IN THE
CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL MAGAZINE SPRING 2018
HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL HITS CHS ALSO INSIDE: PLATINUM ARTS AWARD YOUTH BUZZ AWARDS CHORLTON BOOK FESTIVAL CHS SOUTH UPDATE
HELLO... Welcome to the latest edition, and my first as the editor, of In the Spotlight. As the new Community and Marketing Officer, I am excited to bring you all of our fantastic news, highlights and successes here at Chorlton High School. The year began brilliantly with the receipt of The Platinum Artsmark Award. This is the highest level of achievement for arts and cultural education and acknowledges our long standing commitment to the Arts. Our library celebrated another Chorlton Book Festival with a series of literary events, concluding with the ever popular Chorlton Children’s Book Award. A hugely talented cast of over 70 Year 7, 8 and 9 students helped to stage a fantastic production of High School Musical, providing an enjoyable conclusion to the term with song, dance and entertainment across three festive evenings. With our recent pledge; #WeStandTogether, we have also celebrated a number of community events, helping to expand upon our rich tradition of positive and successful collaborative work. In the coming months we will be exploring new and creative ways to embed a culture of kindness throughout our school. We will be working to provide all of our students the best opportunities to inspire them to go further in their empathic thinking, ambition and skills, both at school and beyond. To keep up to date with all of our exciting news, activities and updates, make sure you follow our CHS Twitter account; @chorltonhigh. You can also subscribe to receive our fortnightly, bite size and recently updated newsletter; Chorlton Connection. To subscribe please forward your email address to admin@chorltonhigh.manchester.sch.uk RICHARD STOUT COMMUNITY AND MARKETING OFFICER AND IN THE SPOTLIGHT EDITOR
INSIDE THIS ISSUE...
PLATINUM ARTSMARK AWARD
1
HIGH 2 SCHOOL MUSICAL OPEN EVENING 2017
YOUTH BUZZ AWARDS
EXCITING ELE DAY
6-7
CHORLTON BOOK FESTIVAL
8-9
SPORTS NEWS
10
12 DAYS OF KINDNESS
11
COMMUNITY 11 CHRISTMAS PARTY
3
4
CHS SOUTH NEWS PARENTS’ EVENTS
12
13
BRINGING LEARNING TO LIFE
The panel was very impressed by the school’s longstanding commitment to the Arts.
We are delighted to announce that Chorlton High School has been awarded The Platinum Artsmark Award. The Platinum Artsmark Award is the highest level of achievement and recognises our ongoing commitment to arts and cultural education at a governing body level. It is a valuable tool for enriching our arts provision and helps to inspire creativity within our students across a diverse range of high-quality arts and cultural activities. Our students are encouraged to continually develop their knowledge, skills and understanding of arts and culture across a broad range of media, whilst being offered equal opportunity to excel, influence and lead. The Artsmark Award also acknowledges the strong partnerships we have
ARTSMARK AWARD PANEL
established with important cultural organisations and will allow us to build upon the positive impact of these collaborations in the future. The Artsmark Award panel has made the following comment about our submissions: “The panel was very impressed by the school’s long-standing commitment to the Arts and by the strength of its development planning, based on clear evidence which is regularly monitored to ensure the best outcomes for all children. There is a very strong curricular and extra-curricular offer, with the arts compulsory in KS4. There is a strong contribution to local schools’
development of their provision and to ITT, and the development of pupil voice and pupil Arts Ambassadors has been most impressive. For future development, the school has admirable plans to extend its partnerships further, develop the Arts Award programme, contribute to the development of CPD for schools and engage pupils as ambassadors in doing so, and these further steps will successfully embed its Platinum status.”
CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT
ANOTHER AMAZING CHRISTMAS PRODUCTION! During December, our creative community of students, staff, family and friends, came together to enjoy a fantastic series of performances of ‘High School Musical’. Over 70 Chorlton High students took part in our school production and helped, each night, to transport our audience to the USA for a modern interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. Staff and students gave up many hours of their own time to develop, rehearse and put on three brilliant performances, including a special matinee event for our Community Christmas Party. Our Christmas production proved once again to be a huge success and was supported by an attentive, supportive and enthusiastic audience. Our guests were entertained by actors, dancers and musicians from Year 7, 8 and 9, who worked in collaboration to produce a wonderful show full of joy and entertainment.
