Issue 2 Draft
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ARK Kings Academy: Issue 2, Spring 2014 3.14 is the Magic Number ASPIRE A few weeks ago, we celebrated World Pi day in style at ARK Kings Academy. One of our students, Jodie-Leigh Freeman talks about her experience of the day. Say it with Bunting of Key Stage 3 lined up in forms, like we In Miss Raj’s lesson we made bunting to always do. Teachers then escorted us around to the school yard and helped us line up to display Pi to as many digits as possible. We all form the shape of the Pi symbol. Mr Clarke, had to make number cards, colour them in the school photographer, then went up to the and staple them onto string in the right order. top floor of the school and took a birds-eye Then Miss Raj took a picture of all of us view of the group. next to the Pi bunting. It was really fun! We all enjoyed working together to ! celebrate World Pi Day but I also think that Making Pi out of people Miss Raj, who organised World Pi Day, A couple of days later we worked as a enjoyed the day even more than we did! group to create the photograph of the Pi by Jodie-Leigh Year 9 symbol featured on the front page of the newspaper. At the start of the day !the whole Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference approximately equal to Keep In Touch 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter "π" since the mid-18th century. Because its definition relates to the circle, π is found Web: aspirearkkingsacademy.wordpress.com in many formulae in trigonometry and geometry. Many people have Twitter: @AspireArkKings memorised large numbers of digits of π. The record for memorising digits of π, certified by Guinness World Records, is 67,890 digits, recited in China by Lu Chao in 24 hours and 4 minutes on 20 November 2005. What’s in this issue? A Warm Welcome Page 2 Your Future Page 7 Student Art Page 9 Academy News Page 3 Pupil Voice Page 8 Sports News Page 11 ARK Kings Academy Page 1 Welcome Welcome Welcome to Aspire, the ARK Kings Academy student newspaper. Here, you will find out what’s been happening in our school. This includes art, sports, student opinions, careers and the latest news from the last term. Go on, have a read, you never know if you will be in it, so !go and take a look! by Sherlicia Year 10 Attendance Matters The 100% Club We have a reward system called the 100% club. This goes to everyone who comes into school every day. Each week a name gets picked out for each year group from the Merit Champions 100% club and they win a voucher. A group of key stage 3 students recently went bowling as a reward for their impressive attendance this year. Key Stage Merit totals ! In our last issue, KS4 were trailing behind KS3 in merits, but they are steadily closing in on the younger students of the school. So far, KS3 have an impressive total of 15,010 merits, with KS4 not far behind with 14,417. Merits are awarded for attendance and also contribution, performance, standards and consistency. Will KS4 ever catch up? We challenge !you Year 10 and Year 11! ARK Kings Academy Page 2 Academy News Enrichment Day 4 went off like a Rocket! Enrichment days play a On 26th March, we had our fourth large role in our learning. They can Enrichment day of the year. Year 7 had a vary from building rockets out of whole day dedicated to sport! The year was split into two groups, one who learnt a plastic bottles and launching them to series of kickboxing moves whilst the taking trips to rope climbing courses. other half practiced their team skills. Enrichment days teach students Year 8 were in the science department about a variety of skills that will help all day and had the joys of designing us in every day life and will also give rockets in groups and considering the best us the knowledge that can help us way to make the rockets – using our when we leave school and start to scientific knowledge of course! When the make decisions about what we want rockets were prepared, we took our to do in life. rockets onto the top field for a bit of friendly competition. Emmanuel won , closely followed by Ryan, Hani and Jardell. !Well done boys! Year 9’s day was also split called Dreadlock Alien. in two, where they had the Some of the year 10’s opportunity to compose and performed their fantastic perform a piece of music poetry during the whole and also work with the school showcase at the end Three Faiths Forum to of the day. Well done to discover how to empathise Sufiyan, Layton and Chloe with others. for being brave enough to Year 10 did slam poetry share their rhymes! with a very special visitor by Chloe Year 8 Spotlight on: Spelling Bee We were very lucky to be invited to the annual ARK Spelling Bee in Evelyn Green, London. Six participants competed to the best of their abilities, despite the increasingly hard words developing with the advancing stages of the contest. Although we did not win, we had a great time. The coach journey was also a highlight with Connor Black’s fabulous rendition of a Katy Perry song. by Keeley Year 8 ! ARK Kings Academy Page 3 BBC School News Report: Our Community BBC School Report is an excellent opportunity for young people all over the country to get involved in stories that matter to them both in their community and worldwide. Not only this, but it is a great opportunity to meet people you have never spoke to before and it gives us a chance to be creative with our writing without any restrictions. by Charlotte & Chloe Hello, we are reporting from ARK Kings Academy. We are going to be discussing the regeneration of the Three Estates in our community of Kings Norton which are, Pools Farm, Primrose and Hawkesley. a supermarket so that they can have mean there is more to do in the So, why are we regenerating the a bigger choice of food and more local community. area? opportunities for jobs in the area. We talked to a woman from Birmingham City Council called Bali How are they going to do it? We asked some students what about the project. She explained to us The Council are going to they think about the regeneration why the area is being regenerated, demolish 876 properties and build project. Shannon, Kira and “We want to bring back pride to the over 1,000 houses. The Cameron in year 7 said that it’s a local area. We want people to want to community’s wishes have also been good idea because it’s bringing live here.” Bali told us that after a granted regarding a new positive change to the community. meeting with the local community, supermarket, which will be built on Overall, we think that the future of over 90% of people wanted to see a Redditch Road, bringing a great the Three Estates in Kings Norton big change to the local area. They deal of jobs to the area. A new park looks very bright! wanted to see new houses, better is also going to be built somewhere by Harriet & Lois year 8 & year 7 education and improved health. They in the Three Estates, which will Running for Sport Relief ARK Kings students ran a mile to raise money for Sport Relief ARK Kings Academy Page 4 Band Musicianship At Ark Kings Academy we are doing a project called band musicianship. It lets you develop your musical potential. Nathan Portlock is the specialist teacher appointed to lead on guitar skills. He said: “It’s great to be involved in such a ground-breaking initiative. I’ve worked in music education for over seven years and I’ve never come across a school programme like this. It’s exciting because it will provide every pupil aged 11 to 13 with a place where they can learn to compose, collaborate, play and even record new “This approach is going to Paul Bull, Head of Music at original music. Too often musical create healthy competition across ARK Kings, said: “I’m delighted interventions in learning are short term the entire year group. It is said that that we are introducing the Band affairs that target a small number of talent is universal but opportunity Musicianship programme at ARK pupils.” isn’t – not at ARK Kings!” Kings Academy. This is a unique programme which will give our students a wonderful opportunity to In addition, students at ARK learn several new instruments, Kings will be taking part in the develop their music skills and build annual ARK Schools Music Gala in their confidence. At ARK Kings we the summer which brings together are committed to providing the best students from all ARK schools to possible musical education. Music play at a special concert at the is a life skill that can open new world-renowned Barbican Centre doors and expand the horizons of in London our most talented young people.” by Shannon and Cameron Year 7 Hatching for Schools The 28th February was the day when the chicks arrived at our school. There were 9 chick eggs and only 7 of them eventually hatched. The first chick hatched on the 3rd March and that chick was a girl called Thunder because it is loud and stubborn.