ACADEMY NEWS 13th JUNE 2014
E X P L O R E
1st in County - 2nd in Country! Well done Harry Hocking! BE YOUR BEST
Principal’s Report
Today we said goodbye to our Year 11 students in a special celebratory Leavers’ Assembly. The class of 2014 have been a fantastic year and it has been a real pleasure to see the students grow and mature over the 5 years they have spent with us. There has never been a year group who have put in so much hard work and dedication into achieving the best exam results they can, and I’d like to thank them for their dedication, which I’m sure will be rewarded with a fantastic set of results in August.
The students have also thrown themselves into all kinds of extra curricular activities from the Duke of Edinburgh Award to The Little Shop of Horrors and from Football matches to Surfing. Being open to new opportunities and experiences not only enriches MBA but also the students’ lives and can lead to interests and skills being developed that will carry on to College and beyond.
Just look at Year 7 Harry Hocking, featured on the front cover, who took the opportunity to throw the discus at the County Athletics Championship despite only picking one up for the first time a week ago. Harry is now number two in the UK!
With so many opportunities and so much talent Mounts Bay students continue to prove themselves as the stars of the future. The annual Acorn Theatre Gig on Tuesday was proof of this once again with music and organisation of an extremely high quality.
We can look forward to a number of sporting and arts events coming up over the next few weeks including Golowan where we will be in both the 11 o’clock and 3 o'clock Parades once again. The Cornwall School Games will also be taking place soon with huge numbers of students competing in events from athletics to beach volleyball.
Best wishes
Sara Davey Academy Principal BE INSPIRED
Private Peaceful
Picture by Emily Bradley-Leah Students meet actor Paul Chequer
On Thursday 12th June 35 Mounts Bay Academy students made a trip to the Hall for Cornwall to watch a stage adaptation of the book Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo. All the students had read the novel in Year 7 and were looking forward to seeing a stage version. The story is about a boy called Tommo who, at the age of 15, goes to fight in World War One alongside his 19 year old brother Charlie.
The show opens with Tommo alone and counting down the hours until the morning. We are not sure why until the shocking end. During these lonely hours he recollects his childhood and his relationship with his brothers Charlie and Big Joe and his friend Molly. We see him struggle with his feelings of shame when he is called a coward by an old woman for not 'taking the King's shilling' during a recruitment drive in the village square. However, he will not be separated from his brother Charlie and joins alongside him as his twin, despite being only 15 years old. Together they train under Sergeant 'Horrible Hanley' and are reunited with him during the trenches scene with inevitable tragic consequences.
We were also invited to a Q and A session with actor Paul Chequer; most of the questions focused on how he managed to learn all his lines. He doesn't improvise at all, and says that now he knows the story so well it only takes up a small amount of space in his head. He has played the role of Tommo, on and off for the last ten years. We also wondered why the stage production ends differently to the novel and Paul explained he thought it had to end the way it does to show Tommo's journey into manhood. Some of us thought the new ending lacked the power and poignancy of the original novel- but to say any more would give too much away to those of you who are still to read it.
Report by Emily Bradley-Leah and Jessica Davy BE INSPIRED
Geography Field Trip
Students point out the storm damage at Lamorna
On Thursday 12th June the Year 9 Geographers embarked on the first of three field trips to local points of interest along the coast.
We went to Long Rock, Marazion and Lamorna where we identified and evaluated the effectiveness of coastal defences. We spoke to several locals and visitors enjoying the scenery and recorded their opinions on the location. As well as this, we took note of all recreational, economical and environmental activity in the surrounding area.
All this was in preparation for our GCSE coursework next year. It was a lovely, sunny day and we all thoroughly enjoyed the trip. It was a great opportunity to experience all we have been learning about first hand and was a really nice way to finish the ‘coasts’ topic.
Mr Smith said, "Coastal Change and Conflict is a significant part of the GCSE Geography course. What an advantage we have over the majority of the country when the issues we are studying occur right on our doorstep. Adventure learning is not a separate entity but can occur right throughout the curriculum.
