December 2010 - Wentworth High School

WENTWORTH
HIGH
SCHOOL
December Newsletter 2010

Welcome to the Christmas edition of our newsletter and given that the snow is lying on the
ground as I write the festive feeling is beginning to flow!
It has been another incredibly busy term for all staff and students both inside the classroom
and out with lots of visits and charity work not to mention the vast array of extra-curricular
clubs and activities that occur every week.
A definite highlight of the term was Presentation Evening which took place on Thursday 25 th
November. This was to celebrate the success of last year’s students who achieved our best
ever examination results - 77% of the pupils achieved 5+ A* - C grades with 1 in 7 pupils
being rewarded with 5+ A* - A grades. Former students were delighted to receive their
certificates under the eye of proud parents and carers and for the first time this year each
Faculty had a special award to present to the pupil they felt had been the most successful in
their subject area. This was not necessarily the pupil with the highest grade but maybe
someone who had achieved far beyond their target grades or a pupil who had an excellent
attitude to learning.
Humanities Joshua Markey MFL Georgina Tunn
Science Rebecca Hall English Angelika Nowicka
ICT Nichola Bolton SSMC Emma Macafee
Mathematics Zak Salem PE Kaidee Lewis
Arts
Josh Wirth
The audience was then addressed by Mike Wells, Head of Finance for Manchester United
Foundation, who spoke of the core Olympic values of determination and resilience, qualities
which our pupils had shown in their quest for success. It was a very proud evening for all
the staff at Wentworth High School and we wish our former students a long, successful and
happy life. Our special thanks and congratulations must also go to Daniel Robinson and
Gareth Clarke who entertained the guests with musical items during the evening.
Our current Year 11 students have a lot to live up to but current tracking of their performance
indicates that they are well on target to achieve even better results in the Summer. It is vital
that the holidays are used wisely by these students as Mock Examinations and GCSE
modular tests loom in January!
All students have made a pleasing start to the academic year and we have continued to
focus on positive attitudes to learning in our lessons as this is the key to success. Pupil
voice is another important aspect of our work, it is only by listening to our students and
gaining their views that we can truly seek to improve their experiences. Our Head Boy and
Girl and their deputies were appointed by their teachers and peers and they have decided to
take a leading role in this aspect of school life.
As always, the pupils and the community we serve are at the heart of all that we do but I am
sure that many of you have read some negative things in the local papers during this last
half term. It is true that the school has a budget deficit but we have worked in conjunction
with the local authority to agree a recovery plan which we are confident will enable us to
recoup this whilst maintaining the high standards of care and education that you expect of us
and that your children deserve. Our relationship with the local authority is extremely positive
and I would like to thank them for their advice and encouragement.
May I take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support for the school and wish you
and your families a fantastic Christmas and a happy 2011.
H L Aaron (Mrs)
Acting Headteacher

Outward bound in the Lakes
This year Wentworth was lucky enough to be chosen from the local schools to be offered 6 places on
an outward bound course at Ullswater, which is in the Lake District. The places were offered by
Keepmoat in association with Bramall Construction and City West. Keepmoat also offer a number of
apprenticeships within the construction industry and some of our students could be lucky and be
chosen for these places! Students were
given the opportunity to go canoeing, rock
climbing, rowing, orienteering, camping
and various other activities that presented
both physical and mental challenge. I am
pleased to say that all of our students rose
to the challenge, working with students
from all over the country. They worked in
teams offering support to each other and
the rest of their team members. Here are
some of the comments from the students
that took part.
Aseel Sheikh, “I liked all the activities and
enjoyed making friends. The most
challenging thing for me was the presentation, having to speak in front of so many people.”
Katie Large, “When I was on the Outward bound trip, I quite enjoyed everything, meeting new
friends as we were all in different groups. However, I found going on the expedition the most
challenging. We went camping and I found it difficult to climb the hill. I couldn’t have done it
without help from the other team members.”
Summer Al‐Kaffa, “The thing I found most
challenging was the camping because we had to
climb up a hill with a rucksack. We all didn’t think
we would be able to make it but we worked
together as a team and we did it! The thing I liked
best was everything because it was all fun and
challenging. If I had the choice to go on this trip
again, I would because it was the best experience of
my life so far.”
Abdul Abdo, “The best thing that I enjoyed was
climbing the mountain because it was fun. The
most challenging thing was walking back from the
camping trip in the rain!”
Hamzah Qureshi, “The thing I enjoyed the most was meeting new people and making friends. I
found dealing with the weather the most challenging especially the rain.”
Leanna Hughes agreed with Hamzah that it was great to meet new people, it was a challenge to stay
positive in the rain, but they all did!
Well done!
Mrs Whiteoak
Party Leader

