The Cranford Review June 2011

Cranford Community College, High Street, Cranford, Hounslow. TW5 9PD

Tel: 020 8897 2001

THE CRANFORD REVIEW

Cranford Community College is a language college with students from various cultural backgrounds. For this reason, it is very important that we collectively celebrate festivals from all cultures. I can proudly say that we celebrated Baisakhi again this year at Cranford Community College on 7th April 2011. It was a very successful evening with lots of guests and different acts.

We would like to show our gratitude to Mr Anand Kumar AttachĂŠ (Hindi & Culture) at the High Commission for India, London who visited us from India House and a special thanks to the Gatka group Baba Fateh Singh Gatka Akhara for their performance. A special thank you goes to all the Panjabi students from years 7, 8 and 9 who participated and the sixth form students without whom this evening would not have been complete.

The programme started with year 7 students singing the Sikh anthem followed on by presentations and speeches on the reasons for celebrating Baisakhi. There were dances and poetry with a lot of religious and cultural information.

The programme ended with a mesmerising act from the Gatka group, which completed the vision we had for this Baisakhi celebration. Many parents and other guests had a great evening.

I personally could not have asked for a better outcome and am very pleased with the evening as a whole.

By Narinder Kaur (Head of Community Langauges)

www.cranford.hounslow.sch.uk

June 2011

Year 9 Trip to Hounslow Teen Read

Book Buzz Ten year 8 students; Roshini, Janvi, Caisha, Fizza, Mariyum, Amy, Pariksit, Guled, Abdirahman and Saginthan were chosen as the LRC’s top year 8 readers to represent Cranford at the reading conference BookBuzz held at the Paul Robeson Theatre in Hounslow.

BookBuzz is an event to promote reading in schools. Schools were asked to present a book they thought was good for young adults and teenagers. This was also a competition to see who could produce the best presentation. Our group had to choose from the Saga of Darren Shan, The Hunger Games or Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief. In the end we chose The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

We spent time making a presentation with some acting and started rehearsing our parts.

On 10th February 2011, the big day, everyone was really excited but also really nervous as we did not know what to expect from the opposing teams. The presentations were the main thing, but we also spent the day doing mini activities with people from other schools.

We got to discuss books, do some creative writing and test our knowledge on books with a little quiz.

In all there were seven schools taking part. Everyone did their presentations in different styles and after it we rated the group and asked questions. We were confident about presenting and everything went fine even though there was a slight technical hitch as the soundtrack did not work (that may have cost us the first place). Anyway it was really fun, especially when we had to answer questions from the audience.

At the end of the event when all schools had completed their presentations we were told to vote for the best one. The votes were added and while they were announcing the winner, we were really nervous.

We were extremely disappointed that we only came second.

Even though we came second we were happy that we came in the top three.

By Amy, Fizza, Mariyum & Roshini (year 8)

On Friday 18th March 2011 year 9 students went to Paul Robeson Theatre in Hounslow. Hounslow Teen Read is a scheme where students all over the borough read newly published books shortlisted by the librarians and then vote for their favourite.

At the same time an author is invited to announce the winning title and to give a talk to the students. We had the chance to meet Rachel Ward. She has written the book “Numbers”, which is now a trilogy. The first book is about a girl who can tell your death date by looking into your eyes. Rachel told us about what books she liked and what you have to do to be published. Overall it was a good experience and I enjoyed myself.

By Gugandeep Banga (year 9)

Trip to meet María Guadalupe Harris

I enjoyed the trip because it was nice to meet the author and we had lots of fun on our way there. The author’s talk was interesting and l liked it when the author signed the books and post cards for us.

By Ajmeer Monir (year 9)

I think the trip to see and meet Rachel Ward was very fascinating. Rachel Ward talked about a lot of things; how she got her ideas and why she started writing.

We had the chance to ask questions and talk to her while she was signing books.

She did tell us that her most recent book “Numbers 3” is going to be released around June. Rachel also told us about her book becoming into a film, however, she’s not 100% sure they will produce it. Even if someone buys the rights to a film, there is no guarantee it will be released. Overall, I think that the trip was exciting and fun and I definitely think that we should arrange more trips like this.

The trip to see the author Rachel Ward was amazing because it gave me a chance to see what type of job a writer does. Rachel Ward has been an inspiration to me because it makes me think about becoming a writer.

She talked about how she got rejected a lot of times but she did not give up and she kept on writing for herself (pleasure writing).The way that she describes the characters in her books is as if they were real life characters. I am now reading her book and I hope it will be worth it I’m sure it will be.

