Western Eye – 18th December 2014 Message from the Headteacher We say a fond farewell to Mr Rigby from the science labs at the end of this term. He doesn’t manage a full escape into retirement though! We are pleased that Mike will continue to organise the Leading Edge and Duke of Edinburgh projects which our secondary students benefit so much from. Mike has been a popular teacher with the many students that he has taught over the 34 years that he has been at Five Islands School and we send him off on his travels with our very best wishes. Mr Garratt is looking forward to joining the science team and we look forward to welcoming Lisa Jackson onto the primary team. Congratulations to Estelle and Henry in being elected Head Girl and Head Boy this term and to Robyn, Heather and Zoe who became prefects. These roles are new to the school and I wish them every success in the year ahead. We have all enjoyed the build up to Christmas across the school and a great deal of talent has been showcased. We have seen excellent performances at the LAMDA evening, listened to a fabulous concert from our musicians and singers, and have been delighted by primary children in their nativities. Thank you to all the staff who worked so hard with the children; they have certainly been a credit to you. I would like to take his opportunity to thank our PTFA who have really put in the hours this Christmas with a successful Christmas Market raising nearly £1000, serving refreshments at the Nativities, organising the special present shopping event for our youngest children and the food for their party. I would also like to thank the catering team for putting on such a delicious Christmas dinner. Many extra hours went into preparing the dinner and it was good to see such a big take up. Well done to Schools Forum for encouraging us to chill out in front of a film on your fund raising night. I am sure we are all ready for the Christmas holidays and I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Linda Todd Christmas Concert 2014 Well done to all our musicians who performed so brilliantly at the Christmas Concert on 11th December. It was fantastic to see such a wide age range playing and singing, and again the standard of musicianship was very high. The combined woodwind finale was a high point, as was the massed choir where the children sang with the Scilly Sirens. We missed our off island musicians who could not get over however, and hope the weather is kind for the next concert so that they can join us. Special thanks to all our adult helpers – you know who you are! Debbie Wainwright and Jane Pender Christmas Nativity Performances Well done to all the Primary children, their teachers and teaching assistants across the schools on putting on such wonderful Christmas performances. Delightful! Tree Decorating Ceremony What a fabulous job the primary and nursery children on Carn Gwaval did decorating the Christmas tree in the school café. Each child made a decoration and put it on the tree in a special Assembly. Thank you to the Duchy and Mrs Stevens for donating the trees this year. Open the Book Performances The primary children have enjoyed fortnightly visits from members of the local church communities as part of the national Open the Book project. A group of dedicated volunteers have been coming along to act out Bible stories including Noah and his ark and the Christmas story, to help bring them to life for the children. We are really grateful to the team for their enthusiasm and the time they give up to rehearse and perform to us. Christmas Craft Sale The Primary Children on Carn Gwaval put on a Christmas craft sale. There was a lovely festive atmosphere and lots of money was raised from the sale of their wonderful crafts and refreshments. Samaritan’s Purse Shoebox Appeal A big thank you for the collection towards the islands response of 106 boxes for the Samaritans purse shoebox appeal. Many thanks to Dial a Doux who transport the boxes to the quay, Mary Lethers who collects all year round, Sports Mode who save their shoe boxes for us to wrap and fill. An amazing response, thank you to all. Successful Parent Partnerships The governing body of the Five Islands School have a vacancy for a co-opted governor to support the school's ongoing drive towards excellence. You will: be passionate about securing the best outcomes for all children and young people within the Island community have an awareness of the roles and responsibilities of a school governor, be willing and able to commit to the time required to be a school governor ideally be able to bring experience of governance from other walks of life, and particularly to have skills and experience from the human resources, legal or finance professions If you feel you have the necessary skills to make