We also used the show to support and highlight the amazing work of Barakah Food Aid. A local charity who provide food parcels to people who are struggling in the Manchester area. Before and after each performance, we collected any loose change that was kindly donated by our visitors and guests, and our Year 7, 8 and 9 students donated non-perishable food items and toiletries to the charity. We would like to thank everyone who attended and supported our Christmas production. We hope you all enjoyed an evening of song and dance, and we look forward to welcoming you all next year for more festive celebration and cheer.
CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT
OPEN EVENING 2017 On Wednesday 27th September we enjoyed another fantastic Open Evening! Parents/carers and prospective students were met in our reception and welcomed into our school with a prospectus pack, full of information and exciting details of life here at Chorlton High School. Headteacher Ms. Morris, offered a warm introduction to the evening in our Blue Box Theatre. Setting out our vision for lifelong creative learning with an inspiring speech. Executive Headteacher Mr. Park, then celebrated our continuing educational success. Introducing CHS South, our brand new eight-form entry, mixed, comprehensive school to the gathered audience. Our visitors were then able to explore all of our faculty departments, enjoy our facilities and experience a wide range of fun activities, games and workshops. Our inspirational staff were on hand to encourage participation, conversation and discussion. Answering questions on curriculum, our values and student achievement, as well as many others. Our student body was represented perfectly by our enthusiastic student helpers, guides, musicians, artists, geographers, scientists and pop up poets, who provided a lively and exciting atmosphere throughout the night. Some of the evening’s highlights included: a desert island challenge based on the GCSE text, Lord of the Flies, a French Café and Spanish tapas bar, open rehearsals for our upcoming production of ‘High School Musical’, interactive ‘Mathletics’ activities, sports action in our gym, filming on our Green Screen and a science department full of experiments, ‘Mad Scientists’ and dissections! The evening came to a close as successful treasure hunters received goodie bags filled with prizes for finding five of our CHS Qualities of Success symbols hidden all around our school. We would like to thank all of our hard working students and staff, and everyone who attended our Open Evening for helping to create and support another fantastic event!
YOUTH BUZZ AWARDS Chorlton High School celebrated four award nominations from the Manchester Youth Council. Launched in November 2012, Manchester Youth Council (MYC) is a forum that represents the views of young people. This year, MYC has organised the Youth Buzz Awards 2017 as a new way to celebrate the positive work of young people across Manchester. 60 nominations were made for the inaugural ceremony and Chorlton High School were shortlisted in four categories! This was an incredible achievement and acknowledged all of the effort and dedication of our students to go above and beyond their studies. Fittingly, the ceremony for the Youth Buzz Awards 2017 was held in The Great Hall, Manchester Town Hall on Friday 3rd November and our nominated students attended for a fantastic and exciting evening of celebration.
THE WINNERS WERE:
CHARITABLE FUNDRAISING AWARD: ‘I Wish I May’ Drama performance. Students performed and retold real stories from the Dunkirk Refugee Camp. All ticket sales were donated to Help Refugees. SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARD: ‘One Love’ competition winners. This award was created especially by The Manchester Youth Council for a song written by our students after the MEN Arena attack. The award helped to highlight and celebrate the positive response of our students to this tragedy.
THE RUNNERS UP WERE:
BEST CREATIVE CAMPAIGN AWARD: ‘Sold’. A Drama performance about Human Trafficking. All ticket sales were donated to a local Human Trafficking charity who support young people in Manchester. YOUNG VOLUNTEER AWARD: Tyler Frankland, Year 11 for his voluntary technical work in the Performing Arts Departments. Manchester Youth Council is run by young people to provide opportunities for the youth of Manchester to have a voice and to make a difference.
CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT
EXTENDED LEARNING EXPERIENCE (ELE) DAY October 20th 2017 saw the first half term finish with a unique learning experience for Chorlton High school pupils. The normal school day was collapsed in favour of a range of different exciting experiences for each year group. YEAR 7 spent the day with Arts and Technology and had the chance to spend all day in the subject of their choice. They explored the Mexican festival ‘Day of The Dead’ and this was the theme for the day. This included Drama students spending the day at The Contact Theatre, baking in food tech and students made sugar skulls in Art. Year 7 had a fantastic day with outstanding behaviour and they were able to develop new skills in a fun and exciting way.
YEAR 9 had a day learning about the Holocaust. An incredibly moving day that they responded to with great empathy. Students explored different aspects of the Holocaust on a rotation of lessons. They were then lucky enough to meet a real life Holocaust survivor the following week; Tomi Komoly. He retold his experiences of the Holocaust including images and a testimony. Year 9 were a fantastic audience and were even able to ask some questions to Mr. Komoly.
