School Blog
July 2011
Week Ending 1st July 2011
The week began at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Miss Blakey and Mr Potter took eight of our Sports Leaders down the home of tennis, were they watched Maria Sharapova, Juan Martin Del Potro and Jo-Wilifred Tsonga play. A brilliant opportunity and a great experience for all, certainly worth the 1.00am return home!
Congratulations are again due to Davey McElwee (see past blogs) who competed in the BMC Youth Climbing Series national final in Wolverhampton over the weekend. 12 regions from Great Britain and Ireland compete, sending their top 3 climbers in each age group, making a competition of 36. Davey has participated at this level in the past, but it hadn’t worked out for him; some might have taken a step back at that point, but not Davey, he has worked really hard with his training with the intention of putting that disappointment right. His focus, commitment and hard work really paid off as he achieved a top 10 finish! I am delighted for him, he is a great example to other young people in showing what you can achieve if you put the work in.
Our Engineering students have spent their spare time over the past two months building a robot to compete in the ‘Schools Robot Wars’ competition. The team first had to do a presentation on how they built the robot and then competed in a number of fighting rounds against other robots from our region. They came a creditable 5th, a good result for young people still in their first year of Engineering, especially as they had built ‘Big Dave’ entirely out of items reclaimed from Kirkstall tip. They might even have achieved a higher placing, but for an act of kindness; they loaned their spare battery to a competitor school in crisis, leaving Dave to run out of power mid battle. Well done Declan Guthrie, Sam Boniface, Sam Downes, James Saunders, Alex Beaumont, Luke Clarke and or course Miss Taylor.
90 young people from Year 7 and 8, and Year 6 from Primrose Lane School came to Boston Spa School Library to hear the author Kate Maryon talk about her third novel ‘A Million Angels’. She spoke about her life and her writing describing them to be ‘about ordinary girls, who find themselves faced with an extraordinary real life situation; I like to get girls thinking’.
She went on to encourage the group to retain ‘self-belief’ and always to follow their dreams.
On Wednesday morning I attended the first half of the Leeds Secondary Heads Conference. I stayed to hear presentations by John Morgan President of the ASCL, who was talking about the likely impact of the coalition’s education policies and Peter Cox from OFSTED, who was talking about the new Inspection Framework. There were useful sessions, but I am always unhappy spending time ‘off site’ when school is working, do I returned to school before lunch.
The evening saw the PE Department and our families celebrate the success of all of our young sports stars at the 3rd Annual Sports Celebration Evening. Over 250 young people that represented our sport teams were invited to the presentation along with their parents and carers. Due to an overwhelming response the presentation was divided into a Year 7/8 celebration and a Year 9/10 celebration. Guest speaker Chris Cook, an Olympian and Double Commonwealth Champion Swimmer, delivered an impressive motivational speech at the evening and presented all students with their certificates, medals and trophies.
Congratulations to the top award winners, Harry Jackson, Jenny Broadbent, Yr7 Girls’ Rugby, Jack Boyle, Lily Boyle, Yr 8 Boys’ Basketball, William Oakes, Jessica Ward, Yr9 Girls’ Hockey, George Davies, Emily Holden, and the Year 10 Boys’ Rugby Team.
It was great to have special recognition at the event for the Year 7 Girls’ Rugby Team, as earlier in the day they were crowned West Yorkshire Champions. Congratulations go to Connor Dobson for his impressive coaching skills, and to the players, Mona-Lisa Curry, Chloe Pugh, Alanna Hughes, Atlanta Parkinson, Laura Yaffe, Kerry-Leigh Todd, Genevieve Williams and Rachel Ffrench.
It was of course a frustratingly disrupted week, where nationally teachers have not had the greatest coverage in the newspapers; but it is good, however, to reflect on another week where the continuing commitment by our great staff to the development of the ‘whole person’ can be seen through so many activities offered outside the usual school day. There may be an argument nationally between the teachers' Unions and the Government, but our staff here are still taking every opportunity to enrich the lives of our young people, something we do not take for granted.
Week Ending 8th July 2011
The week began in fantastic style with Mrs Craig winning 2nd place in Community Education Awards for 2011, 
in the category ‘outstanding PSHE Teacher’ she was the only secondary school teacher to reach the finals, which were supported by the Police Community Clubs of Great Britain. It is a fine and appropriate national accolade for a colleague who is held in high regard by all our school community. We are all delighted for her, as she received her award from Esther Rantzen.
