Newsletter March 2015

Newsletter

Roding Valley High School

March 2015

Roding Valley High School in top 3% of Schools Nationally I am delighted to be able to share with you the news that Roding Valley High School has been identified as one of the top 90 schools in the country for students showing the greatest sustained improvement in the percentage of pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C grade GCSEs including English and Maths.

This is a fantastic achievement and I would like to pass on my congratulations to the students, staff, parents and Governors who have worked so hard to bring this about over the last 3 years. The news came in the form of a letter from the Right Honourable David Laws MP, Minister of State for Schools, and demonstrates that the school is certainly heading in the right direction at a time when many other schools have seen a drop in their performance.

The letter also highlighted the excellent work that is being undertaken with our disadvantaged pupils who have significantly improved in terms of their attainment and their rates of progress at GCSE. The fact that we are supporting these students effectively and have provided them with such a solid platform from which they may be successful is testament to the hard work of all concerned. Being able to prepare these young people for their futures beyond school is a critical aspect of our work and it is gratifying to receive such positive feedback from the Government.

their Pre Public examinations in February and this has provided us with a snapshot of how well they are doing.

They prepared themselves very thoroughly and the results bode very well for the real thing in May and June.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff that are going the extra mile to support the students to be successful. Revision sessions are taking place at lunchtimes and after school and the Easter Revision School will be a key opportunity for final preparations to be made. We are expecting another successful year and we will do everything we can to support the Year 11s to exceed their targets.

We have also been interviewing Year 11 students for Sixth Form courses and the numbers look very pleasing across the range of subjects. We have had huge amounts of positive feedback from the students who are desperate to stay with us in Years 12 and 13 and we are now starting to look at timetabling for next year’s AS Levels. This really is an exciting time for the school and I thank you all for your ongoing support.

It is full steam ahead for our Year 11 pupils in the run up to the GCSEs in the summer. The students completed

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

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Teaching and Learning at RVHS

Incredible Progress in English and Maths Roding Valley English and Maths faculties were thrilled at the incredible levels of progress made in these subjects last year at the end of Key Stage 4. The Maths department celebrated an amazing progress rate of 79% of students making expected or better progress while English produced an overwhelming 77% rate of progress. This compared favourably with the average of progress across Essex rate of mid 50%. Overall the school achieved 67% 5 A*-C including English and Maths with the Maths Faculty achieving 75% while English attained a resounding 80% A*-C. These results reflect not only the hard work of all our students, but also the commitment and dedication of the two faculties. Both heads of faculty accept that it will be a challenge to top these amazing sets of results and levels of progress in this academic year.

However, the mark of any outstanding school is its ability to rise to the challenge and not to grow complacent.

We are on for seeing records being broken yet again this year.

This academic year, a group of teaching staff have been working together in triads on the NTEN project. This project involves a collaborative partnership of schools and committed colleagues coming together to improve staff professional development through lesson study.

found it extremely interesting, as our findings aren’t as predicted. Other triads have looked at the progress of pupils with English as an additional language and how to motivate and inspire extended writing.

At Roding Valley, there are currently 3 triads working on various areas identified for development. Within our small groups, we have engaged in existing evidence to guide and support our studies. Our aim, here at Roding Valley, is to promote and share evidence-based practice with other colleagues and the NTEN network.

My group in particular have been working on Friendship group vs Teacher-set seating plans and how this affects students’ progress and have

Year 8 committed to excellence!

A revision Breakfast took place in the English department for Year 8 pupils committed to achieving their very best.

Grace Cain and Amber Goodman arrived at 7.45am to help Mrs. Atkinson set up the room, prepare for the session and make an abundance of toast. Year 8 students arrived at school at 8am ready for revision and their breakfast; students spent an hour cramming any last bit of information ready for their assessment that morning. The session was led by the Year 9 Ambassadors, who had studied the scheme last academic year. Each ambassador worked with students in groups of no more than two or three and guided Year 8 students on the best exam technique and revision approach.

