Prudhoe Community High School

Spring 2 Newsletter

2016-17

K Boyd

Contents

Front Cover Year 13 Performing Arts - Thomas dancing with Deborah Hylton from The Gateway Studio Project

Gold Standard Award in Careers

Art & Textiles Workshop

Curtain Up!

Fashion Show

Year 13 Music – Stocksfield Methodist Church

Spanish Film Festival

Big Bang Competition

British Science Week

Creative & Media gets Snap-py

Performing Arts

PCHS supports Comic Relief

Musicals - London West End Trip

French Cinema Day

Sports News

Examinations

Our thanks to all contributors of articles and photography

PCHS achieves Gold Standard Award in Careers

Prudhoe Community High School has been successful in achieving Stage 3 (Gold) of IIAG (Inspiring Information, Advice & Guidance), a national quality award that is awarded to schools and colleges in recognition of their commitment to delivering quality careers education and guidance to their students.

The award is nationally validated by The Quality in Careers Standard.

The assessor was impressed with the hard work of the Careers Team, in particular Mrs Williams, Assistant Headteacher; Mrs. McStravick, Careers Advisor and Ms. Underwood, PSCHE Co-ordinator. However IAG is at the heart of the curriculum at PCHS and this award could not have been achieved without all staff support, including senior managers, in what is very much a whole school approach.

Mrs Williams said: "I am delighted we have been awarded Stage 3 of Inspiring IAG. It is a fantastic accolade for the school and its students and one they are very proud of.”

PCHS is committed to providing excellent Careers Education Information and Guidance (CEIAG) and the award gave them an opportunity to recognise and improve on their existing excellent practice. The school’s action plan included the development of CEIAG space on their website, maximising employer engagement through working alongside local businesses, and developing a bespoke “World of Work” week for Year 10.

PCHS would also like to thank Northumberland County Council and Councillor Anne Dale for their ongoing support with its Careers Projects. These events would also not have been possible without support from local businesses such as Lynn Turner from Kielder Water, SCA, Egger, Matfen Hall, Wheelbirks and Reflections Hair and Beauty.

K Williams – Assistant Head

Art and Textiles Workshop Day

During half term on Wednesday 22 February, Year 11 Art and Textiles students attended a Workshop Day at PCHS. Enthusiastic students took advantage of our brilliant creative studios in the new school to complete their GCSE coursework. Mrs Wallace and Ms Gordon were delighted to see almost thirty dedicated students working during their holidays. Students worked from 9am – 3pm producing garments for textiles and sketchbooks for Art. Concentration and morale was kept high with food treats of muffins, toast and Nutella, croissants, pop-chips, coffee and juice.

D Wallace – Subject Leader Art

L Gordon – Teacher of DT & Art

Curtain Up!

A very busy few weeks as usual – lots of events and live theatre. In March, Year 10 experienced a theatre workshop from visiting Theatre Royal drama practitioner Jamie Brown, looking at the page to stage process using their set playscript “Blood Brothers”.

This was greatly enjoyed and well timed, as they then attended the play performance the following evening in Newcastle. A great way to round off the the year’s work so far.

Ahead we are looking forward to all Year 10 Drama students returning to the Theatre Royal in the summer term to watch “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time”. Seeing live theatre is an essential experience as part of the Key Stage Four syllabus, as well as an excellent opportunity to have a fun evening out together! Key Stage Four students will be attending “The Woman in Black” during April – one of Mr Boyd and Mrs Clark’s favourite productions, and very scary. Year 11 students are nearing the final stages of preparation for performance of their “Tomorow’s World” devised work, exploring women’s suffrage; dystopian worlds inspired by “The Hunger Games” novels, and aspects of human rights. We look forward to seeing their performance in April.

Y Clark – Subject Leader Drama

Fashion Show – Textiles

The Fashion show 2017 was a great success. All students who participated, produced garments of a very high standard and should be very proud.

The turnout was fantastic and we are still counting money coming in for our chosen charity Young Minds. Well done to all who took part. L Gordon – Teacher of Textiles

Photography – Tim Smith

Stocksfield Methodist Church – PCHS Musicians

Lawrie, Beth and Marcus – Year 13 Music Students accompanied Mr Tate to Stocksfield Methodist Church to perform for the Ladies Group coffee club.