the commitment to become a school governor please contact Ben Julian (Chair of Governors) on 01720 422169 for an informal discussion. We would like formal expressions of interest to be completed by Wednesday 14 January, with interviews on Tuesday 20 January 2015. Please be aware that this voluntary post is subject to a satisfactory DBS check. Jane Stewart, Clerk to Governors Head Boy and Head Girl Elected by the staff prior to the October holidays, this term marked the beginning of our roles as Head Boy and Head Girl. As the school had not previously had such roles, it took some ironing out of job descriptions before we could begin carrying out our duties. As we explained to both the primary and secondary students in an assembly two weeks ago, our roles include varied activities including peer mentoring, representing the school at events such as church services, providing assistance with primary events such as the primary nativity, leading assemblies each term, organising school events, and meeting any visitors to the school. We are expected to act as role models to other students and ambassadors for our school. After the Christmas holidays we look forward to developing our roles, as well as taking peer mentoring training which will enable us to support other students. You will be able to read about developments in school from us each term. Estelle Acharya, Head Girl and Henry Balkwill Ruddick, Head Boy. Sonia Scott’s Snack Shop Sadly Sonia Scott has informed us that she will no longer be able run the snack shack after the holidays. Sonia’s snacks have always been very popular with the secondary students and the staff, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank her on behalf of all of us who have enjoyed her food. The snack shack will be missed! We will be looking for someone to take on the business in the new year. Red Class This half term has seen children learning about Diwali and firework safety which involved taking their parents back to school in the science lab for some safe firework experiments. A big thank you to Miss Beattie and Mr Morel for organising such an exciting experience! The children decided to set up a fire station in our classroom where we saw many budding fire fighters acting out some dramatic rescues. Many thanks to Declan, Katie, Andy and of course Welefant for showing us around St Mary's fire station and letting the children explore the fire engine. The glitter and tinsel came out in December and Christmas wouldn't be complete without posting our letters to Santa....after a quick snack at The Dairy of course! Thank you to Lindsay, Euan, Yve and Mick for welcoming us all. Merry Christmas everyone! Animal Antics in Orange Class What a busy few weeks we have had learning about animal habitats before focusing on the cold lands of the Arctic and Antarctic. We are now experts on penguins and their lifestyle and have practised looking at non -fiction texts to write and answer questions. We were intrigued to find out how penguins eat which led us to think about our teeth and why we need them. A visit to see the dental surgery was a great chance to ask questions about how to keep ourselves healthy. Baby Herbie came to visit us too. Thank you to Linda Thomas and Claire for enriching our curriculum. The reading team of Helen Easterbrook and Mr Douglas are very welcome each week and has been amazing to see the progress of the child’s reading this term. Thank you to you all for making Orange class such a busy vibrant space. Wishing you all a very happy Christmas. Mrs Grossett News from Yellow Class We have had a very busy term in Yellow Class! It has been fascinating finding out about our locality. Yellow Class would like to say a big thank you to Todd Stevens for joining us on a history walk around Old Town. We visited the anchor believed to be from the Association, Ennor Castle and Old Town Churchyard to help us discover more about the past. Anthea Roberts kindly treated us to hot chocolate and marshmallows on our way- thank you! It was very exciting to visit the secondary science department to make slime and find out more about solids, liquids and gases. The children all looked very professional in their lab coats! News from Green Class The second half of the autumn term has been very busy in Green Class. We have been finishing our World War 1 Topic, designing and making our own zeppelins and writing some excellent information reports, researching and presenting our work using our laptops. As mathematicians we have been investigating shape and achieving some super results in our times table challenge! We have had fun making volcano rock-cakes in science, and creating some clever animations in ICT. In art we have produced some wonderful abstract art, inspired by Kandinsky. All of Green Class has