By Karanveeer Kang (year 9)

In February I was fortunate to meet the author Maria Guadalupe (M.G). She talked about herself and her Mexican roots. She then went on to talk about her first book that is called “Invisible City”. This book’s main character is a boy called Joshua who finds out that his father has died in a plane crash. But he does not believe it as his mum told him that there was no head and the body was burnt. He comes across a UFO sighting at the same spot as the plane crash. This makes Joshua believe someone is hiding the truth about his dad. Is his father dead or alive? You will have to read the book to find out!

Once you have finished the first book you can continue reading this very popular series. Right now Maria is busy writing book number 5 and book number 4 called “The Dark Parallel” which came out in April 2011.

Faheem Uddun year 7 had this to say; “ I felt that the trip to meet M. G Harris was inspiring ” Carlos Donnelly year 7 described his experience like this; “ I enjoyed meeting and listening to M.G.Harris.

By Yasmin Mohamed (year 9)

It was the one of the nicest trip that I have never been to. I got really interested in Rachel Ward’s books and I liked her talk as well.

By Georgia Nahar (year 9)

She talked about her ideas and how she travels to different countries, she showed us her pictures. Her books seem really interesting and so far the first one is really good.

All the students had a lovely time and would not forget this lovely experience.

By Rimsha Amjad (year 7)

Tuesday 15th February 2011 saw the Humanities Faculty Excellence Evening, based on the theme of development. The evening was a great opportunity for parents, students and teachers to all work together to gain a better understanding of the world around us. Year 10 and year 11 students opened the evening with a brief recap of the history of development, through the Industrial Revolution, asking people to consider whether development always means progress.

Students also discussed the different viewpoints of separate religions and how they would address ethical questions. It must be said however that the highlight of the evening was the ‘trading game’. The participants were divided up into different countries and issued with varying amounts of resources. These countries had to trade their allocation with others in order to make shapes, to be sold by the World Bank. It was immense fun to see everyone becoming very involved, and so competitive, trying to create these shapes. The game really helped the participants to understand the diverse starting points of less developed countries such as Zimbabwe or why more economically developed countries have a trading embargo against others.

Students, teachers and parents alike gained a real sense of understanding of the situation in the world today, and the frustrations that may be faced.

Year 13 students did an outstanding job as acting as the World Bank and were frantically counting up the cash made by the countries involved. It was a tense time waiting for the results of the game during the quiz. Ultimately, Brazil were the victors on this evening, so well done to the participants from Brazil. These included Mr Prunty and Mr Stumpf, who bargained well for their resources.

I would like to say a big thank you to all that made this evening possible, in particular the students that participated in the event, making it such a success.

By Michelle Cousins (Joint Head of Humanities )

ACTION JACKSON LIVE Year 11 students were given a great opportunity to meet Action Jackson, a motivational speaker. In my opinion, this was a great idea since it gave us a boost and helped us feel more motivated about revision for exams. Throughout the day, specific groups were able to have sessions with Action Jackson. He targeted the main frustrations that we faced when preparing for exams; for example, the huge amount of subjects which tends to stress us out, possibly resulting in us doing nothing. Action Jackson helped us deal with this problem through discussion, leading to a simple solution of concentrating on one subject then moving onto the next.

Not only was this experience entertaining, but we were also able to learn various ways of dealing with frustrations, such as workload and distractions.

This session was fun, helpful and motivating and allowed everyone to understand that exams can be tackled carefully and easily. Another task, involving memory, allowed us all to realise how negative we could be and gave us confidence. This task involved a large list of objects and we were made to memorise in the same order.

The first reaction was “no way”. With links and entertainment we were all able to memorise the whole list perfectly; this gave us confidence and the whole experience was not only fun and exciting it also gave us I didn’t use to like motivational motivation, positivity speakers, so I thought this day was and support at a going to be a big waste of time. But on crucial time for us 27th April 2011, when Action Jackson all. paid a visit to our school,

By Sonia Khosla (year 11)

he blew me away.

I was immediately impressed by what he had to say. His persuasive style was totally unique and absolutely hilarious.

That was the most I laughed in a long time. He engaged the students in everything that he said and he gave us interesting ways of revising and seemed to make school work something that I never thought it could be - fun. He helped boost my confidence so now I’m not dreading the exams, I am looking forward to going into those exams and showing the examiners how amazing I am and how much I do know.

By Shaheer Khan (year 11)

On Saturday 2nd April 2011 thirty students attended Sayers Croft Activity Centre. We took part in archery, abseiling, orienteering and team-building obstacle courses. It was a brand new experience that gave us a chance to work together in a different way in a different environment. It helped us build our confidence ahead of the allimportant GCSE exams. It was an exciting adventure for all of us and a big thanks go to the teachers who organised it and took part in all the activities with us on the day.