J Tate – Teacher of Music

Extract of letter of thanks from Mrs C Sherratt – Programme Secretary, Stocksfield Methodist Church Coffee Club

“We didn’t quite know what to expect but quite a lot of our members braved a very cold day and prepared to listen. What a treat we had. The standard of singing from Bethany with her two accompanists, Marcus and Lawrie was just amazing. We were captivated. I don’t ever remember hearing such a standard of piano playing outside a concert hall as that provided by Mr Tate so what a delightful morning we had. The four were charming ambassadors for your school and what a high standard they had all achieved. This is just to send very many thanks from all of us and to say we do hope we can have the pleasure of hearing your students again.”

Spanish Film Festival

Sixth Form Hispanists recently participated in a 'Mini Spanish Film Festival' in which an ex student from PCHS and current student of Modern Foreign Languages at Leeds University showed the students the Spanish film 'También la lluvia'. The film explores the effects of Spanish imperialism, which still resonates some 500 years later in the continued struggle against oppression by indigenous people. The students also participated in conversation in Spanish, based on the themes raised in the film, and discussed the advantages of studying languages at university level. All students commented that it was a very interesting afternoon which enabled them to practise their speaking and listening skills in a different context C Wilkinson – Subject Leader MFL

Big Bang Competition

The students involved in the bee project (Maisie, Molly, Nathan, Sam, Louis, Kelsey, Thomas and Emily) travelled to the Birmingham NEC to compete in the National Finals of the Big Bang Science and Engineering Competition UK. It was a gruelling 3 days of judging and the students were amazing, showing immaculate scientific knowledge and excellent teamwork. They proudly represented PCHS and the North East region and Louis even managed to put PCHS on the map, by being a brilliant speaker and brave ambassador when he was interviewed on BBC Breakfast alongside Miss Earl on Thursday 16 March by Steph McGovern, raising awareness of the bee project on BBC news!

K Earl – Teacher of Science

British Science Week

Abby and Jasmine were the winners of the British Science week alter ego challenge where each member of staff became a science alter ego for a week and the students had to find out who everyone was and what they were famous for inventing.

Below is a small selection of the amazing work produced From the British Science week poster challenge. Entries have now been sent off to the competition and a Facebook vote will be happening shortly to determine the winners. To see all the posters please visit the website.

British Science week tombola raising money for the Year 11 Prom.

British Science week aimed to inspire and motivate our students to get more involved with the science world around them. We hosted a number of fun activities such as a science kahoot quiz, tombola and alter ego challenge. We also encouraged students to enter the national poster competition to show how science has changed over the years. Elizabeth Waterman gave the Year 9 and10 girls a lecture on women in Engineering to encourage more girls to take up Engineering at GCSE, A level and beyond. Newcastle University hosted a workshop in school where students worked in teams to design and produce a water filtration device to enable everyone in the world to access clean water.

K Earl – Teacher of Science

Students get Snap-py

Year 13 Creative and Media Students have been exhibiting their digital photography work in Fuse Media Centre this month.

Each student produced six images inspired by themes such as Movement, Age and Industry. We have included just a small sample of the range of work they produced here. We were especially impressed by the wide variety of subjects and techniques employed.

Fuse Media Centre hosts a wide range of Adult and Community Learning classes on weekdays and evenings, and is also the home of Fuse Community Cinema which shows recently released films in a state-of-the-art digital cinema every other Saturday.

Do try and visit the exhibition before it finishes at the end of April, and pick up a leaflet about classes or flyer about the films coming up whilst you're there.

T Smith and M York – Teachers of Creative & Media

Performing Arts

The students have been working tirelessly over the past few months to produce some very exciting work that they would love to share with you in the coming weeks.

Firstly, we have continued to work alongside industry professionals as part of our partnership with Northern Stage. We have had dance workshops and choreography training with Martin and Deborah Hylton from The Gateway Studio Project, vocal workshops with Composer Mariam Rezaei and physical theatre training with Northern Stage’s Artistic Director Lorne Campbell. All of this work will culminate in a professional production at Northern Stage and beyond – details to follow.

Rehearsals are now well underway for the Year 13 examined performance of ‘Our Country’s Good’ which will be performed in the main hall on 2-3 May at 18:30 and at 19:30 on 4 May. The play, written by Timberlake Wertenbaker in 1987, is an epic love story and political statement on the power of arts education set against the backdrop of the first penal colonies in Australia in the late eighteenth century. Although the play is thirty years old this year, it is still as powerful and the students have invested a lot in this show - your support would be gratefully welcomed! For more information, please contact The Performing Arts Department.

We continue to look for regular theatre experiences for our students and, will be taking a group of ‘brave’ Year 13s to the Theatre Royal in April to see ‘The Woman in Black’ - they may well have just calmed down by mid May...

