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PRINCIPAL’S WORD “RAISING FUNDS TO SUPPORT THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN IN THE GAMBIA”

M A York - Principal

Dear Parents

On February 9th the Year 7 stu-dents at de Ferrers

took part in a “Day of Silence”. !e event was organised to help the students understand some of the issues that hear-ing impaired people face every day. !ey worked in si-lence and were only allowed to communicate through writ-ten notes or sign language. !e students had been taught some basic signs during an as-sembly taken by Steve Tucker who works within the acade-my supporting our own hear-ing impaired students.

!e students worked hard dur-ing the day to embrace the whole event. !ey learned in silence and were taught wher-ever possible in silence. Teach-ers used various means, includ-ing technology, to support the teaching. !e students gained a considerable amount from the experience and a"er being sponsored for the event raised the total of £1613.45p. To help

the students under-stand the value of their con-tributions two accumulators in the form of “Tucker Tow-ers” were created. Seeing Mr Tucker’s face rising up the walls as each £120 milestone was reached brought great excite-ment to the students. Each £120 pays the salary of a teacher who works with the children.

As all of the students on the Dove Campus have at some point taken part in this event we felt that it was appropriate to bring everybody together at some point of the day. To do this we held a “Circle of Silence” on the Dove Campus yard. At 12.50pm. the majority of students on Dove, alongside many of the teachers, gathered together in a very large circle to stand in silence. Having in ex-cess of seven hundred and #"y 11 to 14 years olds all quiet at the same time was certainly no mean feat – but it was achieved! Once again Mrs Wakelin

joined in the fund raising and the sta$ at de Fer-rers sponsored her for the day to be silent. It went very well and we are proud of the £200 that Mrs Wakelin raised.

!e cheque was presented in the Year 7 assembly on March 18th. We were very privileged to welcome the Deputy Head and a Senior Teacher from St John’s School in the Gambia with whom we have forged strong links. Dr Malcolm Gard-ner, who has helped in the de-velopment of this work, accom-panied the representatives on stage. A"er watching and lis-tening to a presentation about the most recent visit, a cheque was presented by Imman Chaudhry and Suman Cheema.

We would like to thank all of the students and parents, car-ers, and their families and friends who helped us to sur-pass our target.

TO SEE A COLOUR VERSION OF THIS NEWSLETTER VISIT www.deferrers.com

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THE GAMBIA APPEALWe are coming

to the end of an unusually long Spring term,

which has enabled us to re-ally target examination groups. Shortly a"er the start of next term we enter the ‘examina-tion season’. !e International Baccalaureate starts the process with AS/A2 and G.C.S.E. fol-lowing on. We wish all these students all the very best and we need your assistance in en-suring that they complete im-portant revision over the Easter break. To facilitate this, sta$ have organised, in some cases, revision activities either in the academy or at home. If your child is involved in these ses-sions, you will have received notice. Next half-term has a very ‘dis-jointed’ start and we would ask you to ensure 100% attendance for your son/daughter during this period. Any absence can a$ect learning and all students will be taking important assess-ments next term. !e de Ferrers Academy made the front page of the Burton Mail recently on the subject of ‘hairstyles’. I have been asked by parents to comment on this. !e academy’s stance has remained constant in this mat-ter and we reserve the right to object and take action if a stu-dent’s hairstyle is, in our view, unsuitable. (see page 3 for further details) Having experienced a lengthy term, we now have a lengthy holiday! I hope you all have a chance to enjoy the break!

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YOUNG TEEN FICTION

On March 8th, a beauti-ful, sunny day, there was an air of excite-

ment on Dove Campus as students and sta" gathered to compete in the #rst “Pancake Racing” event.

Although not a normal acad-emy activity, tactics and strat-egies were certainly being discussed by tutors and their teams. We are convinced, shown by the quality of the tossing of pancakes, that some of the racers had been sneakily practising.

As anticipated the races started at 12.45pm. !e closely fought Year 7 races were quickly fol-lowed by Years 8 and 9. Each year group then had two repre-sentatives for the #nal. Eagerly cheered on by their tutors and friends the race was a huge suc-cess and was deservedly won by a Year 9 boy.

