Newsletter December 2013

Newsletter

Roding Valley High School

December 2013

Roding Valley High School retains Parliamentary Debating Competition Cup

An Historic Victory “This house believes that it is possible to have a just war.�

This was never going to be an easy motion to argue against. However, on Friday 22nd November, when seven local schools gathered in our assembly hall to compete in the much anticipated 13th Annual Epping Forest Parliamentary Debate, the Roding Valley team were once again victorious. The debate was judged by Epping Forest MP Eleanor Laing.

Roding Valley was set with the task of arguing against this motion: it would be our position to argue that a just war could never be possible.

The team comprised Mirna Shiekha, Laura Barritt, Rhianna Creasey, Katie

Scott, Chandler Clark, Olivia Tinker and Hannah Smith.

It was decided that Mirna and Laura would be the main speakers on behalf of the school and the remaining girls would form part of the formidable research team.

Together the girls investigated the various angles of the motion, evaluating both sides of the argument whilst anticipating the points the opposition might raise. Over the weeks leading up to the debate, they rehearsed their speeches and practised their interventions with dedication and a fiery fortitude.

By Friday, it was clear that the girls were more than ready. All their hard work and resolve would pay off.

Within seconds of the bell ringing, signalling to the opposing schools that interventions were permissible, our mighty Mirna asserted her position as one to watch for with a swift and thoughtful intervention.

Over the course of the evening, Mirna would set a new record for the number of interventions ever made during a debate. Her commitment to the debate was relentless. The audience were enthralled by her feisty confidence and daring.

Alderton Hill, Loughton, Essex IG10 3JA t: 020 8508 1173 e: office@rodingvalley.net www.rodingvalley.net

continued overleaf...

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...continued from page 1 Needless to say, no debate is ever won unless both speakers work together as a harmonious and determined unit and in this case, Laura fulfilled her role with aplomb. Passionate, dramatic and fearless, her speech was delivered with an awareness of both the audience present and the brevity of the topic at hand.

What makes this an historic victory is that Roding Valley is the first school in the constituency to have retained the trophy since the Epping Forest Parliamentary debate commenced in 2000.

Furthermore, it has been nine years since an all girl Roding team has won the trophy.

Next year’s challenge, I hear you ask. Let’s try for a hat trick, Roding Valley!

Mirna writes, “I really enjoyed doing the debate. I feel that we have made the school proud. Laura, myself and the rest of the team had spent so much time researching and redrafting. All the hard work has definitely paid off. We were all very passionate about the topic and at times got a little carried away!

Laura writes, “we were all so thrilled to

be announced as the winners, since we had all put in lots of hard work and were so relieved when we heard the results.

Additionally, we would all like to thank Mrs Kyriakou, who put in a lot of effort into organising us to participate in the debate and supporting us every step of the way.

Furthermore, thank you ever so much to all of the other staff who supported us – we couldn’t have done it without you either!

Debating is something that I would love to continue doing in the future. It was such a unique experience and one that I will never forget. I’m so lucky to have been given the chance to participate in such a brilliant opportunity.”

RVHS School Governor, Paul Wershof had this to say:

Roding Valley’s Debating History

I think that most of the audience would acknowledge that the RVHS team of Mirna Shiekha and Laura Barritt were simply the best. They were outstanding debaters fiery and passionate, calm and profound, in turn, as the arguments ebbed and flowed.

Mirna and Laura had the support of an excellent and well organised team. They did a terrific job.

2004 - Nicola Furness and Emma Jones

2002 - (joint with Davenant Foundation) 2005 - (joint with Davenant Foundation) 2010 - William Petrou-Nunn and Lewis Scott 2012 - Fraser Barclay and Jonathan Schroder 2013 - Mirna Shieka and Laura Barritt

Students at Maths Conference about ‘GCSE Maths in Action’ Twenty students from Roding Valley High School attended a Maths Conference about ‘GCSE Maths in Action’ at The Institute of Education in central London.

The day (Thursday 21 November) included a number of lectures about The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, Pascal’s Patterns, The Secret World of Code Breaking, Lateral Thinking and The Maths of Life and Death.

He is the leading author of books of lateral thinking puzzles. He was a good entertainer which made the talk much more interesting which juxtaposes the normal idea of a mathematician.

Four Year 11 students - Lauren McCorkell, Caroline Shellard, Paris Miller and Jessie Andrews - compiled a report on the day: The two lectures that we found the most interesting were Simon Singh’s lecture on The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets and Paul Sloane’s lecture on Lateral Thinking.