shown brilliant ball skills while we have been challenging ourselves in some pretty exciting netball matches! Everyone has been working very hard learning their lines and songs for the Nativity. It’s going to be a fantastic show. Merry Christmas Green Class! News from Blue Class We have enjoyed a busy half term of poppy making and bake off’s, grid method maths and instruction writing. We have written as police detectives and newspaper journalists and some pupils have even written instructions on how to survive Blue Class! As of January I will be teaching secondary Science and so wish a fond farewell to Blue Class children. I wish to express a huge thank you to my team and all the staff and parents who have supported me over the past 4 years as Blue Class teacher. Tim Garratt News from Indigo Class We have had a very busy half term preparing our Christmas performance and learning about life one hundred years ago during WW1. Indigo Class have also finished studying Macbeth and are going to continue with the Shakespeare theme in the New Year. They have enjoyed using the Lego Mindstorm in ICT with Mr May and improved their rugby and netball skills beyond recognition! Everyone made a beautiful Christmassy plaque to sell last week and, along with some games designed by the pupils themselves, we raised a magnificent £52 for our class. Happy Christmas from Mrs Finch and Moira. News fromTresco and Bryher Base We have been learning about the Hindu Festival of Light this half term alongside how Christians celebrate Christmas. Today we invited all our families into school for a Diwali lunch. We made chicken curry, vegetable curry, dahl and rice, served with poppadums and naan bread. We also made mango lassi but Felix was the only one who liked it! We decorated the classroom and gave it a good clean to encourage the God Lakshmi to enter and bring us good fortune. We also wrapped up presents of sweets and gave them to our family, as giving sweets is supposed to help your receiver think sweet things about you! We have really enjoyed learning about Diwali and look forward to learning more about other cultures and their customs. Susanna Gates News from St Agnes Base St Agnes prepare for Christmas Rescue helicopter – Christmas play When brave young pilot saves the day. Making hearts – very tricky Salt dough decorations very sticky. Getting ready for our Christmas Fair Decorations everywhere. Gifts aplenty, sparkly too Special things from me to you. Beautiful tree perfumes our school Mince pies and glitter – that’s our rule! Paper chains festoon to infinity Balloons and tinsel - decorations brilliantly! By Isla and Sanchia News from St Martins Base Nearly at the end of term now, and all getting really excited about our Nativity performance of ‘Stable Manner’, which we are doing down at The Sevenstones Inn for a change. There are lots of songs, and three rather argumentative animals who are rather reluctant to share their stable! We held our Christmas open afternoon last week, and we were delighted to welcome lots of people to the base. The children were great guides, and proudly showed our visitors all the lovely things we’ve been doing this term. There were lots of very positive comments from our visitors which was lovely. The infants have written some great stories this half of term. They are based on ‘Jack the Giant Killer’, and they changed their stories by making up their own characters and how the giant was killed. The juniors focus has been on report writing, and they have produced some great information posters about Roman baths. Next time you visit a swimming pool or gym, you can thank the Romans for bringing ideas like that to Britain nearly 2000 years ago. We would like to thank all the people who have supported us this term, perhaps by having us on visits, or coming down to the base and working with us. Happy Christmas to everyone, see you in 2015! MikeTetley Liam showing off his work during our open afternoon. After School Clubs News NEW SPORTS CLUBS FOR AFTER CHRISTMAS: Primary Hockey Club, Y4,Y5,Y6: Monday 3:30 – 4:30 in the sports hall with Sarah Jenkins, remember to bring shin pads + gum shield. Primary Soccer Club, Y3,Y4,Y5,Y6: Tuesday 3:30-4:30 in the sports hall with Mr May, shin pads must be worn to play. Primary Soccer Club, Y1,Y2: Wednesday 3:30-4:30 in the sports hall with Mr May, shin pads must be worn to play. Secondary Soccer Club Wednesday 3:30-4:30 on field with Mr Songhurst. Boots and shin pads. Secondary Basketball Club Thursday 3:30-4:30 in the Sports hall with Mr Garratt ABRSM Music Exams Success Excellent results from our students with their ABRSM Exams, even though they had a couple of hills to climb as the exams were brought forward from Dec to Nov 20th, giving students a lot less time to practise, due to