!e #nal event was the sta$ race. !e start was tense. Adju-dicators were put in place and the race began. Frying pans held out, pancakes %ipping in the air and the occasional dropped one created a tight #n-ish. However, the race was won by Mr Boden closely followed by Mrs White.

The shortlist has been announced for this year’s YTF. !ese are the best of the books written for teenagers over the last six months which have been voted for by Staf-

fordshire’s teenagers.

!e books are all available to borrow from the Learning Centre. !e Book Elves Reading Club students are busy reading the six books before attending the Celebration Day in July. Pupils from all over Sta$ordshire schools come together in the summer to discuss the books and vote for their favourite!

Louise Rennison. “Withering Tights”.Jon Mayhew. “Mortlock”.David Almond. “My Name is Mina”.Ally Carter. “I’d Tell You I Love You, But !e I’d Have To Kill You.”Cora Harrison. “I Was Jane Austen’s Best Friend”.Derek Landy. “Skulduggery Pleasant – Mortal Coil”.

The planning of this ex-citing trip is now com-plete and the students

have paid their deposits.

!e trip takes place next East-er and the sixty students who are going will be skiing for #ve days in the beautiful area of New Hampshire, approxi-mately two hours north of Bos-ton. !ey will ski two resorts,

Loon Mountain and Cannon Mountain as well as take part in a variety of evening activities to include swimming and ice-skating. On Friday morning the group will leave the resort for the journey to New York. !is overnight stop will include a shopping trip as well as sight-seeing. As the dates get closer, more information will be avail-able.

Nine students from the Gi$ed and Talented Art Group went to

Walsall Art Gallery on the 17th of March. !ey went to see examples of modern and contemporary art.

The main exhibition was “!e Life of the Mind”, showing a va-

riety of styles of art, from pho-tography to installations. !e students had a discussion and talk on ideas behind the work, to introduce and help them un-derstand more about contem-porary art work. A"erwards they walked around the gallery, taking in the di$erent visual styles of art on show.

DOVE CAMPUS INTERFORM PANCAKE RACES

SKI AMERICA 2012 THE LIFE OF THE MIND

YTF 2011

KS3 ART GROUP TRIP TO WALSALL NEW ART GALLERY.

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ACHIEVEMENT &GUIDANCE KEY STAGE 4We are on countdown to the start of the

Summer GCSE examinations.

Both Year 10 and Year 11 will be sitting mod-ules or #nal exams this summer and we are just weeks away! !e start date for the examinations is Monday 16th May 2011 and these will be run-ning right through until the end of June. We urge all students sitting examinations this sum-mer to really apply the e$ort required now and give themselves the best possible opportunity for when they open their exam papers.

Year 10 Work Experience is also closing in fast and we are now at around two hundred students placed. Any student who currently doesn’t have a placement must apply as much e$ort as pos-sible in the remaining time to #nd a placement. Please see Mrs Chadwick in the Work Experi-ence O&ce (TA66) for more information. Work Experience week – Tuesday 3rd – Friday 6th May.

!e Year 11 students will have the op-portunity to purchase a num-ber of items this year. !ese are as follows:Year 11 Leavers’ Book - £16Year 11 Leavers’ Hoodie £16 (£19 if personalised)Year 11 Photograph - £17Year 11 Leavers’ Prom ticket - £20

!e KS4 inter-form competition has really started to take o$ with points being allocated to tutor groups for a variety of categories including best attend-ance of the week, ‘Talk to the Hand’ responses on the blog and inter-form competitions. !e 5-a-side football and inter-form quiz are just two examples of more to come!Remember, the Year 11 form with the most points by Friday 6th May will win a cash voucher for each student in that form, that can be deducted

from any of the items listed above.!e Year 10 form with the most points by Friday 27th May will all go to Alton Towers for free!

Can we also remind all Year 10 and 11 students about the importance of correct uniform, and with regard to hairstyles, can we remind every-one that we do not allow unnatural colours (e.g. blue, green, red etc.). In addition, sculptured hair i.e. with lines/patterns shaved in or mohi-can-style cuts are not acceptable. If, as parents,

you are in doubt, please contact the academy before visiting

the hairdressers so that we can discuss the mat-ter. If Mr. Easton can get

it right, then so should you!

Attendance – A re-minder that it is a legal

requirement to bring a note for any absence!

