students work display in exeter nightingale hospital

GCSE Photography students at West Exe were invited to display their work at the Exeter Nightingale Hospital.

The work of twenty students is now on displayed in frames kindly supplied by Ikea. Project organiser and parent at the school, Bridget Brooking, liaised with Mr Tyrer in curating the exhibition. We are extremely proud of our students and their important contribution to the community, well done!

“Your photos are both beautiful and interesting and are very much appreciated. Thank you again for being part of Exeter Nightingale.”Bridget Brooking

in Exeter

Students work display

Nightingale Hospital

Spring 2021

Our department vision: To nurture creative thinkers, problem solvers and makers. Fostering innovation and developing communication skills through exposure to a wide range of real-life contexts, situations and scenarios. To enrich the students’ experience by preparing them to meet the needs of a rapidly changing, technology driven world.

›› Students have flourished within Creative Technologies, which comprises of Photography, Computer Science, Design Technology and Business Studies. An exciting and challenging new curriculum has been designed for students this academic year. In years 7 & 8 students are developing their knowledge and skills across all the subject disciplines, which will help them to form decisions around their options choices.

The Bling of Brilliance›› Each term one student from each year group in Creative Technologies will be awarded the Bling of Brilliance.

This award will recognise individual academic endeavour. Students are nominated by their teacher for demonstrating relentless effort and curiosity together with endless ambition and resilience.

Year 9 students have once again planned for their £5 Enterprise Challenge.

›› In previous years, the students have hosted a Christmas market for Year 7 and promoted it in assemblies and tutor times. Like many businesses the students needed to be extra creative, conduct extra risk assessments and consider how they would sell their product or service this year. Many looked at E-commerce options to make their fortune.

Spolight on Creative Technologies

Enterprise £5 Challenge

S E N S AT I O N A L S C I E N C E & T E C H N O L O GY. . .

2

“Technology gives me the freedom to think outside the box and explore my creative side”

Amie, Year 10

The students’ perspective

“I like the fact that Creative Technology is different to anything I have done at primary and, besides art, it is the most fun subject I do”

William, Year 7

“My favourite thing about Creative Technology is how it prepares us for the future”

Olivia, Year 7

“I like Creative Technology because it teaches us stuff we are likely to use in the real world”

Ben, Year 7

. . . AT W E S T E X E

3

›› This September saw the launch of our exciting new West Exe Careers programme. The five-year programme is designed to immerse students in the world of employment and careers, from their first week in Year 7, until they leave us in Year 11.

During the induction days every student was introduced to the programme and made three careers pledges that they will work towards achieving throughout the year.

Opportunities have been embedded into our curriculum cycles, with activities and sessions taking place every week 1, 4 and 5 of every cycle to ensure our students receive regular, engaging, and relevant careers information.

Maria Masters, the Schools Careers Advisor, can help all students with any careers related questions at any time – please contact Maria on Maria.Masters@westexe.devon.sch.uk and she will be able to help.

Kind

Adaptable

Resilient

Proud

Ambitious

Curious›› We were delighted to welcome (virtually) our very first Employer Encounter sessions in October. Students from Years 7-10 attended some online sessions where they heard from three professionals who all lived, studied, or worked in Exeter during their careers.

Students engaged with pre-recorded videos in discussion-based workshops to identify the key employability skills, student attributes and activity types involved with each profession. The aim of the sessions was to encourage students to start thinking about their future careers, the types of activities these careers involve and the skills they would need to develop to be successful. Our three speakers also shared their words of wisdom on what they think it takes to be successful in the world of work.

The sessions concluded with students using the online careers planning tool, Career Pilot, to support them in researching potential future careers.

More information is available via www.careerpilot.org.uk or if you would like to get involved with future employer encounters please email Hannah.Jones@westexe.devon.sch.uk

New Careers Programme Launches!

Employer Encounters

“Play to your strengths. Find out what you’re good

at and what you enjoy and go from there”.

