NEWSLETTER 19th April 2013

Principal’s Report

Best wishes

Sara DaveyAcademy Principal

Welcome back to the summer term. We have returned to school to learn that we have been successful in our bid to the Government for extra funding for refurbishing all the school toilets and changing rooms in the main block. This is great news and it means we will be able to provide much better facilities for the comfort and safety of our students and guests.

The Year 11 students have been working hard over the last few months and their efforts are starting to pay dividends. This Wednesday the Maths results arrived into school and it was great news for many individuals. Overall, 67% of the Year group have achieved the magical Grade C or above. This equals last year’s record breaking Maths results already. Well done to staff and student teams. Over 70 Year 11 students attended Science catch-up sessions during the holidays. They are really showing commitment to achieving the best grades possible.

Many of the Academy sportsmen and women have been competing with great success over the Easter holidays and this week’s newsletter has reports from some of the successful teams and individuals. I would like to give a special mention to three of our talented staff athletes. In the Penzance Triathlon event last weekend Mr Neil Eddy won the event with a margin of five minutes and Mrs Wheatley came third in her age group category. Mr Veal, our Head of P.E., was also competing against the professionals and gained a place in the top 50. It is great that our high performing athletes have such amazing role models amongst the staff.

Finally, the summer term MixX brochure (our enrichment curriculum) is currently under construction and will be published next week. I would like to encourage all students to get involved and develop their personal interests and expertise.

Just some of the students who now have their GCSE in Maths

Mr Veal in action

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BEINSPIRED

Danish Visitors

We were delighted to host 20 students from one of our two Danish partner schools, Helsingør Lille Skole, this week. The school is one of five involved in our latest Comenius Project which focuses on learning outside the classroom. The Danish students have been staying in the Academy since Tuesday and attending lessons with their partners in Years 9 and 10. Some of the visitors were involved in the Comenius project meeting in Augsburg in December and the Mounts Bay students who travelled to Germany were overjoyed to meet up with them in a welcome assembly this Wednesday.

In two weeks’ time, five students will attend the next Comenius project meeting in Murcia, Southern Spain and another group will travel to Helsingør in the Autumn.

Duchy Ballet

On the 22nd and 23rd of March, a group of young, promising dancers took part in the Duchy Ballet’s production of Swan Lake at the Hall for Cornwall. Several of the dancers attend Mount’s Bay Academy. Each of the students from school Years 7, 8, 10 and 11, thoroughly enjoyed the four performances of the show. Each dancer received some challenging and prominent roles, with Lowenna being selected for a soloist role.

Some of the students received the part of a ‘swan’, and other dances in the famous musical score by Tchaikovsky. Dances in which the students performed included; Polish Mazurka, Hungarian Czardas, Italian Neapolitan, Waltz and Polacca.

The show was a great success and a rewarding experience for all those involved.

Well done to: Siena Hoadley, Zenna Law, Lowenna Eddy, Ella Upton, Saffie Harry, Ruby Stanbridge,Jodie Edwards and Sabine Hoadley.

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KYBA Presentation

KYBA group have been meeting every day this week to plan their presentation next Wednesday at The Keay Theatre, St Austell. They will be doing a presentation on the book 'My Name is Mina' by David Almond. Students have been planning artwork and speeches, with varying opinions. (Apologies about the closure of the DLZ)

After the presentation has been delivered we will start a regular book group to discuss and suggest books to one another, this will be open to all. We will also be writing weekly book reviews which also is open to all.

BEINSPIRED

Multi-Cultural Britain

This week students had the final assembly in the 'Multi-Cultural Britain' series that Mr Johns has been running throughout the year; this time with a focus on Sikhism in Britain. Students were given an overview of the Sikh religion and the festival of Vaisakhi that Sikhs around the world were celebrating last Saturday. Sikhs are taught to focus on good deeds, and to care for others even if they do not follow the same religion; this is demonstrated in the Vaisakhi festival where Sikhs often encourage their non-Sikh neighbours to join them in the street celebrations and feasting, making the 'multi-cultural' message an easy one to underline.

