St Crispin’s Newsletter

Autumn 2011 www.crispins.co.uk

Science block plans unveiled

St Crispin’s opened its doors to the public on Wednesday 12th October for local residents to view the plans for the proposed new science block and multi purpose games areas with floodlighting facilities. They also got the opportunity to speak to the architects, Ellis Williams, about the building’s design.

Mr Biddle said: “It is only right and proper we allow our neighbours the opportunity to come and discuss their views with the architects and representatives from the council. On the whole there appears to be overwhelming support for the project, and we are delighted with the design of the building. We have worked very closely with the architects because one of the challenges we faced was to fit the designs in with the listed buildings. The benefits of the development go beyond the building itself. As an outstanding school we want to be outstanding today and outstanding tomorrow and this provides us with a real opportunity to move forward in the 21st Century.”

The planning permission decision should be known by the end of the year.

What students have to say about the new building:

Daniel Pearce (Yr 9) said: “It looks awesome, much more modern and new.”

Kalinka Mee (Yr 7) said: “It looks modern and cool with lots of space.”

Troy Chen-Jarvis (Yr 9) said: “Wow it looks VERY VERY good.”

Nicola Powell (Yr 8) said: “It looks like it will have a lot of space and light and I think this will

make people feel happy”

St Crispin’s celebrated nearly 60 years of school history when a mural on a wall in the student foyer, painted in 1952, was restored to its former glory.

St Crispin’s was built in the early 1950s and the design of the school encapsulated much of the ethos of the Festival of Britain (1951), which sought to reinvigorate the people of Britain with a sense of recovery and optimism, following the trials of the Second World War. Part of this ethos was the creation of art work in public buildings.

The mural was created by renowned artist Fred Millett, who also designed transport posters for the London Underground. Fred also has work stored in the Government Art Collection, and the school has one of these pieces on loan over the autumn term, which can be viewed alongside the mural.

The summer scene mural is one of three murals originally painted when the school was built. Unfortunately, all three murals fell victim to the gloss paint brush during the 60s and 70s, when the trend of the time favoured a more modern style. After decades concealed beneath paint, the mural was brought back to life by professional art restorers - Perry Lithgow Partnership. The restoration team worked through the summer holidays to complete the mural in time for the new school term and Wokingham’s Heritage weekend, which this year celebrated the history and culture of the 1950s. Fred Millett’s widow, Judy Millett, visited the school to open the mural and said: “My family and I are over the moon that the painting has been recovered.” The mural holds a special significance for Judy, as she and her son, who was a small child at the time, both feature as two of the figures in the painting. Judy, a retired architect and art lover, enjoyed meeting St Crispin’s art students and was impressed with the art work they produced.

As part of Wokingham’s Heritage Weekend, St Crispin’s opened its doors to visitors to view the newly renovated mural on Sunday 11th September, and a small exhibition about the mural and the history of St Crispin’s was on display in Wokingham Town Hall. Students: Calum Groom, Emily Islip, Youssef Ismail and Luka Price spoke to visitors about the renovation project and the history of St Crispin’s as well as the new, exciting developments due to take place in the near future. The restoration project was made possible by generous donations from the Wokingham Society and a former St Crispin’s student who wanted to give something back to his old school.

St Crispin’s celebrates over 50 years of history

Students take on the touch typing challenge

Since March 2011, students have been busy learning to touch type after joining the Typequick for Students course via the Type-Net for Schools scheme. Mr Elward, Director of E-learning, outlined to students and parents the benefits of the scheme: Increased Efficiency - because the typist uses all fingers

instead of just a few, typing speed will increase dramatically. Increased Effectiveness - because the typist looks at the output on the screen and not at

the keyboard, the typist can focus on the work instead. Less Physical Fatigue – touch-typing is less tiring because it distributes the total load

