Clapton Review - The Autumn Term

THE CLAPTON REVIEW FEBRUARY 2017

BAKING

BODY PARTS FOR THE

ROYAL PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY

STUDENTS MEET PROFESSOR BRIAN COX STUDENTS WIN ‘BEST PRODUCT’ AT EUROCLEAR TRADE FAIR AWARDS

UNI OFFERS FROM

CAMBRIDGE AND

RUSSELL GROUP 1

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Career Advice Employees from Linklaters Law, Harvard Press, The British Library, The NHS and Balfour Beatty visted Y12 students to give an insight into their jobs.

WELCOME

FROM THE HEADTEACHER Welcome to the first edition of the Clapton Review for this academic year.

In this issue we take you all the way back to the summer and the start of the autumn term for a retrospective celebration of our many student and staff achievements.

I hope you enjoy sharing in the many achievements of our talented students and staff.

Anna Feltham Headteacher

Summer Arts Festival We couldn’t have asked for better weather for our Summer Arts Festival back in July. It was the perfect start to the summer break! Students and parents enjoyed a bite to eat from the global foods buffet, cooked up by our talented students, whilst enjoying some incredible outdoor performances.

Books To Gambia At the end of the academic year we had a clear out of all our old textbooks and donated them to ‘Bikes2Gambia’.

Each year we donate old textbooks and educational resources to the charity who distribute them to young people in Gambia. This year we had so many that we managed to fill two vans with books!

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Fantastic Gymnastics Commonwealth gold medallist, Steve Frew, gave a gymnastics masterclass to PE students.

Old Girls Reunited At the end of July the academy welcomed back some familiar faces with our annual Old Girls event.

The event was well attended by ex Clapton students from every era going back to the 1940s. The alumni were taken on tours to see how the academy had changed and shared their memories of their time at Clapton.

“When I was 16 I was asked to learn some of the solos for the summer performance of Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’.

On the day of the concert another girl withdrew from her solo and I sang the alto part throughout. My father was playing the cello in the orchestra sitting behind me. It was one of the happiest nights of my life.”

Joyce Jarvis, Clapton Girl 1954 - 61

Basketball Bosnia

Class Of 2016

In July, Greenhouse sports and CGA basketball players visited the international basketball camp in Bosnia. They immersed themselves in an intensive week long course where they had the opportunity to develop their skills and teamwork.

After weeks of dedicated revision and exams our Y13 students had a well earned celebration!

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The Sixth Form prom marked the end of their time at CGA. It was an emotional and exciting event as we looked forward to hearing what the future holds for them.

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76%

A-MAZING RESULTS!

GCSE Stars Amazing results for our Y11s who received a massive 75% A*-C in English and Maths! Congratulations!

In August, Clapton Girls’ Academy Sixth Form celebrated another year of incredible A-level results as we were placed in the top 25% of all sixth forms nationally and 2nd in the borough for the second year running.

A-level students achieved a whopping 85% A*-C in their results - our best yet, whilst BTEC students did even better with a spectacular 100% Distn* - Merit. This placed us in the top 1% of all sixth forms nationally for BTECs. Huge congratulations went to BTEC applied science students who gained 100% Distinction* or Distinction grades which is the equivalent to A*A*A* or AAA at A-level.

Many of these students went on to secure places at Russell Group universities to study medicine related degrees such as Radiography, Paramedical Sciences and Nursing.

Outstanding individual A-level performances included Nadiya Hussain (AAA) who secured her place at the prestigious Imperial College to

study medicine, Nadiya said “I am extremely pleased with my results. I could not have done it without the teachers’ motivation.”

Other successful students have embarked on apprenticeships in a range of employment sectors. Aine Harnett-Lennon (AAB) secured an engineering apprenticeship with Siemens while Rosie Tandek proved that the sky really is the limit with an apprenticeship in aviation!