History has shown us that societies which encourage divisions, hatred and mistrust are doomed to fail, and lead to very unhappy citizens. In a diverse world that has become so small in recent years due to technology, the assembly highlighted that it is important that students decide whether to embrace variety and diversity with an open mind and hopefully learn and experience something new in the process, or to shut themselves away from new ideas and allow fear and prejudice to govern their decisions.

The assembly concluded with this quote from Martin Luther King Junior:

"We must learn to live

together as brothers, or perish together as fools."

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BECREATIVE

Supporting Stars

We recently had a visit from singer songwriter Sarah McQuaid who gave a workshop on songwriting and her experiences in the music industry. We are delighted to announce that she will be coming back to Penzance for Golowan as part of her forthcoming UK and Ireland tour. The amazing news is that she has invited 3 Academy students to support her on June 28th at the Acorn.

Congratulations to Theo Black, Shania Curnow and Nat Dwelly who will be performing on the evening. Tickets are only £10 in advance from the Acorn box office. To find out more about Sarah McQuaid see her website: www.sarahmcquaid.com.

Early Morning Art

One student said, 'We are being taught by an exceptional artist who is extremely patient and in the short time that I have been coming my artwork has improved tremendously'.

Mrs Forster said, 'It is a lovely class to be part of and I am very impressed with the level of work that students are producing.'

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to have a go. Don't worry if you haven't done much drawing before. Fancy having a go? Come along on a Tuesday, Thursday or Friday or better still, come to all three.

On Tuesday, Thursday and Friday there is a wonderful, inspiring group of students being taught drawing to a very high standard by Rustam Abdullayev. The club runs from 8.00 to 8.40 in the morning in the DLZ.

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BECREATIVE

Artist of the Week

Lauren May in Year 9 is this week’s ‘Artist of the Week’. Lauren has worked consistently hard throughout the year, she listens carefully at all times and has developed her drawing and painting skills to an excellent standard.

Well Done Lauren for all your hard work and effort!

BEADVENTUROUS

Geocaching

Do you like fresh air, exploring new places and working out clues? If so, Geocaching is for you. Geocaching is a worldwide global treasure hunt using handheld GPS devices. We will be exploring West Penwith on Wednesday afternoons looking for secret caches hidden along the coast paths, in woods and moors.

Have a look at all the caches in our area on www.geocaching.com

Please see Mrs Marsden for more details or just ask Mrs Davies in reception for a letter. Complete the return slip to reception as soon as possible. Places are limited so will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

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BEA WINNER

International HockeyOver the Easter holidays Kieran Bowden travelled to Gibraltar to represent the UK Lions hockey team at their U14 hockey festival. Kieran who also plays for Penzance Hockey Club was part of a squad of 22. The UK Lions were able to field two teams in each of the 7 a side and 11 a side competitions. The event was rounded off with an exhibition match for the Lions against the Gibraltar U15 team who were boosted by four U18 players.

The 7 a side competition was played against three local sides (Grammarians, Eagles Tangerines & Eagles Colts). Having beaten Grammarians 10 – 0 (Kieran scoring 2), Eagles Colts 3 - 0 (scoring 2) and Eagles Tangerines 17 – 0 (4 goals) the competition was decided by the match against Lions A, which the Lions B lost 3 – 1, meaning that Kieran’s team finished runners up.

In the 11 a side competition the Lions A & B sides faced Grammarians & Eagles Colts. Lions B opened up with a 12 – 0 win against Grammarians with Kieran scoring 6 goals. Losing 4 – 2 to a strengthened Eagles Colts side again the winner was going to be as a result of the Lions A versus B match. In an entertaining game the Lions B beat Lions A 5 – 3 with Kieran scoring 1 goal, to win the competition.

The Gibraltar U15’s were strengthened with four U18 players for the exhibition game and produced some excellent hockey to beat the UK Lions 6 – 5. Kieran contributed 2 goals and an assist in this entertaining game. All in all Kieran scored 19 goals in the competitions and was the top scorer.

Kieran in action in Gibraltar

Elite Sports Performers

While most of us have been relaxing at home over the Easter holidays ‘enjoying’ the weather, many of the Academy’s top sports performers have been in action around the county, country and even abroad. There have been some fantastic results and performances. Well done to all concerned.

