Samuel Ryder Academy: Secondary Education newsletter
Issue: 71 Date: 21 Jul 2016

Dear Parents and Carers

It is hard to believe we have reached the end of another academic year, what a year it has been and the last week has been just as busy.

On Wednesday and Thursday evening last week were the respective Year 13 and Year 11 leavers’ dinners.  It was great to see the students dressed in their finest party wear, enjoying themselves and reminiscing about their time in school.  Of course as well as saying farewell to students we are also saying goodbye to a number of staff – we wish them all well for the future.  I must pay tribute to Mrs Berry who is retiring this summer after 25 years’ service.  She is a first class teacher, hugely respected by students and staff and will be sorely missed.

On Monday we held our final House assembly led by Mr Pope, which involved all Secondary students and the Year 3 children.  Each of the Heads of House summarised their year with photos, successes and favourite moments.  For the first time, each Head of House nominated 2 students and 1 member of staff for particular recognition in their contribution to the House system this year.  Well done to all the winners and congratulations to King House for winning the House Charity.  See more details below in Mr Pope’s report.  

The highlight of this year for us as a school was the fantastic OFSTED report we received in May which was a real milestone in the school’s development and confirmed we are a good school with many outstanding features.  The report acknowledged the extensive list of extra-curricular and house opportunities available and of course the fantastic lessons that staff are delivering every lesson, every day.  A huge “thank you” to all the staff for all the hard work this year - we are fortunate to have so many talented teachers who inspire and motivate students to achieve their best.  I would also like to thank parents for your continued support over the last year and I look forward to the exciting challenges next year.

Finally, I hope you all have a restful and safe summer break.

As always, if you have any comments or suggestions I would be pleased to hear from you, please contact me at head@samuelryderacademy.co.uk.

Mr Gauthier

Headteacher

 

Maths

On Friday 8th July four of our more able mathematicians, Mohamed Mazari, Marko Jurukovski, Hannah Topping and Akida Rahman, in Year 10 set off to the MBDA Missile Services centre in Stevenage to compete against 15 other local schools in a Glider Building Challenge. They took part in workshops on business and presentation skills, aerodynamics and materials in order to prepare them for the challenge. They then had the rest of the day to design, build and test their glider before the final competition. During the building time they were taken for a tour of labs and learnt about how the company test the strength and integrity of the materials that are used in their missile systems.

All four students worked well as a team, and their presentation to the judges about their design concept was well planned and executed. Despite some ‘glue issues’ they put together an impressive glider and although they did not win the challenge the glider travelled quite a distance and they all got a lot out of the day.

 

 

 

 

Geography

Yesterday pupils from Year 8 King visited the Primary Year 3 pupils to share some of their learning on conservation of wildlife.  The Year 8 pupils had designed and made board games for Year 3 pupils to play.  The pupils were thrilled to be given this opportunity to interact with pupils lower down the school and to pass on some of their ideas about conservation.

Here are student accounts of the activity:

A few students from 8 King went to show Year 3 pupils their conservation games.  Their intention was to teach the younger pupils about animals in danger of becoming extinct and they did a good job!  Overall the activity went very well and the Year 3 pupils learnt a lot as well as enjoying themselves.

Kalea Hayles – 8 King

On 19th July some Year 8 pupils went down to Year 3 to present the games they made about sustainability and the conservation of endangered animals.  I went with my group to present our game, Pandas and Bamboo, which is like Snakes and Ladders.  It was really entertaining and educational for the Year 3s.

Ismail Lopez – 8 King

 

Ben Kay and Marcus Cunnington from 8 King demonstrate their board game to pupils from Mr Gunning’s Bath Class.

 

Science

This week we held a number of Science events for students in Years 7 and 8 to showcase the project-based work they have carried out in the last few weeks of term.  As part of the Key Stage 3 Science curriculum, students worked in teams to select an area of interest to explore based on what they had learnt, agreed on a question or topic to investigate and planned how best to present their findings.  Year 7 projects were skeleton related, while Year 8s chose mostly to look at cells.  The results were displayed in the hall, with students encouraged to discuss their findings with attending teachers and parents.  We saw some excellent models of plant and human cells, colourful posters and even a fizzy experiment involving carbon dioxide.  Well done to all for putting on a very informative event!