It was a highly successful event and students felt very well prepared for their examination.

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Roding Valley High School Newsletter March 2015

It has been great to work with other colleagues from various departments around the school and I feel, as a team, we have all enriched our teaching, for the benefit and progress of pupils.

We are looking forward to sharing our evidence-based practice with the staff at our school later in the term.

Lauren Draper Head of Year 10

Teaching and Learning at RVHS

Stretch and Challenge!

Students on the Challenge and Enrichment programme presented their projects on ‘Education and Social Inequality’ in early January.

The projects varied; from PowerPoint presentations to life models. Year 7 pupils worked on this project collaboratively with the Year 9 Ambassadors. Each student was given a prize of £20 Amazon vouchers.

Year 8 pupils did their research independently over the Christmas break. Out of all the Year 8 students, only the top five were selected to present on the evening. After a long deliberation, the judges declared Lorelei Booth (Year 9), Mia Smith and Yasmin Mustaq the winners of the Collaborative Project and Rhys Greenaway the winner of the Independent Project. An excellent job and we look forward to running this again in the near future.

Check your post!

The Humanities Faculty launched a competition to design a postcard specifically for Humanities teachers to post home to congratulate students for a variety of reasons such as being helpful, excellent efforts and outstanding pieces of work.

We had a considerable number of entries and a really tough decision to make, the standard was high and students had really made an effort to produce fantastic entries.

We finally decided that the students below had created the winning postcards.

Congratulations to these three and thank you to all entrants for their efforts.

Kate Sommerova 7U Yasmin Mustaq 7S Ella Margetts 7U We have started to send these out – so keep an eye on your post!

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Teaching and Learning at RVHS

RVHS Celebrates World Book Day This year’s World Book Day was Thursday 5th March. We started the day with an assembly featuring lots of different aspects of the day and why it was both important and fun. Everyone can be inspired by books; Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus wrote songs inspired by novels.

We then, in period 2, ‘Dropped Everything And Read’ (D.E.A.R) for 30 mins. I enjoyed this as it was time to read in silence and really get into your book without distractions. Although I love P.E., I didn’t mind missing a bit of it to get into my book and escape the real world.

Then after lunch we had a room change to E2. Nobody in my class knew what we were going to do but it was a pleasant surprise! We took ‘face in the hole’ photos with characters from books. My favourite was Frankenstein because the picture was really detailed although I think the class’ favourite was the Harry Potter.

We then moved into another room where we played Countdown. Story making was the next activity where the class made a joint story. There were pictures on the board in which we had to base the next sentence on so that we kept the story moving. This was really enjoyable as we could use our own ideas without them being too crazy!

Later we played Scrabble. We had 7 pieces of laminated card with letters on and we played a really big version of Scrabble with the whole class.

Finally we were able to use our World Book Day tokens to buy a book. I choose “Geek Girl” as my friend has read it and said it was good. After we had chosen our book, we wrote our favourite book or author on a post-it note shaped as a leaf and stuck it onto a brown piece of paper with all the book titles and authors stuck to it, it looked like a tree.

There was only one way to describe this day: brilliant!

By Madison Holden Ettridge 7U

Rebekah Leigh Barrass 7R I liked World Book Day because we were out of lesson doing fun activities all about books.

The thing I liked most was the giant game of scrabble. I am very grateful for the book that I got with my token. The book I picked was ‘Killing the Dead’.

Thanks for the experience.

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Roding Valley High School Newsletter March 2015

Maisy Tomlinson 7R It was World Book Day and all of the teachers dressed up as their favo urite book character and we all went from class to class doing activities .

My favourite activity was scrabble because we were in teams and it was very challenging. Also the othe r good part was what we did with Miss Martin; we wrote down our favourite book and stuck it on this really big tree and we had a one pound boo k token and we all brought a book.

I got Geek Girl.

Teaching and Learning at RVHS

Isabel McCullagh 7R I enjoyed world book day, I did 3 different activities. First I did a giant game of scrabble there were 4 teams and my team won, next we went in 2’s and did a quiz on vocabulary, and lastly we got to look at the books and get one with our book token if we wanted.

