January 2017 www.carres.uk Foreword by Mr Keith Jones Assistant Headteacher Useful Dates: Welcome back and a Happy New Year to you all. The Christmas holidays for me are always a time for reflection and very much a means of recharging the batteries and looking forward to the New Year. 2017 will undoubtedly be very interesting from so many Tuesday 10 January – 6pm viewpoints; however, as long as we focus on what we can control in our New York Trip Information Evening own lives, I am sure everything will be OK. For students returning in 2017, the exam season will be upon us sooner than they can Wednesday 11 January imagine. It is interesting to note that in all my years of teaching, I Year 12 Parents’ Evening St have never heard anybody say “I wish I’d done less revision!” George’s Academy Monday 16 January At the end of last year I had the pleasure of attending the Carre’s Year 7 Debut Night Concert Grammar School’s annual upper school prize giving led by the students Saturday 21 January of the school. It was both reassuring and gratifying to see so many DofE Training Day 2 past and present students, along with their parents, celebrating individual successes both academic and non-academic. For me the Tuesday 24 January whole event summed up the ethos of the school. Carre’s is very much Year 11 Poetry Live, Nottingham a community that always looks towards the future, and makes the most of the opportunities available to it. Students are encouraged to Thursday 26 January grow and develop their own thoughts in a safe, tolerant environment Year 11 Parents’ Evening which develops resilience and independence. Thursday 9 February Year 7 Parents’ Evening The future is something I think about on a regular basis. With this in mind, Carre’s will be consulting in the near future, as part of the Wednesday 1 March Robert Carre Trust, on grammar school provision within Sleaford. It Year 9 Parents’ Evening is an exciting proposal which could result in a number of regeneration opportunities for Sleaford itself, as well as securing grammar school st education for years to come in purpose built buildings fit for the 21 Inside this issue: century. If we are to prepare students for a rapidly innovative world, then we need to think innovatively ourselves about how schooling will Page 2: Prizegiving look in 10 years’ time. Adapting to opportunities and change will Page 3: Trip to Sheffield undoubtedly become the buzzwords of tomorrow for us all. Page 6: STEM Event Page 12: Drop Everything and Read Page 14: Spanish Exchange Page 19: Sports Roundup Page 37: Carre’s in the Community Sixth Form Trip to New York City Page 41: Notices and Information 11 – 16 February 2017 1 Please see the school website for details of the Headteacher’s address and speeches 2 Year 13 Sheffield Trip Earlier this month the Year 13 Geography students took part in a fieldwork trip to the city centre of Sheffield. The visit was part of the ‘World Cities’ section of the syllabus, more specifically focusing on redevelopment and Urban Development Corporations (UDC’s). Having undergone major redevelopment in the last 15 years, Sheffield provides the perfect example of such change as well as the reasons and consequences behind them; making it an ideal case study for A-level geographers and setting for practical fieldwork tasks to be carried out. The day began with a visit to Meadowhall shopping centre. Here the students had an hour of free time to explore what was on offer, but then more importantly a 45 minute talk which covered everything about the shopping centre; from its history through to plans for future investment, all backed up by monetary statistics. The talk was useful in providing us with a great understanding of the building that is now one of the largest indoor shopping centres in Europe, but that also sent Sheffield city centre into decline upon opening in 1990. In order to try and fight back and regain some of the retail dominance Meadowhall had gained, Sheffield city centre underwent stark redevelopment, which is where we visited next. Beginning at Devonshire Green from here we, throughout the day, made our way around all key re- development points especially those that form part of the ‘Gold Route’. At each point an environmental quality survey was to be carried out, ranking each location based off a variety of factors such as street cleanliness, and shop variety for instance. These results would then be used to form part of our evaluation in our case study on Sheffield redevelopment. Just like at Meadowhall the students had free time to explore the city, as well as to get some lunch – the environmental surveys were also carried out during this time. After having various talks on different areas of the city as we progressed through the day, we finished at Sheaf’s Square, the beginning of the ‘Gold Route’ scheme and home to Sheffield City Centre Train Station. From there we had one last walk to the bus before returning to school. This marked the end of a successful day. The trip not only provided the opportunity to carry out necessary fieldwork and to enhance our geographical knowledge, but to have an enjoyable day out with peers. Being both beneficial and entertaining means the trip is something to look forward to for all those planning on taking Geography to A-level. George Garland, Head Boy of Geography 3 Thursday 10 November at Kesteven and Sleaford High School The purpose of the event was to help students think about Sixth Form options and future careers 4 5 On 25 November, a selected group of students from Year 9 were chosen to go on a STEM trip to RAF Cranwell, to give us an insight into how Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics are used in the workplace; in this case, in the Royal Air Force. The day consisted of two parts: in the morning, we were developing our teamwork and problem- solving skills. An example of what we did was using maths. Using different types of limited transport, we had to help someone pick up all different types of camping equipment from different towns, whilst making sure that he caught his train in time. Only a few groups managed to make sure the person was on time, as it was a very complicated task, and a lot of teamwork was necessary. However, in the afternoon, there was a change of scenery. We were in one of the colossal aeroplane hangars, where we learned about weight distribution, and what is essential to have stored on a plane for it not to be over balanced, and in the other, we were learning how to chain down a Land Rover to a simulated fixed wing aircraft. More mathematics were involved here, as we had to know how many sets of chains we needed, for vertical G forces and lateral G forces. Overall, I thought it was a great day, and a real insight in to how some of the subjects we study at school are crucial in the work place. By Nickolai Shyklyaver, 9W 6 On 15 November the Year 13 Ethics and Philosophy class travelled to Birmingham to a Candle Conference led by modern day philosopher, Peter Vardy. The conference consisted of topics such as virtue ethics, the ontological argument and the problem of evil, which the class is studying. It entailed debates throughout the day; two particular students stood out and were not shy of the microphone at any given chance. Constantly, George Cowell and Lewis Pomfret provided well thought-out and insightful points which caused the rest of the audience at the conference to think carefully about, including Peter Vardy. This was further complemented by the teacher of the class, Mrs Angell, who also contributed. The arguments put forward were in response to questions about the ‘moral behaviour of young children who are influenced by the ever developing online warfare games’ and also other actions by humans linked to their response. The conference allowed the students to take in additional information such as views from different scholars and other arguments from philosophers. The information gained at the conference will help the students in their examinations in the summer and their forthcoming mock examinations as they will be able to provide more detailed and a wider range of views in their arguments. The close of the conference saw the Year 13 class of Carre’s Grammar contributing the most in the house debates. The bus journey back from Birmingham gave the students a chance to discuss and reflect on what had been an engaging and productive day. James Baxter, Year 13 ***************************** February 2017 will see Year 12 students have the same exciting opportunity to broaden their understanding of the EP course; to explore euthanasia as the most loving response to suffering, to gain a further understanding of Aquinas’s approach to both morality and God’s existence and discuss whether accounts of religious experience are truly valid. 7 Carre’s continues to focus upon supporting the students with their literacy skills. This term has a vocabulary focus, with special attention being paid to homophones and spelling. As always, your son or daughter will be given activities to reinforce this aspect of literacy throughout the term, and they will be asked to focus on meeting literacy objectives through their daily school work. Although the literacy focus has changed this term, we would ask that you continue to check your son or daughter’s work and remind them to be mindful of previous targets.