Following our appear-ance at the Celebrat-ing Achievement even-

ing in early January, the Sign Language Choir (dFSLCC) entered a somewhat quieter period in terms of actual per-formances. However, this has given us time to concentrate on preparations for our forth-coming appearances for the remainder of the year.

We have been in rehearsal for two important events, the #rst of which is the Spring Concert to be held just before we break up for the Easter holidays. We will be performing Yazz’s “!e Only Way is Up”, a brilliantly bouncy number from the late-eighties and Bruno Mars’ recent hit single “Just the Way You Are”.

!e second event is linked to a project that we were heavily involved with last year. Many of you attended our own “Cel-ebrate in Sign” evening last July and since then we have received many enquiries as to whether we would be repeating the event this year. We are pleased to announce that plans to hold “Celebrate in Sign 2011” are well under way and the Choir is excited about our plans for the evening; for details please see the advert in this edition of Communiqué.

We are all looking forward to the event and are currently in rehearsals to bring you an en-joyable and no doubt emotional evening to rival last year’s sell-out event. Tickets will go on sale a"er the Easter break.

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A group of our musi-cians was recently in-vited to take part in a

workshop at Queen Elizabeth’s Mercian School in Tamworth with the Band of the Prince of Wales Regiment. !is was a fantastic experience, as it gave our students the chance to sit alongside professional Army musicians whilst learning a new Wind Band repertoire.

!e morning was spent rehears-ing for an a"ernoon concert that was given to QEMS Year 7 students including within the repertoire !e Simpsons and an arrangement of Star Trek

Two of the academy’s Music groups have recently taken part in Music for Youth’s Regional Festivals. During half-term the de Ferrers Wind Quintet, Quintessessence, travelled to the Birmingham Conservatiore to take part in their round. !ey were very well received and a

complete contrast to other groups taking part on the day. !ey performed a challenging piece by Mo-zart which the mentor said was ‘an engaging and con-#dent performance’ and a

c o m -

position composed by one of our A2 students in the group which the mentor said was ‘A very intelligent composition that fuses a chamber music style with a more funky one!’

Last weekend the Jazz Orches-tra, DeFJO, took part in the Nottingham Festival at !e Brunts School in Mans#eld. !ey received a warm response from a rather small audience and received some fantastic feedback from the Music Men-tors, including comments such as ‘a spectacular sound’ and ‘a really exciting performance’. Both groups now have to wait to see whether they are invited to perform in the National Fes-tival in Birmingham in July...

Our annual Spring Concert takes place in Trent Hall on !ursday night (7th April). Expect the usual stunning ar-ray of talent, including all the main academy ensembles, as well as rock bands, the barber-shop group and soloists. Tick-ets are available from recep-tion on both campuses, priced £4 adults/£3 concessions. A licensed bar will be available during the evening.

A group of Year 12 Maths students visited Nottingham Playhouse to be inspired by real life Mathematics. !e talks covered three intriguing topics: From Google to

Gaming by Richard Lissaman; Maths in a Spin by Hugh Hunt and Juggling: !eory and Practice by Colin Wright.

In Google to Gaming, Richard talked about how vectors are used in the production of video games to create shadows from a light source and make it seem more life like. Richard also explained how Google was developed and was the #rst search engine to use simul-taneous equations to #nd relevant websites during a search.Maths in a Spin le" the audience in awe as a makeshi" boomerang brushed the hair of the audience and Hugh demonstrated how ice dancers can straighten their body to spin faster on the spot. He used vectors, force and angular momentum to explain the Math-ematics behind spinning objects, which included how cats spin in the air to land on all fours. Hugh will soon appear in a Channel 4 documentary about !e Dam Busters and their bouncing bomb.Whilst at university, Colin discovered juggling but wanted to de-velop more challenging routines. He used Mathematical diagrams to create new and exciting juggling acts by analysing where the balls are at any given moment.

From these presentations we learnt that Maths really is a univer-sal subject and can be found in just about anything from modern technology to family fun in the circus. !anks to our very own Sam Moorcro", we even know how to play rock, paper, scissors, Spock and lizard.

