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‘Stronger Together’

NEW

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Thursday 23rd June 2016 saw the inaugural Cwmbran High School ‘Celebration of Achievement’ Evening, and what an evening it was. Ian Gough, local legend and

former Welsh rugby player, opened the proceedings, with an inspirational story about how, after a 96-13 thrashing at the hands of South Africa on his debut for Wales, he resolved to learn from that, knuckle down and move onwards and upwards, which he duly did; ten years later, he was

representing Wales for the 50th time as they defeated France to win the Grand Slam. This remarkable journey illustrated what could be achieved with positive thinking, determination and resilience, a message not lost on the recipients of the Awards. From Subject Awards, to Head of Year Awards, to Community Awards, all the pupils were deserving winners and are outstanding role models for their peers. A special thank you to the cast of this year's School Production, We Will Rock You, and to the Cwmbran High School Deaf Choir for their performances during the evening. Congratulations to all the recipients; we hope to see you up on stage again next year.

Celebration of Achievement Evening

Sports Day Success

We were honoured to welcome Matthew Rees, Cardiff Blues & Wales International Rugby Player, to present medals to the winners on Sports Day. We were extremely lucky with the weather and a fantastic day was had by all involved. The students were a credit to the school and very star struck by Matthew! We would like to express our sincerest thanks to Matthew for taking time out of his busy schedule to stay with us ALL day to present all the

awards.

Cwmbran High Summer Edition

Stories and photographs provided by staff, pupils and parents.

Edited by D Baribeault.

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Duke of Edinburgh Award

12 students took part in the Duke of Edinburgh Award in its inaugural year at Cwmbran High. Participants were required to complete volunteering, physical,

skill sections and an expedition.

For our expedition participants walked for 30km over two days along the Wye Valley Walk and the foothills of the Black mountains. During the two days students had to develop team work skills, map reading skills and (unexpected) cow herding. Staff came to the rescue of some students though and moved the herd into the neighbouring field, enabling the students to jump back over the

fence and continue on their way.

The evening was a low key event with students having to pitch their tents with a lovely sunset and a great view over the Wye Valley. Although we discovered we had a marshmallow thief amongst the group and a phantom tent un-

pegger!!

The last day was very subdued with the weather being unpredictable and were all participants longing for a home cooked meal (or McDonalds) and a

warm bed.

Congratulations to all as our assessor Dean Roberts gave them the good news at the finish line that they had all past the expedition

section.

We Will Rock You’ was our very first school production here at Cwmbran High School. The cast, band and technical crew were all amazing and absolutely ‘rocked’ our new performance hall, cumulating in a performance thoroughly enjoyed by all involved.

The pupils have all worked extremely hard over the last few months during lunch times, after school and on weekends to produce an end product that would hold its own in a professional theatre. The audience loved it with a standing ovation with the whole audience joining in with clapping and arm waving to finish the show. Audience members raved about the show; “I have seen many shows, however, this must rate as one

of the best if not the best I have seen” (Mr Paul Schofield - Governor), “It was by far and away the highest standard of any school production I have ever seen. An excellent and polished performance from all, with strong lead performers, that had obviously taken an awful lot of planning, preparation and rehearsal. A highly commendable production from which all involved should stand tall and take great pride” (Mr Mark Poulton – Governor).

I am exceptionally proud of everyone involved in this production. It takes a huge about of time, effort and dedication to produce a performance of such a high standard. I feel privileged to lead a department full of such

talented pupils and staff and would personally like to thank them for all of their hard work. CHS – You Rock!!!

Thanks Mrs Chaimberlain for the story.

We were Rocked!

Follow Literacy on Twitter Please follow @cwmbranliteracy on Twitter for news, events and tips on Literacy. A key focus at Cwmbran High School for all of our learners.

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Young firefighters passing out Ceremony

On Tuesday 12th July I had the privilege of watching the awards ceremony as several of our pupils passed out as young fire fighters.

They have dedicated their own time over the last two years to undertake rigorous training, role calls, drills, and ladder and hose pipe exercises. They have undertaken the same training that every full time fire‐fighter recruit does.