Olivia Lewis 7R I thought the World Book Day activities that took place in the English corridor were a good idea. I especially liked it when we put our heads through some pictures of book characters just like we were them and then a teacher took our photos in them. I also enjoyed doing the count-down activity, which I thought was fun especially because we won. I also liked the fact that we only had to give the teacher that was working on the area a £1 book token in exchange for a book so it was like free money!

It was fun because we got to do lots of different activities around the English department. My favourite thing was the bit where you could put your face on the body of something and people take a picture of you.

On World Book Day my class did many activities including giant scrabble, vocabulary quiz and book tree. I enjoyed buying my World Book Day book which is ‘Best Mates’ by Michael Morporgo. Other books on offer include ‘Killing the Dead’, ‘Greek Girl’ and ‘Diary of Dennis the Menace’. When we did the book tree I nominated ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone’ as my favourite book.

Sophie Sherard 7R I really enjoyed W orld Book Day. I lov how all the teache ed rs dressed up an d how there was a varie ty of different activ itie and not just one.

My favourite activ s ity was by far when we get books and wr had the chance to ite down our favou rit books on a story tree. It was interes e ting to see what kind of things people wrot and how many of them I knew. I thou e the day went surp ght risingly well.

On World Book day at 10:30 am, students were escaping into their own world with the books that everyone was reading, with the ‘Drop Everything And Read Session’. From ‘Dangerous Reality’ By Malorie Blackman, to ‘An Inspector Calls’

By J.B Priestly and ‘Scorpia’ By Anthony Horowitz.

In addition, teachers were dressed up as book characters for the day. From the Frog from the Princess and the Frog, to Robin Hood, Where’s Wally and even Rapunzel. However, the best outfit, in my opinion was the White Witch (Mrs Routledge). Well done to all members of staff who dressed up!

Also, both students and members of staff were allowed to go on Twitter for the day

using the Roding Valley Twitter account (@RodingValleyHS) and #rvhsbookday.

The best pictures and posts were ‘re-tweeted’ by @RodingValleyHS. Finally, thank you to Mrs Martin (The Librarian) for organising each event and I hope all students enjoyed themselves.

Jake Forecast (Year 10 Student)

Louis Maclean 7R Sadie Woodland 7R on Thursday. It I enjoyed the book day ving classes to mo re we was fun and we there were. I check out what activities uld pick a book co we en wh especially like th Girl by Chris Go that we wanted like the o liked the als I . od go s wa Riddal which abble in E5 scr g yin part when we were pla ers were ch tea the en wh d (English). I like ny. fun dressed up. That was

Yesterday afternoon at period 4 all of A side in Year 7 did a bo ok related activity. My English cla ss did a quiz, wrote down our favourite book and took funny pictures were the body is painted and you just show you r face. I really enjoyed it because we also got given a book token and I used mine to get a free book. My favourite part was when we got to see all the teach ers dressed up.

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EXTRA-Curricular Excellence

Young Chef Competition Our annual RIBI Young Chef Competition was held on Wednesday 19 November. This particular competition is open to the Year 7’s as well as older year groups and we had a tremendous turnout from them!!

Well done Year 7.

Talented studen On the evening of Tuesday 24th February, Roding Valley presented an evening celebrating the ‘arts’ in KS3.

The 3 judges for us were, Mrs Cain, Mr Tisdale and Miss Atkinson and they had a really tough job. Many thanks to the judges.

Students from Years 7, 8 and 9 either exhibited their art work or performed music, drama or dance.

There were many curries on offer, as well as chilli con carne, steak and chips, salmon stir fry and many more, all of which were delicious.

The evening was a sell out and the work produced was of a very high standard.

Our entrants for this competition were: Jasmine James (7X), Oliver Wells (7X), Thomas Abbott (8T), Thomas Compton (8T), Max Collings (8Q), Abbie Ward (8U), Livvy Turnbull (7X), Lara Thompson (7T), Alex Ketteridge (8T) and Olivia Dawkins (7V).

