Ne ws@Com The News Magazine of Comberton Village College
ISSUE 24, SUMMER 2010
MEETING THE CHALLENGES THIS summer Comberton seeks re-accreditation for its International School Award status for the fourth time. Each time the British Council sets ever more challenging criteria to match the growing number of schools nationally who seek to attain the prestigious award. Since 2006 CVC has quadrupled its number of partner schools and now enjoys well-established partnerships with schools in South Africa, with whom we have had a thriving link since 1997, Mozambique, Peru, France, Spain, Germany and Holland. Each year more than 300 students take part in international exchange visits and trips. Judges this time around are particularly interested in the impact of international links on all students across the school, not just those who travel abroad to our partner schools or on other international educational visits. Over the last year we have developed the strength of international work within our curriculum. The KS3 sports days and the Year 7 Kinetika project are just two examples of this. On sports days, each tutor group represents a country to which Comberton is currently linked through residential, exchange and sponsorship programmes. Pupils research the country, produce a presentation in language and ICT lessons, design spreadsheets in maths and look at key aspects of their country’s geography. Work also takes place in tutor time and staff have been equipped with resources to further develop the students' understanding of their 'adopted' country. This project was a fantastic way to enhance something that was already a part of our school calendar and to raise the profile of our international links and provide a mechanism for them to impact on all students in the school, not simply those who take part in the exchanges, trips or other project work. It was also a very concrete and innovative way for two of the school's specialisms to work together and join up two significant aspects of the school's ethos: sport and languages.
Comberton is fully committed to supporting the Olympics 2012 in London. Our community arts manager, Richard Brown, is working with the national organisation Kinetika to involve the local community in the Cultural Olympiad leading up to 2012. Under his lead, project work within our local new village of Cambourne is being integrated within Comberton's curriculum provision. So far teachers of Drama, Dance, Music, Art and Technology have been involved in the creation of a carnival-type bloco, which is made up of dancers, a samba band and enormous puppets. However, an off-shoot of Kinetika work in school was a new project for this year, that involved all of Year 7 putting on a production of international folk legends, and it was shown to family and friends earlier this month. During the year pupils worked on aspects of the show in art, technology, music, drama and PE lessons. A special creation — Page 12
Year 11 bow out in style
BALL BELLES: Year 11 pupils at their Leavers’ Ball. Full story — Page 3