Chroniclesfeb2014

Inside this Edition

Marathon Fund-Raiser

Marathon Fundraising Rodborough Review Emergency Closure Procedures Acting Up Awutu Partnership Christmas Maths Green Notes ReQUIZsion RS Factor Final Oxford University Summer Production American Golf Tour Surrey Sports Park On Sunday 2 March 2014, SportsHall Athletics Year 8 Netball

nine members of staff from Rodborough will be taking part in the Reading halfmarathon to raise money for a range of school charity projects. We have been training hard over the last few weeks and months to ensure we can all complete the 13.1 miles!

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Dates for your Diary

14 Feb INSET 15-23 Feb Ski Trip Austria 17-21 Feb HALF TERM 27 Feb Woman in Black 5pm 27 Feb Year 9 Options Evening 04 Mar Curious Incident 5pm 6-7 Mar GCSE Art Exam 7-10 Mar Y10 Geog Wales Trip The staff participating are: 11 Mar TeenAid Concert Mr Williams, Mrs Fjord-Roberts, Mrs Extance, Mr Loveday, 12 Mar Internet Safety Evening Miss Mills, Miss Partridge, Miss Mackay, Mrs Reynolds and 13 Mar Year 10 Parents’ Even.

Mr Honeysett.

18 Mar Jazz Evening from 7pm We are running to raise money for three school-based projects 20 Mar Y9 Options Forms out and would really appreciate any sponsorship donations you can 20 Mar Year 9 Parents’ Evening make.

24-25 Mar GCSE Drama Even.

Half of the money will go towards the school LRC refurbishment 27 Mar Y9 Options Deadline project, which we hope to complete over the summer holidays 28 Mar School Council Meeting providing many more resources for our students.

02 Apr Easter Concert 7 pm The remaining money will be split equally between: 04 Apr Last day of term 1pm  The Awutu School in Ghana to support the building of a Domestic Science room  The Rodborough GROW project to set up an allotment to support the school and the local community Please support these projects (and our teachers!) by donating via the “Fund Raising Events” section on WisePay. The link to WisePay is on the front page of our school website. If you need to refresh your login details please email support@wisepay.co.uk .

If you have not received your login details please email info@rodborough.surrey.sch.uk .

Thank you to everyone who has already donated.

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We were established in the mid-90s through local churches and community nurses to provide help in the community.

Congratulations to Rebecca from 7SKE for attaining her Orange Karate belt.

Our volunteers are able to offer:  Transport to surgeries, clinics & dentists  Errands e.g. prescription collections Our volunteers give their time freely but clients are asked to make a contribution to cover petrol and administration costs.

COULD YOU HELP? WE NEED YOU!  With transport?  Being on the committee?

Just an hour or two each month could make all the difference, so why not volunteer in your local community?

PLEASE VOLUNTEER TODAY! As a mum of two school-aged children I started volunteering 3 years ago – not sure what the commitment would be. I probably do 6 hours over the course of the year and only when I can fit it around family commitments. I have helped in the holidays and take the children along too as they enjoy meeting new people. For me it has been a really worthwhile community project to be part of without making huge demands on my time.

Volunteers are always required – especially drivers. Mileage is reimbursed.

Please call Jeanette Bird on 01428 684243 or email mwvillagecare@googlemail.com for more information.

Reporter Mrs Chambers

Rodborough Review KS3 Magazine The Rodborough Review will be a new magazine led by editors Zoe Owlett and Sophie Stagg of 8CST. Members of the team are from Years 7, 8 and 9 and meet on Tuesday lunchtimes in Room 705.

We hope to produce a magazine each half-term for Key Stage 3 students which will include a range of articles about various subjects: school, issues, reviews, puzzles and anything else which seems entertaining!

We really need new members to join our group and would welcome you coming along on Tuesdays. If you can’t make Tuesdays but would really like to write an article then you can still contribute and have them included in the magazine. Just see Zoe, Sophie or Mrs Chambers and we’ll tell you how to submit your articles.