The winner was Ellie Blundy (7U) with a mouth-watering katsu curry, in 2nd place was Patsy Stow (7V) and our 3rd spot went to Ella Margetts (7U).

Patsy Stow went on to the Area Final where she cooked a homemade Cottage Pie with seasonal vegetables. In this round Patsy was the 1st runner up and has gotten through to the next round, which is the District Final at Redbridge College in March.

Back in November, Food Technology held their RIBI Young Chef Competition, our school heat winner was Patsy Stow 7V. She then went on to the Area Final where Patsy cooked a homemade Cottage Pie with seasonal vegetables. In this round Patsy was the 1st runner up and got through to the next round, which was the District Final at Redbridge College.

This time Chicken Jaflrezi was cooked followed by Tiramisu!!! Well this was more than enough for Patsy to win!!! And she now goes through to the Regional Final in March.

Well done Patsy we are very proud of you!!

It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening where the visual and performing arts came together to celebrate the work and effort of the younger students. The Creative Arts team are extremely proud of the students who participated and it demonstrated the true value of arts subjects in education.

Year 8 singer Tyne Brownlie, who closed the evening said ‘it was great to perform in front of such a large audience and there was a big variety of different acts and performances which made the evening very enjoyable.’

Students perform Students in Year 8 to 10 at Roding Valley High School, Loughton, put their musical talents to a performance of the wellknown musical ‘My Fair Lady’.

The cast members developed the characters, songs and dances, incorporating their own ideas and fleshing out some of the lesser known characters for the performance.

The pupils who took part were Doncho Atanassov, Thisbe Barnett, Ben Botterman, Isabella Bramley, Lillie Butler, Grace Cain, Georgie Curran, Sena Demiryaban, Harry Gipson, Amber Goodman, Aliya Silverstone and Matthew Tinker.

The lighting and sound were also the responsibility of pupils Jake Carter and Harley George while the costumes were provided by the Christian Drama Resource Centre, Loughton.

The school’s head of drama, Andrew Stansfield, said: “It was a pleasure to see such commitment and passion from our young people.

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Roding Valley High School Newsletter March 2015

EXTRA-Curricular Excellence

nts star at Creative Arts Evening

Headteacher James Luck said: “It was a wonderful event that really showcased the talents of our students.

“There was drama, comedy, singing and dancing all of the highest quality. A great evening enjoyed by all.”

He added: “Well done to all the students who took part and a big thank you to the staff who gave up so much of their time to help the students prepare”.

the musical ‘My Fair Lady’ “The performance was well supported by family and loved ones who really brought the best out of the pupils.

“Their passion for Theatre really shone through and it has been a wonderful experience to direct them.”

Matthew Tinker, who played the part of Henry Higgins, said: “This is one of the best characters that I performed.

“The production was a wonderful showcase for the school to provide a musical to the local community and show off the talent that lies within the school.”

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Beyond Roding Valley At Roding Valley we are passionate about accelerated pupil progress but we are also committed to developing pupils into responsible young adults who want to make a positive difference in the community and world around them. That is why we are so proud of the contributions so many of our pupils make to charity and local community initiatives.

Beyond Roding Valley It has reached that time of year again when we receive our update from Greater Joy School and our partner charity Beyond Ourselves.

It is heartening to see that children we sponsor in Zambia are achieving better grades each year and show improved health with a steady increase in their height and weight. On our last visit, in July, there were some students whose health has improved so much they were almost unrecognisable. I would

like to take this opportunity to thank all the students, parents and staff for their continued support for this important project.

each Thursday between 12th March and 14th May. The form who raise the most money will receive a prize and details of the winners will be in the next newsletter.