They have produced and presented their own fire safety presentations. In order to raise awareness of the dangers grass fires they have also actively taken part in a community project to clear bracken on Blaen Bran Mountain.

Whilst they have worked incredibly hard they have also had enormous amounts of fun.

They have developed the skills mind sets and attitudes that will stay with them for life. They have all grown as individuals and are

Year 13 Leavers Ball

Y ear 13 organised a fantastic leavers dinner at the 5star St

David’s Hotel and Spa in Cardiff Bay. Staff and students had a great evening and it was a love-ly way to celebrate the end of their time in secondary school. We wish all our Year 13 students best wishes with their

Year 11 Prom The year 11’s celebrated in style at the Cwrt Bleddyn Hotel. It was a fantastic evening enjoyed by all and we wish the year 11’s all the best in whatever path they choose to follow.

accomplished young men.

Their station officer praised their commitment tenacity and drive. They have truly bonded as a team and shone as individuals. They executed a faultless 30 min display for friends family and local dignitaries, before receiving a certificate in first aid, a shield and a their level 2 BTEC in Fire fighting from the Mayor and the Richard Prendergast the Commanding Officer of South Wales Fire‐fighters.

I was so very proud of each and every one of therm. I have seen the boys most days in school for the last four years. Tuesday night they were an absolute credit to themselves it was personally very moving to see.

They should be proud of what they have achieved over the last two years, there are only 20 places available each year with just 17 passing out. So each of our boys are one of only 17 to have this qualification in 2016.

Story thanks to Mrs D Whittington.

6th Form Preparing

for the Future

Year 13 organised a fantastic leavers dinner at the 5star St David’s Hotel and Spa in Car-diff Bay. Staff and students had a great evening and it was a lovely way to celebrate the end of their time in secondary school. We wish all our Year 13 stu-dents best wishes with their re-sults and future careers.

Several Year 12 students have been successful in gaining places on university summer schools, including Oxford, Cambridge and St Andrews, and others will be doing research projects at university with the Nuffield Foun-dation. Congratulations to all concerned.

For more information about the 6th Form please see our 6th Form Twitter page @CwmbranHIgh6th

Pupils that took part included Joseph Edmunds, Oliver Fields, Samuel Hurn, Ryan

Noble, Jamie Nott, William Rogers, Ashleigh Tucker and Adam Zennadi.

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Paris Trip 2016

At the start of half term 34 pupils

from Years 7 & 9 and 6

members of staff travelled to

Paris.

During the trip, we enjoyed the

sites of Paris including going up

the Tour Montparnasse and the

Tour Eiffel followed by a

leisurely boat trip before

climbing the steps to the Sacré

Coeur. The next day was spent in

Disneyland Paris where pupils

braved the wet weather to have

fun on the rides, watch the shows

and dry out in Planet Hollywood

for dinner before watching the

firework displays.

Lots of fun was had by all, the

pupils all behaved impeccably

and many are looking forward

to returning next year!

visiting our school. Thank you to Hywel, a member of the Welsh film club, for making this experience possible.

During this experience, Mark Craig got a lot of questions off different pupils in the session. Most of them were about ‘The Last Man on the Moon’ but also, some of them were about his past and how he started directing. All of the pupils were very intrigued by what Mark had to say and Mark was very happy to answer every question the pupils had.

At the start of the session, he showed a clip of the part of Eugene going back to the different places he worked in including: NASA and the plane air force place. After that clip, he started talking about the clip and what Eugene was like to work with. He then showed us a clip without any sound so we could get the effect of what was going on in the film. He then showed us that clip again but with sound and it was a video of Eugene reading a letter that he left for his child before he went into space just in case he didn’t make it back. At the end of the session, Mark had a small Q&A with the pupils.

A lot of pupils in the class described the session as interesting and exciting. This is because Mark Craig really tried to engage the audience and add humour into what he was saying.

Overall, this experience was an amazing opportunity for every pupil who took part in this session.

Thanks to Ashleigh Hewitson-Jones and Carys Gallivan for the story.

