Gordano School No.30 Newsletter

Friday 7th April 2017 Attendance Line Year 7-11 - 01275 841374 Attendance Line Year 12 and 13- 01275 841380 attendance@gordanoschool.org.uk Term dates and past newsletters can be found on our website www.gordanoschool.org.uk

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Diary Dates: HOLIDAY - MONDAY 10th April– Friday 21st April 2017 INCLUSIVE

Monday 24th April 2017 Inset Day—school closed to pupils Tuesday 25th April 2017 GCSE Art Exam Wednesday 26th April 2017 GCSE Art Exam Thursday 27th April 2017 Junior Maths Challenge Thursday 27th April 2017 AS Fine Art Mock Thursday 27th April 2017 Year 6 Parental Information Evening 6.30pm (Main Hall) Friday 28th April 2017 Sixth Form Photo Friday 28th April 2017 AS Fine Art Exam Monday 1st May 2017 Bank Holiday– school closed Wednesday 3rd May 2017 A Level Art Exam Thursday 4th May 2017 A Level Art Exam Thursday 4th May 2017 Personalised Stage Options Evening 5-7.30pm (Main Hall) Friday 5th May 2017 A Level Art Exam Sat-Sun 6th-7th May 2017 DofE Gold and Silver Practice Exhibitions

Head’s Blog Term 4 is drawing to a close and we can look back at a magnificent period in the school’s history. The weeks since Christmas have been absolutely packed with achievement. You will see elsewhere in this newsletter pictures of our Girls Year 8 team at Wembley where they won the English Football League Cup last Sunday. That may be the crowning glory to a remarkable period of sports success but it is only one of a great many successes ranging across swimming, gymnastics, rowing, cricket, football, athletics, badminton and many more. We now have dozens of county or national champions in our school. The term has also seen around 200 of our young people take part in the Duke of Edinburgh expeditions. We are the largest centre for this award in the region and I am very pleased to say that we also have the highest completion rate. This reflects incredibly well on the qualities of our young people at Gordano as well as the excellent leadership of Jack Cartwright who heads the scheme. It was a real pleasure to attend the Dance Showcase last night and see some of the exceptional talents of our students as well as their very imaginative choreography. Our very able Head of Dance, Caroline Gaze, took to the stage herself with her Year 13 students for their farewell piece and was able to show that she can mix it with the best of them. The Dance Showcase was the last event of a very busy term for the Creative Arts Faculty and many of us will remember what a success Hairspray was and how it energised the dark days of February. Last weekend our Sixth Form robotics team competed in the national competition in Newbury and got through to the finals with success although their robot suffered a malfunction in the final. I am sure that they will have greeted this with equanimity and some humour. My thanks to Richard Moore, our DT Technician, who led this project and to our Head of Faculty, Paul Wilson, who supported the tour at the weekend. My last word for this term is to express, on behalf of the whole school community, our thanks to Rod Bell who has served for ten years as Assistant Head and then Deputy Head at the school. Many families will have dealt personally with Mr Bell during that time and will know what a charming, fair and value driven leader he is. We shall all miss him very much but have sent him on his way to the Corsham Schools Trust with our very best wishes. I am absolutely sure he will be an exceptional Headteacher. Gary Lewis

On Wednesday 15th March, 15 dance students from Years 8-13 travelled to Yeovil to perform at the Octagon Theatre as part of the annual Spring Forward Dance Platform. This is the second year Gordano School has performed at this event and they did not disappoint. Every dancer produced an excellent performance, quickly adapting to the large professional stage and extensive lighting. Our company performed in the second act, and so we were lucky enough to watch other dance groups perform live. This was a wonderful opportunity for the students to enjoy the work of a variety of inspirational dance schools and clubs. I am looking forward to taking students again next year. Well done Dance Company Graham. Miss Gaze, Dance Teacher

Joe Cemlyn-Jones wins Under 18 British Rings Competition

In late March, gymnast and Sixth form pupil Joe Cemlyn-Jones, competed at the British Rings Championships taking place at the Echo Arena in Liverpool. Joe put on a fantastic performance, as he won the Under 18s British Rings Competition. He also managed to place 4th in the overall championship. Joe has also qualified to take part in the Rings Masters Final, which appears live on Sky and via the BBC red button.

Gordano Dance students perform at Spring Forward Dance Platform 2017

Gordano School are North Somerset swimming gala champions. Three teams of swimmers took part in the North Somerset swimming gala at Hutton Moor last week. A large number of our swimmers took home medals and the combined boys and girls teams beat Clevedon School into second place by a massive 52 points!

Well done to all swimmers involved.

Gordano pupil, James Carr, wowed his audience

with a fantastic performance on his Euphonium at

a recent concert organised by the North Somerset

Centre for Young Musicians.

James won the right to perform the Concerto for

Euphonium and Band by Horovitz alongside the

North Somerset Concert Band.

The evening was shared

with fellow musician

from QEH school in

Bristol, who performed

Beethoven’s Piano

Concerto No.1 with the

North Somerset

Sinfonia.

