Issue No. 1414————AprilApril 2007 www.theharefieldacademy.org The Academy Newsletter Achievement through Active Learning

From the Principal … Students Swing to Success The very recent visit to The Academy of Lord Adonis (Parliamentary Under- Secretary of State for Schools) came toward the end of a very successful term. Lord Adonis’s visit was to Lord Adonis with Mrs. Gadd allow him to see our progress for himself and to discuss the proposed residential boarding house. As part of the visit all Year 9 students participated in PE activities and groups from Year 7 and Student Managers and House Year 11 also demonstrated representatives are introduced to Six students from The Harefield Academy were hoping to swing to success Lord Adonis their skills in PSHE, ICT, DT when they took part in the first round of the acclaimed British Heart Foundation Junior Golf Championship 2007 at North Middlesex Golf Club on and British Sign Language. Monday 19 March. Frankie Sutherland, Daniel Stonehouse, Jordan Lawrence, Lord Adonis then met two Robert Getty, Aaron Morley and Gavin Widdows competed against local students and the Student schools and junior golf club teams from Middlesex whilst raising vital sponsor Manager from each House. money for the British Heart Foundation’s fight against heart disease.

Lord Adonis was impressed The championship gives young golfers the chance to play at some of the UK’s with everyone he met and he finest golf courses. The competition, which is supported by The R & A and commented that he had professional golfer Colin Montgomerie, is unique in being the only junior golf team event for boys and girls in the UK that is open to all levels of play. The never seen so many students January 2007 six students were split into two teams; Harefield 1 with Frankie, Daniel and involved in physical activity Jordan; and Harefield 2 with Robert, Aaron and Gavin. at one time. The speed of our building progress also Everyone played exceptionally well especially considering the blizzard impressed our visitor as conditions. Team two finished joint second overall and were very unlucky not to go through to the next round missing out by just one point. Team one Taylor Woodrow workers are finished in fourth with a very respectable 64 points. now working at first floor level. Gavin Widdows who played superbly was the 2nd highest scoring individual This term we are also of the day with 37 points. Well done boys! Report by Miss Richards celebrating our very March 2007 successful HMI Report, very encouraging student The Jack Evans Award for Service to the Community numbers for our September Year 11 student Ben Hooson-Jones was awarded the Jack Evans intake and the offers of Award for Service to the Community by the Rotary Club of places at university for our in March. Ben said, “I was nominated by The Academy and received a certificate and a £50 Voucher for WHSmith.

Year 13 students. Following the presentation I was invited to attend the Mayor’s

All in all a very enjoyable and Lunch!” The award is presented every year to students from seven great spring term! We look local senior schools to reward them for the outstanding service they have given in their community. Ben is not only a Peer Mentor forward to an equally who counsels other students at The Academy but is cheerful and successful summer term. I friendly, and makes the younger students feel involved in hope that all of our readers Personalised Learning time which is held every morning in tutor groups. have a very happy spring break.