By Jess Luke & Laura Dutton

musicVIDEO GAMES, JUGGLING &

MATHEMATICS

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Since the last Communique we have had another suc-cessful evening manning

the bar at the Talent Show in February. It was a very busy night which saw us, once again, having to go out for more stock half way through the evening. A big thank you to all the PSFA members and helpers who worked extremely hard on the night. Our Quiz Night on 18th March was cancelled due to lack of availability of a Quiz Master.

PARENTS, STAFF, FRIENDS ASSOCIATION.

However we are hoping to run it in May – please keep an eye out for posters advertising the event. We are still awaiting con!rma-tion of the !xture with Holly-oaks on 26th June. Apparently the cast may now be !lming that weekend but as soon as the date is !xed we will let you know. I am happy to report that we have recently completed a to-tal payment of £7,000 to the de Ferrers Academy which was our contribution towards the cost of refurbishing the Food Technology room at Dove Campus. "is is a facility which will no doubt be put to good

Young people under twenty will soon be able to register for a

card that will allow them to travel anywhere within Staf-fordshire for just £1 per jour-ney.

Cards will be issued regardless of whether the young person is at school, university, are work-ing or looking to get a job. "e cards will also apply to jour-neys at weekends and in school or college holidays.

Registration will be open in April and May, with the cards coming into action in June. Don’t forget to register for yours!

Contact Sta"ordshire County Council on 0300 111 8000 for more information.

use by Years 7, 8 and 9 students for many years to come.

If anyone is interested in get-ting involved with the PSFA or has any ideas for fundraising we would be glad to hear from you. Or perhaps the company you work for makes charitable donations from time to time? Just email o#ce@deferrers.com, and mark it for my at-tention or call me on 01283 568201.

Have a good Easter holiday and we look forward to seeing you in the Summer term.

Anita McLean - Chair - PSFA

PEER MENTORS KS3 YOURSTAFFORDSHIRE

CARD

ENGERRLAND!ENGERRLAND!

At de Ferrers, we are committed to sup-porting the Year 6 children as they make their transition to secondary

school. !e processes that we have in place o$er a struc-tured transition period for all of the students in our Primary Partnership. Many of the children will visit us on numerous occasions to take part in transition activities. To support us in this work we have selected twenty four Year 8 students to work closely with our Inclusive Learning Team. !eir roles will include working with small groups of Year 6 children and answering their questions, tak-ing part in “Parents Matter” meetings and giving their viewpoints from a student aspect. !e Peer Mentors will also work with the Year 6 children on their visit in July as well as attend the Parents’ Evening and be around to answer any speci#c questions. We are proud of the work that these students do and they are excellent representa-tives of the academy. Each of the selected stu-dents have received a letter informing their par-ents of their selection.

On Monday 17th January, twenty two students from Years 7-13 attended the England vs New Zealand netball match in the Not-tingham Trent Arena. Mrs White and Miss Betts accompanied the trip. New Zealand won 41-39 but a good time was had by all, the students even man-aged to buy a few souvenirs and get some autographs from the England team.

OASIS CLUB

AFTERNOON HOMEWORK CLUB

Just to remind students who have been invited to the Oasis Club, it runs every

lunch time from 12.50pm until 1.15pm. We look forward to seeing you there.

Open every evening from 3.30pm to 4.30pm

Everybody Welcome

Student Name Form Primary School

Ian Mohammad 8/04 Bel Sophia Rashid 8/08 Bel Mellisa Best 8/02 E Park Lydia Cotton 8/05 E Park Basit Tariq 8/07 E Park Oscar Carrington-Porter 8/10 E Park Elizabeth Lester 8/06 Holy Trin Elysia Richards 8/02 JOR Paul Timothy 8/03 JOR Eliza McAuliffe 8/12 JOR Thomas Staddon 8/02 R Wake Harriet Virely-carr 8/11 R Wake Lacey King 8/01 Shob Kurt Latham 8/06 Shob Nicola Pountney 8/05 StWy Fahad Chaudhry 8/05 Vic Ifra Tajmal 8/07 Vic Olivia Bennett 8/05 Outwoods Charlie Bunting 8/06 Outwoods Lucy Bushell 8/08 Outwoods Jake Kelly-Walley 8/11 Outwoods Nick Kerry 8/02 Will Shrew Emily Lawless 8/02 Will Shrew Hannah Nixon 8/02 Will Shrew Thomas Evers-Burke 8/08 Will Shrew

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As part of our commit-ment to dance we have continued to work

with the East Sta"ordshire Partnership to o"er a Dance Class a$er school on Friday.

