Mill Road, Okehampton, EX20 1PWTel: 01837 650910

email: admin@okehamptoncollege.devon.sch.uk

NEWSLETTER

Derrick BrettPrincipal

As we come to the end of this very strange

half term, I just want to ‘Thank You’ again for your continued support and understanding. I have used the words ‘unprecedented times’ far too often over the last few months and yet every day seems to throw up new issues for the College, for the students and for yourselves. I really hope that this situation will be resolved in the not too distant future but I think the chances are small and so we look to another half term of a similar ilk.

As you know from the plans we have published, the changes we have had to make to the school routine have been huge and the long periods when the students were not in College could have had a detrimental effect to the culture and values of the College and yet, despite all of this, in general the students have shown true resilience and a genuine sense of community as they adapt to these changes. Visitors that we have had this half term have been impressed by the excellent manners of the students and the kindness that they show one another.

The current situation has obviously curtailed a great deal of what we would like to have done this term. We could not have the usual Sponsored Walk and we have been unable to have our Year 6 Open Evening. The Iceland trip, which was due to take place during the half term break, has been cancelled and we have not been able to plan for Enrichment Week. Nonetheless, my conversations with the students

show that they have settled back into school very well and we have been able to run extra-curricular clubs after school for those students who like to be involved. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to have any fixtures at the moment and so there are no results to bring you. However, I would like to mention Casey Plaskett who represented the College in the National Schools Equestrian Events, she finished 2nd and has qualified for the Championships. I would also like to mention Harry Mounce who has been chosen to represent Devon in the Cricket Tour of South Africa next year.

Despite the current situation we are looking at ways for the College to engage more with the community where possible. This week we have started a project with the working title ‘The Yes Tor Project’ where we are looking to engage some of our students with older members of our wider community so that we can foster our CORE Values of Community, Opportunity, Respect and Equity amongst our student body. One of the projects under this umbrella is The Daffodil Project and this week the students have started to plant daffodil bulbs in various sites around the College. In the Spring we will have bunches of flowers which we can cut and distribute. This is a very exciting project which we have done in conjunction with Okehampton Police, Okehampton Lions, Country Lanes, Castle Ham Lodge and the Okehampton Park Keepers. I hope that this will be the start of something which will grow to include other projects of this nature.

If you have any ideas along these lines please get in touch and we will see what we can do.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the work that Daryll Chapman has done for the College and the broader community as he leaves his post as CEO of the Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust. In these difficult times any celebration of Daryll’s work would be less than satisfactory and I hope that as circumstances change, we will have the opportunity to celebrate his contribution. Daryll is highly regarded throughout the Town, the County and the South West both professionally and personally and in the 14 years we have worked together I have learnt a great deal from him. He has been a mentor and a friend, and it has been a privilege to have worked with him. I hope we, as a College, continue to do him proud and we wish him well in whatever he turns his hand to next.

As I said at the beginning it has been an unusual half term and I am sure the students are tired and deserve a break. I wish you and them a very enjoyable half term and we will see them on their return on Monday 2 November 2020.

October 2020 - Issue 1

Win For Millicent!

Millicent Walker entered a competition with South West Water entitled Water Saving Week. Her winning poster depicted her idea of how to save water. It won 1st prize!

Thanks to the wonderful design the College won a water butt together with a cheque for £250. Millicent also won a £30 book token. Well Done Millicent!

NB: Pictures shown are for example only

COMPETITIONARTProduce a poster showing:

“Achievements Through Time”Size: A3, 2D Materials: Any 2D materials of your choice

Deadline: Fri. 13th March 2020Submit entries to your art teacher. Ensure entries are labelled with name and class

The winning designs will be displayed In the ConferenceRoom and used as Praise Postcards

In February the Art department ran a competition to design a poster on the theme ‘achievements through time’. Due to lockdown we were unable to announce the winners.

The winning entries who will receive a gift voucher and have their designs displayed in Mr Brett’s office were;

1st place = Alice Fewkes2nd place = Himaya Coatham3rd place = Brendan O’Brien

Well done and thank you to all those who entered.

Winners on Display

Results are in!We have run a competition in Science to design new praise post cards for the year.We ran it as a house competition and the results are....

1st Maple 430 Points2nd Oak 406 Points3rd Beech 350 Points4th Ash 220 Points5th Elm 200 Points

The winning post cards were designed by Kaitlyn B, Eleanor F, Mimi B, Maisie J, Harry A and Tegan L. It was tough job deciding the winners as there were so many outstanding entries.

Adjudicators are asked to assess each presentation as a whole, looking at content, structure, delivery and the speaker’s original approach and unique potential. Previous adjudicators have included Dr Tristram Hunt, Tim Marlow, Sir Antony Gormley RA, Edmund de Waal, The Hon. Hannah Rothschild, Jon Snow, Dr Penelope Curtis and Sam Thorne.

On Wednesday 4th March Ben Jones and Henry Walker in Year 12 took part in the regional final of the ARTiculation speaking presentation competition at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth. This was to an audience and an adjudicator who has worked for the Tate and the Royal College of Art. They didn’t make it through to the finals but did extremely well and were competing against 3 other Devon and Cornwall schools. Ben presented on the artist Kurt Jackson and Henry presented on LS Lowry.