You’re Nicked!
On 10 th November, about 20 students from Wentworth High School were
visited by the lead prosecutor for anti‐social behaviour in Manchester…
fortunately it was to deliver a workshop on the role the Crown Prosecution
Service to this year’s Y10 GCSE Law group.
Andy Holt, a prosecutor for the CPS and Bev Sale, a trainer for the CPS, took
the students through the process of a Crown Court case, where the
defendant, Salah Audhali, was tried for stealing 4 DVDs! Although he was
ably defended by his defence solicitor, Annie Bond, the prosecution, led by Farrah Challinor, was
able to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. When the jury delivered their verdict the judge,
Sam Fenn, had no choice but to sentence the defendant to 6 months in prison.
In the second half of the workshop students had to look at how the CPS reviewed cases to see if they
can be prosecuted. Despite an emotive subject, a disabled child’s loss of a wheelchair, the students
were able to see the difficult decisions that needed to be taken by the CPS about whether to
proceed with a prosecution or not. Students had to sift through witness statements and police
interviews and decide whether the case satisfied the ‘two‐test’ code.
The Y10 students began to see how complicated the process of criminal prosecutions can be and
benefitted from having one of the lead prosecutors in the CPS explain the nuance and subtlety of the
work that the CPS does. This built on the work the students have completed since September and
will deepen their understanding of the criminal justice system, which can only help the students in
their future law studies.
Mr Woulfe
Law Teacher
News from the ICT Faculty
It has been a very successful term in ICT. Our two new teachers have settled in well, bringing with
them a wealth of knowledge and ideas to the department. This has been evident in the new
schemes of work which they have worked hard to produce.
This December 139 year 11 pupils were entered for one GCSE in ICT and a further 25 were entered
for two. Following the success of last year’s record breaking ICT results of 94.5%, we are hoping to
now go one step further.
The new Creative Media course has become a hit with the
present year 10 pupils and we have been asked by top
advertising agency, Studio North to come in and take part in an
Apprentice inspired project as one of the crucial pieces of coursework.
In Business Studies, we hope to take a group of year 10 students to the Halle Impresarios. This is an
opportunity for pupils to develop key skills in Business by extending the curriculum and reinforcing
the importance of planning, financial knowledge and team work.
Exciting times ahead!
Mr Hibbert
ICT Faculty

MFL
Projet International
Back in September, Wentworth sent along a crack team of Year 9 students to take part in the annual
Language Enterprise Day, hosted by Irlam and Cadishead Community High
School.
Working in teams of up to 8 people, our youngsters planned to “host” an
International conference for up to 200 foreign delegates. The brief was to
provide a complete service to the business traveller, offering them transport to,
and from, the airport, hotel accommodation, conference facilities, all meals and
drinks plus corporate entertainment.
Quite a challenge for a 14 year old, naturally, but given that all the
negotiation had to take place in French, our students needed to pull out all
the stops.
Our students were fantastic! Using a wide range of resources, and excellent
French, they put forward bids which were deemed to be “well thought‐out
and commercially viable”.
As a finale to the day, all groups made a presentation, in French, to all the other participants.
I must admit to feeling very proud of our students.
Well done!
Mr Kay
Faculty of MFL
RE
Wealth and poverty are familiar words in today’s society. Twenty‐one pupils and two staff were
invited to tour the Jamia
Mosque, the Jewish Museum and Manchester Cathedral as part of an
interfaith project run by the Cathedral’s education officer. Pupils listened
attentively as specialists in each place of worship explained their views on
these key issues. Finally, the group visited The Booth Centre near the
Cathedral which has become a major
initiative to help the homeless living on our
city’s streets.
The study is a key part of the GCSE short
course in Religious Studies.
Mr P Riley
RE
Teacher

