Saturday 22nd February saw MCA host the inaugural performance of the Piccadilly Symphony Orchestra. Over 200 people watched the 75 piece orchestra perform music by Bernstein Shostakovich and Gershwin. The event was a huge success raising over £300 for The Brainhouse Academy. The conductor, Tom Newall, and orchestra leader, Tom Rowan Young, mingled with the audience at the interval answering questions and chatting with attendees. The evening was extremely well received. One guest described the performance as “Wonderful, absolutely wonderful!” Another said “ I can’t believe how lucky we are to have experienced such talented young people on our doorstep.”
The building work on the dining room and community college is due to start on the 2nd of April and will last for nineteen weeks. The visitor’s car park will be out of action until the end of the summer and there will be no access to the school premises for dropping off and collecting students. The students will still use the front entrance of the Academy to enter the building and will leave the building by one of the following routes:
If you have an interest in joining a choir or playing a musical instrument please contact: Louise Hewitt on 0161 202 0161
Rewards at MCA
The rewards team at MCA have been busy celebrating the successes of many students through the continuation of BLAST Bank and the introduction of 100 zero 1. BLAST Bank was launched in 2012/13 and enables students to collect points across six main areas including Behaviour, Learning, After school activities, Successes in the community, Time and ‘going the extra mile’. These points are collected and converted into monetary value. At the end of each half term, the house and student from each house with the most money in their bank, wins a prize. The winning house for Spring 1 was Olympic who chose to celebrate by having a Dominos lunch and also donating £80 to the Brainhouse Academy. The individual award winners for each house received a Kindle and are shown below. Cooper
Auguste Bruzaite
C4
Turing
Keerthika Sebastian
T4
Marconi
Ayo Ajaji
M4
Shakespeare
Grace Woodall
S1
Olympic
Emmanuel Ogbu
02
100 zero 1 is a new rewards scheme introduced this year. Every Friday, all students who have achieved 100% attendance and met or exceeded the Academy’s behavioural expectations are entered into a draw with one winner being selected from each house. These students receive a prize. In order to celebrate BLAST Bank’s 1st birthday and build on the MCA rewards programme, we held a Rewards Celebration Day on Friday 28th February for students to realise that success can be magical.
A date to remember.... Year 9 and 10 Pathways Evening There will be a parent information evening on Thursday 24th April from 3.30 to 6.30pm. Progress leaders and subject teachers will be on hand to meet with parents to discuss progress and chosen pathways at KS4. The University of Salford, The Manchester College and BT Apprentices will also be present to discuss student options post-16. Parents of Year 7 & 8 students should contact their child’s progress leader if they wish to discuss the spring report.
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The exit onto Queens road, will be by the green gate at the side of the entrance to the Academy There will be an exit to Lathbury Rd, via the path which leads to the 3G and sport pitches
If you want more information, please don’t hesitate to contact me or the site management team. Email: s.farrimond03@mca.manchester.sch.uk site.team@mca.manchester.sch.uk Telephone: 0161 202 0161
DESIGN 4U FRIDAY MORNINGS Y10 Cooper House have been working in teams to develop their business knowledge, acumen and skills. They accomplished this by playing an online virtual game in which the team had to carefully choose a product based on market research, select a marketing strategy and then launch their business keeping up with the ebb and flow of consumer demand and managing their production unit. The students competed against rival schools and netted an amazing profit of £4,870,509 after 3 ‘years’ of virtual trading. The team was lead by Mateusz Mierzejewski and have reached the Regional Finals!
NEXT TERM DATES
TERM AND HOLIDAY DATES 2014-2015 Autumn Term 2014 Monday 1st September & Tuesday 2nd September Academy opens to learners Wednesday 3rd September Teacher Training Day Friday 24th October Half term holiday Friday 24th October - Monday 3rd November (inclusive) Return to Academy Tuesday 4th November Academy closes for the Winter Thursday 18th December holiday Spring Term 2015 Academy opens Monday 5th January Half term holiday Monday 16th February - Friday 20th February Return to Academy Monday 23rd February Academy closes for Spring break Thursday 2nd April (please note there will be allocated study days for years 10 & 11 during this break) Summer Term 2015 Academy opens Monday April 20th Bank Holiday Monday May 4th Half Term holiday Monday 25th May - Friday 5th June (please note there will be allocated study days for years 10 & 11 and some external GCSE exams during this break) Return to Academy Monday 8th June Teacher Training Days
Academy closes for Summer break Reward Trips/ Teacher Training Day
Tech National Printing Challenge
Newsletter April 2014
Building works update......
SPRING
Community News......
During the half term break we upgraded our Technology rooms to create a studio design space. The rooms have been remodelled by relocating the desktop computers to the edge of the space. We have made two whiteboard topped tables that allow students to express their design concepts before transferring them to computer. We have also installed two 3D printers where designs are brought to life. Students have already used the printers to enter a national competition to design a headphone holder. http://www.teachdesign.org.uk/tech-centre-blog In February MCA students participated in the Tech National and Printing Challenge. Equipped with the latest computer aided design (CAD) technology MCA was one of twenty schools responding to the brief to design a new headphone holder. Students had only ten hours to get to grips with the software and apply what they had learnt. Many ideas were proposed ranging from mermaid tails to teddy bears with Year 9 Candice Long winning the KS3 competition. Candice designed a unique holder in the shape of a fish where the earphones fit neatly into the gills with the cable wrapping snugly round the body During half term Miss Scott worked with a group of Year 9 architecture students designing, planning and creating a new school garden. The charity ‘Groundwork’ assisted students with the process which will be completed in the summer.
