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COWLEIAN TIMES
AUTUMN 2013
BREATHING NEW LIFE INTO HISTORIC BUILDINGS
YEAR 7 READING PROGRAMME SUCCESS For the last 12 months, Cowley has embraced Accelerated Reader, a customised online program designed to improve reading skills, and this has become an intrinsic part of the curriculum for students in Year 7 and 8. Students are given their personalised Reading Range, from which they can then choose a book which is appropriate to their individual reading level. Once a book has been read, the student takes an online quiz to demonstrate their understanding. If a learner passes the quiz, then the program will set appropriate reading targets, measure reading growth and identify reading success including the number of total words read. Once a learner has read in excess of a million words, they join our prestigious ‘Millionaires’ club.’ The English department have organised a number of celebratory events to recognise reading success across each of our three terms at Cowley. One particularly successful aspect of the program is the ‘Home Connect’ element, from which students and their carers/parents alike can monitor reading goals, targets and progress on a daily basis. The program, along with other reading initiatives and workshops, has led to a ‘significant improvement’ amongst students in their reading and communication skills. Please continue to encourage your daughter/ son to read daily; a mere twenty-five minutes reading every day is proven to have a positive impact on performance in all curriculum areas.
Seven Cowley A-Level Art students have been chosen to take part in an exciting new project, ‘Hidden Liverpool’, to unlock the history behind some of Liverpool’s empty buildings in order to create a vision for its future. The project, run by PLACED, gives young people an opportunity to learn the history behind towns and cities as well as an understanding of design and how places are created. Cowley’s students will compete against students from schools across Merseyside to develop innovate ways of bringing buildings back to life. The students will also take part in a Dragons’ Den format event in May 2014 to present their ideas and to win over a panel of experts. Good luck to the Year 13 Art students who will be taking part: Hannah Bishop, Amy Holden, Jemma Hughes, Marybeth Martin, Fiona Middlehurst, Nicola Tilson and Kimberly Wildman.
SIXTH FORM STUDENTS TAKE PART IN THE PRESTIGIOUS NUFFIELD RESEARCH PROGRAMME During the summer, two Sixth Form International Baccalaureate students took part in the prestigious Nuffield Research programme gaining invaluable work experience within science laboratories. Only 130 Year 12 students from the whole of Merseyside and Cheshire were successful in receiving a research placement, so it was a great achievement for our two students. One project involved investigating the localisation of the immunoglobin Basal Cell Adhesion Molecule (BCAM) in normal and diseased human endometrium. The other project involved using different methods of making perylene bisimide hydrogels and adopting varying techniques to measure how their different properties make them suitable for use in organic voltaic cells.
DATES FOR THE DIARY FORMER COWLEY STUDENT TO BECOME TEACHER A former student has recently visited Cowley to take part in lesson observations . The student who studied Sociology as part of her A-Levels is now studying Sociology at degree level and is applying for a PGCE in Social Sciences. Another great example of when an interest in a subject can lead to a career in teaching!
Half term break up Friday, 18th October Staff training day Monday, 28th October Sixth Form Open Evening Tuesday, 29th October Presentation Evening Thursday, 7th November
INTRODUCTION - 30TH OCTOBER 10AM AND 6PM
RECIPE REQUEST! The Food and Hospitality department are looking for new and exciting recipes and would love your input, especially if they are a local tradition or family favourite. All we ask is that the dish can be made within 40 minutes (so students have time to watch a demonstration, get ready and then wash up at the end), uses a variety of preparation or cooking methods, is ideally healthy, the total cost for ingredients is low (£5 maximum) and the ingredients are easy to obtain from local supermarkets.
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Remember that the food has to be suitable for reheating at home. If you send in your recipes with reliable methods, we’d be happy to try them out and review them in the next newsletter! Email your favourite recipe(s) to: cowley@sthelens.org.uk
COWLEY COMPUTING TAKES THE NEXT STEP!
Cowley’s already well-established computing and programming courses of study will be enhanced with this move into robotics. As one of the latest technological innovations, the humanoid NAO Robot is an ideal learning tool for classes at all levels. The Robot allows students to connect theory with practice and discover a wide range of robotics-related fields, such as Computer Science, Engineering and Mathematics. The Lego Mindstorms EV3 enables students to build, program and test their solutions based on real life robotics technology. Students will gain practical, hands-on experience using mathematical concepts such as estimating and measuring distance, time and speed, whilst communicating effectively using scientific and technical language.
Cowley have successfully secured an innovation funding bid to purchase a Lego Mindstorm EV3 and a Lego NAO Robot to help improve science, communication and mathematics skills in students at all levels.
HISTORY CONTROLLED ASSESSMENT
Students are encouraged to brainstorm in order to find creative solutions to problems and then develop them through a process of selecting, building, testing and evaluating them.
Some Year 11 students are currently working on their Controlled Assessment for History. This assessment is worth a significant 25% of the final grade. We would encourage all students to take advantage of educational resources available to them.