On the 4th July, a famous director, Mark Craig, came to our school to talk to a few English classes about his experience in directing, how he started filming and what sort of films he enjoys making. He mostly spoke about his most popular documentary ‘The Last Man on the Moon’, which is a film about a famous astronaut, Eugene Cernan, who was the last man to be on the moon. Mark Craig took Eugene to effective places of his past including NASA and the room

he stayed in before he launched into space. He did this because he wanted to

catch the actual feelings that were running through Eugene’s mind when he was taken back to these places. It was a privilege to have Mark Craig

Director Mark Craig Visits

Cwmbran High School

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Year 6 Enterprise w e welcomed Year 6 students

from our feeder schools, and some other, to take part in Enterprise Day in the Sports Hall of Fairwater Leisure Centre. The students showed off their entrepreneurial skills and ‘sold’ their products to the parents. Some very brave Year 6 students also delivered their presentations to parents/carers. A great day was had by all. We are looking forward to seeing these smiley faces again in September.

the community. They have another performance with Blaenavon Male Voice Choir to add to their accolades and took part in Nantcelyn Primary School’s Deaf Awareness Week assembly, giving the year 6s from its HIB a chance to perform with them.

They finish off this year entertaining at the SenCom Communication Champions Awards Ceremony in Pontypool. Poppy Clough (year 10) will also be performing a musical item. Poppy won a national competition in May, organised by the National Deaf Children’s Society, for ‘showcasing exceptional talent in music’. She was selected by a panel of experts and professionals from the arts industry, all of whom are deaf. With their work in the community and further afield these pupils are deaf ambassadors, encouraging other

The HIB has had a very successful first year at Cwmbran High School and this term has certainly been a busy one! Pupils attended the Welsh Deaf Rugby Development Day with Newport Gwent Dragons at Rodney Parade and as well as learning rugby skills they had presentations on healthy living and exercise. They were lucky enough to meet some of the players and thoroughly enjoyed the day.

The Deaf Choir continues to go from strength to strength and travelled to Swansea in April as guests of Cwm Glas Primary. Earlier in the year they performed at The 1000 Voice Choir event at the Motorpoint Arena alongside the primary school. Their Head was so impressed he invited them to perform with his school choir in front of staff, parents, governors and members of

Hearing Impaired Base has a

successful first year

deaf youngsters to have the confidence to try new things.

Three of our pupils had awards at Cwmbran High School’s first Celebration of Achievement evening. Aqsa Jamshad (year 7), Nicky Stinchcombe (year 8) and Adrian Bucik (year 10) all received Supportive Learning awards for their hard work this year.

Liam Tanner (year 10) performed at the London Open gymnastics competition in July where he represented his club, Barry YMCA. Liam juggles his school work with a busy training schedule and we wish him continued success.

We sadly say goodbye to Elliott Davies and Almaas Fatima as they leave us. Elliott is to follow an engineering course at Nash College, Newport. He’s been a fantastic role model to our pupils and everyone at the HIB wishes him all the very best for the future. Almaas is hoping to follow a Business course in college and we wish her every success. As they leave us for pastures new, year 6 pupils from Nantcelyn HIB have successfully completed their transition programme and we are looking forward to them joining us in September.

Our Twitter page is now up and running so please follow us to keep up to date with our news and events! HearingImpairedBase@CwmbranHSHIB

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Year 12 Sports Trip

The day involved the pupils being split in to two groups, the first used the hydrostatic weighing, underwater weighing equipment based on Archimedes’ Principle for assessing body composition. Prior to entering the tank the pupils had to record data such as weight and lung volume in order to get an accurate measure in the tank. Following this test they were able to use the bioelectrical Impedance Analysis machine which some consider to be more accurate as the underwater weighing requires you to expel all the air out of your lungs, so the determination of residual volume is a large source of error. The pupils were given a mini lecture about the testing they were participating in and each were given a role in order to conduct the test, for example recorder, data analyst using the data to calculate their body

composition.

The second group undertook the VO2 Max test using the cycle ergometer and the Douglas bags. The pupils cycled on

the semi-finals – well done Sophie Pritchard, Rebecca Underwood, Catrin Arnold, Lauren Watkins and Kasey Clayton! The pupils who created the best activity in each year group were presented with prizes and certificate in assemblies. The MFL department are looking forward to taking part in more

national competitions next year.