The weather was delightful, the day was a great success and how nice it is for a teacher when members of the public take the time to compliment the school on the conduct of it's students. Well done year 9!" Report by Tean Manser BE CREATIVE
Molly Makes Teenstar Grand Final
Molly Hocking from St Ives has made it through to the Grand Final of national singing competition TeenStar! After taking part in auditions alongside thousands of other unsigned singers across the UK and impressing the TeenStar judging panel, Molly went on to perform in the TeenStar live showcases, battling through both the regional and area final heats. She is now set to perform at the TeenStar 2014 Grand Final at The NEC in Birmingham on 19th July 2015 where she will be fighting to win a £5000 cash prize to spend on the development of her act. Molly’s judges’ feedback from each of the three rounds she has gone through has been consistently positive – ‘amazing vibrato’, ‘totally nailed that song’, ‘such silky and well- controlled vocals – you have a beautiful voice’, ‘you made a popular song come to life – definitely one of the best of the day’…….
TeenStar is a national talent competition for teens and pre-teens which travels the UK in search for the UK’s best singers, singer-songwriters, rappers and vocalists of all genres. TeenStar is organised by Future Music, the company behind the discovery of artists such as Luke Friend, Jacob Banks, Warner Music’s Birdy, and Lucy Spraggan, Union J’s Jaymi Hensley and Jahmene Douglas, all of which are now signed to Sony Music.
Molly said, “I will use this to build up my profile in the music industry, learn as much as I can from it and continue to work hard with my vocals and songwriting, as this is ultimately what I would love to do. But I realise what a tough industry it is and have my feet firmly on the ground still!..The support from friends, family and Facebook/Twitter followers has been incredible and I thank you all so much – it means such a lot to have that genuine appreciation from people of something I love doing.”
Molly will be travelling up to Birmingham on Saturday 19th July with a coachload of supporters and anyone wanting to go along is very welcome. Please contact Sarah on 07734591718 to book a ticket. You can read about Molly’s progress and see her music videos on her website – www.mollyhocking.co.uk- or follow her on Facebook and Twitter. BE CREATIVE
Artist of the Week
Ellie Wallis in Year 10 is this week's Artist of the Week. Ellie has focused her drawings and paintings on the the theme of portraiture and how composition can change the overall effect of a painting.
Ellie has exceptional pencil drawing skills and she is able to capture the characteristics of a figure through the careful rendering of eyes in particular. Careful positioning of colour has emphasised the mood seen here in Ellie's paintings. Well done Ellie, great work!
More fabulous work can be seen in the Art Department with a selection of GCSE work on show in classrooms and the Art Department foyer. BE CREATIVE
MixX Jam 3
On Tuesday 10th of June Mounts Bay Academy hosted their third MixX Jam at the Acorn Theatre in Penzance. The event gave students an opportunity to showcase their musical skills in a professional environment. The evening consisted of many acoustic performances, groups and musical theatre acts.
To begin the night the fabulous Maddie Thomas performed a remix of Summertime Sadness and Another Love. Next there was an amazing selection of acoustic performances for the first half of the evening. After a short break there was a selection of bands performing, from a rock band to Mounts Bay's very own Jazz Band. The evening was very successful with a lot of very talented performances. Audience member Naomi Thompson said, “I thought the gig was brilliant- such a high standard across the board. I loved the diversity of music and also the fact that everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. It’s a great idea to get out to a different venue.”
Thank you to Will Rundell, Sabie Friggens and Jess Thompson for organising such a fantastic evening!
Report by Callum Williams BE INSPIRED
Sammy Dunn of 9 Yellow is this week's Accelerated Raffle winner. Sammy has taken 12 Accelerated Reader quizzes and passed all of them at 85% and above. She has really enjoyed reading John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, which has just been released at the cinema. We have 10 copies of The Fault in Our Stars, along with many other novels by John Green such as Paper Towns, an Abundance of Katherine's and Looking for Alaska.
Sammy is currently reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird which is a must read for more confident readers. It is set in 1930s America and deals with the themes of prejudice in small town America. Atticus Finch defends Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman in a town segregated by racial discrimination. The story is told from the perspective of his daughter Scout looking back on her childhood. She comes to understand her father's advice of, "You can never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view" and along the way we learn why it is "a sin to kill a mockingbird".
We have 6 copies of To Kill a Mockingbird in the library.
BE COMPETITIVE
Congratulations to the Year 11 boys’ Football team who beat the Staff team on penalties following a 3-3 draw. We hope that if England face a penalty shoot out in the World Cup their penalty taking abilities are more akin to the Year 11s’ than the Staffs’, who kicked a couple of misses reminiscent of previous England World Cup penalty disasters! BE COMPETITIVE
Beach Cricket Festival
On Monday 10th June MBA’s U13 girls’ Cricket squad attended a Beach Cricket festival run by Cornwall Cricket. We created two teams from our squad:
Mounts Bay A: Eva Hawken, Kerry Semmens, Millie Olds, Sienna Hoadley and Immy Lee.
