Helsby High School Spring Newsletter 2014 Helsby High School Welcomes Comenius Visitors We were delighted to welcome visitors from our two Comenius partner schools (Collège Noël Berrier, Corbigny, France and IGS Wallstraße Wolfenbüttel, Germany). Some of our Year 8 students hosted visitors, and worked together during the week on activities linked to the ‘Healthy Europe -Happy Europe’ project. The Comenius project is a British Council funded initiative, named after Jan Amos Comenius who was a 16th Century educator and is generally considered to be the father of the modern education system. Comenius aims to develop knowledge and understanding among young people about the diversity of European cultures and the value of this diversity. The two year Comenius project will extend into next year, when our students will make return visits to France and Germany. This logo was designed by Zoe S, to represent our Comenius partnership project. Talks were given by women currently INTERNATIONAL working in a variety of careers at Daresbury Laboratories and Stanlow WOMEN’S DAY Refinery. The pupils particularly enjoyed On Friday 7 the talk given by the keynote speaker, Dr M a r c h , Lucy Rogers, who gave a very inspiring f o u r t e e n presentation outlining her exciting work Year Ten with NASA, Rolls Royce, and the Hong girls visited Kong shipping industry amongst others. C h e s t e r University It certainly raised the profile of careers in as part of the engineering profession and also International highlighted the exciting opportunities Women’s Day. They attended a conference available to STEM subject graduates. organised by the Faculty of Science and Overall the students found the experience Engineering, promoting opportunities for very positive and it gave them lots to women in STEM subject careers. (Science, think about in terms of future careers. Technology, Engineering and Maths). Over the coming months our Key Stage The day included a mixture of talks and Four pupils will have a range of hands on sessions including a opportunities which will help them to demonstration of a 3D printer and a food make their important Post-16 choices. Spring 2014 tasting activity. Mrs M Marvin 1 Helsby High School Spring Newsletter 2014 Year 7 students visit Mosque in Liverpool During March, Year 7 pupils visited the Al-Rahma Mosque in Liverpool as part of their study of the religion of Islam. The visits included a tour of the Mosque, an exhibition of artefacts and an informative 'hands on' talk and question session. We were made to feel very welcome by everyone at the Mosque and the pupils were both enthusiastic and well behaved. A credit to Helsby High School. Pupils have sent a variety of cards to the Mosque as a way of saying thank you or 'Shakran'! Mrs J Penney 2 Helsby High School Spring Newsletter 2014 YOUTH PARLIAMENT ELECTIONS On 23 and 24 January, Year 10 and Year 11 took part in the youth parliament elections. The Youth Parliament is an organisation that is run by young people providing opportunities for 11-18 year-olds to use their voice in creative ways to bring about social change. The election Helsby students were involved with was to select a new youth parliament member for the Cheshire area who will hold this position for a year. The experience was their first taste of democracy with all individuals casting a vote for one of five candidates. The process involved watching the candidates pledge their principles and promises to the audience, similar to what we see in parliament! The outcome of the votes and thereby the winner will be announced on the 9 March, and the votes of the Helsby students will have contributed to the result. The general aim of the event was to introduce and encourage young people to engage in politics. Y8 Spy Stories Last term Year 8 took part in a National pilot for a new style of English Teaching. The English department were extremely privileged to be selected to trial these exciting new lessons from Pearson Education. These lessons focus on teaching Grammar skills in context and allow pupils to develop higher level reading and writing skills in a completely new and engaging way. Over the lessons pupils learned about a wide range of Grammar skills from sentence construction to pronoun use with a focus on the genre of Spy Fiction. At the end of the unit pupils were given the opportunity to try out all their new skills by writing their own Spy Fiction stories, and what fantastic results they achieved! Over 90% of pupils achieved better than their target level and many pupils produced stories that GCSE pupils would be proud to say they had written. Mrs Booth said, “It’s quite amazing how far the pupils have come in such a short space of time, teaching Grammar in context is empowering for pupils and has a direct and significant impact on their progress.” Mrs Booth’s 8y1 class decided to introduce a competitive element to their Spy story writing with the top 3 stories awarded a prize. At the pupils’ request, the prize was to have their stories published on the school website so the top 3 stories can be read via www.helsbyhigh.org.uk. The winning stories were by: Zoe M, 8AME, Emily R, 8DME and Sam M, 8DME. Mrs E Booth, English Department 3 Helsby High School Spring Newsletter 2014 SCHOOL PRODUCTION “The best one yet” a long-standing member of the PE department exclaimed to one of my friends. She was, of course, referring to the mouthful-and-half that was this year’s home-made bona-fide original School Production, ‘John Scott Stevens Wants to Know Someone Who Will Change the World’. I had the pleasure of going on the last night (Best performance, and everyone cries at the end. Every. Single. Time). The play tackled a difficult issue, namely: domestic abuse. It was split into four different acts, with music by The Beautiful South or The Housemartins weaved throughout. At the end of each act the audience was ushered out and then ushered in again to find the chairs having mysterious rearranged themselves. As each act told a different part in the lives of John – a dreamer who wants to know someone who will change the world – and Susan – the girl he falls in love with – this gave the audience a different perspective; a different way for the story to be told. We were led, by the effervescent bundle of joy that was the Narrator, through a story which told of childhood and hippies and love and loss and grief; a story which could flip from the hilarious absurdity of someone spitting cake across the stage to the soberness of watching John break down as Susan leaves him. It was only in the fourth act, with an audience already feeling overwhelmed, that we saw a broken Susan trapped in a bruising marriage and the poignant alter-ego of John, Pockets, trapped in the shadow of losing Susan to someone else. Even after Pockets shudders and weeps when he hears Susan is dead, the audience was not ready for Susan’s final, bittersweet legacy – the Susan Darling Foundation, a society that helps people escape abusive relationships – and that for one woman, through this Foundation, “Susan Darling literally changed my world.” Once again, we have a testament to the tenacity and talent of Helsby High School’s inexhaustible Drama Department; not only to the effort and energy of both the teachers and the taught, but of their remarkable sensitivity and imagination in creating such a beautiful work of theatre. Conor Ross J Lower 6 A portion of the money raised by the ticket sales went towards the Sara Charlton Foundation, which helps women suffering from domestic violence in the UK. 4 Helsby High School Spring Newsletter 2014 Year 11 Revision Event Tuesday 11th March Helsby High School invited all students, parents & carers to a Revision Event for Year 11 which was held on Tuesday 11th March. An Expert Speaker worked with students to ensure they revise more effectively and helped parents and carers to manage their stress… both sons, daughters and their own! Thank you to all the parents and students that attended the event; the feedback was excellent and we are hope students utilise their new techniques when preparing for their forthcoming exams. 5 Helsby High School Spring Newsletter 2014 The Cheshire West and Chester Youth Senate In the past few months, our local council has set up a ‘Youth Senate’. The group is made up of 18 young people from across the local authority. Three of the members are from Helsby High School, these are myself, Beth Poole and Liam Jones. Other members are UK Youth Parliament candidates and a former UKYP member. The purpose of this group is to provide a young people’s voice in the council’s decision making. We hold conferences at the council headquarters in Chester and talk with people who run the local government and manage policy. In our December conference, we scrutinised and put forward our views on proposed changes to school transport provision to a senior planner in this area. We are involved in a wide range of issues in the Cheshire West and Chester area, such as education, health and sports. Should you wish to raise any issues, whether you feel that they are important to you, the wider community or both, then feel free to talk to any of the three ‘senators’ at school. Our job is to represent you, the young people in this area, and we will be sure to raise your concerns with the Youth Senate and the county council.