April and May 20192018/19 Issue 5

Newsletter

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Principal’s Welcome GCSEs have well and truly begun, with Yr 11 students demonstrating their commitment to their future through hardwork and determination to do well.

We recognise as a school just how stressful a time this can be, not only for the students themselves, but for parents as well. With this in mind staff have gone out of their way to help support them in a range of ways. From sharing expertise and guidance in revision sessions to advice on wellbeing during the exam period itself. We wish them all every success and know they will do the Academy and their parents proud.

Meanwhile, the Academy continues to expand the work with businesses from the local area. At Lostock

Hall Academy students are encouraged to develop a wide range of skills in order to ensure a successful pathway to a career of their choice.

You will see further on in this newsletter the highly successful Yr 10 mock interviews, that recently took place. A thank you to all those businesses involved who gave up their time and expertise.

Mrs Tucker has recently added more information to the website on apprenticeships; if you visit the careers section of the Academy's website you will find the apprentice pack for parents which gives useful information about this increasingly popular pathway.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE • Showstoppers 2019 • Green Team • Jessica Sporting Achievements • Work Related Learning • Sewing Club • Y10 Painting Skills • All My Sons - NT Live • Forest School • My Future Day • P.E. Sports • School Lottery • Girlguiding Adventures • Year 7 Ecosystems and more...

Corptel Computer DonationThe computers which where kindly donated from Corptel are Fujitsu i7’s and will go a long way to improving the Graphics Media Suite. These high performance machines will handle software related to art, design and photography like Adobe Photoshop more efficiently, increasing productivity in lessons. They also meet Energy Star standards that will reduce power consumption and be more environmentally friendly. Thank you Corptel!

Work Related Learning All Year 10 students participated in a mock interview this week, conducted by one of our employer business contacts. This is something the students have been working towards for a number of weeks; they have completed CVs, personal statements and letters of application in preparation for this interview. The interviews took place in the hall with each student having an individual 15 minute interview with one of the employers, followed by feedback on their answers and the skills they demonstrated. We are very grateful to the employers for giving up their time to enable our students to have this valuable life experience.

Our careers programme aims to provide students with information to make informed decisions about their future. In the remaining half term students will be experiencing a day at Newman College and Runshaw College to give them access to more information about opportunities open to them for their future. Throughout the next year Year 10 students will also receive a guidance interview with Mrs Callagher, the school's independent careers adviser. Mr Doyle, Mrs Bradley and Mrs Tucker.

My Futures Day – Runshaw CollegeOn Friday 26th April, an enthusiastic group of our Year 10 students visited Runshaw College, for their sampler day. There was an opportunity to visit an array of “stalls” set up by different subject areas and take part in activities. Our students had fun creating cuts and bruises with theatre make up in the Media department, as well as taking part in a “Silver Service” race, involving the transportation of potatoes! Finally, they had the chance to explore the Runshaw campus and absorb the feeling of college life.

Over the course of this past half term, Lostock Hall Academy’s own Plastics Team have been busy planning for a series of assemblies on plastic usage in and around school.

After discussing the impacts of excessive plastic waste and how the environment is affected, we decided to open up the opportunity for students to get involved. As well as the school’s focus on developing a positive attitude to learning through the Growth Mindset approach, our Plastics Team are dedicated to keeping the environment clean and suggesting ways to reduce our plastic usage.

Having a key role in leading the Plastics Team is something I value very highly and the fantastic effort our team members put into the projects is invaluable.

After delivering our presentation to SLT, it was arranged that we meet the school’s catering company Mellors to present our findings and research. Mellors were quite impressed with our suggestions on plastic reduction and agreed to attend future school council meetings to provide a helpful input of ideas. I believe this plays a significant part of Lostock Hall Academy’s principles on improving current services to support the development of students, both in lessons and in terms of Student Voice.

As our projects and aims move forward, we have created the opportunity for students across all year groups to participate in our schemes and join us as environmental coordinators. This is an offer to all students and I believe that those of you who wish to take part with us will be excellent role models for the school.

Alternatively, if you have any ideas and are willing to share these with us, we would be very grateful to obtain these suggestions.

Thank you for your continued support!Joel Hodgson Senior PrefectLHA Green Team - Lead

LHA Green Team

Jessica Eastwood is one of our current Year 11 students and has been fully committed to all aspects of Physical Education and school sport. She has represented the school in all available sporting activities and winning multiple accolades during her time her. Jessica has also dedicated countless hours to helping younger students through her involvement within the various young sports leader’s opportunities offered through the school and has become a real role model for our younger students.