YEAR 8 were specialist inspectors for the day and used Science and Sport to solve a murder and utilise their forensic skills. They developed their problem solving skills in PE, this included one student locked in a cage and their team problem solving to help them escape. In the Science department, they used their practical skills to extract key evidence from the crime scene to try and discover who the murderer was.
YEAR 10 had a multimedia company Dentsu visit to launch a ‘take over campaign’. Their day focused on how multi media campaigns can be used for ethical change, for example environmental issues. They made campaigns of their choice and met media professionals such as Lad Bible who inspired them into using social media for ethical change and gave advice as to how they may work in media in the future.
WHAT OUR STUDENTS HAD TO SAY... • I liked the challenge of the Holocaust, it was really sad how they treated the Jewish people • I got to go out of school on a trip, it was fun • The PE session was funny, I got locked in a cage and couldn’t get out • We got to make our own dance
• The Lad Bible talk was interesting • I liked making my own skull and I got to take it home • We watched a film on sexism, it was good and we filmed around school • The lesson was good in English because they let us be in our own groups and we filmed on the iPad
TOMI KOMOLY INSPIRES YEAR 9
CHS recently welcomed Tomi Komoly, Holocaust survivor, to share with our Year 9 students a powerful testimony of his life during the Second World War. Tomi was born in 1936 in Budapest, Hungary where as a child he was forced to endure the devastating effects of Nazi persecution. His family was torn apart when the German army took control of Hungary in 1944. Tomi’s father was conscripted into the into the Hungarian Army and Tomi never saw him again. Tomi and his mother survived by hiding in the ‘safe’ houses of family friends whilst narrowly evading bombing raids, experiencing starvation and escaping capture. We would like to thank Tomi for sharing his inspirational story and for providing our students with a powerful example of living an empathetic, compassionate and positive life. One of our Year 9 History students was moved to write the following: “Today, Mr. Tomi Komoly talked to Year 9, he shared his experiences and what was happening throughout Budapest, Hungary and the rest of Central Europe during the war. The Nazis invaded Budapest and took away the Jews to concentration camps. Mr. Komoly told us about his life before, during and after the war. This helped bring to life our Holocaust studies on ELE Day and linked to a recent visit to the Imperial War Museum North. Mr. Komoly told us about what happened and how we should never forget that 72 years ago, 11.5 million people died.”
CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT
CHORLTON CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD 2017 AND THE WINNER IS…WOLF WILDER BY KATHERINE RUNDELL! The last week of November saw the return of the Chorlton Book Festival, when Chorlton celebrates everything book and literary related. It was also the culmination of the Chorlton Children’s Book Award and the announcement of the winning book! Children from all over Chorlton and particularly in Years 7 and 8 have been avidly reading and voting for the six books on the shortlist over the Autumn term. Excitement had been building by the time the winner was announced at the Celebration Event held in the library. The Lost Tales, a graphic novel by Adam Murphy was a firm favourite, but was just pipped to the post by Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell. It is a wonderful book, with a great female protagonist, and a worthy winner of the award. Wolf Wilder and all of the shortlisted books can be found in our CHS library and are ready for our students to enjoy!
BUZZ BOOKS DELIVERY... BOOKS ARE BUZZING Year 7 students have had an early Christmas present this year, when their Bookbuzz books arrived at Chorlton High School. The Bookbuzz reading programme from BookTrust aims to help schools inspire a love of reading in Year 7 students by gifting them a book. Participating schools pay a fee to take part in the programme and this allows students to choose a book from a list of 17 titles ranging from horror to humour all of which are suitable for 11 to 13 year-olds. “This year is the first year that schools have had to pay for Bookbuzz” said Ms Hockey the Library Resource Manager, “in previous years, the project was free of charge. I’m so proud that Chorlton High School is one of the participating schools. It is so important that students have books at home and Bookbuzz gives them that opportunity.” If you have a child in Year 7, then check out which book they have chosen! There is also a swap box in the library, so if students want to change their book for another one, then they can pop in and swap it.