Simon Singh, a writer and a broadcaster, has a number of published books with the two most popular called Fermat’s Last Theorem and The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets.

Year 11 students with Simon Singh

It was interesting to find out that Mathematicians have become comedy writers and shows how extremely successful a Mathematician can become because no one realises the wide range of jobs available after having a Maths degree.

We enjoyed his lecture because it was related to popular TV programmes Futurama and The Simpsons.

We also found interesting how you can watch a lot of episodes but never realise the maths jokes and the smuggled mathematical ideas within it.

It was very advanced and opened our eyes to the unrevealed elements of the programmes.

The other really interesting lecture was from Paul Sloane, who has an engineering degree at Cambridge.

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Roding Valley High School Newsletter December 2013

Paul challenged our assumptions, by asking the audience many trick questions showing how not everything is as complex as it seems. Seeing the different approaches of Maths interested us, because it showed that the subject isn’t all about equations!

Another interesting lecture was from Dr James Grime, who looked at the fascinating history and mathematics of codes and code breaking from ancient times to present day.

We were also lucky enough to have a look inside a real working enigma machine used during World War II by the Germans, to send their secret codes.

We had an amazing day which was very inspiring with a lot of laughs. We would recommend it to all people interested in Maths.

Oxford University Trip, Thursday 14th November 2013 On arrival at Oxford University, we congregated in Wadham College and made our way to the Lecture Hall, where we had a short briefing regarding the day’s schedule.

Firstly, as we chose the Humanities & Social Sciences pathway, we attended three mini-lectures given by PHD students currently studying History at the University.

The first talk was delivered by an American woman specialising in 18th century British men and their philosophies. She spoke for roughly half an hour without any notes or prompts which emphasized her passion for the subject, and made her extremely interesting to listen to. She mentioned ‘Method Acting’ which is the process of understanding a certain person’s beliefs and thoughts, by ‘becoming’ that person, by getting into their mind set.

The other two talks were again both delivered by women, which highlighted the vast progress made by Oxford since it was once an all-male university. Both talks were equally as interesting and the topics varied from modern history (e.g. 9/11 attacks) to Archaic Language – this displayed the vast options available when it comes to degree courses.

After lunch, eaten in one of the student common rooms, we were given a brief tour of some of the university buildings.

It was interesting to see what university life is like at such a highly regarded university and the people came across as extremely friendly and were from a wide range of cultural backgrounds.

Then we met up with two girls who were in their first weeks of university life; and were given the chance to talk to them and pick their brains on everything ranging from A level choices to the interview process of each college at Oxford! We paired up with students from another school and did a workshop with them. During which we were asked about our own thoughts on A levels, university degrees and future career options. The workshop was interesting and informative. Furthermore we dispelled well known myths and stereotypes about Oxford – not everyone is posh or joins the rowing team!

Lastly all the schools reconvened in the old lecture room, where we were given a talk, largely focused on our post 16 options. This gave us an insight into the things Russell Group Universities look for in potential applicants. Specifically, they look for two facilitating A level subjects, which are: Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Languages, English, History and Geography.

Overall it was an eye-opening and inspiring trip that opened our minds to the vast opportunities for students after they leave Roding Valley- if we put in the time and effort!

When Science met Food at Roding Valley High School Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal - famed for his signature dishes - would have been proud of the students of Roding Valley High School when they aimed to follow one of his special techniques.

Challenge and Enrichment students donned their aprons to try their hand at ‘spherification’ - mixing fruit juices with sodium alginate and calcium chloride - to create spheres to be used as cookery decorations.

The students created their own fruit salads and then used their spherification techniques to decorate their dishes.

Technology technician Heidi Collings said: “It was a really great afternoon.

It was something very different to what is usually done here in Food Technology and we all had a great time experimenting.”

Written by Phoebe Cushion and Sophie Kenny Year 11

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English Enrichment Day - Murder Mystery Last year a group of students from Roding Valley were chosen to take part in the Carnegie Shadowing Project. The project involved the group meeting regularly to read and discuss the books nominated for the prestigious Carnegie Award. We also set up a blog to post our reviews and share feedback with other schools.

The project ran for seven months during Year 9 and at the end we were rewarded with a trip to a Murder Mystery event.

The evening was very enjoyable, we used skills learnt in our English lessons - problem solving, negotiating and presenting skills and examined a range of clues to discover who the killer was.

