STANDING OUT THE MAGAZINE FOR MOUNTS BAY ACADEMY Cover: Football’s Come Home! U13 County Champions 2021! PAVO CHAMAELEON DELPHINUS DRACO PEGASUS PHOENIX TUCANA 9th July 2021 PRINCIPAL’S REPORT You Can Be Anything You Want To Be It is sometimes worth looking at ourselves to make sure that we are approaching life in the right way and therefore getting enjoyment out of everything we do. Many of you will know that I am a great believer in enjoyment, after all, if you enjoy your work it ceases to become arduous. I would like to think that whilst I have been in the teaching profession for many years, a significant amount of my time has been spent enjoyably, so you could say I am being paid to do the things I enjoy. That is why we stress so much emphasis on our students identifying their interests and talents, harnessing them in our learning and then using them to enrich our community here at Mounts Bay. It is amazing where your talents can take you. For example I am an artist and enjoy passing my talents and interests onto students. Because our students are ultimately in my care, I want them to be happy, fulfilled and successful in everything they do. I am committed to continuing our mission to enhancing our world class learning community by investing in world class facilities, believing that this will help us develop successful young people who have the confidence to contribute to the world in which they live. We will be undertaking a massive amount of work in the coming months and our campus will look a lot different when we return after the summer break. It does mean a little disruption around the site in the last few weeks of term but the benefits of starting the work early will be huge later on. It was great to take part in our Key Stage 3 Graduation Evening last night, broadcast from our refurbished TV Studio. The rewards of completing a one year Fast Track GCSE were very apparent on our current Year 9 students. The quality of the work that they produced this year was amazing and the additional benefit of getting into the habit of producing work to the GCSE standard means that they will inevitably be more successful at the end of the two year courses of their choice. It was also great to watch one of our alumni continuing his journey using the talent that we helped develop here at Mounts Bay. Luke Cowan-Dickie was impressive in the British and Irish Lions’ 54 - 7 win in South Africa this week, almost scoring a try on his debut. Every one of our students has the opportunity to follow their dreams and develop their talents too. We will always seek to find the passions that stir our young people and inspire the belief that they are capable of exemplary levels of achievement in their chosen passion by working hard, and believing they can be successful. Two football teams will be following their dreams as they contest the final of the Euros at Wembley this weekend, they both believe they can win, let’s hope we will be celebrating the success of our England team too! Best wishes Les Hall Academy Principal A WORD FROM MR ROYLE Happy Friday to you all I have two congratulate Year 9 on their fantastic achievements in Key Stage Three culminating in the wonderful event last night. Brilliant work from Mr Yeates and his colleagues and great to meet Mrs Harvey and, of course, we all send our very best wishes to Miss Westren as she makes her final preps for impending motherhood! Huge thanks to everyone for their work this week - it has been another busy week as the quadmester draws to a close. Much appreciation should go to the Year 10 students who have shown strength and perseverance in terms of working online during their isolation period. We know how difficult this is, but we are aware that a small number of Year 10 students have not followed the isolation rules and this is most disappointing. We know that there is Covid in our area and there are cases in all five secondary schools in Penwith. Whatever we think about isolation and the definition of a ‘close contact’ we should all be following the advice to keep us all safe. However, it is the responsibility of the parents/carers to follow the guidance from the government, just as we have had to as a school, and it is a worry that this has not happened in some Year 10 families. Next week is Adventure Learning Week and we look forward to learning in a huge variety of ways. Personally, I am teaching all week which is quite a change for me, and I am very excited. Though uniform rules are relaxed for the week, an 8:30 start is still very important, particularly if you are going off site somewhere - just imagine you are catching a train - an 8:30 start is an 8:30 start and if you are not there, you will miss out! Enjoy your weekend and see you for Adventure Learning Week! Nothing much on at the weekend is there? Our partner school in Denmark have sent us a delightful email congratulating the English (and, by association, the Cornish) on their victory, despite the penalty which was maybe a bit of a gift. They will be cheering for us in the final on Sunday. I appreciate that I could well be generalising about a whole nation when I have only visited a handful of times and actually know fewer than 100 Danes, but what a wonderful, gracious and kind nation they are. Myself and the Year 9 Interact Group who visited Copenhagen and Helsingor about 18 months ago would urge you to visit if you ever get the chance. Locker Key Amnesty Please could all students return their locker keys to their Form Tutor in an envelope clearly labelled with their name and form group before Tuesday 20th July. Mrs Eddy will then arrange £5 refunds (in cash) for students before the end of term. There will be no lockers at MBA next year. This will free up space in both corridors and classrooms. BE ADVENTUROUS Year 6 Induction Day It was tremendous to welcome Year 6 students from local primary schools to MBA this week. The students had an opportunity to experience what life will be back when they join us in September. They took part in a whole range of exciting activities including PE, cookery, dance, music and French. MBA staff commented on how impressed they were with their effort and attitude. We are really looking forward to welcoming you all full time in September. BE ADVENTUROUS Year 6 Induction Day BE CURIOUS Grow Your Own This week in the MBA garden we have finally managed to get out and working again after the annoying obstacle of COVID left me at home for almost three weeks and two separate isolations! With regards to the garden this was probably one of the worst times to be away, especially in the polytunnel, where the tomatoes, melons and cucumbers were flying away with new lush growth. Big thanks to Kirsty, Sarah, Juliette and the Year 10 student team who managed to keep on top of the watering and weeding while I was away. The students have been really busy this week harvesting loads of lovely fruit and veg including carrots, broccoli, new potatoes, basil, beetroot, broad beans, peas, rhubarb and blackcurrants. Harvesting is an interesting thing as you can sometimes get so carried away with growing and weeding that you forget to harvest things when they are ready! Also some veg like broccoli all need harvesting within a week or so before they start to flower so you need to eat loads or share with friends. Report by: Mr New BE CURIOUS Grow Your Own Our lettuce bed has now finished and all gone to flower so that has been cleared and we will be planting new seedlings this week that we sowed at the beginning of June. In the poly tunnel the climbing tomatoes, melons and cucumbers needed a lot of attention to get them back into a good shape. They have a main growing stem that we train up strings, but they also produce new shoots next to their leaves which need regularly removing so that the plants put all their energy into one stem and lots of fruit. Our students did a great job learning how to do this and train the climbers. They will be ready to harvest late July through until September. Report by: Mr New BE INSPIRED Is There Life on Mars? This week Year 7 looked at how to investigate the rocks on Mars to see what elements they contain. They did this by conducting flame tests. The flame changes colour depending on which ions are present. Students were trying to answer the essential question ‘Can we colonise Mars?’ Report by: Miss Page BE CREATIVE BE CREATIVE Year 7 Creative Industries It was so lovely to get my Year 7 Creative Industry class into the food room finally this quadmester. After the excitement of being in the room, they were introduced to the health and safety rules for the room and particularly when doing practical sessions. They then viewed a video on how to make the ultimate poached egg, which should have a runny yolk when opened up. Then it was their go! They really enjoyed this challenge, particularly tasting it at the end.