INTERGENERATIONAL EVENT: BOOKS PAST AND PRESENT As part of Chorlton Book Festival, the young and the “not so young” got together at an Intergenerational event to talk about books past and present. Year 8 students from Chorlton High School welcomed folk from Chorlton Good Neighbours and they were treated to a visit from Angela and Siobhan from Archives+ at Manchester Central Library. They brought with them an exquisite array of old children’s books that had been allowed out of the archives for the day. Students learnt how to handle the books carefully and were able to choose their favourite. Many of the attendees from Chorlton Good Neighbours had also brought their own old children’s books with them. Some of the books had been given as prizes and a lot had been in their families for years.
Young and old enjoy books and that is their wonderful appeal. It doesn’t matter how old you are; you are never too old to enjoy books.
The event was a huge success, and a fantastic illustration of how children’s books have changed over the years.
CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT
SPORTING SUCCESS ESAA CROSS COUNTRY CUP 2017, REGIONAL FINALS
On Saturday 25th November, our U15 cross country team took part in the ESSA Cross Country Cup Final 2017. All of our runners performed exceptionally, showing grit and determination over a challenging course in adverse Autumnal weather conditions. Joe Bentall was outstanding, finishing 18th out of 157 of the best runners in England whilst running 4.2 kilometres in exactly 15 minutes. The CHS team finished 13th overall out of the 27 best schools in England, becoming the 3rd fastest non-selective school and 1st fastest inner-city school in the country.
YEAR 9 AND 10 BOYS TEAM: Tom Bentall, Joe Bentall, Tom Roach, Luke Roach, Theo Symons Treacher, Seb Patrick.
Our school Cross Country Teams recently took part in a series of regional finals for the ESAA Cross Country Cup 2017. The English Schools’ Athletic Association (ESAA) has organised this competition as part of a wider series of athletic championships, used to promote physical and moral development of students. During the finals, our Year 9 and 10 boys team competed against various teams from Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria,
Merseyside and even a school from Scotland. They finished 3rd overall for the Northwest region and qualified for the Cup Final in Sevenoaks, Kent. Our 7 and 8 girls team just missed out on qualification, finishing 4th and our Year 7 and 8 boys team finished a commendable 7th.
WATER POLO SUCCESS Huge congratulations to CHS student, Callum Fookes, winner of Best Goalkeeper in the recent Swim England Water Polo, U15 National Age Group Championships.
We are all extremely proud of the boys’ achievements and it is indicative of their attitude towards their own success both inside and outside of the school environment.
YEAR 7 AND 8 GIRLS TEAM: Cleo Bentall, Katie Hindle, Freya Griffiths, Eve Johnson, Hana Kurasawa-Wellings, Marina Guardascione.
YEAR 7 AND 8 BOYS TEAM: Charlie Massey, Charlie Atkiss, Sonny Wilson, Zeno Mackey, Ralf Syrett. Congratulations to all our competing students for their effort and hard work in training and during competition.
The tournament was held on 14th October 2017, at Manchester Aquatic Centre with Callum playing for City of Manchester team. Manchester competed against teams from all over the country and remained undefeated whilst retaining the title they won in 2016. In addition to successfully defending their title, Manchester also made a clean sweep of Most Valuable Player awards. Winning for Top Goal Scorer, Best Outfield Player and of course, Best Goalkeeper.
Further success and congratulations go to our Year 8 and 7 students; Jacob Button, Olly Rowlands, Katie Bell and Josh Fookes for winning the Bolton & District U12 Water Polo League. As members of the Stretford Water Polo Club, they have played teams from Chester, Liverpool, Warrington, Bury, Tyldsley, Bridgefield and Royton, winning all of their matches apart from one. An amazing achievement!
12 DAYS OF KINDNESS At Chorlton High we have been working hard to create a positive community both within and outside of school. Last year we raised over £4,000 for refugees and we wanted to continue our charity work into the new academic year. Recently, we created a new community pledge; #WeStandTogether, and this has been supported across all year groups throughout our school.
As a starting action of this pledge we developed an Acts of Kindness calendar, running for 12 days over the festive period. Our aim was to have each form, of each year group, complete all 12 acts by the end of the 12 days and use this experience to spark discussion and ideas for further, future acts and events. Our students, along with our staff, have helped to drive our campaign magnificently, sharing random acts of kindness, good news, behaviour and practice on a daily basis.
charity and community work to successfully encourage and embed a culture of kindness across Chorlton High School. Our students have already proved instrumental in this development, exhibiting numerous examples of kind and empathetic behaviour. During our 12 Days of Kindness campaign, we updated our Twitter feed daily, helping to spread our message further and we will continue to share our work this year by using the hashtag; #WeStandTogether.
