Rodborough Chronicles October 2014

Inside this Edition Year 7s Settle In Waverley MasterChef Recipes for Awutu Major Music Award Awutu Student’s Day National Sustainability Award Green Notes Winter Shakespeare Carnegie Success LRC Refurb. Update School Council News House Competitions Sports Day Results

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Year 7s Settle In to Rodborough Life

Our Year 7 students have settled well into life at Rodborough after a smooth transition from their Junior Schools.

Last summer’s transition day, when they spent all day with us, was a great success, allaying any fears for the new school year.

The new forms took part in team building exercises during the first two weeks of term to help them to get to know each other. By mid-October, they had become so confident and so proud of their new school that they volunteered in droves to help out around the school on Open Evening, demonstrating activities in different departments to prospective new families.

They have begun to make the very most of the opportunities on offer and have entered competitions and signed up for a myriad of clubs. Well done, Year 7, keep up the good work!

See next edition for Road User Awareness Day news …

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Dates for your Diary

24 Oct INSET 27-31 Oct HALF TERM 12 Nov Rodborough Young Musician of the Year Competition 13 Nov GCSE Certificate Evening for Class of 2014 17-18 Nov Y11 GCSE Drama Performances 20 Nov Friends’ Christmas Market Main Hall 5 to 7.30 pm 26,27,28 Nov Shakespeare Performances Main Hall 7 pm 3 Dec School Council Meeting 4-6 Dec German Christmas Market 8-18 Dec GCSE Mock Exams Y11 10 Dec Christmas Music Concert 7pm 12 Dec Year 7 Disco 7:30 17 Dec Carol Service at St. John’s Church, Milford 7pm 18 Dec Reports home all years 19 Dec Early finish 1pm 20 Dec – 4 Jan HOLIDAYS 5 Jan First day of Spring Term

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Save the Date Friends’ Christmas Market All your Christmas gifts sorted!

5.00 – 7.30 Thursday 20 November MAIN HALL Free Admission – A few stalls still available Contact brookyc@googlemail.com

We look forward to welcoming Class of 2014 (our Summer GCSE candidates) back to Rodborough on Thursday 13 November for their GCSE Certificate Evening Ceremony from 7 pm.

Inspirational speaker, Dan Eley, will be our guest of honour.

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MasterChef 2014

Reporters Holly, Alex & Jordan

The Federation MasterChef Competition is for Year 9s from our Waverley Federation schools. This year, Rodborough and Glebelands, would travel to host school Broadwater for the cook-off final; but first, a team had to be chosen.

The theme changes every year and this year we were given the task of creating two savoury dishes and two sweet dishes with the theme of the Commonwealth Games.

As if this wasn’t hard enough, the mammoth task was to be completed in just two hours.

The first task for all aspiring pairs was to submit their proposed menus for scrutiny. The best 8 (Lois Sewell and Emily Porter, Ben Kilner and Connor Davies, Anneliese Jay and Bethany Robert, Holly Giles and William Towner, Kieran Masters and Sam Renforth, Jordan Walsh and Alex Thomspon, Tia Gamble and Emma Goldup, Alice McPhee and Aida Mulugetta-Lopez) were selected to cook in Round One, on 12 June.

We all cooked our best dishes for our team of judges: Mrs L Smith, Mrs Stenning and Chief Judge, Mr Smith. After an arduous tasting session Tia Gamble and Emma Goldup were placed third, Lois Sewell and Emily Porter were in second place and a joint first place was awarded to the Holly Giles/William Towner and Jordan Walsh/Alex Thompson partnerships.

The day had been so much fun, which could only continue with Round Two at Broadwater.

Holly After coming in joint first place alongside Holly and Will, Alex and Jordan were told that we would be going to Broadwater School for the MasterChef Finals. We were ready with our recipes and ingredients when we signed out at 9:30am to travel to Broadwater.

On arrival we had half an hour to inspect the equipment, set up our area and get everything ready. Everything was so tiny!

It was if someone had taken all the tools, put them in a line and used a shrink ray! We then had 2 hours to cook and present our dishes. We finished within an hour and a half leaving a comfortable 30 minutes to arrange the dishes for the judges’ inspection.

It was an eventful cook-off and we experienced many problems along the way, including almost flooding the kitchen, decorating the Broadwater wall with curry and collectively burning ourselves a total of ten times!

It was surprising to have progressed this far in the competition and so Jordan and I celebrated by consuming an entire lime (skin and all).

The atmosphere whilst we waited for the announcement was so tense it could have been cut by a tiny knife! Could we win this round too?

