Chiswick School, Burlington Lane, London W4 3UN. Telephone 0208 747 0031

Also available online at www.chiswickschool.org 26th November 2012 - Issue 09Student Services Direct Line 020 8747 6655 to report your child ill or late.

D i a r y D a t e s

A quick paced first half for the Year 10 girls' netball team put them in a good position going into the second quarter. The team managed to get a win against opponents Heathlands in their last home match.

Goal shooter Katie Davies opened the game with two successive shots whilst Goal attack Monique Craib-McKenzie followed on, bagging a few more goals to increase the lead.

A fatigued Heathlands slowly crept up behind with players swinging from end to end, netting in goal after goal; the goal difference increased the margin after Chiswick found their feet comfortably in the game and kept their dominance with little resistance.

The girls managed to secure a 13-7 win at the end of the game. Goal shooter Katie Davies said ‘we all played really well as a team and it was a lively game for us’

The girls should now look to maintain this winning streak.

Players: Tasmin Wellington, Kyra Clarke-Campbell, Sharon Madede, Tamaya Thomas St-Ville, Alisa Musanovic, Monique Craib-McKenzie, Katie Davies.By Nikoleta Gashi

S P O R T SNOVEMBER

Wed 28thYear 8 HPV Catch Up 2

Fri 30thSchool Closed (Training buy back day)

DECEMBERSun 2nd

PTA Car Boot Sale

Mon 3rd - Fri 7thYear 11 Mocks

Tue 4thWEX Factor Year 10

Fri 7thAdult Education end of term

Mon 10thYear 11 employment skills day

Mon 10th - Wed 19thMosaic Project

Your Weekly Newsletter

Chiswick Hosts Chinese Teacher Visit

CHISWICK SCHOOL

Message for Parents

Lunch account needs to be topped up before school starts.

Please use Widepay via the school website for this.

Nifty Netball Gives Year 10 Another Win

Our school was proud to welcome visi-tors from China last Thursday, as 20 Chinese teachers from a rural province in the north of the country arrived at Chiswick. They were here to under-stand how the British education system functions, and had each been applying for 2 years to be involved in the trip to England. There are 100 teachers from China over in England taking part in this trip; we were lucky enough to be called upon to host one group of them.

A group of Year 8 students, who are be-ing trained in giving tours of the school, showed the visitors around the school’s departments, dining hall, computer rooms and the Sports Hall. Mr Ryan accompanied them and explained, with the help of a translator, the history of the school and the more recent works on it.

Over the course of an hour, they trav-elled across the school and were able to visit several classrooms. These in-cluded a Year 7 Opening Minds class, a noisy lesson on working with plastic in the DT block and a lesson about draw-ing and painting in Art.

They also listened to a number of pres-entations from senior staff explaining how the curriculum worked at Chiswick School.

The trip took place because Chinese ed-ucation is adapting some aspects of its system to replicate the British system. One of the visitors said 'It was interest-ing to see an English school and how it is different from our own.'

By laura reid

Theatre Company Dickens Drama Adaptation takes off at Charity Fundraiser dayA group of Year 9 students and Mr Meadows gave up their Sunday last week to perform for charity.

Given the chance to perform at the celebratory Dickens Day Fundraiser for Great Ormond Street Hospital, the newly formed ‘Chiswick School Theatre Company’ performed their adaptation of ‘Hard Times’ by the Victorian writer himself to an audience assembled in their hundreds.

The play which presents the satirical attitudes of Dickens on the Victorian schooling system during the 1800’s was one of many acclaimed Dickens novels from which the plays were devised; oth-ers including A Christmas Carol and Ol-iver Twist were performed on the day. Collectively, they conveyed the excel-lence in his literature which allowed for Dickens to establish a highly successful career which in turn saved a struggling Great Ormond Street at the time.

Issy Simmons 9HA playing Sissi Jupp summarised the day as 'something completely different but really excit-ing.' Issy’s Drama teacher Mr Meadows agreed by saying 'the group were full of energy on the day and we received a great response from the audience.'

By Nikoleta Gashi

Governors’ UpdateAn “Energetic” and "Dynamic" Performance

‘love of playing with words, and being a ‘toaster’- which requires placing po-etry over Reggae music.’ He wanted to talk about and tell people about ‘African American history in a way which wasn’t boring, or preaching, talk about things which I didn’t believe were morally correct, so I chose to express myself through performance poetry’

When asked about what drew him to-wards performing to younger students, he explained that, ‘ I knew teachers and older students who told me that my art form could help the curriculum, and how I could enrich and inspire these children. So I started doing some education work, and started making a living through working in schools with children. I was doing what I love whilst making a living.’

He provided some excellent advice towards the end of the conversation, saying that prospective and aspir-ing authors/poets should, ‘never stop reading and writing, learning your craft until you’ve mastered it’

We wish Adisa all the best for the fu-ture, and want to congratulate him on his achievements. He was truly inspir-ing to meet, and we hope he visits Chis-wick School’s library soon again!

By MariyaM khalifa

Last Thursday, Year 7 students were treated to a visit paid by a ‘performance poet, Adisa the Verbalize, at the library. The “energetic” and "dynamic" perfor-mance was organised to “inspire and educate students through verbalism”.

Following his recital, Adisa taught stu-dents to devise their own poetry based on personal identity and life experi-ences. Using extracts from his book ‘Lip-Hopping with the Fundi-Fu’ Adisa demonstrated to Year 7 pupils that po-etry can be accessible, modern and fun, as well as being a medium to explore fundamental issues. It was an absorb-ing, evocative moving experience for many of the students and staff involved.

‘Adisa has an amazing ability to con-nect to young people and to draw out incredible poetry from even the most reserved and shy students.’ Said the Li-brarian Mrs Flann.

After the visit, I was lucky enough to sit down and talk to Adisa. He told me that his inspiration was drawn from his

The latest meeting of the school’s Gov-erning Body took place on 13th Novem-ber when several new governors took their places, including the two new par-ent governors who were successful at the recent election – Suzanne Meloni and Debbie Smale.

Amongst a packed agenda, governors received and discussed very encourag-ing reports on the progress that is being made in delivering the new Strategic Plan (available on the school website). The plan is ambitious and designed to improve all aspects of Chiswick School including raising the quality of teaching even further, developing the technol-ogy that supports learning and upgrad-ing the fabric of the school’s buildings. Chairs of the three Committees (Teach-ing & Learning, Student Engagement and Finance & Buildings) that consider matters in greater detail were on hand to contribute further information.

With the last 12 months seeing the school move to Academy status and an excellent report from Ofsted, Gov-ernors also discussed their future role in supporting the Headteacher, Tony Ryan, and his team. Having already explored this at an earlier weekend get-together of the Governing Body, an im-provement strategy for the GB is now being developed which will assist gov-ernors in making their contribution to the future success of the school.

The Governing Body meets once a term, in addition at the AGM, which will be held on 4 December.