the earlier date and the half term holiday! However they all did brilliantly and I am very proud of all of them for such a great achievement! Jane Pender GRADE 1 Piran Julian Alto saxophone 124 Merit Evie Jenkins Alto saxophone 116 Pass Ruby May Flute 104 Pass GRADE 2 Bridie Ducker Alto Saxophone 125 Merit GRADE 3 Jevon Hughes Alto Saxophone 132 Distinction Katie Wainwright Clarinet Zac Hick 124 Merit Tenor Saxophone 117 Pass GRADE 4 Loveday Lewin Piano 126 Merit GRADE 5 Inca Reynolds Alto Saxophone 130 Distinction Parent Consultation Evenings for Year 10 and Year 11 A big reminder to parents of Key Stage 4 students that there are two Parent Consultation Evenings very early next term. The Year 11 evening is on the first day back, the 5th. January from 4-6p.m. and the Year 10 evening is on the following Monday, the 12th. January, from 4-6p.m. Both year groups in Key Stage 4 are focussing on preparation for GCSE and BTEC qualifications and the transition to post 16 education on the mainland. These meetings give the staff an invaluable opportunity to meet parents and discuss student progress and course deadlines. We can also share any concerns. We hope to see you there. Sarah Garratt student Council The Student Council have continued to meet on a weekly basis representing and sharing the views of all students, in all phases, on all bases. The reps have continued to do a fantastic job representing their peers. Well done Student Council! Liz Duffy-Griffiths Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) Alice and Chelsea have finished their research and have spent the last half term on project write-up. Both are completing a 10,000 word written project which will be accompanied by a presentation. The girls have worked extremely hard; applying the Harvard Referencing System and ensuring that their writing is of A-level standard. We look forward to sharing more news about EPQ in the new year. Well done both! L iz Duffy-Griffiths Secondary Uniform A big thank you to the secondary students who are consistently following the school uniform policy and to the parents who are supporting them in accomplishing this. Last half term we tackled skirt length with great success. This half term we are focussing on non-uniform jumpers and hoodies. A small number of secondary students appear to be wearing hoodies instead of coats. Please be mindful that these items are not allowed to be worn in the building. Given the weather, it is far more sensible for a school jumper/school hoodie to be worn as well as a coat. Your support with this is much appreciated. Liz Duffy-Griffiths Year 11 Mock Exams Year 11 have worked very hard this half term, preparing for and taking their GCSE Mock exams. The students maturity and dedication to their studies was evident throughout the mock week and we look forward to sharing their results via the school reports. Well done Year 11. Liz Duffy-Griffiths Secondary Reports and Parents Evenings A reminder that the first secondary report is due to be published in the last week of this term. The reports will be posted home. Our Secondary Parents Evenings will be taking place in the new year: Year 11 Monday 5th January Year 10 Monday 12th January Year 9 Monday 26th January Year 8 Monday 2nd February Year 7 Monday 9th February Please remember to bring a copy of the school report along to the Parents Evenings. More information about data and reporting is available in our guide on www.5pfl.com Liz Duffy-Griffiths LAMDA “ What a smashing evening!” O ne parent reported. O n Friday 5 th December we presented our second, fabulous LAM DA showcase evening to parents, friends and siblings in the Performance Hall. I t was a great opportunity, for our students to show one or more of their exam pieces they had been rehearsing for their exams in January. I would like to express how enormously proud I am of the professionalism and talent we have here at Five I slands School. Students as young as Year 5 ( and up to Year 1 1 ) , presented a variety of characters and genres in a thoroughly enjoyable medley of play extracts, for the audience. Students will inevitably still need to develop and rehearse their pieces to polish them in readiness for the forthcoming exam. As parents would you please continue to check their lines over the holidays with them? Thanks for all your continued support, M rs Reynolds. Hello from Mundesley. Well here we are, the end of term with Christmas approaching fast. Mundesley students have decorated downstairs and their bedrooms are lovely and glittery! Szymon joined us this term and has adapted well to the boarding house life. Beryl Read popped in one night and played Bertie Drive, a very fast and noisy game. Sophie Poat won. Thank you Beryl for a great night. For Christmas everyone got together and made an