In March, before Lockdown, we had a guest speaker Hannah Tucker-Wilson talk to our GCSE and A Level Art and Textiles students. At the time Hannah was a trainee costume designer on the Netflix series ‘The Crown’. Hannah showed the students a PowerPoint of her Costume design work she produced during her degree and gave them an insight on the resilience and flexibility needed to work in the creative industry. The students really enjoyed the talk and were able to ask questions about what it is like to work on set and how to pursue a career in the Arts industry. Hannah is now currently working on Jurassic World: Dominion movie.

ARTiculation

#teamscience

Atheletics

Belated Congratulations to Year 7 and 8 mixed indoor athletics team! Who were winners of the Devon Indoor Athletics Championships in February. This competition involved each student in the team (6 girls and 6 boys) competing in a range of events including, runs, relays, speed bounce, throws and jumps. They were triumphant with a total of 931 points with St Peter’s (Exeter) coming in 2nd place with 836. So a convincing win for Okehampton College!!

Congratulations to Okehampton College U13 Girls Indoor Cricket Team on being crowned County Champions 2020.The U13 team travelled to the University of Exeter on Monday 2nd March to compete in the County Indoor Cricket Finals. There were 7 area winners involved and our U13 girls played 6 games and won all 6. Throughout the day, there were excellent wins against, South Dartmoor, Plymouth College, Exmouth, Holsworthy, Stoke Damerel and St James. This was an amazing achievement and their effort and determination was outstanding. This continues the excellent recent cricket results at Okehampton College. The College now holds the County Indoor Cricket titles for both U13 Boys and Girls as well as the U15 Boys.Thank you girls for all of your hard work.

Cricket

Netball

Year 10 girls netball team finished 3rd in their end of season final held at Exeter School. Below is a report from Team Captain, Izzie Thomas:

On Tuesday 3rd March , Year 10 girls went to Exeter School to compete in the Exeter and district netball tournament. Okehampton College played Clyst Vale in their first match which they won with ease with a score of 11-3. The match was a very comfortable win with accurate passing and shooting throughout the game. Okehamptons’ second match was played against Maynard’s School, who were a very strong and difficult team to play against. However, Okehampton played exceptionally well and had a positive mindset throughout the game. They worked as a team and managed to finish the first half leading by 1 point. although in the second half, Maynards managed to capitalise on Okehamptons’ mistakes and were the stronger team overall. This was the teams strongest performance as we didn’t give up at any point. The final score was 11-9 to Maynard’s school, who eventually went on to be the winners of the tournament. After this game, Okehampton had to go straight on and face St. Peter’s, who started the stronger, Okehampton found it difficult to keep possession of the ball and visibly tired from the hard previous match they played. St. Peter’s coming out on top 11-4. We then went on to play the hosts of the tournament, Exeter School, where we won convincingly, we all worked as a team and had a good positive attitude, resulting in a win of 6-3. Our last game we played against West Exe, who are also a very good side, but Okehampton won a lot of interceptions from great defending, which we used to our advantage, finishing in a win of 8-3. Therefore, Okehampton finished in 3rd place overall, a great performance by the team.

Congratulations to Mari Baldwin who won the Silver Medal at the Senior National Table Tennis Championships in Nottingham in February. On the way, she beat the number 2 seed in the quarter final and number 3 seed in the semi final. However she lost in the final to England number 1 Tin Tin Ho, a professional player.

Table Tennis

Hockey Match Report

Okehampton vs Launceston Wednesday 11th MarchLaunceston pushed off the1st half and dominated play for the first 5mins which resulted in them going 1-0 ahead, despite defenders Issac, Matt and Leo combining well to break up the attack.Ed was in goal making amazing saves considering this was his first time being goalie. Soon after conceding the first goal Oke did amazing skills driving the ball forward. One attacking play started with the goalie passing the ball to Freya who then created space for Will and Jack to run into. Unfortunately it soon ended with Launceston winning the ball back and immediately making the score 2-0. Okehampton were more determined than ever to get on the score sheet. Molly made an awesome run forward towards goal only to be stopped by Launceston yet again. Just before half time the ball was whacked into Okehamptons ‘D’, but Ed was ready. However it was a save that unfortunately bounced into the path of another Launceston player who made the score 3-0.At half time Oke came up with a plan. Will pushed back to Zara who ran up the middle and then passed to Jack who was unlucky to get tackled. Molly did well to win the ball back and hit the ball up the wing to Liv, who gathered the ball and took it into the ‘D’ but unfortunately her shot went wide of the goal.

Oke had only one short corner in the match, Molly pushed the ball to Marla who had a whack at goal but it was stopped by a defender. The ball fell to Molly who managed to have a shot but missed narrowly.

The Oke squad were not put down and took a photo in the goal. Matt Luckhurst was player of the match, which was well deserved.

Marla Richards

Congratulations to Eliza Luke who came second in the National Trampolining Schools Final in Eastleigh, Southampton in March. She was beaten by the smallest of margins 0.15!