We want to build upon all of our previous
COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS PARTY On Tuesday 12th December, Chorlton High school welcomed invited guests and visitors to attend our annual Community Christmas Party. Every year, we look forward to presenting an afternoon of festive cheer and entertainment, helping to both begin the Christmas period and celebrate our wider communities. Upon arrival, our guests were escorted to the Blue Box Theatre where they enjoyed a buffet lunch before the performance began. A Year 8 Christmas choir provided a festive introduction to the party and our impeccable Year 8 student helpers worked hard to continue the warm, friendly atmosphere by serving and talking with our guests. All students enjoyed their roles and agreed it had been a very rewarding experience. After lunch, our cast of Year 7, 8 and 9 students took to the stage and our guests settled in for their matinee performance of ‘High School Musical’. A fantastic array of talent, from actors to dancers, musicians and singers, helped to create an exciting and lively musical production. With our guests remarking on the quality and professionalism of our cast. We would like to thank all of our guests and visitors for attending our Community Christmas Party and helping to make it such a fantastic day!
CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT
CHS SOUTH UPDATE Since we first launched CHS South we have been inundated with interest about our new school and have received a significant amount of applications for places. As we are a new school the local authority will process applications outside the normal local authority process this year only. This means that we are still able to accept applications after the Local Authority deadline of 31st October 2017. The application form is available to download from www.chssouth.org.uk As part of the pre-opening phase we are required to consult with any interested parties under Section 10 of the Academies Act 2010 as to whether they support the Prospere Learning Trust to enter into a funding agreement with the Secretary of State for Education to open CHS South. The consultation period for CHS South remains open until Friday 19th January 2018 and we will be holding a consultation event at The Hough End Centre on Friday 12th January 2018 at 11:00am. To support the consultation we have developed a CHS South prospectus and a questionnaire which can be viewed and completed at www.chssouth.org.uk. We look forward to engaging with the thoughts and opinions of our community and ask you to support us in our endeavours by sharing news of our consultation with any parties you think will be interested. We will publish the findings of the consultation and our responses on our website shortly after the consultation process has closed. In the meantime, our site developments move on apace, with the final designs for the temporary site now finalised and ready to submit for planning in the New Year and our permanent site agreement nearing completion. We’d like to thank everyone who has found time to support such a fantastic opportunity for our community and look forward to sharing further details in 2018.
PARENTS’ EVENTS PRACTICAL PARENTING COURSE
PARENTS’ BOOK CLUB
CHORLTON
HIGH SCH OOL
OL CHORLTON HIGH SCHO
A number of Chorlton High parents / carers have successfully completed our Practical Parenting course during the Autumn terms. This was a five-week course for parents / carers of pre-teens and teenagers. The course has been designed to make the transition from childhood to adolescence as smooth as possible, both for the young person and the parents / carers. The course aims to prevent severe behavioural and emotional problems in young people by enhancing the knowledge, skills and confidence of parents / carers. We would like to thank everyone who attended our course and helped to provide a supportive group for discussion and development.
We continued the success of our Parents’ Book Club during the Autumn and Winter months, welcoming parents and carers to relax through reading in our CHS Library. The club has proved to be a great way for parents / carers to meet and chat over tea, coffee and a good book! We had two books to read over the Autumn term; Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk, a beautiful and tense book with an amazing main character and The Imaginary by A.F.
Harrold, a fun but gripping tale of memory and the power of imagination. The Book Club is a great space for parents / carers to read some of the books available to students at Chorlton High School. We hope it helps support and encourage further reading at home.
MACMILLAN COFFEE MORNING On Friday 29th September 2017, Chorlton High School held another of our successful parents’ events. Guests were invited to come along to support our Macmillan Coffee Morning and were welcomed with an incredible and delicious selection of cakes, invitingly laid out, with help of our student helpers, in our Green Room. Parents / carers enjoyed conversation
over cake and our enthusiastic staff happily kept the coffee and tea flowing whilst, providing every opportunity for our visitors to donate. We would like to thank everyone who attended and for the incredible generosity of our visitors and our staff. The total amount raised was £325.15!
CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT
CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL NELL LANE CHORLTON MANCHESTER M21 7SL Tel 0161 882 1150 Fax 0161 861 8753 admin@chorltonhigh.manchester.sch.uk www.chorltonhigh.manchester.sch.uk @chorltonhigh 3918 design manchesterdesignfactory.com 07884 427009