advent calendar, as you can see from the picture it is very colourful! A very happy Christmas from us all at Mundesley! Ann and Julian House Rugby This half-term saw all three houses competing in the annual rugby tournament. Separate primary and secondary events took place on the school field, with pupils and students from years 3 to 11 taking part. The primary event used tags in place of the tackle and included a combined year 3 and 4 section for the first time. There were some great performances by individuals, but it was the house that could play as a team that proved the most effective and this year it was Will St. Pier and Issy Taylor who lifted the trophy for Shearwater. Many thanks to Ollie Glenn, Tara Hitchens and Andy Erentraut for helping run the tournament, as well as taking on a combined year 3/4 team as a bonus for the youngsters. The secondary matches were also great to watch as full contact, 3 man scrums and lineouts were all employed to make it as close to rugby 7’s as possible. In previous years Harry Stone had proved unstoppable with his electric pace, but he did not have it all his own way this year as some crunching tackles were made whilst defending the try line. In the end 2 matches were won on a golden try leaving Andy Erentraut gratefully receiving the trophy for Shearwater. A big thank you to Ian Nimmo, who has kindly given up his time to coach our students during the after school rugby club, and also for refereeing the matches on the day. Martyn Songhurst The victorious primary Shearwater team For Information: FACE BOOK Everyone recognises the important place that social networking sites play in our lives today. The various social networks are an excellent way of staying in touch with friends and family, near and far, and a great way to share photographs and recent important events in our lives. However, these sites must not become a way of raising concerns about any aspect of school life. Whilst we recognise that people will inevitably discuss their anxieties and concerns with their friends in person we feel that publically raising issues with Facebook ‘friends’ is not appropriate. Should you have any issues whatsoever we would encourage you to approach your child’s Class teacher/ tutor or base leader in the first instance or use the channels indicated on all school newsletters. By approaching concerns in this manner your issues will be dealt with professionally and confidentially and you will receive attention from the people best able to address the issue raised. All our staff work extremely hard, often very long hours, to provide your children with a range of exciting, creative experiences and a good education delivered within a caring, Christian context. Although extremely busy and sometimes an appointment needs to be made, teachers, the Senior Leadership Team, Key Stage Leaders and myself are always willing to discuss any issues or concern you may have about our school with you and, should you then feel it necessary to make a complaint, it would always be taken very seriously. Therefore I would ask that you give careful thought and consideration to how comments posted on Facebook may cause hurt and distress to precisely those people who work so hard and are completely committed to your children’s education and well-being. Please also be aware of the potential risks to young people using social network sites. Those under the age of 13 should not have Facebook accounts. Health News The school nurse service is open to you and your child until they reach 19 years of age. Gina Smith is the Five Islands school nurse and is available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. If you have any queries she can be contacted via; Phone: 01720 423722 or 07827284105 Email: gina.smith2@nhs.net If you wish to access the school nurse service you can self refer by contacting the Care Management Centre on 01872 221400 Diary Dates Please note some of the key dates for the coming half term Friday 19th December End of term service St Agnes Christingle 6pm Monday 22nd December until Friday 2nd January Christmas holidays JANUARY Monday 5th January Return to school Year 11 Parents evening – 4.00 – 6.00 pm DIARY DATES – Cont’d/….. Monday 12th January Year 10 Parents Evening – 4.00 – 6.00 pm Monday 26th January Year 9 Options Evening – 4.00 – 6.00 pm FEBRUARY Monday 2nd February Year 8 Parents Evening – 4.00 – 6.00 pm Thursday 5th February Intermediate Maths Challenge Monday 9th February Year 7 Parents Evening – 4.00 – 6.00 pm 16th – 20th February Half Term Holiday Monday 23rd February Training Day – school closed to pupils MARCH Thursday 5th March World Book Day Monday 16th March – Thursday 19th March Cornwall Music Festival Trip Thursday 19th March Key Stage 4 Safety Day Friday 20th March Internet Safety Day