!e sessions are taught by dance teachers from outside the school. !e students experi-ence new dance styles and are challenged to raise the quality of their work. !e culmination of their hard work and train-ing was on display at the Bur-ton Area Dance Platform that was held at the Brewhouse Arts Centre March 31st.

In March there was a buzz of excitement in the acad-emy when we had a num-

ber of visits from some mem-bers of the Trinity Warriors Dance Group.

!is local group of break danc-ers, who are based in Derby, came into assemblies and per-formed some of their tricks and slick moves for the students. Obviously impressed, a number of students were invited onto the stage to learn a short rou-

tine. !e Trinity Warriors were competing in the dance compe-tition “Got to Dance” and had reached the semi-#nal stage. Obviously the students sup-ported on the evening as they then secured a place in the #-nal. Although they did not win the overall event they certainly performed to a high standard. It is hoped that that !e Trinity Warrior Dance Group may visit us again in the future.

As part of our commit-ment to the promotion and support of Dance

within East Sta"ordshire we are delighted to have two of our students selected to repre-sent the school as Dance Am-bassadors.

Although their role is in its in-fancy there are plans ahead that will see them working both within de Ferrers and our Pri-mary Partnership Schools to promote Dance activities and events. Our Dance Ambassa-dors are Lucy Orton Year 7 and Millie Bowering Year 9.

Below is a short piece wriiten by the girls on how they perceive their developing role.

“ Lucy Orton - Dance Ambas-sador East Sta!ordshire Dance Collective de Ferrers On Tuesday 22nd of March 2011, Milly Bowering and I at-tended a fun packed day at Pire-lli Stadium, along with all the other ESDC dance Ambassadors from di!erent areas.

"e #rst task of the day was to brain storm ideas for the new ESDC website, which is www.eatstaffordshiredancecollec-tive.co.uk. Some of our ideas were a gallery page with pictures and videos of ESDC in action, contact page, information page etc.

A$er brain storming we had lunch. We had many gorgeous sandwiches and sausage rolls with crisps. Everything was very nice. Whilst having or dinner all the Dance Ambassadors sat round three tables and chatted about what they do at school and we said all our names.

Dinner ended and a$er that we decided to practise a dance rou-tine which would be used in the show on "ursday 31st of March 2011. It was very di%cult at #rst but we managed to grasp it in the end.

Move It, Dance Exhibition at Olympia, London took place on Friday 11th March where over twenty thou-sand attended over the three days.

!e following students took the opportunity to watch professional dance groups, take part in a Michael Jackson inspired ‘"riller’

EAST STAFFORDSHIRE DANCE COLLECTIVE

TRINITY WARRIORS

DANCE AMBASSADORS

MOVE IT! MOVE IT! MOVE IT!

We have been given tasks to do on "ursday and mine and Mil-ly’s task was to take pictures of everyone’s rehearsals before the show to put upon the website.

A$er we were given our tasks it was 3:30pm and it was time to go home and relax. We all said our goodbyes and see you soon. "e day was great and we reck-on the show will be too.”

Written by both Dance AmbassadorsLucy Orton and Milly Bowering

and ‘Chicago’ workshop led by professional dance teachers.

!ey also had the opportunity to get their hands on merchandise from the stalls at the event promot-ing further dance opporuntities.

!e students who went were: Milly Bowering (Year 9) Amy Glover (Year 9) Guiliana Woodall (Year 9) Luissa Woodall (Year 9 ) Helen Cooke (Year 9 ) Holly Astbury (Year 10) and Mrs White (sta" member) along with other schools from the partnership.

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celebratein signan evening featuring:

SONGS | STORYTELLING |DRAMA | DANCEall in sign language.