over all fingers and flowing finger movements result in less stress. Students are reacting positively to the programme and are embracing the challenge enthusiastically. However, it does require a lot of diligence and perseverance if students are ultimately to become touch typists or ‘masters of the keyboard’. Ten minutes of every ICT lesson is dedicated to the activity as well as set ICT homework. Mr Elward said: “Many students tell me that one of the main reasons they had chosen in the past to ‘copy and paste’ i.e. plagiarise material, is because typing was too onerous a task for them. There was also reluctance from some students to draft and redraft work for the same reason. Hopefully we will all see an improvement in the quality of work from many students if they feel more at ease when using the keyboard. I wonder how many of us, if we were being really honest, would wish that we were able to use the keyboard properly.” For more information on the Type-Net for Schools annual licence scheme, you can contact them on 01480 861867 or email enquiries@typeandtest.com

Kimberley Funani (Year 8) said: “I’m getting much better at doing the exer-cises, and since learning, I find I can type more quickly and so I complete my home-work in less time than it took me before we learnt to touch type.”

George Marten (Year 8) said: “I found it quite hard to stick to the exercises, as it was difficult to look at the screen and keep my fingers on the keyboard in the right position, but I’ve got much better and I’m now finding it easier to do my homework in Word because I can type much faster.”

School governors perform an important voluntary

role in education and St Crispin’s is fortunate to have

a dedicated team of governors with a wide range of

expertise. Governors spend many hours of their own

time working for the benefit of the school’s progress

and each team of governors is led by a chair person.

Recently St Crispin’s said goodbye to loyal

serving governor, Steve Currow, who had been a

member of the governing body since 2003, and had

been Chair of Governors from September 2009 to

January 2011. As well as being a governor, Steve

was Principal Lecturer at Newbold College and this

summer Steve left Wokingham to take up the post of Principal at Fulton College in Fiji.

As a farewell and a thank you for all his hard work, the staff and governors presented him with a

charcoal drawing of significant locations in Wokingham, that would remind Steve and his family of the

people and places they knew while living and working here.

Mr Spencer (Art teacher) created the picture in an impressionistic style, using charcoal, and each image was completed on location. The montage includes Wokingham’s Town Hall, Newbold College, and St Crispin’s tower.

Governors’ News

Mr Wilde, (new Chair of Governors) Mrs Currow, Mr Currow, Mr Spencer

Students’ art work in demand

Talented students find demand for their work from businesses and shops around Berkshire. Wokingham’s

Cultural partnership team coordinate the loan scheme and in return the school receives a small fee.

Recently Mrs Barkat (Head of Art) received a cheque for 6 pieces of work which are currently on loan to

Johnson and Johnson. With the proceeds from the scheme Mrs Barkat hopes to set up a competitive based

bursary scheme for creative artists who excel in their subject. The bursary fund would be for the recipient to

use for workshops and activities outside of school to help develop his or her creative skills.

Gardening News St Crispin’s gardening team was once again invited to the Town Hall to collect a prize for its contribution to Wokingham’s Green Fingers Gardening competition. This year students, led by Mr Shaw, targeted their efforts at the front of the school, as last year several trees had to be removed from the area near the car park because they were diseased. To replace the trees, a new circular bed was created with a sapling tree at its centre, and surrounding it a colourful bed of plants. In July the Town Mayor (Cllr Peter Lucey) and Amenities Officer (Paul Smith) visited the school to speak to the students and judge their handiwork. In addition students produced fruit and vegetables in the gardens at the rear of the school. In the coming academic year

Mr Shaw and the team are hoping to create a water feature linked to the pond. After the unfortunate demise of last year’s resident chickens (due to a hungry fox), five new chickens joined the school at the beginning of term. Students are now learning to care for the new recruits who have been affectionately named: KFC, Nuggets, Tika, Drumsticks and Wings. The chickens were kindly donated to the

school by Mr Tim Findlay of Stokes Farm, Binfield. Many thanks to all the volunteer gardeners from the PTA who have done a sterling job over the year keeping the beds weed free. The PTA gardeners also created the herbaceous circular bed outside the dining room.

Students collect their prize for Town Mayor Peter Lucey and Elaine White the Mayor’s escort

Judgement day July 2011

TESCO VOUCHERS Thank you for the Tesco vouchers sent in to school over the last year. With all that was collected we purchased:

4 X Olympus voice recorders 2 X HD camcorders 1 X Media pointer

The trip to France was possibly the best

school trip I have ever been on. We left

school early at about 6am and we

travelled for two hours to Kent. After a

quick toilet stop, we boarded the shuttle at

8.50 for the journey to Calais.

On the train we were allowed to get

off the coach and walk around the

compartment. However, if you got off the

coach you weren’t allowed back on, so I

decided to stay on and it got quite hot, but

we had a lot of fun; we played lots of

games and we chatted. We could tell

when we were deep under the sea

because our ears popped!

We arrived in France at 10.20

(French time) and we went to the market,

which didn’t take that long. When we

arrived, we were allowed to walk around

and buy gifts. That was when people

started suffering from hat fever. Sam got

the worse case; he bought 4 hats! There

were two stalls selling hats, one stall sold

them for 10€ and the other for 8€. Some of

the hats were sold at both stalls and the

only difference was the price.

When we left the market we headed

for the hypermarket. We had about 40

minutes to explore the hypermarket. There

were many different flavours of coke such

as vanilla and lemon and you could buy a

baguette for 37p! I bought some chewing

gum and it was nothing like normal gum.

When you first bit into it, it was like a

sweet and then when you started to chew

it became something sort of like a soft

bubblegum.

We next headed for Montreuil to do a

town trail. We saw a water-pump, the town

wall and the tourist office, and at the end

we got to go to some of the shops. Perry

even got himself a French girlfriend!

After Montreuil we went to the best place

ever– a French chocolate factory. As soon

as we stepped inside we were greeted by

the smell of chocolate. There were three

machines used for making the chocolate:

one for dark chocolate, one for milk and

one for white. Behind the machines there

was a conveyor belt, where we saw the

chocolate go into the moulds and then

further down the belt the chocolate came

out ready to be packaged.

A French man told us about how

cocoa beans are collected and how they

are then used to make chocolate. After the

presentation we were allowed to take a

sample before going into the shop. There

were chocolate pumpkins, chocolate

covered marshmallows, chocolate bunnies

and much more. After buying lots of

goodies from the factory, we then began

the long journey home on the coach.

By Jay Le-Papin (Year 8)

Year 8 day trip to France

Hat fever affects year 8 girls at the French market.

International Group put on a spread at the Mayor’s event

Dishes as varied as haggis from Scotland, tabbouleh from Israel and stew from Zimbabwe graced the Borough Mayor’s table at a recent voluntary sector event. Dianne King (Borough Mayor) was so impressed by the outstanding food provided by the members of the International Group at St Crispin’s Culture event, in June, that she invited them to prepare the meal for the annual event in October that says thank you to volunteers. The wide variety of food on offer was greatly appreciated and was a welcome change to the usual sausage roll and sandwich buffet. Krisztina Nemeth, from Hungary and a member of the International group, took part in both events and writes here about her experience of life in Wokingham. I am most grateful for the opportunity to be in this great country, where so much help has been given to my daughter and I to enable us to start a new life. A special thanks to Wokingham Borough Council and the Borough Mayor for inviting me to a very prestigious event, where the Mayor thanked members of the voluntary sector for all their hard work. We were so pleased and excited to get involved in the preparation and when we arrived at the venue we saw the others felt the same. I will always remember how well the representatives from so many different nationalities worked so well together. Two years ago, when my then 13 year old daughter and I arrived in England, our hearts were filled with fear and doubt. We did not know what to expect to find in a foreign country. Now I know, having overcome the initial difficulties, that people here do not look at us as strangers, but everyone joins forces together to make us feel welcome and to make it easier for us to settle. The greatest pleasure for me is that my daughter feels totally at home after just two years. This is mostly due to the school where every teacher has set an excellent example by looking after a foreign-speaking child, and teaching them to the highest standard alongside English speaking children. The International Group for Parents is a fantastic idea, because it helps us greatly to further integrate with others. I am delighted that this wonderful town, Wokingham, has become my home. My daughter and I want to be an important part of the local community, and if there are others who need help we will contribute all our knowledge. We will seek to do all we can for the town to prosper, in exchange for the many good things we have received from everyone here. Krisztina Nemeth from Hungary