Drama
Year 11 BTEC
The year 11 students are coming to the end of their course
and are currently working on the Understanding unit which
investigates the historical and social aspects of drama.
Although the students have been using a number of acting
skills in the various acting roles undertaken during the
Performing Arts course they are always surprised to
discover how skilful they have become. For this final unit the
students have explored the origins of Western theatre, the
Greeks, the structure of a Greek tragedy and the elements
of an amphitheatre. They have also acted out extracts from
John Godber’s Bouncers and a section of a play which
explores one man’s reluctance to join the army during the
First World War. A contrast of performance skills were
required as Bouncers is a comedy and The White Feather is, as you can imagine, quite
serious and heart wrenching.
Year 10 BTEC
The first unit that the year 10 students undertake is the Acting Skills and Techniques unit;
which focuses on the use vocal skills, the use of movement skills
and the interpretation and development of characters. The students
are working on a number of different texts ranging from a stylised
version of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Nasreddin Hodja, Tales of the
Turkish Trickster which can, reputedly, be traced back to 1208, a
poem taken from Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers, the musical hall
monologue The Lion and Albert often recited by Stanley Holloway
and a number of other monologues.
Year 9
Year 9 have worked on developing their technical skills by utilising a short
script of Dracula (very now I thought) as a way into exploring how a script
offers clues as to the use of technical effects. The students have used
make up, costume, sound and lighting and investigated how the use of
these effects support the drama. Their next mini play uses the story of
Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (anyone for a pie?) as a
vehicle to investigate 19th century melodrama and characterisation
through voice, gesture and movement.
Year 8
Red Riding
Hood with
bling
All but one year 8 class have
finished their silent movies
and I must say how
impressed I was with the
effort, detail and dedication
that the students showed in
making their movies.
Making captions the 21 st century way and the old
The other year 8 classes are
way
on their way to Paxron, a
planet that mankind must move to as the earth has been drained of its

esources. However, before setting off to Paxron a number of astronauts have to be selected
to inspect the planet and sure it is safe for mankind, initial
robotic explorations have suggested it is. The students
have to prepare a speech to persuade a panel of judges
that they should go, (only a number of trainees from each
class will be selected). The fun part of this first lesson is
that the judges are a number of students from the class.
The astronauts are then interviewed by News at 10 prior
to their departure. As the scheme progresses the
students build their space ship and blast off for Paxron
flying through space (youtube what a resource) and
Building a rocket ship
eventually landing safely; but what is that moving in the
distance?
Year 7
The year 7 students are currently undertaking a scheme entitled Darkwood Manor. I enjoy
delivering this scheme as I get to scare the students and they get to scare each
other. The students are asked to play ghost hunters, magazine writers, T.V.
news men or women who volunteer to spend
a night at Darkwood Manor to prove or
disprove there are ghosts living there. The
students use physical theatre to become
doors, creaking gates and statues that come
alive. The climax of this scheme is great fun;
the lights are turned out and the students
create the gardens of the manor and take
turns walking up to the manor while other
students are the statues, creaking gates and doors.
Being intervi ewed by the 10 O’clock
news team
Mr O’Leary
Drama
Introducing our Head Prefects 2010/11
Congratulations to:
Ryan Maybury
Head Boy
Kirsty Millard
Head Girl
Tom Leonard
Deputy Head
Boy
Nyasha Mdoka
Deputy Head
Girl

SMSC Faculty
What a busy start to the year it has been in the SMSC faculty….
Harvest
This year our students showed how caring and considerate they were by
donating items of food for the Windsor Loaves and Fishes Drop‐In Centre in
Salford. The drop‐in provides, amongst other things, hot food for homeless and
vulnerable people in our community.
Year 9 volunteers ran the Harvest project themselves as part of their Citizenship Activities; designing
posters and arranging form collections. The final collection was an impressive sight and the centre
had so send their ‘man and van’ out to collect it all. Special thanks must go to 11H who collected a
huge amount of food and wrote a lovely card to the volunteers and users of the centre.
Operation Christmas Child
At the moment we are all digging out our Christmas wrapping paper and
sticky tape… a little early you might think, but this is for children around the
world who are living in the direst of circumstances; victims of war, poverty,
famine and disease. All boxes are given to the neediest children regardless
of nationality, political background or religious beliefs.
Volunteers, Dean Mellor, Wayhu Kelsall,
Shania Eardley, Kerry Ann Haggan and Bethany Harrop choose and
publicised the event and helped to giftwrap boxes. Pupils in school
helped to make up nearly 40 shoe boxes. These brightly wrapped
boxes are filled with small gifts of toys, sweets, educational supplies,
or hygiene items for some of the world’s poorest children.
Children in Need
As well as the non-uniform day we had busker Mr Riley, raising money
through entertaining pupils with his impressive vocal and guitar playing
talents at break and lunchtime, and our year 9s helped to run a raffle to
add to the total of nearly £700!
It never fails to amaze me that our pupils are so
thoughtful of others. Teenagers get such a bad press at
times, but I am very proud of the citizens of Wentworth
who so consistently ask, ‘What can I do to help others?’
Miss K Barratt
Head
of SMSC