No – we were placed a close second out of the six teams and won a trophy and a cook book each. We both thoroughly enjoyed the competition and will keep on cooking!

Alex & Jordan

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Recipes for Awutu As many of you know, Rodborough has been supporting Awutu-Winton School in Ghana for the past two years.

The aim of Awutu-Winton School is to break the poverty barrier for their students by providing FREE secondary education both to boys and to girls. One of their students, Patience, has written to tell us of a typical school day. It is obvious from her writing just how much the students of Awutu-Winton value the opportunities this secondary education gives them.

Our next fund-raising venture is to produce and sell (in time for Christmas) a Rodborough Recipe Book.

All recipes will be submitted by students, staff and friends of Rodborough (including a selection of Ghanaian recipes from our Awutu partners).

The Recipe Book will be a fabulous stocking-filler as the recipes are all tried and tested family favourites. Samples will be on show at our Friends Christmas Fair and at Reception by mid-end November so that you can take a look before ordering! Please support this venture!

Major Music Award

Reporter Mrs Howick

I am used to printing the results of music examinations in the pages of Chronicles. We have a vibrant Music Department that encourages the playing of a wide range of instruments and runs extracurricular bands and ensembles to cater for a variety of musical tastes.

The taking of any music exam, whether it is for a beginner at Grade 1 or for an advanced player at Grades 5 – 8, takes commitment, drive and perseverance. The higher grades also require no small measure of talent.

During my 25+ years working at Rodborough I have noticed a Clutching two different few seriously talented musicians. But, so far as I can clarinets and two different recorders, Elizabeth poses with remember, this is the first time that one of our students has reached such a high level … past and present Rodborough musicians from the Orchestra Elizabeth Knatt, now Year 11, plays a number of woodwind Pit of this year’s summer instruments including clarinet and soprano saxophone. She won production, our Rodborough Young Musician of the Year 2014 with a mind“Little Shop of Horrors” blowing recorder recital, playing against her own, simultaneously recorded echo!

The recorder is a much maligned and, in the right hands, beautiful instrument from the Baroque era. We reported Elizabeth’s superb Grade 8 achievement last year. Very few musicians progress this far.

This summer however, after further study, Elizabeth was awarded a dipABRSM (Music Performance) for Recorder. Recognised and respected worldwide, this diploma provides a gold standard for measuring performance and musical development at an advanced level.

Congratulations Elizabeth!

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A Day in the Life of an Awutu Student Students in Winton love Mondays! They arrive at school before 7:00am to do some cleaning up, and although some feel reluctant to come early they come because they cannot afford to be called “a late-comer”!

Reported by Patience Ama Arhin

Students who are on time all receive a free glass of deliciously fresh pineapple, moringa (pressed tree leaves) and ginger juice from the Abrofresh business that is based at the school.

At 7:20 am students assemble for a few announcements, inspections and singing of anthems, closing with prayers.

Classes then go on until 9:30am when we go for our first break. Here some students will eat food such as banku (cooked fermented corn dough), rice, or fufu (pounded cassava, yam or plantain), while others prefer meat pie, yam or sweet potato chips as well as bread made by Auntie Aggie, AwutuWinton’s cook, in the school’s very own bakery!

Classes start again at 10.00am and last until 12:30pm.

Students enjoy studying subjects like Business Management, Accounting, Government, Economics, Geography, Elective Biology, and Literature just to mention a few. Lunch break lasts half an hour. Another queue to the canteen forms for Auntie Aggies’ delicious food! Classes resume at 1:00pm.

School closes at 3:10pm but students are encouraged afterwards to do personal study or take part in extracurricular such as Choir, Cadets, Bee Keeping (photo above), Science, Mathematics, Carpentry, Drama, Aquaponics (photographed left), Sports or Leadership Clubs, to name but a few.

Winton is a school that makes us feel free as air, we know we are very lucky to have access to knowledge. It’s a beautiful experience to be here at Awutu-Winton.

To our friends at Rodborough my message is: “Stay focused! Don’t fight for freedom; work hard and it will come of its own accord.

Stay blessed- we love you all!”

Patience is a student at Awutu Winton School in Ghana – a school set up to break the poverty cycle by giving girls, as well as boys, access to secondary education.

Rodborough chose Awutu Winton as their school charity for 2013-2014 and plan to continue supporting the venture in the future.

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Rodborough wins National Sustainability Award Earlier this year, Rodborough was invited to apply for one of the Independent Academies Association (IAA) Awards.