The weekend also saw our school open its doors to local Performing Arts Academy, TLA. We were delighted to host the academy's first fundraising venture for brand new Arts charity, Stage Whispers. 74 young people were involved in a musical adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. They played to packed houses and thunderous applause. We were delighted to be joined by Harry Potter star Matt Lewis (aka Neville Longbottom), who is a patron of the academy.
On Monday around 220 Y7 pupils and 50 sports leaders (Y8-13) attended a school sports partnership multi sports ‘Mini Olympics’ event at John Charles Centre for Sport. The event included around 1000 pupils from our School Sports Partnership. Young people took part in Athletics, Tag Rugby, Football, Basketball, Tennis and Dodgeball. Our school easily had the largest number of pupils attending the event and we easily took the most sports leaders event. As always, the pupils were fantastic and a credit to themselves and the school. We are still awaiting the final result, but we can be proud of the work of Mr Potter and Mr Lynskey who ran our end of the operation, and Mr Mulhern, one of our school’s unsung heroes who planned the whole event for so many different schools.
During this week it was great to run a new STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Maths) project for all Year 8. STEM brings all these subject areas together and shows how each one can have an effect and links with another. We used the theme of the Olympics, with a focus on an athlete. Within Technology lessons, students learnt about nutrients needed for an athlete and made oaty biscuits to show how a carbohydrate releases energy slowly. In Design and Technology and Engineering we made Olympic stadiums from straws to show structures of buildings, while in Maths we looked at the speed in which an athlete travels. Science looked at energy needed by an athlete by burning the biscuits made in Food Technology to show how much energy is used by food and how this works in the body. The week was a complete success and the students really enjoyed and were inspired by the lesson they attended.
On Tuesday evening, over a quiet dinner in a local restaurant, we celebrated all that Mrs Tatlow has brought to our school. It is the beginning of a process to say farewell to one of our most loyal and faithful members of staff. Mrs Tatlow will retire at the end of this term, and it was lovely to draw our current Senior Leadership Team togethe, with colleagues from years gone by to toast Mrs Tatlow, to thank her for her work for our school and to wish her every possible blessing for the future.
Wednesday and Thursday saw us welcome Year 6 to Boston Spa School as their transition to secondary school took real pace. It was lovely to welcome them and to give them a taste of lessons to come. It was a particular joy too to meet so many families on Thursday evening, giving us an opportunity to meet with Form Tutors and to deal with some practicalities such as sorting uniform and buses. I am sure what will be the ‘Class of 2016’ will be brilliant!
On Wednesday our first 2011 ‘long haul’ World Challenge set off for Nairobi, led by Miss Blakey, and Mr Young, who has returned to us for the trip. The team of 12 Year 13s will trek from Kenya to Tanzania and return in a month from Dares Salam. We have another group, of Year 12s going in three weeks, led by Miss Elias, Mr Brennan and Miss Sweeney, who will complete the same expedition but in the reverse direction. Such lucky young people to have such a life changing experience.
On Thursday 50 young people met Japanese craft artist Katie Chaplin, they learnt about and each created a Japanese silk paintin
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The workshop was given to school as part of the East Asia Conference we attended last year. All our participants were chosen from Art groups in years 7 - 9 as a reward for the great attitude they had shown in Art lessons throughout the year. They did brilliantly, as ever were fantastic ambassadors for the school, enthusiastic, engaged and excited. They created some fantastic paintings. Thanks to Miss Rockliffe and Mrs Green for making this happen.
Some of our Year 10 Media Studies students were given the opportunity to cross the Pennines and visit the set of the top rated school based drama, 'Waterloo Road'. As part of a reward trip for consistent hard work, high achievement and upholding school values, the seven boys and seven girls were given 'access all areas' and were allowed to walk around the sets. The students infiltrated the staff room, ate lunch in the set canteen and even had an opportunity to sit in the Headteacher's office. The location manager, Mr James Muirhead, gave the students a behind the scenes look at the production process of a television drama and brilliant insight into the theory work which the students have been studying throughout the year. The highlight of the day was being allowed to watch some filming, call the shots and meet some of the stars of the show. A great day for all, and a well deserved reward!
We also welcomed Dr Mike Varley into school to talk to Science students from Year 10 to Year 12. 
He was fascinating as he shared his unique knowledge and experience. He spoke with such enthusiasm, based on years of work, both academic and commercial, in pig meat production across the world including North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Asia and throughout Europe. Put simply there wasn’t a part of a pig, pig rearing or pig meat production not covered; in fact the only thing missing was a real live pig!