Roding Valley’s Murder Mystery event was held on Monday 21st October. We arrived at school early in the morning and decorated the hall using black drapes, Halloween decorations, fake blood, rat poison and sinister dolls borrowed from the art department to create an eerie atmosphere.

The event inspired us to run our own Murder Mystery event for Key Stage 3 during the Autumn term.

The students taking part in the event were instructed to watch each snippet of performance and then use the props, clues and resources hidden around the hall to unravel ‘The Mystery of the Pink Lace Diamond’. The day was a huge success and enjoyed by everyone who took part.

Five students from the original group met regularly during the first halfterm of Year 10 to plan the event. We auditioned Year 11 drama students to become the characters in the Murder Mystery and sourced a large range of props.

Pupil comments (KS3) The day was brilliant and I think I and my group used team work and had really good fun.

I enjoyed it, the cast made it very funny. They also made it very interactive. The waiters help very well, I like the aspects of it and would like to do something like this again.

The day was lots of fun and the clues were brilliant. The way it was pieced together was even better than I thought. I do not think you can improve it in any way. I would take part again if I got the chance.

By Olivia Tinker 10S

Key Stage 3 Awards Evening Thursday 26th September 2013

On Thursday 26th September we held our annual Key Stage 3 Awards Evening. This evening is an opportunity to celebrate the achievement, progress and effort of nominated students up to the end of Key Stage 3 (end of Year 9).

Students were awarded for their attainment, attendance, punctuality and also nominated by their Subject Tutors for commitment and effort in their subjects, Form Tutors for their contribution to their tutor group and by their peers for being a general all round good person. Carina Sander and Olivia Tinker were nominated by their Head of Year, Mr McManners, for our ‘Community Award’, for representing Roding Valley High School as members of Epping Forest Youth Council, both girls have put much time and effort into representing the voice of young people in the Epping Forest area.

Many certificates were given out, along with trophies and plaques. These awards are not given to every student, they have to be nominated, which makes the evening very special. All of the students should be very proud of themselves, not only for their awards but also for making the evening a great success with their support and enthusiasm.

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Roding Valley High School Newsletter December 2013

Press Release

Year 7 Science Drop Down Day experiencing a Zoolab Workshop Ms Anna Watts from Zoolab came into science lessons this Wednesday October 23rd and gave the Year 7’s an exciting, enjoyable and fact filled workshop on a journey through the many layers of a tropical rainforest, from the floor to the dizzy heights of the canopy.

The workshop included information on: 1. Locations of the world’s Rainforest 2. The forest floor, understory, canopy and emergent layer 3. Adaptations of rainforest animals 4. Deforestation 5. Biodiversity

Students were transported through the rainforest using tropical animals to show how the animals live, feed and survive in their own habitat.

The students were allowed to touch, hold and even feed the animals. The animals included snakes, spiders, lizards, cockroaches, stick insects, hermit crabs, scorpions and frogs.

Barbara Jeans Science Teacher

Teaching and Learning update Good or better teaching in every lesson, every day...

This term we have launched our ‘Closing the Gap’ initiative. We reviewed our marking policy and agreed that we needed to improve the effectiveness of the students acting upon the comments given by teachers.

We are now setting the students ‘Closing the Gap’ tasks in all subject areas and this is beginning to embed as part of the everyday language in the classroom. Where areas of improvement are clearly identified the teacher will set a ‘Closing the Gap’ task to ensure that understanding is improved and progress is made.

We launched this in assemblies at the beginning of the term and Year 11 Drama students planned an excellent piece of drama which helped clarify the expectation on our students and our reasoning behind this initiative.

CLOSING THE GAP Please speak to your child about this and the impact it is having on their progress. We would appreciate your feedback. You can read more about this initiative and how it is working in specific subject areas on the RVHSTL.blog.com Mrs Jenner

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Match Report Tuesday 26th November – Essex Cup 3rd Round – Away vs. Chelmer Valley Roding Valley (RVHS) kicked off, passing the ball around the back. They then sent the ball out to the left to Noah Friend (8R) who ran down the line and had a shot from outside the box and scores. 1-0.

The second goal was started by Harry Boyd-Walker (8R) who played a through ball to Noah Friend who shoots, and it looks like it is going in but George Ewing (8Q) makes sure it does. 2-0.

Noah Friend takes a run down the line again, using his skill to take the ball into the box and drawing a foul by getting knocked over in the box. Penalty. Noah

Friend takes the penalty and smashes it into the top right hand corner. 3-0.