The Independent Academies Association (IAA) is the national membership organisation for leaders of academies: “We are a non-partisan representative organization committed to supporting our members in the advancement of the education and life chances of all pupils and students in our care. An acknowledged and respected national body, we are ‘the voice of academies’, run by and on behalf of our continually growing membership. We play a leading role in the development of the wider academy movement, providing help, support and advice to existing, new and converting academies. We are the only independent organisation dedicated to supporting academies and have a track record of over 20 years’ experience in providing leadership to all types of state-funded independent schools.”

Mr Ewing sent details of our Solar Energy project, the Wey Valley Solar community funding initiative, School Council’s shares in the initiative and of the work that Rodborough is doing to help our partner school Awutu-Winton, in Ghana to establish their own sustainable energy.

We were delighted to hear that Rodborough won this prestigious award – sadly, Mr Ewing was unable to attend the black tie presentation evening in London last week as the date clashed with our Open Evening.

IAA Best Practice Awards 2013/14: Celebrating and Sharing Academy Success

“At the IAA, promoting and celebrating transformational, innovative and creative practice is at the heart of what we do. As such we are proud of our Annual Best Practice Awards which recognise, share and pay tribute to the outstanding work that takes place right across the Academies Programme. We are delighted to report record numbers of both member and nonmember Academies taking this high profile opportunity to proudly share their examples of cutting edge success across a range of 8 diverse categories.”

For the IAA Award for Sustainability, academies must provide evidence of a commitment to equipping students with the knowledge and skills to lead a sustainable lifestyle e.g. caring for the environment/wildlife, reducing waste and recycling. The Awards were presented to category winners at the IAA Best Practice Awards Dinner on Thursday 9 October.

“The judging panel was extremely impressed by the innovative strategies developed and deployed by this award winner, clearly representing ‘next practice’ that is replicable. This school has a very long history of promoting green issues amongst its pupil body and local community. In recent times, not only has it established its own energy company, which is the largest school-based co-operative in the UK, but also its use of solar energy has extended to installations at five other local schools. Student leadership has been at the forefront of the initiative, with the school council having raised funds to purchase shares in the company, the returns on which have been spent helping their partner school in Ghana. The evidence of impact is very strong, in terms of finances, the curriculum, the community and the environment.”

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Green Notes The start of this new academic year has been anything but relaxing for the EcoTeam at Rodborough.

Reporter Mr Ewing

Their first task has been trying to get on top of the weeds that grew on the Canadian garden over summer. In particular the nettles! A couple of lunchtime work parties and a few stings have seen the back of them… for the time being! This is an area of the school that needs constant attention and thanks must go to Mrs Bullen who has identified this garden as a great project for D of E volunteers! I would also like to thank Mrs Canton who has volunteered some time to stay on top of the Arts and Crafts garden.

Our next job was to plant 75 kg of daffodil bulbs. Every year we add to the daffodil planting round the school. The school looked great last spring with good clumps of daffs growing all along the Rake Lane drive, in front of the Library and around the outside dining area.

This year we have focused on the edge of the rugby field, with a dense planting of bulbs to make a striking early spring show. The prefects have spent quite a few lunchtimes hard at work on this project and they even attempted to give every bulb a name! As well as the daffs we have planted crocuses on the roundabout for a spot of late winter colour.

Next, the solar powered swimming pool heater project – the Solar Snail. I am delighted to say that we have a complete test model up and running and… IT WORKS! We have been able to increase the temperature of a 100 litre water tank by an extra 10 degrees simply by pumping water through our snail for a single day. Whilst the total heat gain was 14 degrees, the water gained 4 degrees through the day when we tested the tank without using the snail; so we can attribute 10 degrees of heating to the snail itself. Plans are afoot for logging more data and making further improvements to the design. We hope to have a working heating system running

by Easter 2015.

Calling all GARDENERS

When you are splitting your perennials please think of us!

Our Memorial Garden still looks rather sparse so we would love donations of extra plants!

Please contact Mrs Bullen if you are able to help.

I must congratulate the Senior Six for getting organised so quickly and to have benches chosen, ordered, delivered AND installed at the bus shelter ready for the third week of term! These are great and make a difference to the wait for a bus or a lift for many students. Well done on getting this improvement organised so quickly! Finally, there are some big projects coming up on the environmental front. One is the expansion of the Year 9 GROW project - planning a community garden for the front lawn. This will be a major project and will provide a real focus for that area of the school. Our new pond is now filling with water and needs developing as a proper wildlife habitat.

Eco Prefects need to undertake a major school environmental audit as part of our Green Flag programme. So, any thoughts of the Eco Prefects hibernating for the next couple of months can be dispelled straight away!

