With Best Wishes from All the Staff, Governors and Pupils of Test Valley School
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www.testvalley.hants.sch.uk Autumn Term 2017 With best wishes from all the staff, governors and pupils of Test Valley School Follow us on Facebook and Twitter Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/testvalleysch Twitter: @testvalleysch 1 Headteacher’s Message Dear Parent I do hope you enjoy this edition of our termly newsletter. As always it celebrates the many events, activities and opportunities our pupils and staff have taken part in since September. It provides a summary of the Autumn Term and complements our weekly blog on the school website. Please do have a look at our school blog if you have not yet discovered it. This provides more details on the activities happening in and out of the classroom every week. This term has been another busy one, long in the number of weeks since September but with the days seeming to fly by very quickly. We have enjoyed welcoming our new Year 7 pupils to the school from September and welcoming back last year’s Year 11 pupils for our Annual Presentation Evening in November. As I write, the building works on our ROSLA Block are fully underway and, whilst these will continue for much of this school year, we look forward to the finished results by next summer. I am grateful as always to the staff for all their hard work and commitment this term. Finally, I take this opportunity to send my best wishes and thank you for your ongoing support. I look forward to next term. Miss L Hiscock Headteacher Old £1.00 coins Unfortunately, we can no longer accept the old £1.00 coins and will have to return any that are used for any payments. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. Christmas Gig 2017 This week saw the return of our annual Christmas Gig, and as always, it was a big success. Many staff and pupils got involved to help raise money for charity and bring the Christmas spirit to Test Valley. There were eight acts in total, including songs sung by Peter Arthur and Sophie Yates. There was also a cake and sweets stall to further raise money towards the chosen charity of Diabetes UK. Mr Willcox, who organised the gig, commented “It was a great event, all pupils enjoyed themselves and we saw some fantastic performances from all our pupils. Thank you to all that came to support this great event”. 2 Test Valley School Library is excited to announce that eBooks are now available to all pupils and staff. Just download the app or log on using the web address https://testvalley-hantssls.wheelers.co/. Pupils can log on using their current school email address and password – it’s as easy as that! Tips Use the search field on the top right of the screen to search by title or author. Once you have found a book that you would like to read you can see how many copies are available and how many are on loan. The interest age and book information is also displayed. Click on Borrow (the book will be on loan to you for 4 weeks and then automatically return). You can now start reading by clicking on the left hand side of your screen to turn the pages of your book. If you have any other questions then please ask Miss Needs in the Library — or one of the pupil librarians. 1 2 3 Search for and download the Find our library and log in using Browse and borrow an eBook to ePlatform app from your app your library ID read on your device store European Day of Languages On Tuesday 26th September we celebrated European Day of Languages at Test Valley School. The pupils enjoyed greeting each other and their teachers in a different language whilst staff across the school were also very good at their greetings in a wide variety of different languages. Some even put their dates in a different language on the board! At lunchtime the pupils had the opportunity to create the tallest leaning tower of Jenga, as well as watch 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' in French. There was also an Italian lesson for pupils and they enjoyed learning a new language. We would like to thank all the staff and pupils for making the day such a success! 3 Hampshire Book Award Pupils from Test Valley School were invited to meet the author Helen Dennis at an exciting event held at Winchester Guildhall on Thursday 2nd November. The event organised by the Schools Library Service was the climax of a busy few months of reading. The current Year 9 pupils, chosen by Librarian Miss Needs, came Pupils featured above include Grace Devey 9D, James Ashley 9N, Joseph Lovell 9N, Elizabeth together when they were still Amos 9A, Eleanor Weatherburn 9D, Cerys Hotchkiss 9S, Ruby Snook 9S, Eve Wansboro 9A, in Year 8 to take part in this Caspar Hawkes 9S and Alexander Davis 9D year’s Hampshire Book Award. As a team the group read, digested and reviewed the six shortlisted books, meeting fortnightly to discuss their views. Each book had something different to offer and some were enjoyed more than others. In July schools from all over Hampshire met at Applemore College to discuss and vote on their favourite book. After a tense wait ‘Genesis, River of Ink’ written by Helen Dennis was declared the winner. At the final award ceremony at Winchester Guildhall the author took to the stage to talk about her book in amazing, informative detail. She gripped the audience when talking about her writing technique, process and characterisation. She then then took questions from the pupils followed by a book-signing session. First Class Honours at Oxford University for former Test Valley pupil We are delighted to hear Eleanor Gravenor was awarded a First Class Honours degree in Music from Oxford University this year. Eleanor attended our school and was Head Girl in her Year 11. She describes her time here as being ‘just lovely’, speaking very highly of the friendly and caring atmosphere with pupils known by all teachers and given the support and help they needed. She also felt that it provided an excellent bridge when moving from primary school. As part of her course at Oxford she was involved in a ‘Music in the Community’ project which involved working with dementia sufferers and their carers. She is now studying at York University for a MA in Music in the Community and we wish her every success. Well done Eleanor! 4 Annual Presentation Evening November 30th saw the return of last year’s Year 11 pupils with their families to collect their GCSE certificates and celebrate their achievements. It was an exciting evening as there were 25 awards to be won, all kindly sponsored by a wide range of local individuals, parish councils and organisations. We were delighted to have Keith Abel, founder of Abel & Cole Ltd, as our Guest of Honour to present our certificates. He also delivered an inspirational speech about the importance of hard work and persistence. It was lovely to see our past pupils to hear about what they are doing now and their plans for the future. Test Valley wishes them all every success in the future. Train to Teach Opportunities at Test Valley Are you interested in training to become a secondary school teacher? Or do you know someone who is? Test Valley School is working in partnership with two The second alliance is with the University of teaching training alliances. The first is with the Winchester and involves Applemore College, The University of Southampton and this involves a Cowplain School, Swanmore College and consortium of several other local schools, including Testbourne Community School. This partnership South Wilts Grammar School, St Edmund’s Girls covers many rural communities across the county School and Bishop Wordsworth School to provide of Hampshire, whilst remaining accessible to the school-led teacher training via a School Direct key urban areas of Andover, Fareham, route. This consortium is called SUPA (Southampton Waterlooville, Winchester, Southampton and University Partnership Alliance) Salisbury. Portsmouth. Both Alliances provide a training route that retains the academic rigour of university-led training. Successful completion will result in a PCGE with QTS. We’re looking for people who have (or will have) a degree, have a passion for teaching and want to inspire young people to fulfil their potential. More information about both Alliances can be found on our school website. General details about teacher training routes can be found at www.education.gov.uk/get-into-teaching. Alternatively you can email [email protected] or [email protected] for more details or contact us at school to discuss informally. 5 PSHE Day 1 Year 7 pupils had a day of team challenges and understanding how they learn. This included an activity making animals out of plasticine to represent how they think they learn. Declan from 7N thought he was a bit like ‘a bull in a china shop’ - charging into tasks without really thinking them through first. Pupils in Year 7 also had a range of team challenges, including who could build the tallest scarecrow out of newspaper and an obstacle course activity in the gym. Year 8 pupils’ activities were focused on how to keep safe. They carried out a range of workshops on anti-bullying, road safety, internet safety and we were fortunate to have PCSO Donna Whelan and Dave Kane visit us to deliver workshops on anti-social behaviour. Pupils also spent an hour learning first aid and how to do CPR on one of our 'Little Annie' dummies.