Autumn - Queen Katherine School

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Design and Technology News Another Arkwright Jonathan Cook in Year 12 has recently been awarded an Arkwright scholarship. This is an award for students who show prowess in the field of engineering and have chosen to study a combination of D&T, Mathematics or Physics at A-Level. Jonathan was presented with his award during half term at the Institute of Electrical Engineers in London. This is the fifth time that a student from Queen Katherine has gained this prestigious award. If other students are considering a career in engineering and are considering following this pattern of A-Levels please see Mr Bell for further details. Young Engineers for Britain Students from Queen Katherine School Young Engineers (YE) came away from the above event with in excess of £2000 worth in cash and prizes at the National Celebration of Engineering at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich on Sept 11th. 4 students, Ben Stuart, Peter Butcher, Liam Moffat and Niall Till, from Y9 and Y10 (who were representing the 15 or so students who regularly take part in club activities and competitions) won £200 as runners-up in the ‘New club of the year’ category. They added another £250 to this by being judged to have the best teamwork that was observed during a two-hour-long problem-solving activity. They were presented with two cut-glass trophies and the cheques by Linda Sanford (a Senior Vice President of IBM) who had flown over specially for the awards ceremony. The School entered a series of photographs, after an internal YE competition, of wind turbines taken by Jacob Deane for a competition run jointly by Young Engineers and The Royal Academy of Engineering (in remembrance of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Isembard Kingdom Brunel). Jacob Deane receives his award Jacob won his age group category and with it also the top overall prize of £1000 (to be D&T teacher Mr. Weightman receives his award for his winning photo of Jacob’s entry split between him and the school) In addition to this he won a compact digital camera worth around £150. On top of this the school won an 8 mega pixel SLR digital camera and printer docking station worth around £500. Young Engineers are a nationwide organisation who promote engineering activities in schools. There are hundreds of clubs in schools up and down the country. The organisation has a variety of major sponsors, including Airbus, BAA, The Royal Navy, Lloyds of London, to name but a few. Engineering is promoted by competitions, resources and sponsorship. Year 8 Visit to Normandy The 25th Year 8 visit to Normandy took place in October. Once again, the party stayed at the Château du Baffy, near Caen, and completed language talks as well as visiting Paris, the Bayeux Tapestry and other sites of interest and having a generally good time! The group at Pegasus Bridge, near Caen Magistrates Court competition This year, QKS reached the North West finals at Manchester… one of the QKS team members, Ali Sadek, takes up the story. “A group of thirteen year eight and nine students from the Queen Katherine School found great success in the 2006 Magistrates Court Mock Trial Competition. After winning both the local and regional heats at Kendal Magistrates court, we found ourselves competing in the national finals at Trafford Magistrates Court against hundreds of greatly talented students from all around the U.K. We are all very proud to have been the only Queen Katherine team ever to reach the national finals, and I can’t express enough how much we all appreciate the fantastic help from Mrs. McIntosh and Miss Atkinson. Saturday 24th June finally arrived and we all met at the school ready for our big day. We all breathed a sigh of relief as we got off the coach in Trafford. Minutes later we were greeted with music from Trafford’s finest youth band, and as if that wasn’t enough, we then had a team picture with the mayor of Greater Manchester. We could already see this was going to be an experience we’d never forget. We were then escorted to our seating area by our team’s own personal guide. Our area was decorated with balloons and ribbons. We all put our bags down and decided to have a look around. The place was huge – home to thirteen courtrooms in total! We began to practise our roles as the prosecution awaited their trial. The clock hit 11 o’clock and our prosecution team was called in. Once again they performed to a very high standard. We were positive they did well, however, we soon became aware of the standard we were up against. The pressure soon shifted onto our defence team. Around twelve thirty we were given lunch to prepare us for the afternoon. We had time for one more practice before the defence was called in. 1:30, and it was time for the defence. We entered the courtroom knowing this was our last shot, we gave it all we could but the witnesses on the other team were excellent. Again, the verdict rested in our favour, but was that enough to have won the competition? We all felt the day really tested our confidence and gave us a great insight into how the court really works. The competition was nearly over and we were all told to go to the main room for the presentation. We waited in great anticipation and finally the chairman of the competition came to the stand. It turns out we didn’t win. In fact we don’t know what position we were. All we knew was we were somewhere in the top 16 teams out of over three hundred from all over the U.K. Finally, we have all benefited so much from this experience and would like to thank Mrs. McIntosh for making it all possible. Such skills as citizenship and teamwork have developed throughout the competition and I’m sure we will use them a lot in later life. So well done everybody in the team, you were brilliant!” A new team sets out on this competition this term, and we wish them the best of luck! Other citizenship initiatives included ex-deputy heads and local councillors Austen Robinson and Sylvia Emmott coming in to talk about local politics and that was followed up by councillors visiting the School and 70 students being involved in finding out about their roles and how to get the student voice heard. There was also a session to raise motivation for a group of students in Year 9, which also involved QKS staff.