Head girl, Brittnie MossJeremiah achieved A*AB and secured her place at Nottingham to study Spanish and Spanish law. Brittnie said, “I am very excited and really happy as I worked so hard.

The teachers really knew how to challenge and support me to ensure I achieved the best results possible.”

For more information on sixth form destinations visit our website: www.clapton. hackney.sch.uk/sixthform/ destinations-and-results

GCSE Students Smash It! There were huge smiles at CGA on GCSE results day with students achieving 76% A*-C grades (well above the national average of 67%).

Nearly all subjects performed above the national average with English language, statistics, sociology, product design and ICT being 20% or more above this benchmark.

Outgoing Headteacher, Cheryl Day, said “I am absolutely delighted with today’s GCSE results. Outstanding once again!

Once more we have achieved the double with outstanding A level results last week too. Well done to our hard working students and staff. They deserve their success.”

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Coffee Afternoon Staff raised an amazing £180 for Macmillan Cancer Support from a bake sale and coffee afternoon held in the staffroom.

Clapton Girl Selected For U16 Basketball England Squad In September, three CGA and Greenhouse Pioneer players represented the London region in the U16 girls’ Regional Development Tournament in Manchester.

Following this performance, England scouts selected CGA student and Greenhouse Pioneers player Jade GuidolinDuncan for the Women’s U16 England Squad.

Over the course of this year, Jade will be joining other selected players in the Basketball England Regional Performance Centre programme. Here she will develop her skills and knowledge of the sport. At the end of the programme a final

squad selection will take place and these players will go on to represent Great Britain in the U16 European Championships in August 2017. Jade has played national league basketball at both U14 and U16 level for the past three years with London Greenhouse Pioneers.

Jade said: “I am very excited to be chosen. Last year, I missed out on selection, so I am very grateful to be given a second chance. I would never have had this opportunity without the basketball programme at CGA and without the amazing support and mentoring from Coach Fe. CGA do so much to encourage girls into sports.”

Below: Jade Guidolin-Duncan, Alecia Mansell and Aaliyah Samuels-Campbell selected for regional development tournament.

Välkommen!

As a ‘world class’ school, we regularly welcome delegates from all over the world to visit the academy and share our expertise with. In September, we welcomed visitors from Linderud Skole in Sweden. Feedback from our guests: “It was inspiring. I am so impressed with the well organised system of the school and staff”. The Swedish delegation went on a tour of the academy, were taught maths by our Year 11 prefects and watched presentations from key staff.

First Ever DofE Gold Award We would like to congratulate our Y13 student Zoe who completed her Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award back in September. Zoe is the first ever CGA student to complete the award to this level. In order to achieve the gold award, Zoe had to complete several sections: 12 months of volunteering, 12 months of a physical activity, six months learning a new skill and a five day expedition.

and had to navigate through difficult mountain paths. The group were completely selfsufficient, with only maps and compasses to navigate.

The biggest challenge however was the five day expedition in the Brecon Beacons in Wales.

Zoe was5 part of a small group

Students interested in signing up for our Duke of Edinburgh programme should speak to Ms Van Staeyen.

Zoe said “It was tough and not always enjoyable when walking for six or seven hours a day but I am very proud of myself and think it was a fantastic experience. The skills I have picked up have been very valuable.”

Great North Staff Run A huge congratulations to Ms Van Staeyen and Ms O’Shea for completing the Great North Run raising money for The National Autistic Society and Cystic Fibrosis Trust. They both had an impressive time of 2 hours 35 minutes and 2 hours 15 minutes respectively.

Ms Van Staeyen also coordinates the running club at CGA and works hard to encourage students to take up running.

“I ran the Great North Run because I want to inspire the students. I did it for them.”5

Debate Mate The CGA debating team went to Balliol College, Oxford for a national debating competition.

Maths Olympiad

Every Child Matters

Well done to talented mathematician Joyce Muraya, 10T who achieved a high score in the ‘We solve problems’ Maths Olympiad at University College London.