K Boyd – Subject Leader Performing Arts

PCHS supports Comic Relief

On Friday 24 March PCHS joined in raising funds and support for Comic Relief with a non-uniform day and Cake-a-bake sales, and a crazy hair day. There was some serious business marketing and donation competition between Year 9 tutor groups and Sixth Form. The amount raised by the end of the school day was £497.49. Thank you to all who joined in, and those who baked and ate!

Musicals – London West End Trip

A trip to London is always exciting; whether you’re in your thirties or a teenager. So it was Mr Tate, along with Mrs Williams and Ms Neale who took thirty three teenagers down to London for a two day musical theatre trip during February half term. We saw two musicals – ‘Matilda’ on the Tuesday and ‘Wicked’ on the Wednesday and both were absolutely

fantastic. In fact, you could say that they were “wicked!”

One of the principle reasons behind the trip is due to the fact that ‘Defying Gravity’ – the finale to act one of ‘Wicked’– is one of the new set works of the Edexcel Music GCSE. Therefore, seeing the piece being performed live on stage metres in front of them meant that hopefully the students will remember it far more vividly than if it was played on a CD in the classroom.

UltiUltimately the trip was a complete success. So much so, that our tour guide sent us a text on the way home – ‘[I wanted] to tell you what a super group you have with you. They were exemplary and a credit to the school. They were full of good humour and I thoroughly enjoyed accompanying you all around London.’ We think that sums our students up!

J Tate – Teacher of Music

French Cinema Day

During the French cinema day, we hosted twenty five students from four different schools from the area, including Washington and Newcastle. We started with a few games to get warmed up, and then we watched a movie called “La Famille Bélier” followed by a carousel of activities to discuss the movies. The movie tells us the story of a deaf family whose daughter becomes a singer, and this film won a few Oscars and other prizes. The students really enjoyed the occasion to speak French and are looking forward to PCHS A Level cinema day ‘take two’ to happen. T Larrateguy – Teacher of MFL

Sports Round Up

Netball On Wednesday 8 March PCHS welcomed schools from all over Northumberland to participate in an u15 netball tournament. The tournament took place on the school’s new outdoor netball courts and although the extremely windy conditions proved difficult for some of Northumberland's best shooters the afternoon was a great success. We were able to enter two teams who both excelled within their separate groups. One team qualified for the semi final but unfortunately were knocked out by last year’s reigning champions, KEVI. The second team finished a respectable third in their group and had some tough teams to play against. Player of the tournament was awarded to Robyn Brown for coming on as a substitute after the first quarter and completely changing the game for the better. Her motivation and team spirit was exceptional all day and it was great to see how much she has developed as a player.

2016/17 has seen yet another successful year for Netball within PCHS. The school’s very busy team have finished the year on a high with all teams finishing in the top quarter of schools across Northumberland. PCHS has a number of strong teams across all year groups and regularly have enough talented ladies to enter two teams per year group. The girls have loved their brilliant new facilities and we regularly make the most of both our lovely new sports hall and the freshly laid outdoor courts. Every Wednesday the PE department are blown away with how many girls commit to staying late to play netball, most weeks numbers exceeded 40 girls and every girl has made fantastic progress this year.

The PE department would like to thank the captains who have organised their teams, sorted kit and just generally been excellent throughout the year. All of the girls who have been part of the netball team this year have been invited to a celebration evening on Thursday 6 April, we look forward to seeing all the girls there to look back on yet another brilliant year for PCHS sport.

Cricket This academic year has seen a phenomenal rise in girls’ cricket, it is arguably one of the most popular sports on offer for PCHS girls. This increase in interest and participation is down to Tuesday night training being taken over by sixth form leaders Emily Ward and Beth Veal. The girls have worked hard to develop cricket within PCHS and have seen brilliant results during the indoor season. The team recently qualified for the Lady Taverners u15 schools indoor finals. The competition took place at Ashington Leisure Centre and the girls were up against tough competition from across the North East. The girls all thoroughly enjoyed the day and are now excited for the outdoor season to commence. Girls’ cricket will continue on a Tuesday night and once the weather improves will be moved outside. PCHS has strong links with Stocksfield ladies’ team with both Beth and Emily as members. As a PE department we are here to support anyone who would like to make the step up from school level to club level and encourage any girls to come and speak to us or Emily and Beth for more information.

Cambridge Technical Level 3 Sports students take on sports massage

This term has seen the Year 13 Cambridge Technical Sports students start their sports massage unit which will count towards a proportion of their final grade. The unit enables learners to know the benefits of sports massage and how it fits into exercise and recovery programmes. The students have recently enjoyed learning about the practical application of performing consultations, planning treatments, performing massage techniques and evaluating treatments.

