ISSUE 3! 2nd December 2016! SCIENCE CLUB! COMMUNITY YOU SAID, WE DID! This week at Science club the At our recent Y7 and Y11 parents students were enjoying making CHAMPIONS! evening you kindly gave us slime. We investigated how feedback and as a result we are in concentration of PVA affected the process of making some the stretchiness of slime; They changes. really got stuck into it! ✓ You asked us to improve our parents evening booking system and wait time. You will be pleased to know that we have purchased an online system that will go live after The BBG Community Champions Christmas. This will allow you to have done a sterling job during book online and ensure we keep to their Applied Resilience lessons appointment times. this term, helping the Friends of ✓ One feedback form expressed Birkenshaw Churchyard group to some concern over parental clear up at St Paul’s. They have communication. We have added the helped to clear weeds, spread weekly newsletter and Twitter posts woodchip, clear up leaves, plant and have a commitment to respond bulbs and collect litter. The to parents within 24 hours of students have been a real parental contact where possible. pleasure to work with and have ✓ Two feedback forms requested thrown themselves into the work the reduction of Rise and Read. As enthusiastically. discussed at Y6 Open Evening we are committed to the Rise and Read programme and we do believe that there are many benefits that will enhance student progress across all subjects not just English. ✓ There was concern expressed over the difficulty and cost of ordering PE kit. From January 2017 you will be able to buy the kit either online or at Sport FX in Cleckheaton. A big thank you must go to the Friends of BBG Academy (FOBBGA) for the fabulous evening of Festive Pampering and Shopping, held at the academy last night. We enjoyed sharing the heart space with both our guests and exhibitors; A lovely evening was had by all. Please follow Friends of BBG Academy – fobbga on Facebook for information about other events. We would love to hear about and celebrate our students’ successes out of school also. Please send any news items to [email protected] Year 7 have been developing their bread baking skills by producing a glazed bloomer plait. Here are two super examples by Florence Duggan, left, and Scott Toole, on the right. Now, where’s the Lurpak? Hollie Smith in Year 11 has produced this sketch of Elvis Presley in support of her ‘Wish You Were Here’ Art and D e s i g n G C S E These drawings have been produced by Lucy project. She has Ormondroyd in year 11. They are in support of her used pastels on ‘Wish You Were Here’ Art and Design GCSE project parcel paper. that she is basing around her cousin who lives in Australia. She has sketched a portrait and a microphone to reflect her cousin’s enjoyment of singing. Year 11 have compared homemade foods with convenience foods. Here are some good quality outcomes from their practical sessions. Subject news! In Modern Foreign Languages students in different year groups are signed up to a vocabulary- learning group on www.memrise.com, which charts their weekly progress. Here is a snapshot of the GCSE French Congratulations leader board over the past month. Congratulations to all More of our amazingly students making it onto the front talented students have sat page. music exams this week and C’est en forgeant qu’on deviant are eagerly awaiting the forgeron! J results: Hephzi Brown 8SB – Grade 5 violin. Molly Cordingley 10NLT– Grade 1 clarinet Poppy McGill 8AS – Grade 2 piano. Nathan Wood 9AC– Grade 3 viola. Computer Science Well done all. A New Hour of Code Task Congratulations also should Our new Year 7s always have a go at an Hour of Code activity when they be extended to Aaron first arrive at BBG Academy. The new Hour of Code tutorial “Moana: Lomas who has achieved Wayfinding with Code” is now live and I’m sure that students and parents his HABC Level 3 in alike will enjoy it. It uses a visual programming language and using Emergency Fist Aid. blocks where students simply drag and drop visual blocks to write code. This is a fun and easily understood way to teach the logic of coding. It is also a great way for parents to be introduced to coding, as you may not have had experiences coding anything before. This type of visual programming lays the foundation for text-based programming, such as Python and Javascript and introduces simple computational thinking. Tweet with the History dept. The tutorial is targeted for children ages 8+, and those trying coding for