NEWSLETTER events - The Cherwell School

Dear Parents and Carers
the cherwell school
NEWSLETTER
from school to home
keeping you informed
WINTER TERM 2009
Terms 1 and 2 have been extremely busy, and this newsletter
reflects the variety of activities enjoyed by our students in addition
to all the regular work in class.
Sincere thanks go to colleagues who have devoted much time
and energy to organising trips and events, including fieldwork,
European visits, a highly successful GCSE Certificate Evening, the
Principal Guest being Jill Judson, former Head, the Winter Fayre,
Christmas Concert and the production of “The Wooden Frock”.
Staffing: We are currently reviewing and amending Senior
Leadership Team responsibilities to align them more closely with
our strategic responsibilities.
• Lindsey Alexander is giving up her responsibilities for Training
School, CPD and Performance Management, and will
concentrate entirely on her role as Director of Sixth Form -
leading developments in both the academic and pastoral
priorities for Sixth Form.
• Chris Price, who is Head of Humanities, will take on the
additional responsibility of being a link to the SLT for our
Science Specialism and Training School. He will also
help co-ordinate aspects of our Professional Development
Programme.
• The Business Manager post, which is a support post and
a member of the Senior Leadership Team (graded at
Assistant Head level), will be advertised nationally in
January 2010.
School finishes for the Christmas holiday on Friday 18th
December 2009 at 12.10 pm and will resume for the start of
Term 3 on Tuesday 5th January 2010.
Thank you for all your contributions to school life during 2009.
On behalf of everyone at Cherwell, may I wish you a happy and
peaceful Christmas and New Year.
With very best wishes.
Head teacher
dates for your diary &
forthcoming
events
Term 3
4 January 2010
(Twilight INSET)
School closed to students
5 January 2010
Term 3 Begins
8 January 2010
Year 13 AS & A2 Resits
14 January 2010
Sixth Form Open Evening
5.00 - 8.00pm Year 11 and external
applicants
27 January 2010
Careers Convention
Years 9 - 13 North Site Hall
6.00 - 8.00pm
29 January 2010
Year 10 Progress Review
4 February 2010
Intermediate Mathematics Challenge
5 February 2010
Year 11 Progress Reviews
10 February 2010
Year 11 & Year 13 Photographs
12 February 2010
End of Term 3
13 - 20 February 2010
Ski Trip to Austria
Term 4
22 February /19 March 2010
Cherwell’s got Talent
23 March - 1 April 2010
French Exchange in France (tbc)
30 March 2010
School Concert, St Andrew’s Church

A visit to
Gcato School
Cherwell’s South African Partner school
The school partnership link between Cherwell and Gcato School
was originally set up in 2006 by BEFSA, a charity organisation
whose main aim is to reduce poverty by improving education
in rural South African schools. (You can read more about their
work on the website www.befsa.co.uk). Gcato School is in the
Eastern Cape area of South Africa and has 350 learners from 14
to 18, mostly from three local village communities.
In the summer my family and I visited the school, carrying
out a range of work alongside some of the BEFSA team. This
included teaching some classes including Business Studies and
English and installing a room full of ex-Cherwell computers. No
heating and a lack of resources saw Verity and I teaching in 5
layers of clothing with a trusty piece of white chalk.
At the primary school, where Bethany worked with Year 1, our
lasting memories will include the students “doing the Okey Cokey”
without really understanding why they were running into each other,
pre-reception aged pupils singing the whole of the
South African national anthem with extreme pride and
Year 6/7 playing netball and football with amazing
energy, in their bare feet, with no lines on the rough
playground. Listening to joyful singing outside, every
morning, was really fantastic.

What partnership activities have
already taken place?
• Letters exchanged between individual students
• Letters exchanged between Cherwell Assistant Head
and BEFSA coordinator
• A range of fundraising activities at The Cherwell School
to assist BEFSA
• 4 Gap year students have made visits, with more planned
for 09-10
• Assistant Head Teacher and family visit in July 09
• School Policies such as School Improvement Plan discussed
with Principal
• Individual contacts with members of staff have been made,
linking Cherwell Staff with Gcato colleagues in the same subject
• Plans for future joint work e.g. “The Chicken Project” discussed
and agreed
We are now planning to apply for a grant from the British Council
to enable the Principal of Gcato High School to visit Cherwell and
a second member of staff to visit Africa to work with teachers
and pupils. Pupils of all ages are busy getting involved in more
fundraising ideas to help provide more resources for the school
to use and teachers are planning to bring the link into classroom
activities in a range of subjects. The future of the link, to enable all
pupils and staff to learn from each other, is in good
hands at the two schools.
Year 9
Year 9 have started the year
enthusiastically and are settling down to
steady work as they realise the importance
of this year to their eventual GCSE
courses.
Our boys’ football team have won two
challenging cup matches with their usual
flair, the second match going all the way to
penalties. The girls’ football team also beat
Northampton in an away match. The rugby
team had a relatively easy victory over
Wood Green but lost by the narrowest of
margins to Burford School.
A small group has been involved in
starting a journalism venture to produce
a magazine to go out to our International
Link schools.
We are proud that several students have
got parts in the school play ‘The Wooden
Frock’ which is currently in rehearsal.
Twenty students went on an interesting trip
to Oxford Brooks’ University as part of a
new joint venture introducing students to
university life.
The whole year group took part in a ‘Super
Learning’ afternoon based around bidding
to host the Olympics in 2020 – each
form group representing a different city.
As well as having a lot of fun, students
excelled themselves in demonstrating their
creativity, presentation skills and business
initiative as they competed to win the bid.
What a fantastic year group, we are proud
of them all!
M. Hawes and K. Young