FRIDAY 10th JUNE 20117:00pm

For tickets & more information contact:

TRENT CAMPUSAdults £4.00Under 16’s & Concessions £2.00

web: www.deferrers.comemail: sign@deferrers.comTel: 01283 239 936 Fax: 01283 239 971

St. Mary’s Drive, Burton on Trent DE13 0LL

T h u ! s d " y 7 # h A p ! i l

I N C LUD I NG :

7 . 3 0 p m | T ! $ % # H " l lL i c $ % s $ d B " ! A v " i l " b l $

£ 4 " d u l # | £ 3 c o % c $ s s i o % s" v " i l " b l $ f ! o m ! $ c $ p # i o % o % b o # h c " m p u s $ s

D $ F J OG l $ $ C h o i ! s

W i % d E % s $ m b l $S $ % i o ! C h o i !

S o l o i s # sR o c k B " % d s

S o u l $ d O u #W i % d B " % d

B " ! b $ ! S h o pS i g % L " % g . C h o i !

J u % i o ! C h o i !

On Wednesday 2nd March there was a trampolining compe-

tition at Paulet."e following students took part in Levels 1/2/3 (Advanced, Intermediate and Beginners) routines: Charlotte Mason (Year 11) Cara Adams (Year 7) Katie Ireland (Year 7) Natasha Herriman (Year 7) Hope Mar-shall (Year 7) Isabel Belasquez (Year 8) Lauren Sleigh (Year 8) Unfortunately no-one came home with a medal but the ef-fort was brilliant under very nerve-racking circumstances.

Well done to the fol-lowing students who represented

the academy at a Year 7 and 8 combined Netball Tourna-ment on Wednesday 30th March.

"e girls were runners up in a closely fought tournament. Well done to:Rebecca KendrickAbbie GarrettAmna AliAmber Myers- YatesCara AdamsChloe HallLaura TomlinsonLauren Swalwell.

Well done, girls!!

Also, well done to the Year 7 Netball team who have re-mained unbeaten all season. A fantastic e$ort! Well done, girls!!!

TRAMPOLINING

NETBALL

Friday 1st April saw the largest

D of E Presen-tation Evening that has been held in Burton.

' !e Town Hall was full to brim-ming with D of E Candidates collecting their Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards. Sta$ Ser-geant Andy Carlton and Cor-poral Andy Garthwaite, both from the Queen’s Royal Lanc-

ers, presented the awards. It was a fantastic evening with over ninety de Ferrers students collecting their Bronze Awards, #"y collecting Silver and an amazing twenty two Gold Candi-dates. !e spe-cial ‘Colin Kel-

lett Gold Memorial Award’ was presented to a former student Matthew Underwood.

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Principal: Mr M A York BA (Hons) BEd MBA

DOVE CAMPUS

email: office@deferrers.com www.deferrers.com

TRENT CAMPUS

Tel: 01283 239 961 Tel: 01283 239 936Fax: 01283 239 971 Fax: 01283 239 950Harehedge Lane, Burton on Trent DE13 0AS St. Mary’s Drive, Burton on Trent DE13 0LL

Once again this has been a very success-ful year for the Year 9

Netball Team members. !ey have just concluded their matches in the Year 9 Burton and District League and have been undefeated for the second year in a row. !e results are:Year 9v John Taylor won 18 to 14v Pingle won 9 to 8v William Allitt won 29 to 5v Paget won 32 to 1v John Port won 22 to 17v Abbot Beyne won 36 to 1v Granville – game conceded!e Year 9 Squad:Tamikah Campbell (Captain and now training with Derby-shire County), Courtney Bar-low, Helen Cooke, Sophie Rich-ardson, Zara !ompson, Faye Brooks, Holly Webster, Dan-ielle Coltman, Luissa Wood-hall, Eleanor Ma(am.

This term we have had the opportunity to compete in a number

of Hockey Festivals and Tour-naments within Sta"ordshire. !e Year 7 girls and Year 7 and 8 boys have competed in local and county competitions.!e Year 7 girls entered the Li-ch#eld Festival which was host-ed at Lich#eld Hockey Club. !ey played exceptionally well and were undefeated on the night. !eir success resulted in their winning the trophy which is held in the academy. Follow-ing this success the girls entered the Sta$ordshire U13 Mini Hockey Tournament. !is is a national competition for stu-dents in Year 8 and below. !e girls played well and tried ex-ceptionally hard against some strong opposition. Although

they were not suc-cessful they gained a lot of experience and this will help them in their preparation for