A corner was awarded to Chelmer Valley.

They whipped it into the box. One of their players got their head on it. Timmy Moncur (8X) clears the ball off the line, but unfortunately Chelmer score the rebound. 3-1.

RVHS were determined to get another goal. George Johnson (8Q) plays a great through ball to George Ewing. He is one on one with the keeper and finishes it nicely into the bottom corner. 4-1.

The referee gave Chelmer a free kick on the edge of our box. Their player slots it into the top left corner of goal. 4-2.

Chelmer’s left winger runs down the line and he had the legs on Jamie Ringwood (8R). The left winger whips the ball in and their striker finishes it. 4-3.

RVHS now await for the result between Southend High School for boys & Billericay to see who they face in the quarter finals.

Match report by Harry Barrett (8Q)

To read more match reports and follow the progress of our school teams and PE faculty please follow the school PE blog: RVHSPEblog.com

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Roding Valley High School Newsletter December 2013

STEM Architecture Workshop a Towering Success Year 8 students competed to make the tallest tower using only wooden sticks and elastic bands during an architecture workshop this term. Designs had to be based on tetrahedrons or octahedrons and the only limitation to their ambitious plans proved to be the lights in the ceiling of the Hall 6 metres high.

The workshops were run by Architecture Workshops in Cambridge and were linked to the Career of the Month of November which is STEM based professions (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

Our students were challenged to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to a practical application. The winning groups were those who also showed good team working and leadership skills. The sessions became quite competitive, even our supervising staff members got quite involved.

Everyone found the workshops both interesting and fun and all the winning groups received Honours and certificates.

A la mode Pupils have recently been studying the topic of clothes, so to take their learning to a new level, some pupils were given the opportunity to use the French that they had learnt in the classroom in a real-life situation, by holding a fashion show.

Pupils were given the task of describing each others clothes and giving their opinions of their friends attire. Then they had to strut their stuff on the catwalk, with a French commentary.

Much fun was had by all! Pupils really threw themselves into the task. Well done to all those involved.

A la mode

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Theatre Trips

The Woman in Black Theatre Trip for Year 9 English Students In conjunction with the reading of Susan Hill’s famous gothic novel, ‘The Woman in Black’, 40 Year 9 students went to see the stage production of the play at the Fortune Theatre in London.

The theatre itself adds to the bleak and intense atmosphere of the play. The Fortune Theatre is small, intimate and at times claustrophobic. It is easy to believe that Arthur Kipps has indeed come to a small run down theatre in London to exorcise the ghosts of his past. The lighting and soundtrack of the play creates a tense and disturbing atmosphere. After talking to the students who attended the trip, they said that the play was ‘scary and made them jump throughout.’ They were also excited to pick out parts of the play which were directly quoted from the novel itself.

The two (or perhaps we should say three) actors in the play really brought the story alive, building up a sense of terror throughout.

Much Ado About Nothing - English department trip review This term 40 year 11 students went to the Old Vic in London to see ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ starring the world renowned actress, Vanessa Redgrave, and James Earl Jones. The play was directed by Mark Rylance who has most recently directed Richard III at The Globe Theatre and Twelfth Night in the West End. The play was an interesting adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous romantic comedy.

Set during WWII with minimal staging, much of the splendour of the production rested on the actors. Although Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones were older versions than those usually cast as Beatrice and Benedict, they gave solid performances. The rest of the cast was a strong collection of actors, especially Don Jon, whose accent was reminiscent of John Leguizamo’s villainous depiction of Tybalt in Baz Luhrman’s film version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory 11th December 2013 74 places sold out!!

Watch out for another Charlie and the Chocolate Factory trip next year.

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Roding Valley High School Newsletter December 2013

There were some imaginative twists in the play with the use of the WWII setting, which allowed for a number of dance scenes including a comical dance to a Southern American jazz song. All in all students thoroughly enjoyed the trip and were delighted to not only visit the Old Vic, but to see one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays enacted on stage.

Jack Petchey Winner - Louise Gilbert

Evening of Music

Louise led her form to win the Year 7 netball and sports day last year. She is very kind and caring to everyone and always thinks about others before herself. She is a really good friend.

On 17th October the Year 10 GCSE music class presented their work and talents in a performance to friends and family. It was an enjoyable evening for all, students sang and played instruments - the guitar, clarinet, violin and piano.

Louise was nominated by her peers and chosen by the school council.