Music New Saturday Morning Music Centre The Kendal Youth Training Orchestra got off to a flying start on Saturday 16th September. Meeting every Saturday the flexible orchestra now has in excess of 25 members playing the full range of orchestral instruments. Repertoire includes an arrangement of The James Bond Theme in addition to Baroque Dances and compositions by the director Peter Crompton. Students also round their musical training by studying music theory as part of the session. The orchestra is now looking forward to giving its Book week The School Library celebrated Book Week in October by taking 30 excited Year 7 students to meet popular children’s author Michael Morpurgo at the Leisure Centre. This is what some of the students had to say about the visit: “We got our books signed. It was Mr Morpurgo’s birthday the day after we went to see him. He was funny and told us lots of jokes.” Chelsea Turrell “I thought Michael Morpurgo was a great experience. I got his autograph and a picture of me with him. That was great! He was really funny and I learned a lot about his life. Thank you!” Melissa Bean Author Visit On 5th July, children’s author Joe Delaney visited QKS to launch his new book, Spook’s Secret. The books are set in the Preston area, and so have a local flavour. Despite an extremely high temperature in the LRC, a large and lively audience was held spellbound for an hour listening to the author first public performances over the festive season which include playing introductory music to the annual Christmas Carol Concert. New Peripatetic Staff Sub The department is pleased to welcome four new peripatetic staff. Frances Chiasson teaches voice and piano and conducts the Chamber Choir, Claire Windsor teaches piano, Stuart Burton teaches guitar and Jamie Fyffe teaches drum kit and orchestral percussion. It is wonderful to see so many more students learning instruments and voice within the department; however, there are still vacancies in each of these areas for students keen to take up a new instrument. Library and Resources (LRC) Author Joseph Delaney with satisfied fans talking and reading. Later Mr Delaney commented that QKS was the nicest school he’d visited so far, and he was delighted with the enthusiasm and interest of the students. Kids’ Lit Quiz On 21st November, Mrs Bowers and Miss James took teams from Year 7 and Year 8 to Bolton University to take part for the first time ever in the international schools’ challenge, The Kids’ Lit Quiz. In-house form teams will be battling for the school prize throughout the spring term, and the in-house winners then will be next year’s regional competitors. Will The Kids’ Lit Quiz be the new football? Watch this space! Launching the New LRC Teen Book Collection As part of an on-going ambition to keep older students reading as keenly as they do in the lower school, the LRC has launched a book collection especially for older teenagers. Filled with challenging books by contemporary authors like Melvin Burgess, Meg Rosoff, David Almond and Sarah Dessen, the collection covers a wide variety of genres and tastes, but all with teen appeal. These books are tagged “Teen Zone”, and will not generally be available to younger readers. Trade Justice: A CALL TO ACTION The Second South Lakeland World Development Movement conference took place on Monday 16th October. The conference was attended by some 50 students from around the South Lakes area including ten students from the Queen Katherine WDM youth group. The conference built upon issues raised during the previous conference last April and included topics such as Fairtrade, climate change, the impact of big business on the environment and the effects of our purchasing habits on the world’s poor. The day was a great success and ended with students sharing ideas on how they can help to improve the lives of people in developing countries. These included buying more Fairtrade products, promoting Fairtrade within the School, forming youth focus groups in each school to campaign on WDM issues and highlighting the current unfair bias in world trade that benefits the richest countries at the expense of the poorest. Typical comments from the students included: “The day was very informative and a great opportunity to share ideas with students from other schools” J. Lawson (13JSC) “It was a great opportunity to find out more about fairtrade and how it works, which made us all the more determined to campaign to keep up the sale of Fairtrade goods within the school.” Vicky Loader (13DF) “We all got a lot out of the conference and hopefully people will be attending on behalf of our school next year” Ruth Leahy (13NB) The conference is a yearly event and the third is planned for next October. The Queen Katherine WDM youth group is currently recruiting members from Year 12 who might like to get involved so if you are interested please see any of the above students or Dr Khan. Chile visit Over half term, four QKS members of staff, Ms Jones, Ms Cooper, Mr Park and Mr Mullen visited Miapu in Chile to carry on the linking work started by Mlle Locicero last year. There, they met students and staff at the local school, and they are developing a School Council in Miapu and pen friends between the respective Years 7 and 8 as part of a global link for Geography and Citizenship work. Shortly, they will start a fundraising initiative to provide Miapu with up to date computers so that a live link can be set up between QKS and Maipu. Our photo shows Mr. Park, just visible in the middle of an enthusiastic group of his new Chilean friends. Extra-curricular events and activities September 2006 saw the introduction of even more extra-curricular activities to complement the department’s busy programme. Peter Crompton has launched the Concert Band giving a large number of brass, wind and percussion players the opportunity to play popular classics – at the moment there are around 40 students in the band. Additionally a new cello ensemble has been established as a well as a saxophone quartet. Many pop bands take the opportunity to rehearse during lunch and after school. The three choirs; Senior Choir, Chamber Choir and Junior Choir are now hard at work preparing for the Carol Concert in addition to providing music for the Christmas Fayre. The Chamber Choir made a wonderful contribution to the Memorial Service of Nathalie Locicero, singing in both French and English. All ensembles are keeping The Westmorland Music Festival and Arts Evening in mind, and it is hoped that there will be an additional concert celebrating popular music at school in the Spring Term.
Page 1: Queen Katherine School NEWSLETTER C
Page 5 and 6: Sports round-up As usual, this term

Autumn - Queen Katherine School

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?