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Emergency Closure Procedures

Reproduced from our website We had hoped, now that February is here, that the terrible weather would be behind us; although February seems set to continue wet and windy and March can also bring heavy snows and flooding. For this reason this seems a good opportunity to remind our readers of our emergency closure procedures. These are easy to find from our website (when we have electricity, broadband and 3G signals).

You may wish to keep this page somewhere safe for when we do not!

In the rare event of severe weather or other emergency it may be necessary to close the school.

These decisions are not made lightly and we are very aware of the difficulties this causes for our families and of the disruption to our pupils’ education. We may, at our discretion, decide to close the school to some year groups and keep it open for others.

Decisions are made on the basis of pupil safety – both from the perspective of physical site safety and on the basis of sufficient staff being able to reach school to ensure safe supervision of our students.

We will do everything in our power to make and publish our decision by 7:30 am on the day in question; however, it must be appreciated that some circumstances may not give us enough notice to do so!

If you think there may be a possibility of the school closing, we ask that you check using the following methods: 1. We will use the Rodborough WEBSITE www.rodborough.surrey.sch.uk for an alert. This will pop up over the website in a very obvious way!

2. We will use our school trips recorded information line to record a concise message …

01483 411150 … Please note that it is NOT POSSIBLE for you to leave us a message.

3. We will use the Surrey Alert website http://www.surreyalert.info/ 4. We will send a message via Twitter to our @Rod_Tweet followers 5. Local Radio Stations will be advised (Eagle, Delta and BBC Surrey) 6. We will use our automated email system to advise parents (please be aware that bulk emails of this nature can take a very long time to arrive).

Please DO NOT telephone Reception as this blocks our telephone lines that are needed for urgent outgoing calls. The absence line 01483 411118 will operate as normal when partial closures are planned. Thank you for your help in this matter.

Reporter Kezia Denne Acting Up at Godalming College Just before Christmas, 15 enthusiastic Year 9s were selected to attend a Drama workshop at Godalming College. We were joined by pupils from the other Federation schools and mixed into groups. This was a great opportunity to learn new skills from other schools and to meet others with a keen interest in Drama. We all attended four mini-workshops:  Voice – where we learned vocal exercises including tongue-twisters and singing  Physical Theatre – where we told stories through action and used portrayed emotion using simple movements  Mask – a new skill for Rodborough students – saw us create a scary performance by incorporating horror style music with the masks to create the emotion of fear by using body language alone  Mime – a workshop where we used 1920s themed slapstick performance to exaggerate our movements.

The final part of the day was just as interesting as we were able to chat to past Godalming College Drama students who have taken up Drama and Performance as a career – attending performing arts schools and working in the industry. This group of professionals included a cast member from Waterloo Road. It was really interesting talking to them of their experiences.

Overall it was a brilliant day and all the pupils benefitted from meeting the other students, learning new skills, techniques and experiences and meeting the new professionals.

Thank you Mrs Bearman for taking us and for delivering one of the workshops.

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Rodborough-Awutu Partnership

Reporter Holly Giles Year 9 have been working very hard this term towards creating links and friendships between Rodborough and Awutu-Winton School in Ghana.

We have set up a pen pal communication system between 6 students in Awutu and the Year 9 form groups.

Through this we have received an insight into their lives in Ghana and can see the difference our contribution really makes.

It has shown us the similarities between our lives at school and at home.

The Awutu students are currently preparing for exams; similar to our Year 11s. When you see this it highlights just how similar we really are despite our differences in circumstances.

I have loved being part of this communication as our project now feels so much more personal. It is great to see where our money is going and the difference it is making to Ghanaian students’ lives.

I hope that seeing these letters will prove to you how much our help is needed and appreciated.

You really can make a difference. Please help us to help them.

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Every Year 9 class was involved in In the run up to Christmas Year 9 constructed a building these tetrahedron ‘trees’, Christmas tree ... Maths Style! which were later assembled into the Starting with an equilateral triangle they followed a giant ‘tree’ by volunteers. simple algorithm to create stunning 2D pictures which developed into a 3D masterpiece. The 'Sierpinski Tetrahedron' was on show in the Dining Hall for the rest of the school to marvel over.

All pupils were amazing, showing team work and resilience!