Ruby Buckley 10R said “it was an interesting evening and a good way to show Year 10’s talents” Callum Drinkwater 10U said “It was so cool” and Mehdi Ajami 10T said “It was spectacular!”

Year 10 are continuing to work on their GCSE course and are rehearsing for the Winter and Christmas concerts.

Thank you to Mr Savage and everyone who supported us on the night!

Olivia Tinker and Amber Maclean 10S

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Loughton Methodist Church Service On Wednesday 4th December, Year 7 students from Roding Valley High School, Loughton attended a Christmas church service at Loughton Methodist Church.

Year 7 took part in singing carols and giving decorated shoe boxes full of gifts. These were later delivered to The Samaritans Purse packaging centre in Harlow. Students produced so many that they had to be delivered in the minibus!

Very well done to all that contributed.

They were extremely well bahaved and I am very proud of our Year 7s and their charitable and community orientated attitude.

Ms T Preston, head of Year 7

Thank you so much to the children who read - Phoebe Black and Ben Hamid, also for the beautiful singing by Chloe Buckley and Gabrielle Aikens. Thank you to Mr Savage for his time practising with the performers and playing the piano for the hymns.

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Roding Valley High School Newsletter December 2013

Students take part in Future Chef Competitions In October we held our first cooking competition, Future Chef. This year we had 11 entries from Years 8-10.

Year 8 n Seren Boyraz 8X, Zoe Donnelly 8V and Georgia Maginn 8X

YEAR 9 n Adam Ahmed 9R, Jemoma Rodriguez 9T, Sapphira Ghodo-Taylor 9Q and Grace Goodrich 9R

YEAR 10 n Miles Ahmed 10V, Antoni Nowak 10T and Deividas Balcunias 10T

Our 3 Judges were Mrs Sharon Jenner, Mrs Sue Sabin and Mr Harvey French.

The students worked extremely hard and all the dishes were delicious.

This year the winners: 1st Miles Ahmed, 2nd Jemima Rodriguez and in 3rd Grace Goodrich.

Well done to all!! Once again we are proud of all our food students. Thank you also to all parents for their support and encouragement.

Once again our budding Chefs flocked for our second cooking competition the RIBI Young Chef.

This year we had 18 entries from Years 7-10.

Year 7 n Sam Laws 7X, Max Collings 7Q, Alex Knight 7X, Gabrielle Aikins 7S, Ayman Mohamed 7V and Zoe Newton-Kisly 7S

YEAR 8 n Megan Nuckley 8W, Leia Humphries 8W, Seren Boyraz 8X, Georgia Maginn 8X, Imogen Riordan 8R, Sophia Filaitis 8Q, Bridie Locker 8Q and Lucy Thomas 8Q

YEAR 9 n Adam Ahmed 9R and Mihai Baceanu 9U

Our 3 Judges were: Miss Grace Cutts, Mr David Tisdale and Miss Shannon McEvoy.

The Judges had a very hard job in naming a winner and as a result of the fabulous dishes there were two winners!!!!!

The students worked extremely hard and all the dishes were delicious.

This year we had joint winners, Miles Ahmed and Georgia Maginn.

Well done to all!! Once again we are proud of all our food students. Thank you also to all parents for their support and encouragement.

YEAR 10 n Billy Mintern 10R and Miles Ahmed 10V

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Le petit dĂŠjeuner - delicieux!

Our year 8 pupils have recently sampled a traditional French breakfast - completely different to the greasy fry-ups that we English enjoy!

On the menu were croissants, pain au chocolat, baguettes and brioche. Pupils enjoyed the opportunity to try something different and even pupils who were reluctant to try French food gave it a go.

It was also a good opportunity to put the French that they had learnt in lessons to good use a, as pupils had to order their

breakfast in French. They were really lucky to be able to taste the food fresh out of the oven, thanks to our French catering manager, instead of having to make do with the shop bought version.

Many thanks to the Friends of Roding Valley, who funded this event.

Parents invited into school to review proposed new PE Kit The consultation period has begun to update the school PE kit, the new kit was positively received by both parents and students when it was made available at the recent meeting.

The aim is to make the kit available in the new year but it will not become compulsory until September 2015.

Students follow us @RVHSTeam will be tweeting top tips, reminders, links and guidance for our students - everything from delays on the Central Line in the morning to revision tips and links for their GCSE’s.

SPORTSMARK

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Alderton Hill, Loughton, Essex IG10 3JA t: 020 8508 1173 e: office@rodingvalley.net www.rodingvalley.net