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Macbeth and Twelfth Night

Reporter Molly Cowell

Towards the end of a busy and successful year at Rodborough, the laborious audition process began to find the cast for two demanding winter Shakespeare productions: Macbeth and Twelfth Night.

These will be performed from 7 pm on the evenings of Wednesday 26 to Friday 28 November in the Main Hall.

“When shall we three meet again?” Macbeth (George Puchalski) encounters three mysterious witches (Eliza Weller, Polly Chapman & Lucy Stevenson) with his most loyal and trusted friend Banquo (Jake Bell Watson) as they return from a gruesome battle against the corrupt Norwegians. The witches give Macbeth an obscure message that he is to be made ‘Thane of Cawdor’ and will go on to become King. Confusingly, Banquo is told that HIS descendants will be King!

Macbeth thinks this impossible as, “the Thane of Cawdor lives”! Soon, however, Ross (Polly Grant) and Angus (Amelia Hayes) give Macbeth the news that the Thane of Cawdor has been executed, passing the title to Macbeth. Dazed, Macbeth writes to his wife, the vile and manipulative Lady Macbeth (Poppy Cowell) who reads the letter keenly.

The only obstructions to the wealth and power she believes they deserve are the noble King Duncan (Lola Wright) and his two sons, Malcolm (Matt Gill) and Donalbain (Maisie Rowan).

Macbeth is truly a play of ambition, fate, deception and treachery!

Twelfth Night, conversely, is an exciting, jam-packed rom-com that will amuse the whole family.

We begin with our protagonists Viola (Lily Ruddick) and Sebastian’s (Ella Page) brutal separation by the clutches of the sea in a catastrophic shipwreck.

Viola awakes on the bright coast Illyria, a land ruled by the majestic Duke Orsino (Joe Kleeman).

She decides to survive as best she can (without her brother to defend her) by hiding her womanly traits and disguising herself as a man, Cesario. Cesario meets many animated characters, including the drunken Sir Toby Belch (Kieran Long), his good friend Sir Andrew (Adam Pink) and their iron-fisted companion Maria (Caprice Deacon), all of whom live under the roof of the delicate and beautiful Olivia (Sophie Baker). A love triangle soon develops, leaving the audience wondering, “who loves who”?

Both shows are a ‘MUST SEE’! The talented cast brings a new perspective to these much loved and well-known classics and will leave the audience in awe.

Watch out for news of the tickets going on sale.

Rowing Regatta

We reported Ben and Adam’s success at Weybridge Regatta in July’s Chronicles.

We can now show this photo of them receiving their medals from Sir Matthew Pinsent.

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Carnegie Competition Six Quiz Team Members and a handful of supporters travelled to Woolmer Hill School last summer to compete in the Waverley Federation Book Quiz.

Reporter Joseph Kleeman

We had all spent the past few weeks reading our way through 7 of the 8 shortlisted titles (the other one was considered unsuitable for lower school students).

The team, picked from those with the best knowledge of the titles, made our way nervously to our table. The pressure was on. Rodborough’s name has been engraved on the cup for several years in succession. Would we be the team to lose it? It was great to have our supporters nearby to calm our nerves and cheer us on.

The first round didn’t go our way. We managed to get some good answers but were trailing in 3rd place (from the 4 teams) by the end of the round. It was hard not to be disheartened– last year Rodborough had amassed a good lead during the first round.

Thankfully, however, Round 2 proved excellent for us and we clawed our way up to 2nd place.

The final round was the ‘Mastermind’ round. I was chosen to represent Rodborough and was very nervous. I watched the other schools’ representatives score 8, 9 or 10 from the 10 points on offer and was hugely relieved to get ALL my questions correct, squeezing Rodborough into winning position by a single point!

With the competition out of the way it was time to mingle with competitors and supporters from the other schools and enjoy the snacks and amazing ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ cake.

This is the first time that I have been on the team (I was a supporter last year) and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and would recommend it to everyone!

The Carnegie Medal is awarded each year for the best fiction title published for teens the previous year. Unfortunately, the only book we didn’t read, “The Bunker Diary” by Kevin Brooks, won the medal this year. My favourite was ‘The Wall’ by William Sutcliffe. Here is the synopsis: “Joshua is a troubled boy who lives with his mother and stepfather in a divided city.

A wall and soldiers separate two communities. One day, Joshua stumbles upon the entrance to a tunnel which takes him under the wall and across to the other side.

Joshua finds himself in forbidden, dangerous, and violent territory, which a boy like him - visibly different - shouldn't stray into. An act of kindness from a girl saves his life, but leads to a brutal act of cruelty and a terrible debt he's determined to repay.”