They were extremely proud of their creation, as were their Maths Teachers.

Christmas Tree

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Green Notes Spring is coming!

Reporter Mr Ewing Spring comes to the Memorial Garden

As you walk around the school the signs that spring is on its way are clear.

The daffodil planting rotas have paid dividends.

Diverse locations around the school are now showing the confident green stems and yellow buds that herald the start of something warmer and, hopefully, drier!

I say drier because the pond project became a premature reality over the Christmas holidays. We have received the liner and underlay we ordered but when we went to have a look at the pond it was…. FULL of water!

We are now waiting for the water table to properly drop and for the soil to dry out fully before we lay the liner so that rain in the future gets trapped in the pond and not just lost as the water table drops back down again.

Our other projects are now starting to take some shape. Thanks to the generosity of two sets of parents we now have sufficient stone material to build some seating on the Rake Lane drive by the bus shelter. This will hopefully set the area off properly and we have sourced some great Bargate stone to complement the Bargate stone used on the retaining wall. Do you have expertise with stone and time to help us with this project?

The Eco team have built a ‘black snail’ model of an Eco swimming pool heater, designed to boost the Herb Boxes existing swimming pool heater output but we have struggled to do any meaningful testing with the weather being so cloudy and cool. Hopefully by midmarch there will be some heat in the sun again!

With spring comes the perennial problem of perennial weeds. We have done a great deal of planting in the Stone Canadian Memorial Garden (the witch hazel looks and smells fabulous) but the nettles will be back I fear with a vengeance and the eco prefects will have a few more lunchtime nettling sessions before their period of office ends. We also have a couple of willing Year 10 students who are going to manage and weed the Arts and Crafts garden as part of their D of E service.

Let’s hope we eventually get a dry start to spring so by the next Green Notes we can have a pond that is properly lined and a project that will actually hold water!

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RE-QUIZ-SION & GCSE Mocks

The team names may have been silly but it was indisputably serious business when teams of Year 11s got together one December lunch time to compete in our RE-QUIZ-SION competition.

The purpose of the event was an inventive attempt to make revision for mock GCSEs a bit more fun.

Each Year 11 Tutor Group had contributed questions for the quiz, giving the comperes, Mrs Lashmar and Mr Farrell, 60 high quality and relevant questions to pose in their quest to find a team worthy of the tempting prize of chocolate money.

With Miss Morgan keeping order and Mr Walker keeping score, the teams soon settled down to show off their comprehensive knowledge of a broad range of GCSE topics across the subject range.

As the competition proceeded, teams kept a beady eye on their running totals displayed on the big screen ‘scoreboard’.

Adding to the jeopardy, each team needed to decide the very best time to play their ‘Joker’ to double their points for that round.

Friendly and competitive banter between the teams punctuated the competition as they juggled for the lead, cheered on by form teachers and fuelled by a ‘free bar’ of fizzy drinks!

When the scores from the final question had been factored in, 11SRI’s team of Ted Hayes, Tom Davies, Will Cullum, Ella Hargreaves and Ellie Page had triumphed and won the quiz (and the ‘CASH’ prize), with 11CGI’s Tom Berrill, Reuben Puddephatt and Simon Peppitt a close second.

Thank you to all the teams who took part, the form groups who provided the dastardly questions, the comperes Mrs Lashmar and Mr Farrell, the scorer Mr Walker and organiser/ order keeper Miss Morgan.

The real moment of truth, however, came on Wednesday 15 January when Year 11s gathered nervously in the Dining Hall to open their sealed envelopes containing their mock GCSE results.

The occasion is designed to give Year 11 students as close an experience as possible to the one they will experience in August when they open their real results. Receiving all their results together – rather than finding out in class, one at a time – increases impact and makes it easier for our students to plan and prioritise their revision whilst there is still time.

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Reporters Miss Morgan & Mr Walker

RS FACTOR FINAL To quote Dermot O’Leary: It really was a case of "Your Wednesday Night starts here" as 13 acts took to the stage in Rodborough's very own RS FACTOR FINAL.