Prize winner delivers Concerto performance with North Somerset Concert Band

Swimming Team Glide into First Place

In February 2017, four teams of students took part in a competition to win a place at this year’s Flying Start challenge grand final, taking place at the Fleet Air Museum near Yeovilton. All four teams in the regional heat achieved very competitive distances when throwing their gliders. Each team was also required to deliver a presentation they had to perform, and represented Gordano superbly well. Two of the four teams then qualified to take part in a series of engineering challengers at the grand final, closely missing out on the opportunity to take part in the final ’Fly Off’ event. The six pupils involved in the final were: Max Pula 8F1 Jahn Wiland 8F1 Finley King 8F1 Finlee Cussens 8F1 Nikolaos Pavlis 8S1 Antonia Pavli 7B2 Engineering challenges included a zip wire challenge—finding a way to use a rubber band to propel an object along a wire. This event required the teams to think about friction and balance. The teams then took part in an autorotation challenge, in which their own version of a helicopter had to fall to the ground in the slowest time possible, whilst hitting a target. Finley King, Jahn Wiland and Max Pula won their heat in this competition. In the afternoon, the teams had the opportunity to tour the museum with a guide as well as compete in one final challenge hosted by ‘Bloodhound’. The Bloodhound team attended the competition to promote engineering careers through their own Bloodhound SSC land speed record attempt project. All six pupils represented Gordano School superbly well, demonstrating fantastic teamwork and problem solving skills. A big marker has been put down for the Flying Start Challenge for 2018.

Flying Start Challenge-Grand Final at the Fleet Air Arm Museum

For the fourth year running, Gordano students made it to the final round of the annual Student Robotics competition last weekend (1st-2nd April). Two teams of Sixth Formers have been building and coding their robots throughout the year and competed against 44 other schools and colleges around the country. The Year 13 team, comprising James Carr, Emily Dickens, Jay Ragoo, Will Bath, Sam Thomas and Will Cooper, made steady progress throughout the two day competition, ending in fourth place overall. A technical issue ended their code early in their final round, which (probably) denied them another 3rd place trophy for the school, but that’s robots! The year 12 team, with just two students attending, comprised James Downey and Will Gullock. Again, a solid performance throughout the weekend saw their Robot progress to the top 16 (quarter finals).

Both teams overcame many engineering issues that required adapting, developing and

repairing their robots, under quite intensive time pressure, to keep themselves in the

competition. A positive attitude towards problems and exemplary teamwork were just as

important to their success as the quality they had built into their robots. Well done!

From left to right: Will Gullock with robot, James Downey, James Carr, Matt Pritchett, Will Bath, Emily Dickens with robot, Will Cooper, Jay Ragoo, Sam Thomas and, er, Mr Moore on

the floor.

A Level Robotics Competition

St John Greene, better known as ‘Singe’

and author of ‘Mum’s List’ delivered an

inspirational talk to students from seven

local Sixth Forms at Gordano School on

March 22nd.

Mum's List is a heart-warming true life

story of Singe and Kate Greene, whose

lives were turned upside down when

Kate was diagnosed with an incurable

breast cancer. Over her last few months

she created her list: writing her thoughts

and memories down to help the man she

loved create the best life possible for their two sons after she was gone.

Speaking to Year 12 and 13 students representing their school’s student leadership teams,

Singe advised them to seize every opportunity and to make the most of life. The students

later collaborated to discuss leadership strategies and to share ideas about study and event

management.

Jeanne Fairs, Head of Sixth Form, said: "Singe is very much a local leader; he lives in Clevedon, his wife was a student at Gordano school and he once worked as a life guard at Churchill School sports centre. The students were very engaged with his advice and he provided a springboard for a very productive afternoon of collaboration."

Student Leadership Conference

The Theatre Shop (Clevedon) is launching a fun packed season of events running through April until September. There are plenty of treats for children and adults including Shakleton, Alf the Highwayman, Nutty Noah to comedy from Instant Wit and Living Spit. Local, live theatre for everyone. Check us out on http://www.theatreshop.org.uk/ Tell all your friends and we can’t wait to see you there.

BTEC Business Studies students were delighted to meet with a representative from the Grand Appeal this week in order to donate £427.53. The Bristol-based charity raises money to support Bristol Children’s Hospital. The second Year 7 disco of 2016/ 2017, organised and promoted by the business students, raised over £400 for the local children’s Hospital charity, The disco organisation formed part of their coursework. In order to host the event they had to go through all the school procedures for booking the hall, carrying out a risk assessment, promoting the event and ordering refreshments. All the planning and advertising was carried out by the group.

Disco fundraiser money donated to local charity

Congratulations to Gordano School’s U13 Girls football team after their fantastic win this weekend at Wembley. On the 2nd April, the 6 a side football team played in the 90,000 seater stadium during the EFL Trust Sport and Kinder Girls Cup Southern Area final. Gordano School won the right to repre-sented Bristol City during a series of 72 EFL club tournaments for local schools. Competition to reach the final was fierce, with more than 6,000 girls taking part in the event.

The team consisted of Phoebe Delafaille, Keira Howse, Romia Nash, Emily Edwards, Katie Quick, Tilly Smale, Katherine Southern and Keiana Jones. The two regional winners, Bristol City and Shrewsbury Town then went on to play at Wembley in the final, with goal scorers Emily Edwards and Kiera Howse securing a fantastic 2-0 win. Coach Justin Yau, said,

"We are so delighted with the performance of the whole team. They fought so hard to reach

the final, and truly deserve this win. The opportunity to play at Wembley stadium made this

competition so memorable, and the entire squad have achieved a wonderful new experience

in their sporting lives. I couldn't be more proud, and honoured to share this experience with

them."

Under 13s win National Championship at Wembley