In support of our key priority of wellbeing this year, in October students took part in an ECM day where they had the opportunity to take part in a number of activities.

Meeting Royalty Three CGA Students met HRH The Earl of Wessex, Prince Edward at Young Hackney youth club to mark the Diamond anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh Award.

On offer were fencing, tai kwon do, yoga, parkour and some students even got to make their own soap!

In an apprentice-style task, the students designed, made, packaged and branded their own soaps. They were then tasked with pitching their products to a panel of judges where they explained their concepts and marketing plans. As well as a lesson on branding, students had to consider their costings and sales margins.

Jack Petchey Awards

The Jack Petchey achievement awards took place at Stoke Newington Town Hall back in October. The event saw 95 young people from organisations across Hackney receiving a certificate and a cheque for £250 each to spend on their school.

One of the youngest winners on the night was CGA student Katia Benamanne, who had impressed at the Salters Chemistry Festival at the University of East London.

Katia was part of a team from CGA that went on to achieve second place in the competition, the furthest we have managed at the festival in almost five years.

Y9 Head of Year, Ms Gakungu said: “Katia is a role model to her peers and she is an active school council and debate club member.”

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Prize Giving An impressive 93 awards were given out at this year’s prize giving ceremony. A big congratulations to all the students who received an award.

BIO BAKES

In association with the Royal Physiological society, Y7 students made these amazing cakes based on the human anatomy. The cakes tasted delicious even though they were a little macabre!

Brain cake by: Ummhaani Mulla-Bala

Breathing lungs cake by: Dorothy Scott-Griffiths

Eyeball cake by: Husna Pirbhai

The human anatomy by: Ivy Bailey

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Food for thought by: Cara Voysey

New Scientists Y13 biology students went to Norfolk to complete a number of ecological investigations.

Hackney Youth Parliament “Now is the time for young people to step up and show their beliefs and opinions.

Young people must set the future - they are the future”

“I want to change the way society views young people.

I want to stop young people being discriminated against”

Aisha Pirbhai Y11

Safaa Pirbhai Y9 In October, CGA students participated in the Hackney Youth Parliament elections with two of our students, Safaa and Aisha Pirbhai eventually being elected.

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The Youth Parliament is made up of 24 elected members, with voting taking place in schools, colleges and youth clubs around Hackney.

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85%

An Inspiration To Us All

Sixth Form Stars We had a record number of students attending our sixth form open evening from all over Hackney and surrounding boroughs.

With results as good as 85% A* - C, this is no surprise!

CGA Basketball Coach Named As Finalist For National Award Fionnuala Duhaney-Keown, Greenhouse Sports Senior Head Basketball Coach at CGA, was named as a finalist from hundreds of nominations for Sport Coach UK’s Children’s Coach of the Year.

Coach Fe has engaged 200 girls from the school in her basketball programme, many of whom were new to the sport.

Her teams have succeeded at borough and regional level, with her under 14s girls’ team finishing second at the London Finals and Clapton under 16 team reigning as undefeated borough champions for the 5th consecutive year.

Y10 student Raivene Walters was awarded with Young Hackney’s Inspirational Young Person Award.

The 2016 Youth Awards is hosted by Young Hackney which celebrates the achievements of young people who have gone the extra mile over the last year. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was on hand to present the awards.

Raivene won the award for her volunteering work at Hackney Marsh playground where she mentors younger students in sports. Raivene has also volunteered many hours of community work with the police cadets which she continues to do alongside her studies.

UCL Scholar Congratulations to Y9 student Victoria Nkan who was successfully selected to participate in the Y9 UCL Sutton Trust Scholars’ programme.

UCL Sutton Scholars is an academic development programme for 100 highly able students from London nonselective state schools. It is delivered

by UCL in partnership with the Sutton Trust. The programme is designed to challenge and develop students’ skills in critical thinking, problem solving, writing, research and giving presentations, to ensure that these students meet their potential by achieving A*s and As in their GCSEs.