The standard was set really high by the first act: Ella, Ellie and Shannon’s acoustic version of an Outkast favourite - complete with bongos, guitars and bare feet!

This high quality was upheld by the duets, soloists, groups, more guitars, drummers and broody, pouting lead singers that ensued and oh, what fun it was!

Year 11 truly "rocked" with performances by The Silent Sundays and Lorraine and talented soloists Georgia-May Jones and Tom Davies.

Year 7 were also very well represented with our very own "Little mix" tribute from Charlotte & Kirah and Amelia's accomplished

version of "Red" (accompanied by brother, Ted).

Joe Kleeman and Maisie Rowan, from Year 8, brought tears to audience eyes with their beautiful expressive singing and Charlotte Lee represented Year 10 with a confident, upbeat performance.

The happy, friendly atmosphere was created by the hugely supportive crowd, who participated at every opportunity - dancing and clapping along to their favourite tunes.

An undisputed highlight was Ted Hayes’ 80s spectacular "Club Tropicana", complete with bright Hawaiian shirt and coconut-bra-grassskirt-wearing compere Will creating the mood as his backing dancer.

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The solo category winner was Year 7’s Tilda Hughes, who blew the judges and audience away in both the semi-finals and final with her stunning voice.

Charlotte Clarke and Tim Feasey won the group category with a polished performance of a medley/mash up including Whitney Houston and Miley Cyrus which saw Charlotte hit every note with passion whilst Tim tickled the ivories in his truly musical style.

“Well done!” and a massive thank you to every one of the brave acts that entertained us. Our pupils are truly talented!

Great thanks are due to Will Cullum, not only for donning the infamous coconut bra and grass skirt, but for presenting the show so brilliantly (especially as his semi-final wing-man Curtis James was unwell). The Judges also deserve our thanks - Miss Spencer for her corny one-liners, Mr Walker for (his quote) "bringing a sense of decorum and wit to the panel" and Mrs Lashmar who found everyone "just beautiful".

Last, but by no means least, Ms Moyler and Mrs Yeadon deserve our gratitude for organising the whole thing! I can't wait for next year!

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Oxford University On Thursday 16 January, Sixteen Year 10 students travelled to Glebelands School, Cranleigh, in order to find out about studying at Oxford University.

Reporter Megan Howard

The presentation was a real inspiration, giving many interesting insights into life in the colleges and what the University, as a whole, has to offer. Did you know that altogether Oxford has over 100 libraries? Collectively, these libraries stock a copy of every single book published from the 18th century - that is really impressive!

Some students may think university sounds tedious - another 3 years or more of education! There can, however, be great rewards: better qualifications, new friends and, if you make friends with someone from a different country, free holidays!

The Bodleian Library The entry standards are high but, if you strive for your goal and – one of the oldest and most have the right attitude to learning you stand a chance of prestigeous in Europe. consideration.

Photo © Paul Gillett The four main course divisions are: Humanities, Medical Sciences, Mathematics, Physical and Life Sciences and Social Sciences. Each division has a wide variety of courses on offer - with different entry requirements, so thinking ahead and choosing the right GCSEs and A Levels is paramount.

We were assured that, together with the hard work, there would be opportunity for a lot of fun!

There are a host of different societies. If you can get a group of 7 or more interested in an activity then the University will consider funding it!

The presentation has helped us to understand more about University life. It has helped me to make a more informed decision about whether University is for me.

Useful websites: www.unistats.ac.uk www.ucas.com www.ox.ac.uk

Summer Production Our Summer Production will be the comedy horror rock musical: ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman.

Reporter Mrs Bearman

The show tells of hapless florist Seymour, who finds a plant during a mysterious total eclipse of the sun and raises it with dire consequences.

Characters include, amongst others, a beautiful and emotionally battered shop assistant (Audrey), an egotistical dentist (Orin) and a rock singing plant with a dark secret (Audrey 2).

‘Little Shop of Horrors’ combines several different genres in telling the story. These genres include comedy, horror, science-fiction and musical satire - all inspired by an early 60’s B Movie that was also a spoof!

Performances will take place in the Main Hall at 7.30pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10th to 12th July 2014 - so save the dates now!