We are very proud of Mercedes Jaskolka (Year 10) who was invited to present the work of Boston Spa School to 200 people at the Leeds Pupil Participation Showcase Event. The organizer, Richard Cracknell, described himself as 'massively impressed' with how well she did at the event. He said, Mercedes proved herself 'to be a very intelligent and adaptable young person who performed brilliantly on the day, seizing the opportunity to get involved, to support others and to broaden her own horizons and skills' Merecedes roles was to share our participation in last autumn's National "Takeover Day", and in 25 minute slots Mercedees trained over 50 people to take the 'take Over Day' concept back to their own schools.
The week ended with a visit from ‘Smart Rules’ a personal safety campaign. It was an uncompromising presentation to three Years groups with a key message about not crossing your ‘stupid line’ in personal safety. It was not an easy watch, but the message is so important. I am grateful to Mrs Franks, one of our Governors, for setting the event up.
The week has flown by, and what started for me with visits to Food Technology lessons watching healthy foods be prepared, ended with a tied Parent Governor Election and the toss of a coin to determine the winner, and sandwiched in between was some great work on coastal erosion by Year 7 in Geography. There is no such thing as a typical week in Boston Spa School!
Week Ending 15th July 2011
The week started with great reviews of the Summer Soulstice event, featuring music from our school’s Glee Club and Soul Band. Sadly for many of the 6th Formers this was their final performance before leaving for pastures new. The evening showed that we have an abundance of future talent that will be there to replace the leavers. The Music Team and young people can be proud of the hard work needed to produce an evening of such quality, which was enjoyed by over 100 parents and friends.
The weekend also saw my PA, Mrs Rushton run the Manchester 10K in aid of ‘Race For Life’ Charity. A time a little over an hour was a brilliant achievement for a first time runner supporting a charity very close to her heart.
At the start of the week I was delighted to spend time with Kyle Humphreys, who took part in the Karate World Cup in Birmingham. It was a privilege to hold the silver medal that he won; I found it amazing to think that this polite, respectful and unassuming young man is one of the best two 15 year olds in the world at Karate! This is such a fantastic achievement and we are so proud of him. Kyle is an excellent role model for our young people, not just for his achievement, but for the dedication, commitment and professionalism that he has invested in meeting his goals.
We are delighted to see the success of our most recent cohort of ABRSM exam entries. Tom Wardman (Year 12) gained a distinction in his grade 2 jazz clarinet exam - the first Boston Spa student to be entered for a jazz exam. Elisha Bates (Year 7) gained merit in her grade 1 violin exam. Lucy Toolan (Year 8) gained distinction in her grade 1 violin exam, which included maximum marks in the aural tests.
We have also seen another second school athletics record broken! Ed Hanson (Year 8) ran 100m during a league meeting at
South Leeds Stadium, in 11.8 seconds. Just to emphasize how fast this is, he was 0.9 seconds ahead of the athlete in second place,
and in a 100m race that is a massive gap! The record Ed has broken was set by Christian Creaby in 1992. I am told that Christian
was a fantastic athlete who represented Yorkshire at the English School's Championships and finished 4th. I think this all shows
what a superb talent Ed is and we look forward to even greater achievements from him in the future.
On Tuesday I started the day at the Civic hall with Leeds Secondary Heads. There was a great range of speakers looking at the post 16 challenge. These included Tom Riordan (Chief Executive of Lees City Council), Cllr Judith Blake, Nigel Richardson, (Director of Children’s’ Services), Gary Lumby from (Yorkshire Bank) and Prof Jeremy Higham (Leeds University). The second session was about the ‘Rising to the Leeds Education Challenge’, where we were joined by the ever inspirational Professor Tim Brighouse.
I was glad to return to school for the afternoon though, as we had our House launch events, which involved 60 teams across school, 15 from each house, consisting of a mixture of Year 7-10. They did teambuilding and problem solving tasks to build a sense of ‘House community’ and team spirit. They also took part in a charity research task to determine a local, national and international charity for each house. The afternoon was a great success with pupils and staff alike thoroughly enjoying the event. A special ‘Well Done’ should go to the Year 10 young people who acted admirably as role models to younger ones in their houses, and to the Sixth Form Leaders that assisted with the planning and running of the event. Winners soon to be announced!
On Wednesday we tried to replicate last year’s success with a helium balloon and a digital camera to photograph space. The aim was to break the altitude record for such a project.