Reading Connects The Hillingdon InterInter----FaithFaith Event Royal Institution Swakeleys School Mathematics The English Department has Masterclasses 2007 enjoyed some success with reading this year. ‘Reading A privileged group of Academy students took part in an activity to develop a Connects’ is a DfES sponsored Charter of Values for Young People. This series of six classes takes programme which allows us to Students from several schools in the borough had the opportunity to share place on a Saturday morning at gain online access for support in their views on religion and learn from one another. the Civic Centre in Uxbridge. It is a how to implement active reading “We have really enjoyed the day and look forward to the 2 nd May when we will chance for some of our Year 9 programmes, and how to involve be part of the formal process, where the Mayor of Hillingdon will hand over the students to work with students other stakeholders (i.e. all staff, Charter to the Minister of Education.” from other schools and to meet parents and older students) in the Students: Paul Harris, Jide Sogbesan, Zainab Aljawahiri, Kasim Malik and Lucy and learn from mathematicians process. Two action points were Cripps who are willing to investigate completed on line to complement topics which are not studied at our application and now we have school. The final session is held in full access to information and the Council Chamber where the support. Parents and students can Mayor gives out certificates to be also access the website and we participants. Some comments have officially been given from our students: permission to use the government “We completed puzzles and tasks website logo and slogan on our in our teams.” letter-heads. We will also have an “There was a session about Maths official certificate to display in the and Music.” foyer as well as having new “The one I enjoyed the most was contacts with other participating using graphic calculators which Primary and Secondary Schools in were interesting as you can type in Hillingdon. Mrs. Gordon an equation and the calculators would make up a graph.” “The last week was the best, the graphic calculators are wicked!” Aaron Morley, Connor O’Carroll, Kelham Speers, Stanislav Ten, Steven Spicer News from the VPA faculty UK Intermediate Cadet Sergeant Shane During half-term the Year 11 Hawkwood GCSE and Vocational Art Mathematical Challenge 191 SQN ACTF students visited the British 2007 Shane is one of our Year 11 students Museum to carry out research who joined 191 Sqn in 2004. He has and produce observational If the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, made rapid progress through the drawings for their exam 9, 10 are all multiplied together, Proficiency Certificate training how many zeros are at the end of syllabus and is now a Senior Cadet projects. We took photographs the number? Instructor having been given a special and produced annotated Can you answer this without a award whilst on the course for the sketches linked to our theme. calculator? ‘Hardest Endeavour’. He now Natasha Hagan Year 11 The national Mathematical displays excellent instructional Challenge encourages reasoning, ability and is respected for his firm precision of thought and fluency in but fair approach. using mathematical techniques. On the Cadet Advanced Signals The problems are designed to Course he gained the highest score make students think and are only with 99% and is now a qualified aimed at the top third of pupils in signals instructor. He has also gained Years 10 and 11. an adult first-aid certificate, and a bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award. He Our students gained the following completed his silver award expedition as part of a 7-day ‘Outreach’ project in success in the recent challenge: Frimmington where he worked with young people with anti-social behaviour. Best in School:School Kane Harrison He represents the ACT at several public events including a Regimental Best in School ExExEx-Ex ---JPSJPS studentstudent————GraduateGraduate Success Silver Certificate:Certificate Kane Harrison Remembrance Service at St. Paul’s Cathedral on the Lafone Parade. Silver Certificate at Aston University and George Goodchild He has a calm and balanced approach to problems and has developed both We have just been advised that Bronze Certificate:Certificate Stephen self-confidence and management skills. He is a young Cadet NCO with huge Bronze Certificate Frances Guest, a former pupil of Revier, Lauren McCormack and potential and is a worthy recipient of a Deputy Lieutenant’s Certificate for John Penrose School, successfully Shane Coombes 2007. completed an honours degree at Well done to them all! Also, he has just lead his team to victory in the Doris King Cup competition Aston University in Business Mrs. Scott and won the Goodman Shield for Best Team Leader. Administration & Sociology. Congratulations Shane!

Half Term Revision Sessions

During the February half-term we offered revision sessions in English, Maths and Science for students in Years 9 and 11. Year 11 students also had the opportunity to attend sessions for Business Studies, Design & Technology, French, Music, PE and RE. Student feedback showed that the sessions proved to be very popular and many sessions were oversubscribed. Each day the students were given a free lunch and all had the opportunity to take part in a sporting activity on the Dry Training Facility. Sessions will be running again during the Easter break and we hope that these will prove to be equally successful. Mrs. Drummond