Germany - 30 Years
of Partnership and
Friendship
This year brings the 30th anniversary of the
partnership between the Peutinger Gymnasium
in Augsburg, Bavaria, and our school.
This October a group of 34 students from our partner
school near Munich visited us together with their
teachers, Frau Kaiser and Frau Wagner. The students’
programme included visits to Oxford University Press,
Warwick Castle, Bath, Blenheim Palace and London,
as well as a day in school and a weekend together
with their exchange partners in Oxford.
This year, however, the celebrations to the 30th
anniversary of this partnership added a few more
highlights. The last three days of the German
exchange, the headteacher of our partner school,
Dr. Wolfgang Mutter, joined us. On Thursday, Mr
McGowan and Dr. Mutter were able to share ideas
about leadership of schools and compared
similarities and differences between the various
school systems they have worked in.
On Friday, thanks to the funding by the UK-German
Connection, it was possible to celebrate this
partnership with music, dance, food and balloons.
We are all looking forward to the celebrations
over in Germany in July and the next 30 years of
this partnership.

German
Christmas
Market Trip
2009
93 Year 7 and 8 students accompanied by Cherwell
School staff left Oxford in the early hours of Thursday 26th
November to head by coach and ferry to the Christmas
Market in Aachen, Germany. On arrival in Aachen the group
was able to experience the market in its early evening hours
illuminated in uncountable lights and candles. During this
first hour or so students and staff could not only taste the
delicious food but also enjoy the amazing atmosphere with a
live music performance from the local orchestra.
Friday started with breakfast followed by a return coach
journey to Aachen, where the group not only visited the
cathedral and the city centre but also had the chance of
practising their German and exploring the city and the
market even further.
In the early hours of Saturday, the group arrived safely
back home in Oxford and were welcomed by early-woken
parents. The students and staff agreed that it was an
experience worth living – and organising!
Mr R Koglbauer (Subject Leader of German;
German Exchange Co-ordinator)
ACP goes
International
As part of the Citizenship GCSE,
all year 10 pupils do an Active
Citizenship Project (ACP) that
involves raising awareness, money
or volunteering time to help out
either our local community or a
global charity.
The ACP this year involved
creating a multicultural mural on
South Site to raise awareness
of our partner schools. With Mr
Koglbauer’s help we linked our
ACP to the 30th anniversary of the
Cherwell School’s partnership with
Peutinger-Gymnasium, Augsburg,
a strong partnership that needs
celebration. It took three days
solid group work in the summer
holidays to complete, before
being taken back to school to be
displayed. With the arrival of the
exchange trip from Germany we
had a mini opening ceremony and
used the occasion to raise money
for furniture for Gcato School,
our South African partner school.
We’d like to thank everyone
who has been so helpful and
supportive of the project!
Claire, Eric, Micaela
and Xin, 10RK

science enric
The enrichment team kicked off the first term by
getting the Key Stage 3 Science Club up and running
and these young scientists have certainly been busy.
They have investigated the strength of Roman glue by
making some of their own, unlocked the secrets of nappies
by extracting the granules to see how much liquid they
could hold and discovered an alternative to the problem
of carbon emissions – some eggsperiments with eggs
proved they could hold a large amount of carbon dioxide.
More recently they became CSI Oxford and analysed how
the shape of blood splatters on solid objects was affected
by the distance the blood had travelled through the air.
Certainly not a club for the faint-hearted!
The Year 11 Applied Scientists were given a big boost to
their coursework research with visit representatives from a
range of industries including BP, NPower, Thatcham Motor
Insurance and LGC Forensics. This was a very productive
morning with the students gaining invaluable evidence for
their portfolios.
The Sixth Form Science talk series began this year with
Dr Erika Mancini from the University of Oxford who gave a
well-received talk about the genetic and epigenetic code,
explaining differences between identical twins. In the
following week, inventor and submarine expert Professor
Carl Ross, from Portsmouth University, spoke about recent
advances in submarines. Students were interested to hear
about his design to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa using
a robotic submarine. And finally, Dr David Pyle, University
of Oxford, came to speak about the Science of Volcanoes.
He outlined how they play a major role in the exchange of
heat, gases and other trace chemicals between the Earth’s
interior, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere.
The full lecture series is displayed in Sixth Form tutor
rooms, science labs and on the school website and is open
to sixth formers from other schools

