, alongside the exchange of best practice and information across the partner regions. Involvement in the project will provide staff, parents and students a fantastic opportunity to work in partnership not only locally but also abroad.
Shellie Willis Director of Student and Parent Support
MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT World Maths Day 2012 On 7 March 2012, nearly 300 students in Years 7 and 8 took on the world in a competition to answer Mental Arithmetic questions. In total, Astor College pupils answered nearly 2000 questions out of nearly 300 millions answers worldwide. This year’s ‘Human Calculator’ award went to Kea McKeown (8JB) who correctly answered more than 200 questions in 24 hours. For their effort, every student who participated in World Maths Day received a digital World Maths Day Participation Certificate. We want to thank all those students who took part and we look forward to another round of World Maths Day competition in 2013.
Maths Games in lessons In Maths, we always try to make our lessons funny and exciting. Here are some students learning probability from experiments.
Quiz We hope that you will enjoy reading the Link as well as doing the following quiz.
(a) If you have five cows, twelve hens and a goat, how many legs in total?
(b) What is the next? 31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, … 7, 8, 5, 5, 3, 4, … (Hint: The two are related.)
PUBLIC SERVICES A Year 10 Public Service BTEC group were honoured to have the opportunity to take part in a personal development course at St John Moore Barracks at Shornecliffe, Folkestone on 11 March 2012. This activity was packed with numerous tasks that had to be completed in a certain amount of time. The activity turned out to be a great and successful day and was an excellent opportunity for the members of the group to be taught a different level of discipline. We returned to the College at the end of the day celebrating the fact that we had accomplished a challenging event in a professional manner! During the course of the activity we tried to make the least amount of mistakes possible as there was a 5 press-up punishment. This made ourselves more cautious of our actions, which led to a success. We are proud students of the College to have the honour of taking part in this activity and have a taste of what life is like under pressure and discipline. Report by Liam Christie and Harry Fields
HOLIDAY DATES
TERM DATES
PRESS RELEASE Astor College Young Enterprise Student’s delight at public speaking win Public Speaking Competition 3 February 2012 A student from Astor College’s Young Enterprise program has won the Dover District area public speaking competition. Every year Kent Young Enterprise companies have the opportunity to take part in the Public Speaking Competition, which is unique to Kent. Louise Webb is part of the Young Enterprise company ‘Inspirationery’, which aims to inspire teenagers through its new range of stationery. The group has designed unique pencil case made recycled denim clothing, which they hope will be available to buy soon. Louise had to prepare a 7 minute speech on the topic: Are modern music videos no longer appropriate for young viewers? She impressed the judges with her natural speaking style, and confident views and well prepared speech. Louise beat off outstanding competition from students at Dover College, Sir Roger Manwood’s and Dover Grammar School for Girls. She then went on to compete at the County Final on Thursday 9 February, at The Kings School in Canterbury. The Young Enterprise group at Astor College is very lucky to be supported by the Port of Dover Harbour Board. Chief Executive, Bob Goldfield said: “We are proud to support Young Enterprise for schools in the Dover District area for the sixth year running. Since we became the major supporter we have seen some fantastic and successful projects, proving that Dover’s students have great entrepreneurial spirit. To date, we have funded and mentored many Dover school companies helping to make Young Enterprise accessible to as many young people as possible from all backgrounds and abilities.” Dover Harbour Board. Photograph: Louise Web and Miss Polly Butterfield, Deputy Director of Sixth Form
Contact details: Miss P Butterfield Deputy Director of Post-sixteen Studies Astor College, Astor Avenue, Dover,
Since Monday 20 February we have been trialling a special offer of a bacon roll (or vegetarian alternative) plus a hot chocolate drink for £1 which will be served between 8am and 8.30am in the Refectory. This will be available free of charge for those entitled to Free School Meals and is in addition to the £2 allocation for lunch. We will also be offering the facility of cash payments at the tills although we would still recommend the use of the cashless card system. For those who have not used the cashless system yet, it is very simple to go online and put money on the card for use in the Refectory. It is free to use and free to top up by debit card. If your child is not already registered for Free School Meals and you think you may be entitled, please complete the form, available from the College office. I hope that this offer supports parents and guardians during these difficult financial times and, if the trial is successful, we will consider making it a permanent offer. Mr E Pallant Head of College
COLLEGE BREAKFAST
Astor College Breakfast
Year 9 Inter Form Badminton A slight shortage of entries did not deaden the excitement of the overall competition as all three forms with competitors finished tied on 5 points and the medium of points difference was required to sort out the final positions. 1st 2nd 3rd
PG CS GC
Brendon Ulaytt and Taylor Hare went through the competition unbeaten despite the best efforts of the Liam Smith, Owen Stebbing, Rhyan Hayward team who ran them closest of all competitors. Tom Essex and Nathan Neary recovered from a shaky start to record 2 wins and a draw to finish in second place in the individual table. Despite running Brendon and Taylor close, Owen, Liam and Rhyan could not match that performance in other matches and were placed third in the table. The second CS pairing of Connor Williams and Jordan Ricketts had to play all their games in succession and this and Connor’s man flu meant they finished fourth. GC’s second pairing of Tierney Williams and Lois Crosier with a little help from Lavanya Navaran of HH were unable to overcome all but Connor and Jordan to finish fifth in the table. This combination of results meant that all 3 forms tied on 5 points and the need for points difference. Well done to everyone who took part. Hope to see more students involved in the next event. M Gibson, PE Department
TRIP TO KNOLE ACADEMY BY COLLEGE VOICE COUNCIL On Wednesday 14 March Astor College Voice Council visited Knole Academy in Sevenoaks. We have a long history of college council work and have shared many ideas about how each school is run. When we arrived at Knole Academy the student voices played an ice breaker game where you write one true fact and one false fact about yourself and they had to guess which the false one was. Then we had discussions about lockers and how at Knole Academy’s their lockers work well and the students have a locker each. When we finished talking about lockers we then talked about how our schools could improve. At Knole Academy they have clip-on ties. This helps to stop students getting peanutted, but the bad thing about clip-on ties is they can get stolen easier. We talked about electronic devices such as phones at the schools. Knole Academy has a special device to tell if calculators or phones are being used in exams and it helps stop pupils cheating. Knole Academy does not allow any phones on students at all in school. Astor College is thinking about becoming an Academy so we talked about how Knole Academy felt about their transformation. The students said that they school was pretty much the same except for the new uniforms and name. After the council meeting we went to watch the school production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. It was quite hard to understand as it was in the original language but it was funny with the characters joking around. The students made all the scenery, did the entire make up and hair and all art classes do work for each production. The art work was amazing. We had a fantastic day and have lots of ideas to tell Astor students about. Luke Hitchman 7CJ
Music Evening and American Supper 4 May 2012 At 7pm in White Cliffs Theatre Entertainment starts at 7.30pm Contact Finance Office for all bookings on 01304 201151