LUDUS DANCE COMPANY

Miss Ridgers with the Year 9 Mixed Hockey team Year 9 Borough Hockey

On Monday 19 March the Year 9 Mixed Hockey team went Ludus Dance Company, the UK's leading dance education company, were with out to play in the Borough Hockey Tournament. us for a week long residency at The Academy. Many KS3 students took part in workshops with the company, as did a group of Year 5 pupils from the They looked good in their first game against Harlington, the Harefield Junior School. previous winners, passing the ball round and keeping the The Year 10 and 11 GCSE Dance students had the privilege of working with the company throughout the week and performing alongside the company on 2nd defence tight. The team left it until close to the end for David March. It was a truly spectacular event that challenged the students Collinswood to score his first goal of the afternoon and beat performance ability and increased their confidence and their love of dance! I Harlington 1-0. They continued the same pattern for the next would like to express my sincere gratitude to all students who participated. four games against Vyners, Guru Nanak, Stockley Academy Your level of commitment and impeccable behaviour made this week the success that it was. Also, a huge thank you to Mrs. Gadd and the funding from and Northwood with David scoring all the goals and winning the Specialist Schools & Academies Trust for making this possible! each game 1.0. The students have greatly benefitted from this experience. Miss Farouk The team had a few scary moments when goalkeeper Jon Graham had to defend one to one, he did this in style and DfES Sportsmark 20062006————RewardingRewarding Commitment even managed to save a shot in the air with his chest. The team did not concede one goal all afternoon and were the The Harefield Academy has been awarded the only team to remain unbeaten. Sportsmark 2006, an initiative to increase activity amongst school children. Each year schools are automatically assessed for the mark through the The team included: Jon Graham, George Tomlin (Captain), national school sport survey and every year a panel Jordan Meskill, Dean Gray, Dean Reed, David Collinswood, consisting of representatives from The Youth Sport Amy Sharman, Charlie-May Hallem Flaherty and Holly Lewin Trust, Sport , the and Skills and other key bodies set the standards Report by Miss Ridgers that have to be met. Schools Minister, Jim Knight, said at the School and Sport Partnerships Conference in Telford, “The revival of school sport is one of the biggest success stories in education. Schools are NO … IT’S NOT THE ENGLAND SQUAD! finding that there are so many knock-on benefits. Children develop new skills, gain confidence and are more motivated to learn.” Schools are awarded the mark if they meet the following criteria:

• 90 per cent or more of pupils across the school complete two hours per week of PE and Sport; • the school holds a sports day; and • the school meets the national average in three or more of the following areas: ∗ percentage of pupils take part in inter-school competitive sport; ∗ the range of sports offered; ∗ percentage of pupils participating in sports clubs linked to their school or school sport partnerships; or ∗ percentage of pupils actively involved in sports leadership and volunteering.

Futsal (Indoor football) The U15 girls’ team have won their league for the North of the Borough and now have to go into a play off against the winner of the South of the Borough. The Harefield Academy supports Comic Relief—Daley, Gibbons, Matthews, The U13 girls came second in their league, however, they still Hemmings, Quinn, Light, Mincher, Lyddon, Brown, Huyser and Richards took have a chance to win over all as there is a play off against the on the talented Sixth Form BTec students and gave a fine performance to raise South of the Borough which involves the top two teams from money for Comic Relief. Staff and younger students flocked to see this exciting each side so fingers crossed for both teams. match which was won by the BTec boys 6-4. Mrs. Cotterell collected donations during the game and £58 was raised for Comic Relief. Well done everyone! Miss Ridgers