Why Beckham Chose 23
Some of our students took part in a Maths and Science Day
Out in Oxford on 25 November, as part of a programme of
events surrounding the Inaugural Lecture of the Simonyi
Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, Marcus du
Sautoy.
Hosted by Oxford University, the students began the day
visiting Oxford’s Pitt Rivers and Natural History Museums; they
then played “giant maths monopoly” over lunch with “Marcus’s
Marvellous Mathemagicians”, a troupe of young Oxford
student-educators.
The main event of the day was participating in Professor du
Sautoy’s highly interactive talk, “Why Beckham chose 23”.
The talk, which illustrated how maths underpins a surprising
number of life’s elements, linked the number on the shirt of
Britain’s best-known footballer with ancient Chinese numerical
lore, cicadas, the development of anti-hacking e-commerce
technologies, and the questionable sanity of a Nobel prize
winner, among other things.
Cherwell School were very lucky to have been among the six
schools selected to take part in the day and the students that
went found it a very interesting and highly enjoyable day.
Miss E Green
hment
Upcoming activities include:
• A group of Year 8s represent us at Café des
Sciences, a University Challenge competition
organised by the independent schools partnership
• Year 9s have the opportunity to attend Oxford
University’s Christmas Lectures
• Year 10s can attend a GCSE Science Live event
• Sixth Form Biologists will be offered a study day on
Life after Darwin
• Competitions and more......
Great Progress of Year 7
Year 7 have made a fabulous start to their Cherwell
School careers. We have been overwhelmed by
their enthusiasm and their willingness to take new
opportunities and to do their best. Many staff have
commented on what a delightful year group they are to
teach.
An impressive number of Year 7s volunteered to act as
ambassadors during our recent Open Evening. Having
only been at the school a matter of weeks, they did a
masterful job.
They have been quick to join the many extra-curricular
activities offered both at lunch times and after school.
Street Dance is proving particularly popular! Both the
boys and girls football teams have also been in action
this term – some star players in the making!
Singing has emerged as a strength within the year
group and several of our intrepid performers braved
an audition for a new CBBC programme. They have
also shown off their talents in a lunchtime karaoke to
raise money for LEPRA. We look forward to continued
success for the year group.
Year 7 participated in the Annual Sports Hall athletics
event on the 21st and 22nd September. The event
was a whole class effort with everyone taking on a role,
either as competitor, official or team manager. This
helped to build class cohesion and also to recognise
everyone for his or her strengths. There was a great
atmosphere with classes cheering on their fellow
classmates and supporting and encouraging all efforts.
Emily
Harris
& Fiona
Boland

sporting news
Ted Bennett in Under 16 England
Hockey Squad
Ted Bennett in Year 11 has been playing Hockey for the
last 9 years, he plays for local side Oxford Hawks HC in
North Oxford. He has represented Oxfordshire in the U13,
12, 15 and 16 age groups and during that time has also
represented the South West region as Vice Captain.
Ted has recently been selected to attend the England U16
training camp where he was successful in earning a place
at the final stage taking place in the next few weeks. He
is now in the final 30 Under 16 England team and looking
forward to the camp.
Good luck Ted!
Amy Busby awarded bursary at
Oxford City Athletics club
Congratulations to Amy Busby who on Tuesday was awarded a
bursary for her achievements at Oxford City Athletics Club.
Amy has shown great versatility excelling both on
the track and in the field. She ranked equal 1st in the
100m (13.3s) equalling the record and setting a grade
1 performance giving her a national ranking of 21, she
ranked 3rd and 4th in the 200m (27.90s) with another
grade 1 performance, improving from 28.30s earlier in
the season and pushing her UK ranking to 7th.
Not to be outdone in the field, she produced great
consistency ranking 2nd and 3rd in the long jump with
4.35m and 4.34m, again setting a grade 1 performance.
A tremendous ability to be able to set grade 1
performances in 3 different events. Congratulations Amy.
Please visit our website for other sporting achievements
that are worthy of congratulations to the students
concerned. www.cherwellschoolpe.co.uk
If you would like to advertise your
business in our next newsletter
please contact:
Carolyn Smith on 01865 558719 ext 232
or by email: csmith@cherwell.oxon.sch.uk
for more details.