Trampolining

Congratulations to our team of students who entered the MFL Speaking Competition back in March. We had a small, but very successful team, who all had memorised their speeches and gave polished and engaging performances. We entered 4 categories, won one and came second in another - a fantastic success rate! More importantly, our students were praised for their excellent conduct, and we even managed to make a few jokes in French, German, Spanish and Italian- magnifique!

MFL Speaking Competition Success

A total of 268 students have attended after school clubs this 1/2 term, with many students attending multiple clubs. Thank you to all of those who have attended so regularly. Extra-Curricular activities are looking very different to what students might be used to, with them all being carried out within their Year group bubbles, but all have adapted well.

A special mention goes to Year 7 students who have settled in incredibly well. We have had 132 year 7 students attending clubs this Half Term.

We will be adjusting our extra-curricular programme each half term to ensure we are able to continue to offer enrichment to a range of different year groups.

This half term has seen Mr Collins, Mrs Hachipuka, Mr Arthurs, Mrs

Wates, Mrs Carter, Miss Redstone, Miss Scullion, Mr Harris, Mr Bailey, Miss Wilcock WWand Mrs Colton all volunteer to run a range of activities for students after school. Whilst there are many sports clubs including netball, football, cricket, badminton, hockey and trampolining; there are also further maths and language leaders clubs. We hope to add more to the list as the year progresses.

Below is the timetable for next half term:

Please continue to support after school clubs. Clubs will continue to run from 3.45-4.45pm on a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening. Remember they are free of charge, and late buses are available to transport students on a Tuesday and a Wednesday evening, leaving from the front drive at 5pm

Enrichment Programme

Take a look at our Extra Curricular

Programme. Click here to view it on our

website

Child Protection

Contact: extension 222 or 269 or external line 01837 650914Or mobile 07791 683523

Additionally the Senior Leadership Team and Heads of Year are also level 3 safeguarding trained to support both staff and students.

Other Senior Contacts:

For more information please see the Safeguarding page of our website, which also has a copy of our Safeguarding policy.www.okehamptoncollege.devon.sch.uk

If you have any immediate, significant concerns about the safety of a child and it is out of hours, please phone thePolice on 101 or 999

Mr StevensMrs Hoggins Mr Freeman

Mrs EdwardsAsst. Principal

& Designated Senior Lead

Mrs WeirMr Sproats Mrs Teixeira Mr Rossiter

Mr StrawbridgeDeputy

Designated Senior Lead

Miss WickenDeputy

Our Safeguarding Team: If you have any concerns regarding the safeguardingof children please speak to any of the safeguarding team members listed below

MAT CEO - Dan Morrow MAT Vice CEO - Hazel Fox

Chair of Trustees - Tania Skeaping MAT Director of Safeguarding - Jane Lake

Federation Chair of Governors - Marilyn Livingstone Federation Safeguarding Governor - Gavin Jordan

Our school values a good partnership between school, parents and pupils to ensure the best outcomes for your children. As part of our commitment to do this, our half termly news-letter provides an important link to news and events happening in the school which may affect you or your child.

By sending our newsletter electronically, we can communicate with you efficiently, and meet our obligation to safely and effectively run our school for the benefit of pupils and parents alike. We will always manage your data responsibly and will never sell your data.

If you would like to find out more about how we use data, please read our Privacy Notice at www.dartmoormat.org.uk/policies-and-documents

Principal: Mr Derrick Brett

Vice Principal: Mr Craig Griffiths

Assistant Principals:

Mrs Charlie Edwards

Mrs Berni Hachipuka

Dr Robert Kelly

Miss Karen Moore

Mrs Tracey Nethercott

Miss Kathryn Redstone

Mr Neil Sproats

The College’s PTFA met for their AGM this week. In this ‘new normal’ It was a virtual meeting and great to see and welcome a couple of new members to the team!

We have had a successful year despite not having the usual fundraising and networking opportunities. We will soon be looking for some new volunteers to join our friendly, informal team and also for the roles of Chair and Secretary. Please see the College website for details of the PTFA (click here) and also check out and like our Facebook page.

Can you Help?

Earn Points for your Year Group!1st prize 20 achievement points2nd prize 15 achievement points3rd prize 10 achievement points

And 5 achievement points for every entry!

Submit a photo of your carving by email tojstevens@okehamptoncollege.devon.sch.uk

by Friday 30th October.Winners will be announced after half term.

AutumnalPUMPKIN CARVING

Competition

COMPETITION!

Design a piece of work showing: Your experience during Lockdown in DevonFor your chance to win a Voucher Entries must be submitted to the competition box in Treetops

by Monday 2nd November. Entries should be A3 landscape, colourful, and depict lockdown in a positive manner

Click on the logos below to see our online presence

Groups of Year 8 and 10 pupils have been busy trying to improve the look of some areas around the school site. The Daffodil project was a great success, with over 200 bulbs being planted in areas around the middle of the school to bring some life and colour. The students planned the whole project, deciding on the areas of school to improve. We look forward to seeing the reward for their efforts in the spring.

Looking forward to Spring!

Confidential Counselling, Advice and Support for Young People Aged 5 to 25, in Okehampton and the Surrounding Parishes