Mounts Bay B: Steph Sampson, Sofia Thomas, Ellie Gosney, Megan Pengelly, Olivia Jenkin and Skylar Finch.
Both teams played really well. Mounts Bay A won 4 out of 5 games convincingly and missed out on a place in the finals by only 1 wicket. Mounts Bay B won 2 out of 5 games with some close results.
A huge thank you to our Year 10 Cricket leaders Hollie and Kiera who did a fantastic job with scoring and officiating the games.
It was a really great day with some excellent competition that raised the profile of girls cricket.
Thanks for being a wonderful group of young people and for training so hard in cricket.
Report by Mrs Crowle BE COMPETITIVE
Stunning Athletics Results
There were lots of great results at the Year 7 and 8 County Athletics competition on 10th June.
Congratulations to Harry Hocking from Year 7 who achieved a new county record at Discus at the County Athletics Championship. Harry recorded a throw of 28.86 metres, and smashed the county record which had stood for the last 28 years. It was a remarkable achievement for Harry who had only picked up a Discus for the first time a week before the event. Harry’s throw is not only remarkable in Cornwall but puts him at number two in the country in his age group. Mr Strong said, “It was great to see Harry perform so well at the county event. He has a lot of raw talent and enthusiasm. He can use this as a stepping stone to push himself further.”
Harry said, “On the day I did two standing throws resulting in 19m then 20m. On my final throw I decided to spin and that was when I broke the record for the Cornwall U13 boys’ discus. Later I found out that I am now ranked number 2 in the United Kingdom! Previously the record was 25.6m and now the record is 28.9m”
Other outsatanding performances include: Archie Vingoe becoming County Champion in the1500m and the Long Jump and the girls relay team winning their heat. Renae, Immy and Grace finished in the top three places in their events and there were many more fantastic results.
To top it off the Year 8 boy’s team were presented with the County Champion trophy, beating both Truro School and Richard Lander into second and third place.
BE A WINNER
Maths Quiz House Competition This Week’s Puzzle: Green: 33 Points If you write down the numbers from 1 to 100 how many Purple: 32 Points times will you write the digit 1? Blue: 25 Points Yellow: 15 Points Extension for Bonus Points: Red: 11 Points Orange: 5 Points A triangle has sides of 3cm, 4cm and 5cm – what is its area?
Closing date for entries: Thursday 12.00 Click here to submit your answer
Win an iTunes Last week’s solution: 45 minutes voucher Extension: £8.16 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. 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.
Last week's answer was shoe. MFL Word of the Week!
dentifrice dentifricio
Zahnpasta dentífrico The winner was Jack Blewett. Well done!
Translate the word of the week from either French, German, Spanish or Italian and send your answer to [email protected] to be entered into the weekly competition.
Use the word of the week in your Language lesson and get a credit from your teacher! BE INFORMED
Beach Safety
Assemblies this week have been led by Mr Harvey on the subject of Beach Safety.
The beach was highlighted as a fantastic venue for free leisure activity that is right on our doorstep but it is also as a place where there are many dangers.
Along with a short video from the RNLI Mr Harvey explained the meaning and importance of the different warning flags, the dangers of jellyfish and weaver fish, knowing the tides to avoid getting cut off and why jumping from high cliffs into the water can be dangerous. In addition, the importance of using the appropriate factor of sun cream was also emphasised.
The final message was to enjoy the beach but always respect its dangers.
The Cube - 12.55 - 1.55 Bands Dance Monday - Year 7 Drama Tuesday - Year 8 Wednesday - Year 9 Thursday - Year 10 Biscuit Decorating Singing
This annual festival is a great way to spend your lunchtime. Come along to be entertained by some great performers from your Year. Sit on the grass in the sun (hopefully) and soak up the atmosphere. BE A WINNER
This week’s word is: Prom
Definition: 1 Brit. short for promenade ( sense 1 of the noun): she took a short cut along the prom.
2 Brit. short for promenade concert: the last night of the Proms.
3 Chiefly N. America formal dance or celebration of graduation.
Etymology: Origin: mid 16th century (denoting a leisurely walk in public): from French, from se promener ‘to walk’, reflexive of promener ‘take for a walk’.
Competition
Congratulations to Jessica Davy who wins a WH Smith Voucher.
Jessica receives her prize.
To enter, simply write an original sentence correctly using the word prom. Send in your sentence using the link below.
Click Here to enter the competition