Rodborough’s Carnegie team and supporters would like to thank Miss Mills for helping us, Mrs Doyle for driving us to and from Woolmer Hill, Mrs Maclean (librarian at Woolmer Hill) for hosting the event and the question writing team for thinking up all the questions (especially the ones we could answer)!

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LRC Refurbishment The LRC is having a makeover.

Reporter Mrs Armstrong-Harris

The School Council and wider school community have been involved in redesigning the space. Rodborough Friends have been raising funds for the project.

So far     

we have: Enlarged the room Redecorated Re-carpeted Installed new blinds Installed some of the new shelving We are working to create a Learning Hub that offers:  A place where students will choose to come and learn  Support for students to become fully independent learners  Support for literacy and the teaching of learning and thinking skills  A bright, welcoming inclusive environment for all our students  A flexible space for teaching, studying and reading for pleasure

There is still some work to be done but, after several weeks of flexible opening times, the LRC is now back in business. Student feedback has been very positive about the changes...

“It’s easier to find books”

Now: “It looks smarter”

“It’s interesting and different”

“There’s a nice reading area”

“You can use laptops now instead of computer rooms”

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“It’s posh and has my favourite colours”

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School Council 2014-2015

Reporters: The Senior Six Prefects

Following School Council Elections last May, and the appointment of our new Senior Six Prefects, we are now ready for our Student Body to begin debating school issues and making decisions on improvements.

This year’s School Council Meetings are scheduled for:  Tuesday 21 October P2  Wednesday 3 December P3  Tuesday 3 February P1  Monday 23 March P3  Friday 3 July P3 and will be chaired by the Senior Six Prefect team.

School Council Elections in May

The first School Council Meeting for the new team was held in July. Agenda items were:  Refurbishment of Boys' Toilets  New outdoor benches  Clubs  Wet weather arrangements  Any other business Senior Six Prefects try out one of the new benches

Deputy Head Girl, Laura Gill provides us with the following useful catch-up of Student Council news: “You will be pleased to hear that the School Council’s cries for more seating around the school have been answered. We have purchased three new recycled plastic benches for under the bus shelter and along the science block wall.

Thank you very much to Mr McPhail and Mr Ewing, without whom we could never have completed the challenge of having something completed during our first half term in office.

Thank you!”

You can find out more about School Council and about your form representatives and Senior Six Prefects on their web pages: School Life – School Council School Life - Prefects Our Senior Six, assisted by class 7SHO, have also been busy making a film about school life that was shown to prospective families on Open Evening.

House Competitions

Owen

Webb

Wells

Inter-House competitions have got off to a tremendous start with three competitions in this first half-term alone.

Our new House Captains have updated House information on our website (School Life - House System) and we will have news about competition winners in our next edition.

In the meantime, we can show you the winning entry in October’s House Art Competition. This amazing portrait, by Lola Wright (Owen House) won the competition. Equal second places went to Ella and Samaphorn (Webb House) and third place to Moli (also from Webb House).

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Sports Day Results Update

We weren’t able to publish our Sports Day results in July’s edition of Chronicles.

Different elements of the competition were:  Team Sports (Basketball, Rounders, Football, Netball, Boccia)  Track Events  Field Events  Relays As promised, they appear below:

Year 7

Year 8

Year 9

Year 10

Owen:

Third

Owen:

Third

Owen:

First

Owen:

First

Webb:

Second

Webb:

First

Webb:

Second

Webb:

Third

Wells:

First

Wells:

Second

Wells:

Third

Wells:

Second

When ALL the points were totalled, the over-all results were: Webb: 2041 POINTS 1ST PLACE Wells: 2022 POINTS 2ND PLACE Owen: 2015 POINTS 3RD PLACE

As you can see, there were very few points separating the Houses.

Any House failing to provide competitors is immediately at a disadvantage; points are notched up by ALL competitors, making a real difference to the score line!

Congratulations to Webb House for winning Sports Day 2014.

Great Start for Year 7 Rugby

Following their 65–0 victory over Guildford County last week, the Year 7 Rugby Team have been back in action again against the might of George Abbot. The hard-fought game ended in a 0-0 draw.

This was a good result against a strong school for our Year 7 Rugby Team, which has made an impressive start to their year.

Reporter Mr Williams

Barclays Ball Kids

Congratulations to Max Holland (Year 10) who, following the National Selection process has been selected to be one of 30 Barclays Ball Kids at the ATP Tour Finals at O2.

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