Adam Butterworth, Head of National Operations, Goals

Soccer Centres

“You never stop learning. Even after you’re qualified; you’re learning all the time”.Kevin Dadd, 10X fitness Co-founder & Coach

C A R E E R S AT W E S T E X E

4

Student reaches

in Sparx›› West Exe students have continued to surpass expectations, achieving great things with their Sparx homework. We also have some of our first students to have even reached the momentous achievement of 100,000xp. Year 10 student Keane T was the first to reach this accomplishment. Keane’s Maths teacher, Miss Lovell, said “We are very proud of the exceptional efforts all our students have continued to produce during this time. West Exe students continue to demonstrate resilience and determination. Keane is a great example of this”.

West Exe continues to have the best homework hand-in rates in the Trust and students now benefit from Sparx content in lessons too. Feedback in student panel groups has been overwhelmingly positive and Sparx continues to develop their offering in close partnership with the school.

100,000xp

M A RV E L L O U S M AT H S AT W E S T E X E

5

Languages Staff have been amazed with the quality of work being produced this term by our fantastic linguists, so we have brought back our popular reward scheme!

›› Each cycle, we will be running a weekly lottery for those pupils who complete their homework within the deadline, and the winner, who will be announced each Tuesday, will receive some fabulous and fun prizes! To recognise the hard work our pupils put into their silent starter tasks, we will continue to award a ‘high stakes’ prize to the pupils who have consistently scored highly, and this will take place in week twelve at the end of each cycle.

Finally, we would like to recognise those pupils who have impressed us through their linguistic prowess in lesson time. Elsie-May H & Lily B, our lucky winners, received the title ‘Linguist of the Week’, some languages goodies and a signed certificate.

Good luck! Bon chance! !Buena suerte!

Flying the flag for Languages at West Exe!

We Will Remember Them›› Students from West Exe were honoured to have been asked by The Alphington Community to recite a poem for their service on Remembrance Sunday in November.

Year 8 students Layla B and Harrison B recorded a wonderful reading of 'Poppies', which was also shared in school as we commemorated those who have sacrificed so much for our freedom. As always, we collected for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal this year and held a 2 minutes silence.

W E S T E X E A N D T H E W O R L D

6

›› Back in October we welcomed an ITV film crew to visit the school to write a piece on how successful our first half term had been.

The Head Prefects and Year 7’s did an excellent job of explaining their experiences of their first 8 weeks.

We also treated the crew to an experiment called ‘elephant’s toothpaste’ and showed the school’s everyday safe Covid-19 practices.

The feature was aired on Tuesday, 20 October.

Confident Bikeability Students Begin TrainingAfter missing out on completing their Bikeability at primary school, over 50 of our Year 7 students signed up to complete their Level 2 this term. The purpose of the course aims to assist students to become competent and confident road cyclists, as well as long term cycle commuters.

Uniform Buy Back Positively Supporting FamiliesBuilding on the success of last summer’s ‘uniform buy back scheme’ this September we were able to support over 100 families with excellent, quality uniform items. We were delighted and proud to be able to deliver this service to so many families.

To continue with our environmental efforts, we will be offering a skirt, jumper & jacket swap as soon as circumstances allow. If you have any uniform related enquiries please contact Chloe.Fox@westexe.devon.sch.uk

DID YOU KNOW: you can now save the delivery cost and buy PE socks and ties from the Library shop? Ties are £5.95 and PE socks are £5.75 for the smaller sizes and £7 for the larger ones.

West Exe & ITV News Celebrate a Successful Half Term

O P P O R T U N I T I E S AT W E S T E X E

7

COVID-19 and the different lockdowns continue to have a devastating effect on children and young people’s mental health. It has been unbelievably hard, but together we can make a difference.Students and staff alike have been busy promoting good mental health at West Exe, changing the culture, advocating ‘it’s OK not to be OK’ and bringing home the message that during these difficult times ‘no one is alone’.

In school activities included: wearing a yellow accessory every day, year group assemblies to promote the support available in and out of school, various sessions running in the Wellbeing Hub and Sensory Room and individual messages from teachers promoting the strong pastoral support in West Exe.