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BEA WINNERCounty Badminton

Over five days during the Easter break William Bick represented Cornwall U17s in the prestigious County Challenge Team event at Nottingham. 37 County Teams from England and Ireland played 11 matches each to achieve their goal at becoming champions.This national event is the pinnacle moment that most junior County players aim for. Cornwall held their heads high in their first match versus the No 1 seeds Yorkshire losing 10 nil. Subsequent wins, however, over the next few days over Avon,

Gloucester and Northamptonshire resulted in Cornwall’s highest ever placing of 26th, two places higher than last year. The other matches were against Staffordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Shropshire, Devon, Berkshire and Bedfordshire in which every team member gave 100% effort in play to achieve their goals against higher ranked players. William played mens doubles only in the first two matches, winning 8 from 11 overall with his new County partner Vinodh Arumugam(Truro). He won 3 out of 8 mixed matches with partner Georgia Higgs (Helston). His aim is to make the team again in 2014.

County Football

Congratulations to the following students from Years 7, 8 and 9 who represented the Academy and played for their West Cornwall U13s and 14s at the Isle of Wight Football Festival over Easter.

Year 7Theo Simpson

Year 8 Piran Tanner

Max ArmstrongJacob Trudgeon

Louis MainSam Lewis

Daniel Rhys EvansYear 9

Tyler Tonkin

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BEA WINNER

Athletics Club

This week saw the return of Athletics Club. There was a great turnout to the first session. However, the PE Department would like to see even more students attend next week as there are many County, Regional and Penwith events coming up over the Summer Term.

The sessions are for students of all abilities and there will be lots of opportunities for students to work on their sprinting, distance running, throwing and jumping. So why not come along and work on your favourite event, or maybe even have go at a new one. Athletics Club is on Thursday 3:30-4:30pm

Girls Football

Mounts Bay Academy hosted a Girls Secondary School 'All Years Football Festival’ on Wednesday 17th April 2013. It was well attended and the girls really enjoyed the experience. The festival allowed the girls a taster/intro to Football and there were no winners or losers as it was a festival all about participation.

Schools that attended were Mounts Bay Academy, Hayle, Redruth and Camborne, many of which entered three teams across the age groups. The age groups were Team 12 (U12s), Team 14 (U14s) Team 16 (U16s)

The event was organised by our Football Development Officer (Mr. Kevin Lawrence) who has been working hard to re-launch girls Football within the local area and the after school club on Thursdays at Mounts Bay Academy is consistently growing.

Every player who attended the festival has been given a free voucher to attend the launch of the girls/ladies only 'Just Play Centre' on Saturday 20th April 2013. This will be delivered by our very own Football Development Centre Team on Saturday mornings coinciding with our Mini Soccer Centre.

The vision is to offer females opportunities outside of school hours to further increase engagement within the sport by offering a social turn up and play environment. If it really takes off then further opportunities will be made available.

A special thanks to Jason Simmonds, Fynn Scott and Tristan Badcock who are apart of our Football Futures programme. These pupils further increased their voluntary hours statistics by officiating the girls festival and all did a professional job.

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BEA WINNER

Rugby Champions

Report by Joel Bick

The U14 Penzance/Newlyn Pirates recently took part in the South West Championships in Torquay, at the Torbay Leisure Centre rugby fields. The Pirates were incredibly successful ending up winning the whole tournament undefeated. The team consisted of many Mounts Bay Academy students: Joel Bick, Eddy Hall, Mitchell Prowse, Will Harbot, Henry Nowell, Drew Mitchell, Harry Greenwood, Luke Brown and Tyler Tresidder.

The Pirates won their four pool matches without conceding any points. The semi final was a slight challenge against Wells RFC, however, the Pirates came out on top eventually winning the match 20-5 with those five points being the first scored against the Pirates.

The final was a lot more challenging against Sidcup RFC. The match was neck and neck right to the end with the Pirates scraping a close 15-10 victory. The team thoroughly deserved it, playing some great rugby and putting so much effort in.

Show Jumping

Report by Shea Cornish

I qualified for the Bluechip Championship Winter League Final on Giddy up Ginge. The final was held at Hartpury College. Before I did my own class I watched Tim Stockdale do a talk on how to train your horse and the Leaping Leprechauns who jumped 1.60 over show jumps on foot, it was really good.