Jessica also plays sports to an elite level and continues to represent the county of Lancashire with pride. She was part of the victorious Lancashire U-16 Girls football side that recently retained the ESFA Inter-Counties National competition (she had previously won the U-15 National competition). Jessica played in every game throughout the campaign and was again part of the team that was victorious in the final, beating Kent on penalties, after the game finished 0-0 in regulation time.

Jessica also represents Lancashire in tennis in the older U-18 age group category. She recently played in the County Cup and was part of the team that defeated Buckinghamshire, North Wales and Wiltshire which secured promotion for Lancashire to Division 2. This has all been achieved while studying for her Year 11 exams which in turn has taken a great deal of dedication from Jessica. Her aim for next year is to progress to college in order to study a Level 3 Sports course.

Well done Jessica!

A big thank you to parent Karen Harvey for leading the Sewing Workshop on Tuesday afternoons. Students have been busy learning about how a sewing machine works, pattern cutting and creating items such as aprons, phone cases and cushions. Well done to all students who have shown commitment to the club it has been very well attended.

LHA Sewing Club

Art and Design students are continually experimenting and developing their skills in a range of media and have excelled their painting skills this term.

Y10 Painting Skills

On 1st May some of our very talented students took the stage for our bi-annual performance of 'Showstoppers'. Our audience was entertained by a wide variety of acts including Street Dance, Contemporary Dance, Chinese Dance, singers, extracts from High School Musical, Annie and the LHA Brass Band with Mr J Doyle. A massive congratulations to all involved, not just the talented performers but also to the superb help from students operating the sound and lighting, helping backstage and front of house. Well done everyone, Mrs E Hardacre

Showstoppers 2019

A group of Year 7 students are part of this terms Forest School initiative. This session was about improving skills with more advanced techniques on open fires, building a safe structure over the fire to boil water. The boiled water was then used to make hot chocolates in camp. They then went on to make pizzas, mixing dough, rolling out, adding toppings and then cooking on the open fire while sharing positive feedback from the morning with all camp members.

Year 7 Forest School

Year 10 students enjoyed a powerful and emotional performance of Arthur Miller's masterpiece 'All My Sons', screened at the Vue cinema in Preston as part of the National Theatre Live project. Currently running at the Old Vic Theatre in London, NT Live allows audiences across the country to enjoy the best of London's theatre without the need to travel. The 2019 production of 'All My Sons' has received widespread acclaim for its exploration of the American Dream, family and intergenerational conflict. Charlie Reynolds was moved by the raw emotional power of the narrative and Sally Field's superb performance: 'I found the whole play gripping, especially its astonishing and devastating climax. Hopefully we can see more of these NT Live screening in future!'

Special thanks to Mrs Butterworth and Mrs Murray for supporting the trip, too.

All My Sons - National Theatre Live Screening

This term Year 7 have been carrying out a research project on how bee's affect the environment they live in and how humans have affected this environment. They had to look into colony collapse disorder and create a presentation on how to save the bee's and how saving the bee's would have a positive effect on the ecosystemas a whole. Each presentation was uniquely created by the teams and because of the high quality there had to be 2 winning teams.

We hope that the information that the students have gained will be transferred to help future bee populations.

Un- BEE- liveable Ecosystems - Year 7

Well done to all of the students for your attendance and contributions during Easter School. Thank you to staff for running these additional sessions. The feedback from staff and students was they were very well attended, useful preparation for exam knowledge and skills and certainly worth having done. We hope that students will feel the benefit of this as they begin their GCSE exams. We wish them every success.

Easter School Success

Winners of Cookies and Coke are:- Mr Gornall 7TMrs Gardner/Mrs Heaton 8CMr Baugh 10C

The following students achieved 100% attendance during 25/2/19 – 5/4/19 and received a Thorntons Easter Egg .Kelly Woodcock 7S Dylan Anderton 8LRhiannon Williams 9L Lucy Rogers 10CLorna McDonald 11C

ExCELLENT ATTENDANCEWell done to you all! Learning Zone

Homework piling up? Need somewhere quiet to work? Come to the learning zone in IT3

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Monday, Tuesday & Thursday

This term Year 7 have been carrying out a research project on how bee's affect the environment they live in and how humans have affected this environment. They had to look into colony collapse disorder and create a presentation on how to save the bee's and how saving the bee's would have a positive effect on the ecosystem as a whole. Each presentation was uniquely created by the teams and because of the high quality there had to be 2 winning teams.

We hope that the information that the students have gained will be transferred to help future bee populations.