Throughout the week we raised over £100 for Young Minds charity.

Mental Health Week

C O M M U N I T Y. . .

8

West Exe always strives to support the Exeter Foodbank. Last year we tried extra hard to only donate items on their priority list.

›› Donations from staff and students flooded in for House Week, with Romero House holding the lead with the most donations brought in.

We look forward to future events we will hold when the school is open, to further support our wider community.

More than 620 books and 20 million words read by Years 7 & 8…›› Congratulations to our Year 7 students who met their Half Term Accelerated Reader reading targets.

Well done to Fareefta C and James S who have read more than 1.2 million words between them, this is a huge achievement. Congratulations also, to the Year 8 students who have already reached their reading targets which are set every term. You smashed it a whole half term early!

House Donations to Exeter Foodbank

. . . AT W E S T E X E

9

Leighton G Joins Exeter City Football Club Academy›› In October Year 8 student Leighton G signed with Exeter City FC Academy, following some very competitive and challenging trials.

A huge congratulations from everyone at West Exe. We look forward to seeing Leighton turning out for the first team in years to come!

›› We are extremely proud of our DofE students who have been working hard to complete their sessions despite the challenges of lockdown. They have surprised us with their resilience and versatility to enable them to continue with their awards.

With Covid-19 restrictions our silver and bronze teams were unable to complete their award. However, being back at school before Christmas break, they were busy planning for their future expeditions which we hope will take place soon. We wish them good luck on their DofE journeys!

Duke of Edinburgh Awards Continue

S P O R T. . .

10

›› Since September, the Year 7 and 8 students have been completing their first sessions in their first co-curricular activity. The students had the opportunity to choose 5 activities to take part in every Thursday afterschool.

This year, more than any other it has been vitally important for students to experience opportunities away from the academic curriculum. We are really proud that such a large proportion of our student body has managed to access enrichment activities during this first half term.

A huge congratulations to Fae M and her pony Marley who competed in The Pony Club Show Jumping Competitions in Bicton (prior to lockdown restrictions). Fae did incredibly well to finish 15th out of 42 riders!

›› Fae also competed at The Pony Club, Cross Country Tetrathlon (Shooting, Swimming, Running and Riding) where she did a fantastic job and placed 2nd. The number of girls competing in these today outnumber boys by a factor of roughly 2:1, So congratulations Fae on your determination and willpower to succeed!

Year 7 & 8 Co-Curricular Programme

Fae M outdoes the competition

. . . AT W E S T E X E

11

It is important that we have the correct email address and mobile telephone number for every parent/carer.

Please inform us at admin@westexe.devon.sch.uk if there are any changes to your contact details, stating the name and Year/Tutor for your child/ren.

Thank you

Support services

Term commences Monday 4 January 2021

Half Term Monday 15 - Friday 19 February 2021

Last day of term Thursday 1 April 2021

Term commences Monday 19 April 2021

May Day Holiday Monday 3 May 2021

Half Term Monday 31 May - Friday, 4 June 2021

Last day of term Friday 23 July 2021

• Have your circumstances changed?

• Is your child eligible for Free School Meals?

• Is your child a Service Child?

• Is your child adopted from care, or left care under a special guardianship or residential order?

If the answer is yes or maybe, then please visit our website to find further information:

https://www.devon.gov.uk/educationand families/school-information/school-meals

Looking Ahead

South West Teacher Training is a school-centred initial teacher training provider based at West Exe School. We are now taking applications for Primary and Secondary trainees to join us in September 2021.

Visit www.swtt.net to find out more.

I N F O R M AT I O N S E RV I C E S

12

West Exe School, Hatherleigh Road, Exeter, Devon, EX2 9JU. T: 01392 660100E: admin@westexe.devon.sch.ukW: www.westexe.devon.sch.uk

www.facebook.com/westexeschool

@westexeschool

westexeschool

Keep up-to-date and follow us on: