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

Also available online at www.chiswickschool.org 12th November 2012 - Issue 07Student Services Direct Line 020 8747 6655 to report your child ill or late.

D i a r y D a t e s

Continued inside...

Chiswick School will shortly be introducing a secure online payment service that allows parents and guardians to make payments to school using their debit or credit cards. Payments can include school meals, trips, uniform purchases, tickets – in fact WisePay can facilitate any payments that may be made to school.

The WisePay service operates in hundreds of schools across the UK. The company has been in business for over 20 years.

AdvantagesUsing your debit or credit card, payments can be made conveniently from anywhere that has an internet connection. Payments can be made 24/7. You do not have to wait until school is open and you do not have to write cheques or find cash. Furthermore, at any time you can see your payment history in your “Wise Account”. Additionally, you can track every transaction that you make. Your Wise Account also allows you to see your balances at any time. This is particularly useful for a school trip that you are paying on instalments or for school meal balances.

A letter giving further information and your individual user name and password will arrive shortly, and the system will go live from Saturday 24th November, via the school website: www.chiswickschool.org

NOVEMBERMon 12th

A2 Biology Field Trip

Mon 12th - Fri 16thGCSE Exams

Tue 13th - Wed 14thYear 10 Geography Field trip

Thu 15thWorld Skills Show Trip

Mon 19th - Fri 23rdAnti-Bullying Week

Wed 21stArt Portfolio Advice Day

Thu 22ndLibrary: Author visit, Year 7 X side

Year 13 Parents' Evening

Fri 23rdArt Portfolio Planning Day

Your Weekly Newsletter

Sixth Form Evening Brings in the Crowds

CHISWICK SCHOOLWisePay is Coming Soon

Message for Parents

Lunch account needs to be topped up before school starts. Please put money in envelope with childs full name and form

with amount stated.

On Wednesday 7th November, at 6.00pm, the school hosted a Sixth Form Information Evening to give the opportunity for students to find out about Chiswick School's excellent Sixth Form. The evening provided the chance to ask questions, speak to staff and current Sixth Form students about courses, and other Post 16 opportuni-ties available.

‘Very excited about this open evening, there’s a definite sense of possibility in the air, you can smell it’ Mr Sadler, Head of Sixth form told me as students started to pour into the hallway. It soon became clear how popular the turnout was this year during the presentations in the library, as it got to a point where there was standing room only.

'It’s been such a positive atmosphere; usually we get a really full first meet-ings, and a not so full second, but ac-tually, they’ve been two well attended meetings with lots of people. I think this is definitely going to be a Sixth Form which will be BIGGER than last year!’-said Ms Lee, the Sixth Form Support Officer.

Throughout the evening, student vol-

unteers from the Sixth Form helped the proceedings run smoothly, welcoming guests on arrival, organising the car parking, and helping guests to orien-tate themselves around the hall and to appropriate subject stalls. They did a brilliant job, ‘It’s so lovely to be able to help out, especially as we were in this position last year, I’m really enjoying the positive atmosphere’ commented Ella Dar, Chiswick School Sixth former.

The Hall was packed with enquiring students and parents ‘I’m astounded with the turnout, there are 296 current sixth formers at Chiswick, and we’ve got to try and beat that’ said Mr Ryan. The buzz in the air was unquestionable; at one stage, it was hard to move.

Year 12 Senior Maths Challenge

A taste of Chiswick’s Sixth Form was de-livered to Year 11s last Friday, as part of their transition into Year 12. Students had earlier filled in a questionnaire to choose what pathway they would like to try out of mixed, humanities and sci-ences.

Year 11s Taste Sense of the Possible

On the day they were treated as Sixth Formers in their own clothes and even experienced a free study period. Year 11s seemed to be enjoying themselves, relaxing in the common room and learning about AS courses in their tast-er lessons. The day was a great success and has benefited all Year 11 students.

Here are some quotes from students and staff about the day:‘The day has helped me confirm my de-cisions on my A-level choices. I found Politics and Geography very interest-ing and overall it was a great day.’ Niralee Patel. ‘The lessons helped me make decisions.’ Nikoleta Gashi. ‘The day helped me choose what subjects I want to study and some lessons I don’t!’ Laura Piscitelli. ‘It has been one of the best taster days and the Year 11s have been excellent'. said Ms Lee.

Laura reid

How many distinct pairs (x, y) of real numbers satisfy the equation (x + y)2 = (x + 4)(y - 4)?

A. 0 B. 1 C. 2 D. 3 E. 4 Don't just guess because for every guessed answer, 1 mark is deducted if it does not hurt your head enough, this

ACHIEVERSixth Former; Sean Hodges

Sean Hodges is our student achiever this week for many reasons. Taking Maths, Further Maths and Physics at Alevel he is looking to go on and study Maths at university then possibly go

into teaching.

Despite a demanding workload Sean has also recently taken part in a pro-ject working with PhD students looking into pedagogy, which is the science of teaching and education. This project looked at styles of teaching and their effectiveness. The PHD students were looking at the different ways of teaching maths to im-prove teaching methods. They investi-gated ways of categorising teaching and looked for types of teaching students find most engaging. To do this they compiled a scale with two extremes at either end. Transmissionist is a way of teaching that relies heavily on tradition methods; with a teacher telling you ex-actly what to do and how to do it. The other end of the scale is connectionist. This method is based around problem solving, group work; it’s a more mod-ern approach that involves teachers giving students an idea and the pupils having to work out what to do/think from that. The project entailed an es-say, research and response.

Sean was rewarded a Platinum Award from Open University London. On top of that he has also taken part in the opening of a running club. Along with some other 6th formers Sean applied for funding from Nike which was run-ning a company scheme to get more young people into running in schools.

Since receiving sponsorship they have taken part in charity runs such as com-ic relief, yellow umbrella day and half marathons.

By NiNa Pryce

is only one of 25 gruelling questions in the Senior Maths Challenge...Similar to the non-verbal exams you would have sat at the start of Year 7, The Year 12 Maths Challenge is in Mr Abdillahi’s eyes simply “a test of how good you are at Maths.”

Formatted as a multiple choice, 90 minute exam, 22 of our A/S Maths stu-dents sat the national exam on Tues-day; those who score in the top 60% of students nationally will receive a Gold, Silver, or Bronze certificate depending on how high they score.

Results are published in 4-5 weeks time. Good luck to those who entered! NikoLeta Gashi

A large percentage of attending parents and students were from schools other than Chiswick. As a present student at Chiswick, it was very exciting to see so many new faces. ‘This school looks re-ally interesting, and it’s such a big and beautiful building! I believe it will be able to give me lots of opportunities in the future!” exclaimed Chanelle from the Green School. I also got a chance to talk to a parent from another school who’s considering sending her child here for Sixth Form ‘I’m so much more impressed than I thought, and with the information given, Chiswick are very welcoming when it comes to students coming from schools other than here - which is very important’, said Joanna Lucas, Parent.

The evening was an undeniable suc-cess, with lots of students going home enthused by the opportunities available at Chiswick School, ‘I am really looking forward to coming back next year to the Sixth Form. Let’s just hope I make the grades!’ said Benedict Segal, 11 Blen-heim.

By MaryaM khaLifa