The launch went well, with some brilliant work by the young people, in great weather. We needed 35,289m to break the record, and achieved an amazing 34,644. Sadly we sprung a very small leak which caused the balloon not to pop (as planned) but begin to descend, very slowly eventually landing in Smithells Petting Farm, near Bolton.
There was a lot of moisture on the ascent, so Mr Hugill is a little disappointed with the photos, but I am still impressed. The whole project is a great reminder that ‘space’ is not that far away! The long 7.5 hour flight meant that the tiny camera batteries gave up, but calculations suggest that the photos we have are from about 32,000m up.
From September Year Nine they will complete either a GCSE or BTEC of their choice in a year. On Thursday afternoon they did a taster, with feedback in lots of rooms saying, "It's been great" "Really, really good" "The right choice", and the staff saying Staff saying “A lovely group". What a pleasure it was to visit so many lessons and see a whole year group enjoying their learning so much!
I am really proud of our, 6th Form Leadership Academy who went to local primary schools this week supporting Enterprise Week with their ‘Smoothy Challenge’. Mr Madeley, the Head at Harewood wrote in his school newsletter, ‘Lord Sugar would have been proud as our children set up their own businesses, designing, marketing and producing smoothies. It was a fabulous day, packed full of exciting learning and problem solving. I am pleased it went so well, and I am delighted that we could support primaries in this way. I understand photos are on the Harewood School Blog!
Thursday evening, was our annual Art and Photography Exhibition. I am always astounded at the quality of the work Mr Boulton and his team produce from our young people every year; written text can seldom do justice to the creative skills on show. I am so jealous of the quality the team draw from their learners; so less words about this, and let me share some favourites. At the bottom of this week’s blog is the work of Jessica Coates, an acrylic on canvas showing Paris form the top of the Eiffel Tower, a portrait of our guitar teacher Mr Phillips by Will Davies, and two pieces by Eleanor Koslowsky which formed a study of her fascinating family history. I have included Megan Turner’s work of a Headingly street, because it was painted only using a credit card, and Jessica Nolan’s work, which Mr Boulton tells me, is a ‘figurative composition of mixed media’.
Thursday evening was also a full Governing Body meeting. It was good to welcome Mr David Wallis to the Governors in his capacity as our newest parents Governor. Mr Steve Hall was re-elected Chair for the next year, and Mr Chris Corkhill was re-elected Vice Chair. Governance is a public service, and we are well served by committed, caring and professional colleagues. The meeting also appointed Mr David Camidge as a Community Governor. This vacancy arose following the decision of Mr Chris Towing to step down. Chris has been a loyal supporter of our school, as a parent and for five years as a Governor; in particular his service in acting as Governor responsible for Child Protection has been invaluable.
On Friday morning it was great to attend the West Oaks School for their Coffee Morning. There is always such a warm welcome from these young people and their staff. It is always a real privilege to share with them.
As I write 7 and 8 Sports Day was taking place; our first with House competition. I suspected that the motivating strengths of Mr Brennan will see a strong Bucktrout performance, but the door has just burst open with a delighted Miss Hibbert, resplendent in yellow, loudly proclaiming a Donaldson win!
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Week Ending 22nd July 2011
The final week of a year is always dominated by ‘farewells’. This year our movement of staff movement is characterised by colleagues joining the teaching profession as well as those leaving it.
We are really proud of Mr Foxton, Miss Grain, Miss Jackson, Miss Hamblett, Mrs Muirhead and Mr Waide who all leave us having won places on Teacher Training Courses. All have been exceptional colleagues and will make great teachers.
On the other hand we are awestruck by the years of service that Mrs Knill, Mrs Willis, Mrs Tatlow and Mr Bryant have given us as they retire. There is over 120 year’s service here; they have all shown remarkable loyalty.
I tried to help (younger) colleagues understand how long Mr Bryant’s 35 years service was by pointing out that in September 1976, not only was Elvis still alive, but also number 1 with ‘The Wonder of You’, Jim Callaghan was a new Prime Minister, and the cutting edge of technology was a train that could reach 125mph; cinema goers were watching Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson in ‘A Star is Born’, The Ramones performed live for the first time, and I started ‘senior’ school.