Un- BEE- liveable Ecosystems - Year 7

Well done to all of the students for your attendance and contributions during Easter School. Thank you to staff for running these additional sessions. The feedback from staff and students was they were very well attended, useful preparation for exam knowledge and skills and certainly worth having done. We hope that students will feel the benefit of this as they begin their GCSE exams. We wish them every success.

Easter School

The 2 winning teams

I have been fortunate enough to be picked to go the world centre in Mexico with the Girl Guides. For the preparation for this trip I have had to do some fundraising in and out of the group. Therefore, I had a bake sale on the last Friday of term. Many of the teachers and students were very supportive while I held my bake sale and through our combined efforts, we were able to raise the amount of £53.24. I’d like to thank everyone who baked something or bought anything from my stall.

Other fundraising events including two bag packs at Leyland Tesco, clothing sales, collecting money on the street in Didsbury, Manchester and several more.

This all started when I was asked to go to the international opportunities weekend in Clitheroe with many other girls from our region. There were two trips up for grabs, which were hiking though the Balkans for three weeks or community work for two weeks in Mexico.

There are about fourteen girls going on the trip and we will have the opportunity to go into schools while we

are there, one of them attached to the world centre, Our Cabaña. Hopefully this trip will be able to give us experiences and skill that we might be able to use in the future. And memories that we will be able to cherish in the future, along with the friends that we have made already. If you would like to get involved in Girlguiding yourself in the future, are some links below. Parents and students can get involved in different ways, like becoming a Leader/Young Leader or become either a Guide or a Ranger. Or if you have any younger sisters they could get involved in Rainbows or Brownies. If you are not into that sort of thing you could get involved in Scouting, which is linked below.

Register your daughter - https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/information-for-parents/register-your-daughter/Parents get involved - https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/get-involved/Get involved with scouting - https://scouts.org.uk/get-involved/Thank you for all your support! Jasmin Davenport

International Girlguiding Adventures

All smiles! Congratulations to our Cricket Young Leaders who have successfully completed the South Ribble Leadership course.

Cricket Young LeadersThe PE Department continues to provide opportunity to excel in terms of developing their leadership skills through sport. So far this year students have completed courses in Cricket, Football, Indoor Athletics, Netball and Rugby League. They have then given up a lot of time to organise and officiate at the large range of primary and secondary school competitions that are organised at Lostock Hall Academy. Thank you to all students involved - your continued dedication and effort means a lot to PE and school sport.

Sports Leadership Programme

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Gaelic football is one of the fastest growing sports in the United Kingdom and no more so than in Lancashire. It is an Irish sport and uses a goal resembling that used in rugby, but with a regulation crossbar and a net attached. The objective of the game is to score by kicking the ball into the net (scoring three points) or over the crossbar (1 point). There is a development officer in place, funded by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), and the game is going from strength to strength.

The school was fortunate enough to receive funding from ‘Active Lancashire’ to develop Gaelic football within school. Equipment was purchased and Year 7 students were given the opportunity to attend some trial sessions which they really enjoyed and as a result the first Lostock Hall Gaelic team was formed. Training has continued on a weekly basis and the team recently travelled to Manchester to take part in the ‘Northern Counties’ schools competition. The Year 7 team performed superbly in their first competition against more experienced teams who were mostly from the year above. Training has continued and the team are looking forward to returning to the competition next year with the aim of winning it!

Northern Counties Gaelic Football Competition

Fantastic training session at Wednesday evenings Athletics Club. First time at trying the Shot Putt for Emily in year 7! Great effort from all students including Dylan Y8.

Athletics Club

Well done to Keira for being the Y8 PE student of the term.

P.E. Student of the Term

School Synergy - Parents Portal

All students, parents and carers have access to Synergy which monitors and supports students at LHA. Please could you read through the slides and log on to Synergy to support your child. If you have any issues with accessing your account, please contact school.

Click the links below to see video guide for Synergy Parent and Student Portal Guide

School Lottery

https://www.yourschoollottery.co.uk/lottery/school/lostock-hall-academy

Support your school today and you couldWIN one of five£50 Restaurant Vouchers!

Dates for the Diary

03/06/19 School Re-opens

14/06/19 Year 11 Exams Finish

18/06/19 - 25/06/19 Primary Partnership

24/06/19 Year 8 Parents Evening

28/06/19 Athletic championships @ Robin Park

28/06/19 - 01/07/19 Year 8 Battlefield Trip

06/07/19 Lostock Hall Carnival

08/07/19 7-9pm Brass Attack

16/07/19 Sports Day

18/07/19 Achievers day

19/07/19 12 noon School closes for Summer