Mrs Hines (technician) & Mrs Nyazika (D&T teacher)

The International Group

Year 7 students were set the challenge to create their own political party during a day of activities that encouraged students to develop their personal, learning and thinking skills (PLTS). Working in small groups of 5 or 6, within tutor groups, students first thought about what was important to them as individuals before devising some policies for their party based on their shared concerns. At the same time the group had to think of how their policies would attract voters. Each group then created a name and a slogan for their party. As they worked together as a team, every member of the group was encouraged to think about how their individual talents could contribute to the group task. Students who enjoy art created campaign posters and flyers, while those who enjoy English and history worked on writing speeches and slogans, and students with a flair for drama put themselves forward as public speakers. Students learnt about the importance of taking part in politics and they looked to political figures, past and present, for inspiration to help them decide the policies that they would like to implement. Issues that concerned most students were: the plight of the homeless, the war in Afghanistan, education, child abuse, drugs and alcohol issues. Some interesting and controversial ideas emerged from the discussions e.g. many thought the country should stop paying money to the Queen, that the alcohol drinking age should be increased to 21 and the voting age lowered to 10. Each tutor group then put forward their favoured party and the whole year group convened in the school hall to hear the campaign speeches on the hustings. After some very persuasive rhetoric, students cast their votes privately for the party they felt most represented their views. To prevent any forced allegiance, students were not allowed to vote for their own tutor group’s party. The Random Rabbits party won the election with the following policies: Stop animal testing Stop giving money to the Queen Give more aid to Africa Help all children to achieve their dreams Stop sweat shop labour

Year 7 get political

MOvember During November many of St Crispin’s male staff committed themselves to the challenge of growing a moustache in support of the campaign MOvember, an initiative to raise awareness of male health issues. The total amount raised so far is £340. If you would like to make a donation please go to http://mobro.co/st-crispins

Jack Stiff and Caitlin Taylor

Mwamba Phiri, Robyn Wright, Amy Shute, Rachel Archer

Independent Learning Conference GCSE and A Level students took part in a half-day conference to enhance their INDEPENDENT LEARNING SKILLS. During the sessions and presentations students learnt techniques to help: successfully make the transition to learn and study at level 3 (A level) achieve their

maximum potential in their GCSE or A Level exams

prepare for success at university and in the workplace

The conference covered the following topics:

Speed reading Note taking Condensing text

and writing in your own words

Getting organised to manage work/life balance Reviewing/Revision Products Student comments from the workshops:

Eric the presenter was amazing and the ideas covered were very good . I wish it was more than

one day

I have been motivated to learn revision skills and techniques that will work in relation to how

my brain works!

I now know how to cope with stress and how to prepare for exams. I also learnt about how parts

of my brain work and the way we learn. The presenter was enthusiastic and very informative.

Really good fun and it has definitely given me a better perspective about my GCSEs .

You can achieve whatever you want if you put your mind to it!

Greg Brown, Monique Palmer; Ellie Quaddy & Patrick Mooty Year 11 GCSE students

Year 7 has been busy collecting donations for this year’s Shoe Box appeal. The boxes contain gifts and toiletries and will be sent to troops serving in Afghanistan, to arrive in time for Christmas day. Mr Blyth (Year 7 DAW)

said:

“I am impressed by the

support from students

and parents for this

appeal. We wanted to

show our support for

those serving in the

armed forces,

especially at this time

of year.”