We are lucky enough to have our own massage treatment bed which the students have been using to practise their techniques on one another. The students have recently recruited young athletes to act as volunteers for their final assessment and we look forward to watching them show off their new skills.

Cambridge Technical Year 12 students think positive! In January the Year 12 Cambridge Technical Sport students sat their first external exam which predominantly determines their final grade next summer. Although the students were clearly nervous about the exam they approached it in a mature and motivated manner. This term the results came back and the PE department are thrilled to report that every student gained a pass or higher. This is excellent news and we are really proud of the cohort. We would like to wish them luck moving towards their next two exams this summer.

Cross Country

Robyn Bennett continued her excellent winter form winning the Inter County Cross Country Championships. Robyn dominated the event beating girls from all over the northern region. Robyn then went on to finish Northumberland’s first counter in the English Schools’ Championships held on a very flat course in Norfolk which didn’t really suit Robyn who excels on the tough hilly courses. Rowan Bennett, younger brother of Robyn, also represented Northumberland at Norfolk which is an excellent performance considering he only started running this winter.

Badminton

Both the girls and boys teams qualified for the County championships representing Tynedale at Blyth sports centre. The standard of competition was excellent in both competitions with several private schools representing other areas of Northumberland. The boys team narrowly missed out on the final, losing their final deciding game 21-20 on the last serve in a tight game against Cramlington that could have gone either way. The team went on to lose the 3rd/4th play off against KEVI in another game that went to the wire. The girls team performed admirably in a competition dominated by private schools, finishing 5th overall.

Football

It has been a busy period of cup competitions for our teams. The U19’s team reached the semi-final of the Tyneside Schools’ Cup competition after two tough games both going to extra time. In the third round of the cup Prudhoe held on with only 9 fit players to take the game to penalties which we comprehensively won with no misses 4-2. In the quarter final they showed true character; after taking the lead early they were down 3-1 at half time. In a second half that Prudhoe dominated, they kept cool heads with excellent goals scored by Sam and Alex Mannion to bring the scores level. However, two goals in quick succession by both teams meant that the game could have gone either way, 4-4 at the end of full time. In extra time Prudhoe again dominated and deserved the lead after a fine solo run and finish by Dan Kirsopp. This lead they never looked like giving up this lead, winning 5-4. They play QEHS in the semi final.

The Year 11 team went out in the County cup quarter final, in a game they lost on penalties 5-4 after a close encounter with Excelsior. The Year 9 team dominated their semi-final against St Thomas More with a shot ratio in the region of 30 to Prudhoe to 3 by the opposition. St Thomas More somehow won this game 2-1. We are still not sure how! The Year 10 team beat Excelsior in a good game that either side could have won. Prudhoe finally won 2-1. In the next round they came up against Gosforth, English Schools quarter finalists. In a game that we played with no recognised goalkeeper, it was always going to be tough, eventually losing 5-1.

Sky Sports Coaching

In February PCHS welcomed Craig Heap back to host another Sky Sports visit. Craig, who is a regular visitor to the school was excited to look around the new schoo building and as always managed to make a number of staff and students smile during his tour. Craig started the day by doing a short question and answer session with our sports leaders. The staff and students were excited to hear about his summer working for the BBC at Rio and we all enjoyed having a gossip about team GB’s gymnastics squad.

Craig then delivered a number of sessions to help develop the sports leaders. The students all agreed that Craig’s enthusiasm is so infections they all left feeling inspired and motivated to continue progressing in their coaching careers.

Craig is back in school after Easter to deliver a revision session to the Year 11s and to work with a number of selected gymnasts at Benfield gymnastics centre.

Exams Information

GCSE & GCE exam timetables are scheduled to be issued to students in the week after the Easter break. Electronic copies will be emailed to parent and carers via Schoolcomms.

“A Guide to Examinations” booklet is available on the school website. This contains information on the majority of frequently asked questions, however please contact the school directly if necessary.

Years 9, 10 and 12 examinations week will be held 19 – 23 June 2017. Further information will be issued to students and parent and carers via Schoolcomms and the school website.

If you would like more information regarding examination reforms please see the Ofqual information pack on our website on the Exams section.

R Boyles – Examinations Manager

Prudhoe Community High School Moor Road

Prudhoe Northumberland

NE42 5LJ Tel: 01661 832486

Email: enquiries@pchs.org.uk Web: www.pchs.org.uk