I look forward to continuing our support for Greater Joy School through the nonuniform day later this term and the Year 7 inter-form bake sale which will take place

For more information on this project do contact Mr Cocker or visit the website www.beyondourselves.co.uk

Roding Valley High School student is elected to UK Youth Parliament A Roding Valley High School student has been elected to the UK Youth Parliament after taking his seat on the newly-elected Young Essex Assembly (YEA).

Matthew Tinker is one of some 75 young people from across Essex elected to the YEA - the county’s youth council - in December.

The new members, all aged between 11 and 19, had their inaugural sitting at County Hall, Chelmsford, last weekend.

Matthew is among 12 members of the UK Youth Parliament from Essex elected from the Essex Young Assembly members. He will represent the Epping Forest district.

Matthew, 14, will serve as a Deputy Member of Youth Parliament (DMYP) and for 2016-17 will become a full member of the UKYP and serve as an MYP for the district.

He said: “Over the next two years I would like to tackle two important issues for young people: stress and volunteering.

“Stress can be many issues such as exam stress. Young people do need to revise for tests but they also need a social life to be a full and rounded person.

Volunteering is an important issue for me as I am a volunteer. I would like more young people involved in voluntary work. At Epping Forest Youth Council

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we launched new volunteering tube map guides which has made it easier for young people to become volunteers. But volunteers under the age of 16 can be at a disadvantage because of issues with employer’s insurance. As an MYP (201617), I would like to talk to MPs to make it easier for young people to get involved with the community by asking companies and organisations to accept young volunteers.”

He added: “As a member of UKYP for the Epping Forest district, I would like to represent the views and opinions of young people from Epping Forest, Essex and the whole of the United Kingdom.

“To be given an opportunity to represent my peers at a nation level of youth democracy is a real privilege.

Roding Valley High School headteacher James Luck said: “Matthew is a first rate student. He is hard working and has a real drive to succeed. He is friendly, outgoing and is well liked and respected by students and staff alike. I’m sure he’ll do a superb job in his post.

“As a school we are very proud of him.”

Essex County Council education and lifelong learning cabinet member Ray

Roding Valley High School Newsletter March 2015

Gooding said: “It was fantastic to meet with the Young Essex Assembly and I look forward to working with them over the next two years.

“The YEA has a crucial role to play in providing a link between young people and local government. Having witnessed the passion and enthusiasm of the new members first hand, the views of young people in Essex are in safe hands.”

Essex County Council chairman Norman Hume said: “The Young Essex Assembly plays a pivotal role in democracy in Essex.

“It was excellent meeting the new members and I was very impressed by the thought-provoking questions they posed to myself and my fellow councillors.

“It was particularly pleasing to see young people show such a strong desire to make a positive contribution to their communities and I wish them all the best for their terms of office.”

The YEA sits six times a year, while its sub groups also meet regularly.

The next sitting is Saturday 11 April.

Beyond Roding Valley

Jack Petchey Awards Eva Randall January 2015

Kathleen McGlynn February 2015

Awarded January 2015 Eva Randall 8Q nominated for her resilience. Even though Eva has missed days through illness and even spent some time in hospital, Eva has maintained a positive attitude towards learning and towards her classmates. She has also been very willing to help her peers in any work that they are struggling with.

Awarded February 2015, Kathleen McGlynn 10W. Nominated for supporting and helping KS3 students around school. A positive and friendly attitude to everything she does. A delightful student and great role model for others.

Doncho Atanassov March 2015 Awarded for being a very kind friend. Doncho is always there for anyone who wants to talk to him. He is a key member of the school community, he has helped out at a number of school events. He also regularly attends extra curricular Drama activities and is currently playing Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady.

As a Youth Councillor, he is producing high quality work. He has an impeccable attendance at Youth Council and school. Doncho has also led a number of assemblies in school.

GCSE Geographers Provide Water Thank you to GCSE Geography students for their kind Christmas donations.

With the money collected, we have paid for a household water pump which will provide water storage for a family and allow them to grow more food to eat and also generate an income through growing crops to sell.

We have also bought a Goat with the remainder, at the insistence of our Year 11 students! This will provide a local source of milk to drink and sell, food to eat and manure for fertiliser.