Students entertained a packed audience with an Autumn Gala of music, dance and theatre on Wednesday, 9th November. A mix of classical and contemporary music was played by the orchestra, and a range of dance including ballet, tap and modern was performed by students to a full house. Tickets sold out in advance of the evening, and the show’s student cast voted to donate £100 raised through ticket sales to this year’s Poppy Appeal. Emma Scholey (Yr 10) & Emma Harris (Yr 10) both appeared in the show and said: “We have participated in many of St Crispin’s productions and this has been one of the most enjoyable yet. The rehearsals helped develop our theatrical and musical skills and the whole cast

enjoyed the experience.” Miss Savage

(Drama teacher)

said: “'I

was incredibly

proud of all the

students that took

part. We

were overwhelmed

by the talent in the

auditions and

they certainly

delivered on the night. Every year I’m

impressed by our students’

professionalism, maturity and

collaboration. I look forward to working

with the students on our next

production 'We Will Rock You' in the

summer term”

Autumn Gala

St Crispin’s Christmas Concert Thursday 8

th December at 7.30 pm

Tickets £6.00 Concessions £3.00 Students will perform a range of seasonal music, including carols from around the world as well as some traditional favourites. There will be a chance for the audience to join in too and for everyone to get in the Christmas mood. All proceeds from the concert will go towards music equipment and resources for the school.

Photos provided by the Wokingham Times

Students flocked back to school on the evening of Tuesday, 8th November to gather information on possible future careers. Representatives from a variety of professions were on hand to help students with their queries at St Crispin’s annual careers conference. Students browsed the career stalls and were able to quiz the professionals about the day to day reality of working in a particular field of work that interested them. The youngsters could also access advice about the qualifications necessary to follow a certain career path, as well as discovering opportunities for further professional development. There were advisors from many employment sectors: retail, banking, business, veterinary, engineering, ICT, performing arts and many more, as well as representatives from further education colleges.

Careers Convention

Rob Murgatroyd (Yr 11) said: “I wanted to find out more about business and economics apprenticeships and I found the people from Logica very helpful.” Sophie Brice (Yr 9) said: “I went along to the event to research several careers. I’m interested in following a career in law after talking to reps from cplaw.” Summer Phillips (Yr 9) said: “I was interested in finding out more about working in the beauty industry and so the teachers from Bracknell and Wokingham College were able to give me lots of information.”

St Crispin’s Christmas Market The PTA, along with the International parents and staff committee, hosted a Christmas market on Thursday 17

th November.

There were over 25 stalls, offering jewellery, cards, soft furnishings, Christmas decorations, crafts and food items plus much more. Visitors were able to browse the stalls and purchase Christmas gifts, before enjoying the excellent festive food that was on offer.

Younger visitors enjoyed festive activities such as cake and biscuit decoration, lucky dip, throw the hoop over Rudolph’s antler and guess the treasure.

Following the huge success of St Crispin’s international food tasting evening in the summer, there was food from around the globe, provided by the International parents and staff committee, as well as the more traditional turkey served warm in fresh bread rolls.

An entrance fee of 50p was charged which also entered each visitor into the raffle. A

secret auction offering: a professional nail service, an indulgent edible bouquet made of

chocolate and strawberries and a hamper filled with treats from around the world was held

during the evening. £1200 was raised in total

which will go towards the refurbishment of the

canteen.

Bookworms meet crime writing author St Crispin’s Book Club attended the

Reading Festival of Crime Writing for

teenagers on Friday 11th November at

Reading Town Hall.

The aim of the visit was to inspire

young book club members to become keen

writers as well as keen readers.

Students met Andrew Lane, the

popular author of the ‘Young Sherlock

Holmes’ series of adventure/crime books.

Andrew spoke to the audience about his

writing career and how he had created

the young 14 year-old Sherlock Holmes

from the original character created by Sir

Arthur Conan Doyle.

After the talk and a Q&A session, students were able to purchase the latest book in the

series – Firestorm - and have it signed personally by the author.