As you can imagine, staging the show will be an exciting challenge and the production team would welcome support in many ways including set building and costume making. If you think that you are able to help in any way please contact Mrs Bearman or Mrs Fjord-Roberts as soon as possible.

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American Golf Tour

Reporter Mr Milton

Year 8’s Jemma Milton travelled to the US in December to compete in 3 high profile junior Golf tournaments.

The first of these was the First Tee Miami-Dade Golf for girls aged 12-13 and was hosted by Doral Golf Club in Miami. A far cry from our wet and windy weather in Surrey, Jemma had to cope with 6 hour rounds in temperatures in the mid 80s deg F! Jemma scored 86 and 85 and finished 22nd.

Her second event was held on the PGA course at West Palm Beach.

Jemma’s rounds of 88 and 87 placed her 10th.

An awkward moment at her final tournament, the Orange County National competition The PARS at Orlando, found Jemma’s ball resting near an alligator! Despite this unwelcome distraction Jemma shot three fantastic rounds of 82,81 and 76 to finish in 6th place in this Under 15s event!

The tour has been a valuable experience for Jemma, who has worked very hard and given her very best.

Good luck for the future, Jemma!

Our Day at Surrey Sports Park Reporters James and Jefferson (Year 7) On Tuesday 4 February we went to Surrey Sports Park where we played 3 sports: Cricket, Sitting Volleyball and Hockey.

Our Senior Sports Leaders were helping to run the event and we also met Steve Brown, Team GB’s Paralympic Rugby Captain.

“The best thing about the day for me was the sports. They were really fun and I bet that everyone else enjoyed them too!”

Our Sports Leaders pose with Steve Brown

“The best thing about the day was participating in the sports, I don’t usually like PE much but found this really fun!”

“I bet everyone tried their hardest but 3 schools won medals.

Rodborough won Bronze Medals and my Mum was very proud of us!”

“On a scale of 1 to 10 I would rate the fun 10/10 because I enjoyed ALL of it!”

“To sum it all up, I’d say that it was a fun, exciting experience for us!”

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“I would also give the day 10/10 because I enjoyed it all too!

Thank you Miss Mackay and the Sports Leaders.”

Photo from BBC Sport

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Sportshall Athletics On Thursday 23rd January, 20 Year 10 Sports Leaders headed to Broadwater to help run the Year 5 & 6 Sportshall Athletics.

This is an annual event run by Rodborough School and, yet again, our Sports Leaders rose to the occasion.

With over 250 Year 5 & 6 pupils from around the county the atmosphere was fantastic. Events included running, jumping and throwing, all of which our Leaders officiated brilliantly. The tension rose as the results were read out – Chandler School were the champions again!

Our Leaders were a credit to Rodborough and worked tirelessly to ensure that the event worked well. The Year 10 Leaders were: Jess Ridsdale Smith, Charlotte O’Neill, James Lyons, Dom Romana, Charlie Welch, Charlie O’Donnell, Emily Wagner, Laura Neuhaus, James Hearsum, Helena Davies, Kate Phipps, Lily Meanwell, Roz Morris, Noah Lewis Brown, Bella Perry, Daisy Hurren, Megan Hildrew, Ben Arnold, Charlie Ford and Ben Mitchell Immediately after the Year 5&6 event ended, Year 7s arrived from our Federation schools to take part in their event. They competed in running, jumping and throwing events before waiting nervously for the results as the winning team would qualify through to the County Finals in March.

Place School Points st 1 Rodborough 110 2nd Broadwater 102 rd 3 Woolmer Hill 91 4th Glebelands 90 Rodborough were the winners and are looking forward to the next round. Well done!

Year 8 Netball

Reporter Polly Downes th

On Wednesday 29 January we took part in a hard fought netball match against Glebelands School, Cranleigh.

It was a fierce game as we were competing against the clock as well as against the opposition!

Both teams were evenly matched and played exceptionally well making for an exciting match.

The final score, however, had everyone on the edges of their seats with Glebelands winning narrowly 4:3.More Netball news: Year 9s won 17:1 against Glebelands.

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The Year 8 ‘A’ Team

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