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Enriching the Curriculum

Careers Fest January 2015 Over 1,400 students and their families turned out to attend our annual Careers Festival held at Epping Forest College, Borders Lane, Loughton, to explore the different fields in work, education and training schemes that might be of interest to them.

District secondary schools including: King Harold Business and Science Academy, St Johns School, West Hatch High School, Debden Park High School, Davenant Foundation and Epping Forest College.

The event, now in its fifth year, was organised by Mrs Mason along with the six Epping Forest District Secondary School Careers Advisors to provide students with a chance to view the different opportunities that are available to them during and post-education.

Parents and carers were also provided with new information and a huge insight into possible career opportunities for their children.

Along with the students from Roding Valley the event was attended by Year 9 through to Year 13 students and their families from the six Epping Forest

The event was attended by over 80 exhibitors who provided information and encouragement including local and national employers from private and public sector organisations, universities and colleges. The University of East London remarked: “There were lots of interested young people and parents, asking lots of mature and relevant questions. A very good event - thank you!”

Companies that were represented at Careers Fest included Sainsburys, Barclays Bank, Higgins and Solicitors Foskett Marr Gadsby and Head. The feedback from the exhibitors was also largely positive; the representatives from Lambourne End Centre for Outdoor Learning commented that Careers Fest was “…an excellent

idea… we have attended similar events but for individual schools which weren’t as effective. It felt worthwhile and time well spent.” The event was also warmly appreciated by visitors. When asked how much the event helped plan for the future, over 75% of respondents said that it had been useful or very useful, and over 80% said that it was enjoyable.

Mrs Mason the Careers Advisor at Roding said: “It is our duty to provide information for the students and help them fulfil their ambitions. Some exhibitors were offering apprenticeships and taster courses. Personally, I hope every student, parent and carer who attended the Careers Fest benefited from the variety of exhibitors that we have provided for them and I hope that they have obtained a better vision of their futures.”

IGD Careers Workshop comes to Roding Valley On Wednesday 25th February a group of twenty-one Year 9 students took part in a careers workshop organised by the Institute of Grocery Distribution and Future First.

The sessions centred around four volunteers from different sectors of the retail industry who came to share their experiences with the students.

The students had a really engaging morning and left with much stronger ideas about how to reach their chosen career. I would like to thank Mwila Mulenshi (Future First) and Donna Mason (Roding Valley) for organising the event and Chris Jackson (Essex Flour Mills), Oma Panton (IDG), Claire Daniels (Brakes) and Rachel Davis (Waitrose) for coming and speaking to our Year 9 students. In particular it was

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great to see Rachel return to Roding Valley to inspire our students after completing her GCSEs here in 2010.

Mr Cocker Narrowing the Gap Coordinator

Roding Valley High School Newsletter March 2015

Enriching the Curriculum

Year 11 Health and Social Care Students Meet Esteemed Plastic Surgeon, Quentin Frew The Year 11 Health and Social Care group were lucky enough to be invited to St Andrew’s Hospital in Chelmsford in early December to find out a little more about the work that goes on at this world renowned specialist burns unit.

Sister Nicole Lee had organised an action packed day for us, starting with a presentation given by Keri Long, a trainee Health Care Assistant.

Kerri spoke about her day to day role and, how every day brought a new and exciting challenge. After a brief coffee break, students were met by Occupational Therapist, Vicky and Physiotherapist Rachel. Students listened carefully as both gave accounts of their work with patients at the unit. The highlight of the day was getting the opportunity to meet with esteemed Plastic Surgeon, Quentin Frew. He spoke enthusiastically about his work as a Surgeon and the progression that has been made over the last ten years in the treatment of burns victims. He readily answered the students’ questions and we were all enthralled and fascinated

by Quentin’s tales of his “trainee doctor days”.

French Theatre Company On Tuesday 2 December a travelling French theatre company visited Roding Valley to perform a play in French and English to our Year 7 pupils.