Business Mentors Develop Students In November, as part of our enrichment programme for sixth form students, a group of Y12 students took part in their first business mentoring session of the Community-Apprentice competition between Clapton Girls’ Academy and Brown Brothers Harriman, a private banking and investment management company.

Everyone Welcome Some wise words from our Y7 students about inclusion as part of PSHCE day and Anti Bullying Week.

The mentors support the students at key points in the ten-month programme, which, like the TV series ‘The Apprentice,’ requires students to demonstrate personal qualities whilst working in teams to manage their own projects. In this case, however, the students will be competing to see who can make the biggest positive impact on their community, rather than the most profit.

Tennis Stars CGA Greenhouse tennis students had the chance to see an epic set battle between Andy Murray and Kei Nishikori at the O2 in November. Check out their video at: youtube.com/claptongirlsacademy Later that month Greenhouse tennis students were ball crew at the NEC wheelchair masters and met Olympic bronze medallist Lucy Shuker.

This is the first time one of our students has been selected for the programme.

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Basketball Champions For the fifth consecutive year Clapton Under 16 basketball team reigned undefeated borough champions!

Girls In STEM Y10 and Y12 students took part in a hands on day of interactive STEM workshops at Middlesex University.

The girls impressed the physical computing and robotic faculty with their programming and coding skills; programming robots for robot wars as well as coding an LED lights display with their own designs.

They also worked with a graffiti artist to learn about where art meets science, and extracted DNA to make perfect pendants.

Professor Brian Cox! For the six months leading to November, students from STEM club worked hard to develop a solution to a real environmental issue as part of the J.P.Morgan Schools Challenge.

They worked closely with Ecoactive and J.P.Morgan mentors to turn an idea into a real product.

The girls gained many experiences including: putting a business plan together; programming, lessons on winning a sales pitch; and gaining real insight into sustainability. They even met Professor Brian Cox!

An Honourable Mention From A Cambridge Professor Bainbridge,renowned author and Director of Studies in Veterinary Medicine at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

On shortlisting the essays, Dr Bainbridge said: “I was extremely impressed by the standard of what I read. The participants showed a remarkable ability.”

Y11 student Sukie Jenkins received an honourable mention at the World Class Schools’ essay writing competition for her essay on the teenage brain.

The awards took place at Queen Mary University and was judged by Dr David 9

Their teacher and STEM club leader Ms Bugtti said: “I was personally blown away with their real life application of science and the girls won much praise from global market leaders as well as financial regional directors from J.P.Morgan for their effective communication, drive and enthusiasm.”

Stars In Our Schools In November, we congratulated our fantastic support staff by taking part in Unison’s ‘Stars in Our Schools’.

Then we held our own version especially for our amazing teaching stars. Thank you for all your great work and dedication!

Headteacher Anna Feltham, attended the awards in support of Sukie along with recently qualified World Class Schools student assessor and CGA sixth form student, Hafsa Mohammed. Along with Hafsa, CGA student Tia Joseph has also been recently awarded with qualified student assessor status. As assessors, the sixth formers work with other schools to help bring them into the World Class Quality Mark.

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Running For Wellness A record 43 members of staff are signed up to run the Hackney Half marathon in April. We are raising money for local mental health charity Mind in the City. Go team CGA!

Speakers’ Union CGA hosted a public speaking competition evening, organised by the English Speaking Union. Three other schools from across London came to compete. The students had a list of topics they could choose from. Our two speakers, Billie Williams, 11C, and Rae Ferner-Rose, 10T, chose to talk about whether we should give more power to local communities and less to central governments, and whether we should accept that genetically modified products are here to stay.

WHAT I LOVE

Billie won the best speaker’s award.

The other girls involved spoke, and represented the academy, brilliantly. They were Maisie Smith, 10P, Sukie Jenkins, 11L, Matilda Mendick, 10N and Maddy Diggins, 10T.