The first day I did three classes, the first one I came 11th out of over 100 riders but in the 2nd and 3rd class I had poles down.

The second day I had one class and came 4th out of 48 riders. It was a great experience to compete away against some great riders.

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Translate the word of the week from either French, German, Spanish or Italian and send your answer to lshine@mountsbay.org to be entered into the weekly competition.

Use the word of the week in your Language lesson and get a credit from your teacher!

Maths Quiz

This Week’s Puzzle:

What is the probability of throwing a head and a tail on two coins? Extension for Bonus Points:

Which is most likely, two coins both landing heads up or a picture card being chosen from a full deck of cards (not including jokers)?

Closing date for Entries: 12.00 Thursday 25th April

Last week’s solution:

823

Extension:

6

Could you write next week’s puzzle?If you would like to set the numeracy puzzle for a future week click here. You will win house points.

Win an iTunes voucher

For each correct answer throughout this semester we will put your name in the hat for a chance to win an iTunes voucher – the more correct answers, the more chance of winning.

House Competition

Purple: 52 PointsYellow: 36 Points

Blue: 34 PointOrange: 29 PointsGreen: 16 PointRed: 12 Point

Click here to submit your answer

Last week's answer was Easter

The winner was Jessica Farrell. Well done!

BECURIOUS

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Where else does the Word of the Week appear in this newsletter, apart from on this page?

The winner will be chosen at random from the winning entries each week.

To win, simply read the newsletter and e-mail the sentence that the word Penultimate appears in by using the link below.

Competition

Congratulations to Chloe McHale who wins a WH Smith Voucher.

Click Here to enter the competition

Chloe McHale receives her prize from Mr Payne

This week’s word is: Penultimate

Definition: Penultimate – adjective Used to describe the next to last in a sequence of events. This might be used for the semi-final match of a championship or any “second to last” event. The penultimate activity in completing a homework might be checking its accuracy before handing it in and the penultimate event before putting on a show or play might be the dress rehearsal as the last or “ultimate” event would be the first night itself.

Etymology: Penultimate from Latin paenultimus, from paene (“almost”) + ultimus (“last”). Just as a peninsula like Penwith is “almost an island - paene (“almost”) +insula (“island”) as it is surrounded by water on three rather than four sides.

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BECHARITABLEStudents support African Pre-school

In the penultimate week of last term Media Club students were busy putting the finishing touches to their TV packages for the BBC News School Report broadcast. Perhaps the package with the most air miles was a heart warming story that linked three Mounts Bay students with a Pre-school in Gambia.

Penwith resident Ali Calvert set up the Mariama Mae Pre-school in Gambia in 2008. The Pre-school is funded solely by charitable donations most of which are raised by Ali herself here in Cornwall. Ali had a bric-a-brac stall at last year’s Northern Lights Christmas Fair at the Academy raising around £60, enough to cover a teacher’s salary for one month in Gambia.

Three Year 8 students, Matilda Black, Harriet Radford and Olivia Hewett, were so inspired by Ali’s work that they decided to set up a fundraising group at Mounts Bay Academy to fund a Porridge Plan for the Mariama Mae Pre-school. The Porridge Plan will pay for breakfast ingredients to allow every pupil to start the day with a nutritious meal inside them.

Ali visited the Mariama Mae in February and March this year and Matilda, Harriet and Olivia sent out a poster introducing themselves and their intentions to support the Porridge Plan, a book of The Mousehole Cat and an old Laptop from the Academy - a first computer for the pre-school in Gunjur village. Ali also took with her one of the Media Department’s cameras, and filmed her visit, including the fantastic reaction of the Head teacher as she received the laptop. The film was then edited into a news package put out on MBTV. Click here to see the film.

Matilda, Harriet and Olivia will be fundraising regularly at the Academy, holding break time cake sales, and selling refreshments at parents’ evenings. Any calories consumed will definitely be guilt free! The first £60 raised on Red Nose Day has already been sent off. If you would be able to help by contributing cakes, or helping on the stall let them know.

The laptop is an unexpected gift