Student Construction Committee Year 7 Community On Thursday 15 th March, 12 students with Mrs. Millins-Horne visited the new Academy Project construction site and had a meeting with the Senior Project Manager, Paul Neto. He gave Year 7 classes have been working on a us a brief explanation on how they are getting on with the site. He talked about Community Project over a six week Personnel, Drawings, Time Lines, Current Progress and Health & Safety. Paul gave us a period. They had to work in groups to presentation which included a booklet. decide whether a village should have an Taylor Woodrow is the Principal Contractor but there are many sub-contractors. They office block or community centre. have produced over 300 blueprints and still have over 200 to go. There are three phases To complete the project the students to the build and at the moment they are on the second phase. The first phase was the invited several members of the local Dry Training Facility and the All Weather Pitch which is complete and the final phase is community to be interviewed about their knocking down the old school building. roles. Ceredig Thomas gave us a talk about H & S on the site. They have a good method called The photos below show the classes ‘the yellow card system’ which is used if you do not follow Taylor Woodrow’s rules. It interviewing Maxine Ward, the works in the following order: Community Police Officer, and Mrs. McHugh, Parent Governor and volunteer 1) The first warning means you are removed from site and you have to come worker (library and various venues). back the next day to have another talk through the rules. The classes were all very good, some 2) The second warning gets you removed off site for 24 hours to think about made refreshments and others welcomed what you did and then trained again. the guests. All the class members asked a 3) The third gets you seven days off site. question. 4) The fourth one is a red card and you are not allowed to come back for that The students said they learnt a great deal project. and enjoyed the event. Student Shelby Green wrote: At the moment they have been putting in the piles which are long columns of concrete I got to interview Maxine, the Community Training in Harefield 26m below the ground and will go up through the building which is 13m above ground. Police Officer. We asked her all sorts of These will be the main supports for the structure. questions like how hard is it to keep the community under control. The boys in our The Harefield Academy is once again We looked at photos of the cranes being constructed and talked about the safety of using them. Paul explained the booklet which included blueprints of The Academy and he group asked boy things like do you have a collaborating with the JGA Group to explained how it will be set out. The new Academy will be completely finished in gun or have you ever been shot at before, bring training opportunities and November 2008. in answer to these questions she said no. advice about work to the Overall they are one week ahead of the planned schedule. They were two weeks ahead Maxine said that when she was in training community in Harefield. but lost one week because of the bad weather and the snow. she had to have to stand in a group with We are looking forward to our next visit to see how far they have got. some other trainees and a person wore a Plans are at an early stage and we Report by the Construction Committee students: Justina Noreikaite Y9, Zainab Aljawahiri Y9, mask and sprayed them with this mixture what had been weakened with water. will be sending out more details very Chloe Byrne Y9, Jimi Mullins Y9, Jack Carty Y8, Ross De Tute Y8, Stanislav Ten Y9, Oliver Roques Y9, Grant Bentley Y7, Michael Holah Y7, Lewis Unwin Y8 and Lauren Heyes Y9 Maxine said that it stung her eyes and the soon, but if you are interested in only way to get it out was not to rub it free training at work—wherever that but to put cold water on it. She said that is, or if you are not working and she has not been a police officer for long want advice and support to get a and has not come into any trouble yet. job, call JGA to be first in the queue. Maxine explained all the equipment on Wei and Michael are waiting for her and what it was for. I learned that it is hard doing her job and going through all your call on 020 8426 2666. the training, I admire Maxine for she has to work late nights and I like the idea that she is always meeting people at the BRITISH SIGN community centre and around the village. LANGUAGE

Transport for Competition

Year 10 COPE and Year 7 and 9 Art and Design students entered the Transport Year 7 students interview the The six students who took for London Competition to promote London and cycling to school. The Community Police Officer their Level 1 British Sign Language competition was set up to celebrate London being chosen for the first leg of exams in November all passed. This this year’s Tour de France. really is a major achievement as the The following students have made it through the first selection process: exams are held by a profoundly deaf Posters – Chantal Grimm Year 7, Robert Wakeley Year 10, Meave McHugh examiner who they have to have a Year 7 conversation with, answer 12 Cycle Jerseys – Victoria Palmer-Halligan Year 7, Omar Khan Year 7, Stephanie questions about a story the Walsh Year 7 examiner tells and then tell their own story with which they get just 20 minutes to prepare before the exam - all this is Year 7 students interview Mrs. McHugh videoed, adding to the pressure. “They were excellent and I'm Congratulations to naturally chuffed to bits!” said BSL ex-JPS pupil David teacher, Stacey Stockwell. Brown who married last month in The framed certificates were Cambridge and presented to the students in honeymooned in assembly. The whole class Goa. performed one of their songs in sign Keep in Touch language at the recent Year 9 INCLUSION CENTRE Options Evening giving the Year 9 Would you like us to send a copy of this Newsletter to a member of the community? To Miss Dunton will be reporting on be added to our distribution list or to suggest new contacts, please telephone, email or students and parents a chance to see write to us at: the Mothers Day Gift sale and the one of the activities taking place in Northwood Way, Harefield, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB9 6ET Trip to London in our next Edition the classroom. Telephone 01895 822108 due out in May. Email:[email protected]