Gifts To Refugees

Sixth Form Voice

Test Tube Tree

In December fifteen Y12s were given the opportunity to visit Oxford Wadham College and Balliol College.

In association with the Hackney Cypriot Association, our Y7 students donated shoe box gifts to refugees in Greece. Each box contained some small essentials such as toiletries and warm clothing as well as a gift, which went to Thessaloniki, Greece to help the estimated 27,000 children in the refugee camps.

It was a day to experience university life outside of London. We were given a chance to sit in a lecture of our choice; ‘The study of mind and brain’ or ‘Transnationally speaking: expanding your intellectual horizons through learning a language from scratch at university’.

I chose to sit in the lecture about the mind and the brain, as it linked really well to Psychology. It was an interesting lecture given by Dr Andrew Bell, which expanded my knowledge on how different parts of the brain affect speech and memory.

After the lectures, current students at Oxford gave us a tour around the two campuses, allowing us to take an insight into the dining hall, common rooms and the famous library of Oxford, where a copy of every single book published in the UK is stored.

Safiyyah Patel, Y12 10

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Offers From Top Unis A whopping 16 sixth form students have received university offers from Queen Mary alone; 10 from Kings, 1 from Cambridge and many others from Russell Group universities.

Young Enterprise

E ABOUT CGA

Eight students from Y12 Young Enterprise enrichment programme travelled to central London to participate in the Euroclear Trade Fair. Students were given the opportunity to sell their hand-made products and showcase their skills as young businesswomen.

Students received valuable feedback from local professionals and were given the opportunity to compete against other Young Enterprise businesses.

One of our groups won the prize for ‘Best product’ and received a certificate.

The winning team included; Emma Silva, Raweewan Waharak, Hadiya Patterson and Alice Baxter.

Winter Concert

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A huge congratulations and thanks to all the students who were involved in this year’s winter concert. It was a fantastic evening showcasing some amazing talent.

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follow us! facebook.com/ claptongirlsacademy

@ClaptonGA

Xmas Factor

Winter Jumper Day

Sixth form students hosted the first ever CGA Xmas Factor talent competition to round off the year.

Staff and students raised money for Save the Children by donating £1 to wear their festive jumpers to school on our ‘Winter Jumper Day’.

There were lots of amazing performances including singing, dancing and rapping.

There was even CGA’s very own Simon Cowell in the form of Head of Sixth form’s Mr Mountford.

SAVE THE DATE We’re holding two wellbeing themed information events for parents on:

Have you received the CGA News?

Written by students, for students HUMANS OF CLAPTON “There is no one like me. I’m funny, I’m smart, I’m basically every type of personality in one person.”

Nightingale Hall – 5.30-6.30pm Parents welcome from 5pm for refreshments and to meet with key staff.

PARENTS!

CGA SIXTH FORM BLOG

Thursday 2nd March – KS4/5 Thursday 9th March – KS3

instagram.com/ claptongirls

cgasixthform.tumblr.com

To ensure you are up to date with the latest news and important information from CGA, this year we have been sending out a fortnightly newsletter via the ConnectEd App. If you have not received these: download the ‘My Ed’ app, search for Clapton Girls’ Academy and follow the set up instructions. myedschoolapp.com

Upcoming dates Feb 13

Half Term 13th - 17 February

Feb 23

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Year 10 Parents’ Evening

Mar KS4/5 2 Wellbeing Evening

Mar 9

KS3 Wellbeing Evening

Mar 16

Year 7 CLA Parents’ Evening

Mar 24

Non-Uniform Day

Mar 30

Year 7 PTON Parents Evening

Apr 19

Mar End of Spring Term 31 12.20pm

Please visit our website for a full calendar of events and holiday dates. www.clapton.hackney.sch.uk/news-events/calendar

Start of Summer Term

Mar Year 8 31 Parents’ Evening

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