Year 7 and 8 students took part in a two day Masterchef competition. Day one was based on healthy eating and researching about different types of food and how you can make a scrumptious delicious meal out of fruit and vegetables. We watched a video clip called “Supersize Me”, which was about, what can happen to you if you eat too much junk food. We tried out some different types of fruit like peaches, pomegranates, kiwi and many other tasty fruits. After we researched about food, we got to make honey flapjacks or butternut squash and orange cupcakes. We then planned out our recipe for the competition. Day two we got together our ingredients and had a discussion with Mr Parris, Ms Davies and the whole group. Finally it got to the time when we were cooking our meal. After we had cooked our meals we set the table for the meals that were going to be judged by Mr Prunty, Ms Meek, Ms Kaher and Ms Prunty as well as MrParris who organised the whole event with the Parental Support adviser team. Overall it was a major success. One of the students said; “I really loved and enjoyed my experience of making tasty food”.

By Zirak Printer (year 7)

During the autumn term 17 students from both year 7 and 8 formed a BBC school news team representing Cranford Community College. These students showed enthusiasm, commitment and creativity from the very first meeting. The most exciting day was when the students met a reporter called Marilyn, from BBC Radio 2, who came and gave them tips on how to search for the latest news and how they can condense a script down to 1 or 2 minutes.

On 17th February 2011 the students took part in a practice news day to get a taste of what was to come on the big news day in March. We really enjoyed it as we took responsibility for the day, by organising essential components such as scripts, roles and video clips which were created to represent the lives of students currently attending Cranford Community College.

The skills that we had learnt during the past months were put to the test; for example, we learnt how to create headlines which were interesting and appealing to audiences.

We were also given the opportunity of learning how to search for stories which would catch the attention of the audience, find pictures which were not copyright protected and write about stories objectively. It was really hard work but it was worth it as all our work was done before the deadline. The school reporters worked really hard in preparation for the big news day.

B u l b image switch on off

The BBC News school report day finally arrived and we prepared lots of interesting news and were very excited to see what the outcome of this day would be.

The main news stories were: • Police cuts • Day care centre closures • New biometric system at Cranford Community College The reporters learnt their lines and filmed their news and are now at the editing stages of the final project.

It has gone really well and we would like to say thank you to: Christopher, Harsimran, Simran, Sobia, Awal and Iffi

By Rimsha Amjad (year 7)

S TA R T ON S AV I N G Year 11 Creative and Media students undertook the recycling challenge as their research topic. Their campaign for better environmental awareness around the school was presented through assemblies , questionnaires and presentations to members of the Governing Body.

The aim of our campaign is to raise awareness amongst staff & students of our impact on the environment of Cranford Community College.

Ultimately we want to STOP WASTAGE in our school.

“If we all do our bit to help we can create a more environmentally friendly environment”.

As usual everyday is an exciting day for people at Cranford Community College, don’t you agree? Well 31st January 2011 was one of those days for me and other year 10 students who are currently doing drama or the creative and media diploma. We went to the Civic Centre in Hounslow, where we volunteered to take part in an exercise for a real live emergency situation. This was all about getting a scenario and acting out as if it was real. It helped us build our confidence in approaching someone when being in an “inneed” situation. It gave us a hint to what we might face in the future. We all enjoyed ourselves and most of us made up our own scenarios as we went along. It made us realise how difficult an emergency situation can be.

By Parnyan Islamzadeh (year 10)

Community Languages Training On Tuesday 29th March 2011, I was lucky enough to attend the Jack Petchey Award Evening at the Paul Robeson Theatre.

I had recently been nominated for an award by my teachers at school for my consistent hard work and volunteering. We arrived early so we had to wait for the doors to the theatre to open. Once we got inside our names were written on the seats so we had to sit with our school.

The evening was introduced followed by a few entertainment acts. Then we were called up to get our awards one by one and then have to sit to have our picture taken. Overall it was a very nice evening and I was proud to be representing my school.

By Tiffany Harris (year 8)

I would proudly like to share the success of the Panjabi Teacher Training held here at Cranford on Saturday 26th March 2011.

I organised this conference for Panjabi teachers to obtain knowledge of the changes to the new specification for Panjabi at GCSE and A level. The event was tremendously successful, with over 30 Panjabi teachers from different supplementary schools, from different parts of the UK attending.

Our guest speakers of the day were Mrs Dyal Thandi and Mr. Naresh Chandla, the chief and principle examiner for Panjabi GCSE and ALevel. The evaluation forms told us that the event was very useful to the teachers who were able to attend. They especially found the information on how to structure a lesson using a scheme of work very beneficial.

I’m very happy that, even though this was our 3rd conference organised for the community languages teachers, the amount of interest has not reduced.

We are looking forward to our next National Association of Language Learning Community Language Conference, next year.

By Narinder Kaur (Head of Community Languages, Cranford Community College & Head of Community Languages Association of Language Learning London)

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