 

 

Artwork of the Week

This week's 'Artwork of the Week' goes to 8 Austen for creating fantastic Venetian mask outcomes, a super quick final project to end the year.  It's amazing what can be achieved in just four lessons! Well done 8 Austen!

 

 

Final House Assembly

On Monday afternoon the school community gathered to celebrate another year of the House system.  During the event students from each House, who had been nominated by their respective Heads of House, received recognition for all their hard work. The winners were :-

 

House

Staff Member of the Year

Student of the Year

Student of the Year

Austen

Mr Sayers

Connor Smith

Sienna Noel-Williams

Bronte

Mrs Ward

Sylvia Lafford

Owen Wood

Christie

Mrs Lovell

Aaron Austin

Morgan Endacott

Dahl

Miss Wilkinson

Daniel Gough

Faaziah Afzal

Hardy

Mrs Hawkes

Daisy Page

Mitchell Roe

King

Mr Pike

Flynn Cairns

Elora Machin

Wordsworth

Ms Shirazi

Ameera Hameed

Jack Jacobs

 

Over the course of the year we have been raising money for each of our House charities and I’m thrilled to say that we raised a total of £ 6,500. The winning House who raised the most money was King House who raised a total of £2,144.74.  Our thanks go to everyone who has supported us this year.

The final overall scores are as follows:-

1st King - 166

2nd Dahl - 137.5

3rd Wordsworth - 129

4th Christie - 126.5

5th Hardy - 126

6th Austen - 117.5

7th Bronte - 95.5

Congratulations to all of our winners and we look forward to recommencing the competition in mid-September.

Many Thanks

Mr Pope (on behalf of the Heads of House)

 

Food Technology

A huge well done to students in all years for their excellent efforts in Food Technology over the year - in lessons, in the house competitions and during Healthy Eating Week.  If any students are making food over the summer, please take a photo and tag it in the Food Technology Instagram page – srafooddepartment or the twitter page SRA_food_.  Enjoy the summer and get ready for the future chef competition in October!

 

Reminder: Summer Reading Photos!

Reminder: the library has set a summer holiday challenge asking everyone – teachers included – to take photos of themselves, friends or family reading in unusual places.  There will be prizes for the best photos!  Please return entries to the library by Friday 9th September, email them to S.Twydell@SamuelRyderAcademy.co.uk or Tweet @SRA_Library #summerreadingchallenge.  We plan to make a display of all the photos in the library.

 

Extra-Curricular Activities Autumn Term

Reminder: next term’s PE extra-curricular timetable in now available on the school website – please click here.

 

Anna's Dance Academy

From September 2016 Anna Gamestar, the current Top Hat dance teacher, is going to be running her classes independently of Top Hat, still at Samuel Ryder Academy on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  If you are interested in your child attending, please email Anna directly at agdanceacademy@yahoo.com and she will send you the appropriate forms.

 

Diary Dates

Summer Term 2016

Thursday 21st July

Summer term ends for all students 12.30pm

Autumn Term 2016

Monday 5th September

INSET (School closed to all students)

Year 12 Consortium Students Enrolment Day

Tuesday 6th September

Term starts for Y7 and Y12 ONLY

Wednesday 7th September

All other Secondary year groups start

Tuesday 13th September

Year 11 Curriculum Evening

Thursday 15th September

Awards Evening

Tuesday 20th September

Year 7 Information / Learning Evening

Thursday 22nd September

Sixth Form Curriculum Evening / Welcome to UCAS Meeting

 

Friday 23rd September

House Games Day

Friday 23rd September to Monday 26th September

Centenary Battlefields Trip

Thursday 29th September

Secondary Transfer Open Evening – Secondary students leave early (12.30pm)

Friday 30th September

Secondary students start late (9.30am)

Monday 24th to Friday 28th October

HALF TERM

Friday 25th November 2016

INSET (School closed to all students)

Wednesday 21st December

Autumn term ends for all students 12.30pm