HOUSE LAUNCH
For our young people the last week of term has been dominated by House Competitions. We launched House initiative, with the excellent activity afternoon, so the first House Award went thus;
1st Cooper 4152
2nd Donaldson 3812
3rd Bucktrout 3809
4th Thompson 3801
COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTION
For six weeks we have been calculating points in school called ‘Community Contribution points’ for good progress or a great contribution to the school and learning. The first House to win the Community Contribution Shield was Cooper, with the scores thus;
1st Cooper 10,335
2nd Bucktrout 10,015
3rd Thompson 9,765
4th Donaldson 7,006
The story here is the massive up achievement by Bucktrout and Mr Brennan’s motivational skills; this was neck and neck between Thompson and Cooper, before Bucktrout’s fantastic late run!
These two competitions clearly confirming Mr Potter’s assertion that Cooper were the ‘bookies favourites’; however ...
SPORTS DAYS
The PE Team did a great job holding Sports Days despite the shocking rainfall. The first winners of our House Sports Day Cup were Donaldson, with the points distributed like this:
1st Donaldson 711
2nd Cooper 680
3rd Bucktrout 639
4th Thompson 605
The relief from Miss Hibbert could be seen and heard; she had been struggling to come to terms with the Donaldson performance in Community Contribution Shield!
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TENNIS TOUNAMENT
The Tennis centre saw its first competitive use, as the venue for the House tennis Tournament. The results for the singles were:
Y7 Boys Thompson Charlie Davidson
Yr7 Girls Donaldson Hannah Reed
Yr 8 Boys Bucktrout James Leonard
Yr 8 Girls Bucktrout Beth Kerrigan
While the doubles results were:
Yr9 Boys Donaldson George Fairbrother, James McMullan
Yr9 Girls Donaldson Hameet Mankoo, Emily Wardman
The final scores for the House Tennis Tournament were:
1st Donaldson 110
2nd Bucktrout 108
3rd Cooper 79
4th Thompson 70
CUBOID
The three-week long Cuboid competition, led by Mr Billington, came to a climax in the Main Hall as Bucktrout and 8GY, represented by Connor "Target" Toulson and Bethany "Kingpin" Kerrigan, became House Cuboid Champions. The final results were:
1st Year 8 Bucktrout Connor "Target" Toulson & Bethany "Kingpin" Kerrigan
2nd Year 10 Donaldson George "Dead-Eye" Davies & Danielle "Focus" Faulkiner
3rd Year 7 Cooper Amie "The Aim" Foley & Joe "Ball Bounce" Batty
4th Year 9 Bucktrout Reece "The Radar" Child & Megan "Maverick" Hofmann
The 20+ games, randomly selected, included bouncing balls off multiple tables into bins ('Triple Ball Bounce Bin'), stopping a stopwatch within thousandths of a second ('Reaction'), stacking glue sticks on top of each other ('Glue Stick Stack Attack'), and even the fear-inducing 'Giant Hurl Ball'. The four finalists were all the champions of their year, and had come through a tough field of tutor group competition.
Mr Billington is threatening an Inter-House Staff Cuboid for the autumn; I anticipate an opportunity here for Governors to shine too ... but any participant will do really well to match the individual performance of George "Dead-Eye" Davies.
THE ‘BAKE-OFF’
On Thursday our Year 10 Hospitality and Catering students held the Inter House bake-off, which was a great success, with the scores being:
1st Bucktrout 136
2nd Cooper 102
3rd Thompson 97
4th Donaldson 77
How appropriate that Bucktrout win our first ‘Bake-off’, in what was Liz’s specialist subject! It was great to see so many involved, and to admire the creativity of what some have already have described as ‘dirty tactics’! Donaldson putting off Cooper customers by telling them that the blue cakes were mint flavoured was a stroke of diabolical genius, but obviously came too late to impact on the result!
CHARITY CHALLENGE
As I type the blog we are midway through the House Charity Challenge, as we collect our old school uniform for a charity re-cycle. Special congratulations to Marie Hillcoat, Patrick Daley Dee, Davey McElwee, Jacob Dunwell, William Shuttleworth and Harry Barker Darbyshire whose idea this was, and has done a huge amount of work to make sure it is successful. Of course our statue took the opportunity to wear the ‘polo and sweat combo’ for one last time!
I really hope that Mr Lynskey has really sorted Thompson House out for this event, surely they can’t compete so well in Community Contribution but then end the year as the only House without a win?
This is the last blog for a few weeks; I’ll be back here sharing our results in August.
In the meantime I hope all our school community, have a safe, restful and happy holiday.
STOP PRESS …
It was indeed a Thompson ‘Charity Challenge’ win!