Year 7
Year 7 have made a great start to the school year and are currently sitting at the top of the school’s
attendance figures. This September saw the introduction of year
7 weekly star awards given out during assembly each week.
Form of the week is given out to the form group who have stood
out from the rest through contributing to whole school activities
or gaining the most merits within lessons. Current leaders for
this award are 7T and 7R who have each won it twice. Star of
the week is awarded to individual students who stand out
through demonstrating a positive attitude and work ethic
and contributing to whole school life. Our first winner of this
award was Nikolay Bonev who made a great start to earning
lots of merits. Attendance of the week is always a closely
fought contest however leading
the way is 7W who have won 4
times since the start of term.
Well done Mr McGinty! And
finally the outstanding contribution award is the only award which is not
given out weekly, it is only awarded to those students who have gone
above and beyond the normal expectations and shown extra
responsibility, maturity and respect within school. So far this term we
have had one worthy winner Joseph Mort from form 7G who was
awarded this for how he welcomed a new student into his form and made
it his personal responsibility to ensure he settled in well. Well done
Joseph.
Miss O’Farrell
Achievement Coordinator
Year 8
Congratulations to Chesley Brooks 8W who won two gold medals in the Go‐Kan‐
Ryu karate Northern Zone National Qualifiers in September, and then went on to
win two medals at the National championships on 20 th November. Chelsey won a
silver medal in the kumite (sparring) and a bronze in the kata (patterns of
movements).
Congratulations also go to Shauna Smith 8N who was awarded tickets to see
Manchester United vs. Wigan on 20 th November for achieving the most merits in
year 8 and having excellent attendance. Despite not being a Man U fan myself
I’ m sure it was a very enjoyable day and hopefully we will have more tickets
available for year 8 pupils throughout the season.
Miss Mackenzie
Achievement Coordinator

Geography
On the 24 th September fifty, Geography GCSE pupils
went on the first humanities trip of the year to
Betws‐y‐Coed in North Wales. The purpose of the
visit was to look at the original site of Betws‐y‐Coed
and consider some of the reasons the settlement
first began. We also looked at the shape of
Betws‐y‐Coed and how this has changed over
time and finally in the afternoon we looked at
why Betws‐y‐Coed is a thriving tourist village.
This was the best bit as it meant we could
pop in and
out of the tourist facilities (shops!!) and
sample, the tourist products (cakes and
ice‐cream!! ).
Mrs Gillies
Head of Humanities
PGL trip to South of France 2011 – Aug 4 th ‐12 th
We are looking forward to our next adventure abroad in the summer of 2011. We are returning for a
second time with PGL to the south of France for a water sports trip. This time round we are going to
be staying in two centres so that we can canoe down
the Ardeche and then go on to the Med to do some
sailing, snorkelling and banana boat riding with a visit to
a water park thrown in too! ☺
There are at present 30 pupils booked to be travelling,
some who came on our last visit and some for whom
this will be their first time with PGL and possibly their
first time abroad.
We do have the availability to take up to 4 more pupils,
let me know if your child would be interested in joining
the adventure this summer and we will get you all the
information.
H Brophy
Learning
Mentor Team Leader

Quick Quiz
Following on from the success of the “Friends of Wentworth” Quiz night here
is a selection of questions.
1. In which film will you hear the line “We’re gonna need a bigger boat”?
2. What is the chemical symbol for Gold?
3. Which football team plays at The Stadium of Light?
4. Who is the leader of the Labour party?
5. Which Teacher in school drives the furthest to work in the morning?
6. What is the capital city of Turkey?
7. Which pop group features Matt Bellamy on Guitar and vocals?
8. Who invaded England in 1066?
9. Who regularly says “You’re fired”?
10. Who wrote “Of Mice and Men”?
Answers to Mr Bate ASAP for a little prize
English Faculty
George and Lennie in the School Hall!
On 5 th November Manchester Actors arrived at Wentwort
h High School to perform the Steinbeck
classic novel ‘Of Mice and Men’ as a play in our school
hall. The performance was enjoyed by the whole of Year
10 and by some Year 11 students in preparation for our
exams.
Mr Tyldesley, who helped arrange the play said, ‘’Getting
professional actors in is always worthwhile, it really helps
the students to understand the book or play we are
studying and I thin k it is als o vital that our students get
the opportunity to see a professional theatrical
performance.’’
It was very interesting to see George and Lennie close up and really good to see how well the book
could be performed as a stage play. After the play had finished we were able to ask George and
Lennie key question s during a hot‐seating session, where some of the actors stayed in their roles.
We really enjoyed the performance
audience we had been.
and the actors also commented at the end what a great
By Kirsty Millard
11H

Year 11 Presentation Evening 2010