No one can accuse BBG’s the first time. Try it – you might like it. History department of being in the past! @BBGHistory is the Spirited Arts department’s way of communicating examples of Last academic year students from year 8 and year 9 took part in an student work, areas of extra international religious art competition. This competition attracts 2,500 study and links to helpful entrants per year and the winners were announced earlier in the week. revision to students and They were challenged to create a piece of artwork that answered the parents alike. Mr Booth, Head question, “Could Britain be a Rainbow Nation?” Some of the varied art of Dept. commented “I forms students created included: paintings, sculptures, poems and even a encourage as many people as dance. Mr Kenneally and Mrs Deighton selected the following students to possible to follow represent the school in this competition: Ruby Fletcher, Ellie Adgie, @BBGHistory as it is another Melissa Gray, Tom Lowe, Poppy Middleton, Alfie Walker, Eliza Bould, way of showing some of the Grace Whitehead, Jaime Leigh McLaughlin and Beth Maleham. Despite fantastic work that we produce the incredible entries, unfortunately none of our students made it through every week, some of which to the final stage of judging. All students received awards for their work. has been recognised by many Beth Maleham has received a special commendation for her dance schools up and down the commemorating the life of Spen Valley MP Jo Cox and the human rights country. It’s also useful to and equality work Jo Cox stood for. share resources that we feel The competition will run again this year and is open to students of all would benefit students” years. Attendance matters! Attend & Achieve Research suggest that missing 17 school days a year results in 1 GCSE grade drop. A#endance in one school Number of lessons missed per Number of weeks missed Number of years missed over year year per year 5 years 100% 0 0 0 95% 50 lessons 2 weeks ¼ Year 90% 100 lessons 4 weeks ½ Year 85% 150 lessons 6 weeks ¾ Year 80% 200 lessons 8 weeks 1 Year 70% 300 lessons 12 weeks 1½ Years 60% 400 lessons 16 weeks 2 Years 50% 500 lessons 20 weeks 2½ Years This weeks attendance leaders. Year Form Attendance 7 7RFS 98.7% 8 8SSG 98.6% 9 9CSE 97% 96.7% 10 10LTR 98.5% 11 11NPG 98.4% Donations to the Food Bank BBG Community Champions would like to collect donations for the Food Bank in the run-up to the Christmas Attendance Fact: Most children should routinely have attendance rates of 97% or more. This is the equivalent of 6 period. days absence a year. BUT 100% is achieved by many students every year in both primary and secondary schools. The food bank is especially for people who are desperately short of money and can’t afford to feed themselves or their families. We would like donations of…cereal, soup, pasta, rice, tea, coffee, beans, tinned fruit, biscuits, pasta sauce, tinned vegetables, pasteurized fruit juice (long life), long life milk, tinned meat. Thank you. Please make sure that your donations have a long use-by date. @BBGAcademy Netball Year 9 Champions Year 9 Congratulations to the BBG Netball B Team who beat Spen Valley 10-9 on Wednesday. The girls continued their unbeaten record with a display of excellent movement and vision on the court. It was a slow start which resulted in the team falling behind in the first half however the girls rose to the challenge showing great resilience through quicker Huge congratulations to the year 8 boys 7 a-side football team who continued decision making and ball work the success of the year 9, reported last week, taking the North Kirklees 7 A- in and out of the D, side title. Again close, well fought first round matches took the boys into the maximising a g r e a t e r semi final against St John Fishers which resulted in a 1-0 win. Saving their percentage of opportunities in best game until last the boys beat Mirfield Free Grammar 2-0 in the final. Well the second half. Player of the done to all the boys and a big thank you to Mr Sweeney for his time and effort match went Lauren Heyhoe to coach. who demonstrated some outstanding defensive work and interceptions as GK. Another gripping game from the girls Netball Academy and a well deserved win to all players. NEXT WEEKS FIXTURES WEDNESDAY Y7 Boys Football v St John Fishers, (Away) Y7 Girls Netball v Mirfield Free Grammar (Home) THURSDAY Y8 Girls Netball v Mirfield Free The year 7 rugby team continued their positive start to the year against Grammar (Away) Rodillian with an impressive 5-4 victory.