Vex Robotics
On Friday 28th Feb 2014, seventeen Vex robotics teams from around the country converged at the MCA Technology Centre to take part in UK Vex robotics ‘Toss Up’ challenge. This was the latest regional event before the finals at the Big Bang at the NEC. Teams came from Nottingham, Bromsgrove and North Wales but none more significant than the teams from Nottingham who had been to the Vex World Championships last year in California. Expectations were high and work was frantically going on in all team pits to ensure that their robots were working to their full potential. The morning session comprised of thirty one heat events, after which MCA team 5092 were 3rd seed after being top of the leader board for most of the morning. Alliances were formed and tactics discussed before the quarter finals and elimination rounds commenced in the afternoon.
Nuts and bolts were flying around the arena, as the knock out rounds progressed, with teams pushing their robots (and opposition robots!) to the limits. Unfortunately MCA lost in the finals to the teams from Nottingham who were also last year’s winners in the UK championships and now go through to the national finals in two weeks. A great day was enjoyed by all and we look forward to hosting the regional event again next year.
Wednesday 22nd July Thursday 23rd July Autumn Term 2015
Teacher Training Days
Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th September
Academy opens to learners
Monday 7th September
EASTER
Science - Creepy Crawlies
“The Demise and Rise of Bunny Lemar” This term a group of drama students performed alongside MaD Theatre Company in the production of “The Demise and Rise of Bunny Lemar.” The students worked professionally in rehearsals over a period of four months and were extremely committed to their roles. Two members of the cast, Mea Crane and Jake Hardman, were selected to perform on a further two nights at The Richmond Tea Rooms in Manchester City Centre and the final performance was a big success. Working with MaD Theatre Company is a great opportunity for our students to raise their aspirations and flourish in the performance industry. The drama team are thrilled to be involved in this project next term.
Spanish - La Tasca Last term a selection of our Year 8 students took a trip to La Tasca on Deansgate as part of their Spanish lessons. They sampled various tapas dishes and enhanced their knowledge about Spanish food and culture. Using their in-depth Spanish skills, the students spoke with the chef and helped to make Paella. The remainder of the Year 8 students were educated about Spanish cuisine and tasted tapas dishes.
To bring their lessons to life (quite literally!) the Science team invited in the “Creepy Crawly Roadshow” to work with Year 8 students to develop their understanding of the topic ‘Adaption and relationships in an eco system’. Among the exotic animals on show were a Burmese python, a cane toad, a scorpion, a tarantula, redlegged centipede, Madagascan cockroach, cornsnake, gheko and a fire salamander! Several students volunteered to handle some of the animals during the presentation. All the students were completely engaged by the experience and asked intelligent and thought-provoking questions.
Maths - Congratulations
Last half term, the Maths department entered Year 9 & 10 students for the UKMT Intermediate Maths challenge. The challenge involves answering 25 multiple choice questions in 1 hour under exam conditions. The top 40% of students nationally receive a gold, silver or bronze certificate and each institution receives a ‘Best in School’ award. MCA students attained an Academy-record best results with the winners as follows: Year 10 Gold Certificate: Bilal Sajad Silver Certificate: William Hoang, Anna Howse Bronze Certificate: Joshua Dunlop, Wilson Su, Muhammed Haneef, Lewis Whelan, Sikrat Adesina, Jake Schofield, Kieran Sherives. Year 9 Silver Certificate: Wod Salih, Jingming Souewlom Bronze Certificate: Bethany Tipping, Asha Sajjad, Rhianne Stokes Year 7 and 8 students have also been entered into the junior competition that takes place on the 1st May and the following Year 8 and 9 students have been entered into the team challenge on 27th March: Year 8: Jiancong Huang and Faye Shaughnessy Year 9: Bethany Tipping Ryan Harris We wish them the best of luck.
English
The English department organised a radio producer to work with twenty year 9 students. The producer set the students the task of creating a radio advertisment for United Utilities with the goal of promoting the importance of water. The students were split into five groups of four and worked throughout the day to create and record the adverts. The producer commented on the excellent behaviour of the students and on how professional they had been. This exercise developed speaking and listening skills and working confidently as a team. It was a worthwhile experience for everyone.
English as an Additional Laguage - EAL Parent Evening In February, the team held a successful Parents Evening. Voula Polychronidou and her team met with eighteen parents to discuss their child’s progress across the curriculum as well as the additional support provided by the Academy including literacy and numeracy skills.
The team also recommended ways that parents could help at home whilst also improving their own English. The highlight of the night was when the team launched ‘Rosetta Stone’ - our language learning software. Parents were so impressed that they requested for learner logins to work from home. The team also recommended the free adult (ESOL) classes that take place at the academy community college every Monday 5-7pm.
ICT - e-Safeguarding
Year 7 undertook a web design project in their Computing lessons. They were tasked with designing and building a website on one aspect of e-Safeguarding for future Year 7 students. Each student researched the different areas of e-Safeguarding from cyber bullying, the safe use of social networks and the golden rules of an online lifestyle. Students then used Google Sites to create their websites. To view each link and quotes from the students visit:
http://mca.realsmartcloud.com/category/ what-will-i-learn-in-creative-arts/
Art - Instagram The Art department have developed a way of sharing student work globally using an Instagram page. This gives students the opportunity to post outstanding work to a wider audience. A multi-media showreel has been created which is on public displayon the academy outdoor projector on Rochdale Road. For further information on the projects MCA students are undertaking, please follow ‘MCA_ART_DEPARTMENT’ on Instagram and check out their work. This page is a fantastic resource for students as it displays their work on the internet, raises aspirations and helps them to develop pride in their work.