next year.!e Girls Squad:Freya Atton (Captain and play-ing for Derbyshire), Megan Wildman, Lauren Swalwell, Charley Lee, Alex Dolman, Ra-chel Cooke, Cara Adams, Mai-sie Ford, Noa Kobiyashi, Yas-min Delaney, Chloe Hall. !e Year 7 boys played in the Lich#eld Festival where they both won and lost games. We already have some schools wanting to o$er #xtures for next season. !e Year 8 boys have had a considerable amount of success this season. !ey played at the Cannock festival on March 1st and competed against a num-ber of teams from across Staf-fordshire. !e boys performed very well winning all of their games by considerable margins. !e results were;v Sandwell Academy 5 – 0 v Kingsmead 6 – 2 v George Salter 9 – 0 A"er this success the boys com-peted in the Sta$ordshire U13 Mini Hockey Tournament.Once again they were unde-feated in their section but lost out to Denstone College on golden goal. !e boys were very disappointed but went on to play their next round of games #nishing the a"ernoon unde-feated. v Walsall Won 3-0 v Kingsmead Won 4-0 v Denstone Drew 0-0 At the end of time lost 0-1 on Golden Goal, so in the end they #nished second in the group. All those who #nished second in the other three pools then played each other. !e matches were as follows: v Queen Mary’s Drew 0-0v Chase Academy Won 1-0v St Edwards Won 1-0

!e Boys’ Squad:

Matthew Abel (Captain), Jake Kelly-Walley, Luke Moorcro" , Toby Laughlin, Jake Buxton, Matthew Taylor, Charlie Bunt-ing , Connor Jenkins. A number of this squad are now regularly playing Hockey for Derbyshire.

Having #nished second in the zonal #nal in Bradford in January,

the Under 13 Boys’ Table Tennis team quali#ed for the regional #nal in Bradford, ranking them as one of the top sixteen school teams in the country. !e team of Liam Burt, Andrew Heath-cote, Jack Prescott, George Hodson-Walker and Edward Watchman played some fan-tastic table tennis throughout the day. Competing against North#eld School (Cleveland), Altringham Grammar School for Boys (Manchester) and Bedford Modern School, they can be very proud of their third place #nish on the day. A num-ber of matches went right to the wire and with a little more luck the boys would have been close to making the national #nal.

Having won the District League by some mar-gin the Year 9 Boys’

Basketball team quali#ed for the County Finals in Stoke in February. Competing against seven other schools who had won all of their respective dis-trict leagues, our boys won all of their games comfortably and won the County Champi-onships, scoring eighty eight points and conceding just thirty two across all of their matches on the day! As a result de Ferrers went on to represent Sta$ordshire in the West Midlands Regional Championships in March. Here we competed against William Brookes from Shrop-shire and Alcester School from Warwickshire. Despite losing

both matches by scores of 34-28 and 48-28 the team mem-bers produced a level of play that they had never previously reached and can be very proud of their achievements against a phenomenally high stand-ard. Team: Daniel Wildman, Dominic Hickman, Dominic Staley, Reece Atton, Lars Faint-U$en, Lewis McQuillan, Dan-iel Featherstone, Ben Hulland, Charlie Tunstall, Liam Goode, Simon Billings, Oliver Jones.

With the lighter eve-nings, our outdoor #xture programme

has returned, with all of our football teams continuing to produce some excellent results. It seems that the de Ferrers teams are su$ering the same luck as our national team when it comes to penalty shoot outs as both our Year 7 and 10 sides were beaten on penalties in their respective District Flood-lit Cup Finals a"er both games had #nished level! Both sides can be proud of the runners-up medals they took home. Year 7 students were also very unlucky in the County Cup Competition where they went down 2-0 to Rawlett in the semi #nal. Year 9 students have man-aged to go one better however and repeat their achievement of last year by once again reaching the County Cup Final where they will play Painsley from Cheadle. We wish them all the best as they prepare for the #-nal. League results this half term:Year 7v John Taylor – Lost 2-1v Old#elds – Won 5-3v Paget – Won 7-0Year 8v John Taylor – Lost 5-1v Pingle – Lost 5-0Year 9v John Taylor – Won 2-1v Pingle – Won 4-3Year 10v Pingle – Won 7-3

HOCKEY

TABLE TENNIS

NETBALL CONTINUED

BASKETBALL

FOOTBALL