The MFL department took part in a national competition run by the Arsenal Double Club as part of Euro 2016. Pupils in years 7 -9 were challenged with creating a language activity suitable for pupils in year 6. Lots of pupils took part and one of the entries from year 9 was chosen to enter

Modern Foreign Languages

have a busy few months

A few weeks ago year 8 were visit-ed by an inspirational speaker – Tim Penn. He talked to the pupils about the importance of communica-tion skills, how these have helped him in his career and how these skills will be invaluable to pupils when they are considering their future educational/career choices. All the pupils agreed that this has left them with lots to think about and the MFL department are anticipating more visits from Tim Penn in the future.

The MFL department were delight-ed to be asked to visit the CHS primary feeder schools to give a taster Spanish lesson to year 4 pu-pils. Miss Dwyer and Mrs Groskop taught the pupils how to order an ice cream in Spanish through a se-ries of activities and games. Lots of fun was had by all!

the bike while attached to the Douglas bag which would collect the CO2 expired during the last minute of each rep. After each repetition a weight was added to ensure the workloads gradually progressed in increments from moderate to maximal intensity! The amount of CO2 expired in the last minute of each rep was collected in separate bags and these were measured to assess the VO2 Max of the pupils. Again the pupils were given a mini lecture about the test, its purpose and discussed theory which was specific to their BTEC Sport Course. Each pupil was given a specific role in order to undertake the test and then they calculated the VO2 Max of the

participant.

All data collected from the day is used by pupils in their physiology of sport

unit, which assesses the effects that exercise has on the body and also the fitness testing unit where they have to carry out fitness tests and provide recommendations for their client based

on this information.

Both groups participated in each of the tests and then we went in to the hypobaric chamber or altitude chamber which is used by the University lecturers/students/ sports teams, professional sports clubs, but largely by Richard Parks to do his training in for his expeditions. He works closely with one of the professors at the University who put him through rigorous tests within this chamber. The pupils went inside the chamber and saw all the equipment and felt what it would be like to do test in

the chamber.

Finally we had a tour of the Sports Park and a talk from one of their successful football

player’s.

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Pupils pitch to

the ‘Dragons’

Year 13 finished off their “Welsh Bac” qualification by completing their Enterprise element of the course, while also accrediting a level 3 Working With Others, Wider Key Skill. Students worked in groups to prepare and deliver a pitch to a team of “Dragons”. Alongside the financial elements, year 13 students had to consider the promotion and marketing of a product or service and were then “grilled” by the dragons as they questioned them over their ideas. The team of dragons was provided by company Big Ideas Wales and featured three local entrepreneurs, one of which was one of the co-founders and managing directors of Penderyn Distellery. Students pitched some great ideas and the dragons were very complimentary with the professionalism displayed. Well done to all and good luck

with your future careers.

The ‘Welsh Bacc’ page Latest news from the Welsh Baccalaureate - by Mr G Brenton

This is a page dedicated to the Welsh Baccalaureate qualification.

Skills Curriculum Expands

From September our skills curriculum will be expanded with a large number of Cwmbran High School teachers becoming involved in delivery and accreditation. Yr 7 will also be taught a 21st Century skills curriculum with the first project focussing on theme parks where students will be working in groups to analyse research and create a new ride for Wales’ newest theme park “Torfaen Towers”.

Skills Challenge Almost all of Year 10 and Year 12 “Skills” students finished off the year by completing the second of their 3 challenges. This involved them contributing to a Global conference, volunteering in the community, and pitching creative and innovative ideas for products. These students have one challenge left next year before they start work on the final element called the individual project. This is where students will focus on any topic of their choosing and after some critical analysis of primary and secondary research they produce a written report or artefact to assist them with job, university or college

applications.

Message from the Headteacher I personally want to say a huge thank you to everyone for all of their hard work this year in

‘creating’ Cwmbran High School.

The year has had its challenges, but we have improved throughout and we are ending in

a nice, positive position.

I am very much looking forward to September, where we can start afresh and take another

big step forward.

I hope you all have a restful

summer break!