Despite the miserable weather, students were excited to be invited out on to the hospital’s helipad by Steve Nunn, the resident Fire and Safety Officer. Steve spoke about his work in manning the helipad and receiving the most serious of burns cases from around the country via helicopter.

The trip was a huge success and staff members at the hospital commented on the enthusiasm and maturity of the Roding Valley students. Year 11 agreed that it had been an enjoyable and worthwhile day that had given them an opportunity to learn about various roles and encourage them to think about their own future careers.

Even though the play contained lots of French, pupils did not need to worry as the script contained lots of words and phrases that they had come across in class. By watching the action and gestures pupils had no problem understanding what was going on, in fact they were amazed at how much French they actually knew.

So what was the play about?

The play was entitled, ‘The World’s Gone French.’

Everything in Nathan’s life was normal until one day his mother gave him a jigsaw puzzle she bought from a charity shop. It was a puzzle of the map of the world but there were pieces missing. From then on his world changed. His mother spoke to him – in French! His 6 year old sister gave him her usual childish remark in perfect French! Nathan can’t believe it - The world’s gone French! How will he cope? He’s only just started learning French in school. Has it got something to do with the jigsaw?

The play was interactive, involving some of our pupils even participating in the performance and going on the stage, and it was very amusing.

Here’s what Year 7 thought: Rishin - Really good and quite fascinating. I enjoyed it Sophie - Interesting to find out that you can actually understand quite a lot of French Sam - Educational and interactive Olivia - I liked the story line Will - An interesting story line that included people from the audience Till - Imaginative Esmae - Very funny and I learnt new French words Jasmine- It helped you learn

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Enriching the Curriculum

Year 10 Pupils Visit Oxford University Year 10 students travelled to Oxford University on a pathways seminar which was aimed to give them a taste of life at Oxford.

From lectures to tours, students grew more motivated and inspired whilst communicating and drawing on advice from current Oxford students. Some students plan to return to visit the town centre in the near future and one quoted ‘There clearly seems no better place to study.’

Resistant Materials Club Resistant Materials Club has been running since Christmas. So far it has proven popular with Year 7 & 8 pupils.

We have completed a variety of projects during the spring term such as picture frames, clocks, foam swords and shields.

The club is mostly teacher led with focussed tasks that should last between 4-5 weeks. However, some pupils have used this as an opportunity to continue with the practical work started in class and some have simply turned up with a good idea of something they wish to design and make.

“When I was making the sword and shield it was very hard to do because of getting

the foam into the plastic pipe and spray painting the image on the shield but I had fun doing it”.

Jack G “I enjoyed making the sword and shield.

It was a very fun experience”.

Spas The club will run on a Wednesday from 3.10 to 4.00 pm. A few spaces are available for next term. Permission letters are available from Mr Standbridge or Mr Wootten.

6th Form Update Year 11 students have been busy in the last term! Students were given the opportunity to sign up for working group committees as we wanted them not only to be involved in the decision process but also to have the opportunity to leave their stamp on our new 6th Form.

We created 2 committees and students signed up if they wanted to be part of one or both: common room and dress code.

Students worked as a team in their own time to design and create a very detailed plan of our future 6th Form common room. Another group researched and wrote a very impressive dress code document. Both committees had to present their final draft to Mr Luck and

other members of SLT who were very impressed with the hard work and creativity demonstrated by our students.

Well done to all and thank you for getting involved!

Common room committee: Naru George, Lucy Maguire, Alex Rivers, Amy Barker, Mehdi Ajami, Georgi Zheche, Bailey Mansfield, Mohammed Gordon.

Dress Code Committee: Gergana Ivanova, Carina Sander, Natasha MeunierMcVey, Sophie Humphreys, Maisie Perry, Chloe Fox, Georgina Pollard, Ciara Price, Holly Bachell, Liberty Burrows.

Girl’s Football Club Come and play!

After school on a Thursday evening, 3.15-4.15pm.

All year groups welcome.

For more information on the 6th Form please contact Ms Darabasz.

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