1

Head teacher’s message

One only has to glance through the pages of this newsletter to start to get an idea of the fantastic range of opportunities available to our students. I am so grateful to the staff, our parents and volunteers for the work they do to enrich the curriculum every week. Whilst many of our students are right in the middle of public examinations, there is still so much going on, both in and beyond the classroom.

I have really benefited from visiting lessons over the last few weeks and talking to young people about their learning experiences. I particularly enjoyed receiving a whole stack of formal letters, written by the members of one of our Year 8 English groups. As part of their lessons, the students were encouraged to write to me to outline an area of college life that they thought could be made even better, and at the same time, work on their letter-writing style. It was great to see such well-written and mature arguments.

Thank you to those parents who attended the academy consultation presentation last week. I have now had a chance to speak to every year group in an assembly to explain what a decision

to pursue academy status would mean for the students themselves. I would really like to encourage everyone to get involved in the consultation process so that the governors have a true indication of your feelings about the proposed change.

Finally, I hope that everyone gets a chance over the half term to enjoy a well-deserved break, even though I recognise that for many, the pressure of exams means that any relaxation time has to be balanced with the necessity of continued revision.

Thank you all for your continued support.

Steven Green - Head teacher

The Update

The Axe Valley Community College Newsletter: Friday 27th May 2016 - Issue 13

Diary Dates for June: 30th May - 3rd June - Half Term

Thu 9th and Fri 10th June - Sports Days

13-17th June - Years 10 & 12 Work Experience Week

Wed 15th June - REACH Year 9 Forensics day

Wed 15th June - ASPIRE Year 5 maths Workshop

Fri 17th June - Year 11 Celebration assembly and BBQ

20th June - Year 10 Mock exams begin

Tue 28th June - Primary Sports Festival

Wed 29th June - ASPIRE Music Mix Festival

Wed 29th June - Transition Day for Year 6

Year 7 ASPIRE students at the MET Office for Science Camp

2

Student News

Fashion and Textiles at Somerset College

On Friday 22nd April we went to Somerset college to look around the Fashion and Textiles department. It is a fabulous facility as they have just spent 11 million pounds on refurbishment and development. We climbed to the highest floor where the textiles and surface design and fashion are based, we were able to see sketchbooks and work in the studio space by the degree students.

In the fashion area we saw final pieces, there were a range including combining technology with fashion in sports wear, women and men's wear and bridal wear.

The next floor had workshops that included screen printing 3d printing and sublimation printing. On the ground floor the workshop's had laser cutting and industrial sewing machines, irons and over lockers.

We were taken around by Gary Mills, he is Head of Fashion and he explained about the different courses and facilities. After our tour we had a break of tea coffee and delicious Danish pastries. Next we had an hours workshop with Gary learning about creating inspirational mood boards. He showed us a new method using pins, text and foam board. this method inspired us and the Year 10s and we will be able to use it in our coursework. Overall it was an inspiring trip which extended our knowledge about University courses and gave us an insight into the facilities and courses available.

Jess Boulton, Abi Phillips, Navi Rathnayake and Amie Lockett

Competition winner

At the recent careers event at the Axe Valley Community College, one of the contributors, The Academy of Music and Sound ran a competition to win a guitar. The Academy is a specialist independent Music College based in Exeter that has been visiting school across the country during the last 5 weeks and there were over 300 entries for this competition.

The guitar was won by LCpl Neil Lewis who was at the college on Careers Day representing the Army. He very generously decided to offer his prize to one of the Axe Valley students who had also entered on the day. The lucky winner was Layla James from Year 10. Layla is studying GCSE Music and is a regular contributor to College concerts and shows. She was delighted with her prize and chatted away with Laura and Ben about her song writing and her aspirations as a musician.

Pictured in the photo are Layla with Laura Wright and Ben MacDonald from The Academy of Music and Sound on her right and Sgt Mike Amor standing in for LCpl Lewis on her left.

3

A message from the Music Department

Have you ever wanted to play an instrument? Perhaps you started at primary school and forgot to take it up again or always wanted to and didn't have the opportunity? Well now you do!

At The Axe Valley Community College there is tuition available in most instruments - yes that's right pretty much anything you want to play! You can learn piano, singing, brass instruments such as trumpet, clarinet, flute, cello, violin and other stringed instruments. You can also learn all types of guitar - electric, acoustic, classical and bass, plus drums and percussion.

There are also loads of great fun clubs you can join to help you learn: recorders, steel pans, samba drums, choir, orchestra, and rock-school. If you are interested in learning an instrument or just want to try it out to see if you like it, head on down to the music department and have a chat with Mr Jevons, Mr Griffiths or Ms Ashby.

Lessons are part-funded to make them more affordable and if you are a REACH student they are fully funded. Now you just need to head over to music and ask....!

Future trips are now booking

If you are interested in joining either or both of these trips please contact Mr Scott in the Sports Office.

Ski Trip - Austria - Zell Am See 27th Dec 2016 - 4th Jan 2017 Years 9 (current) - 13 Skiing - beginners to advanced - lessons all day with highly qualified instructors Evening activities - ice skating, watching ice hockey, swimming, bowling, fancy dress and New Years eve party. Cost £740 - payments staggered.

Ardeche summer activity trip 13th - 21 July 2017 All years France - two centres - Ardeche and Mimosa Activities - Canoeing down the Ardeche river, sleeping under the stars, windsurfing, sailing, banana boating, waterpark, raft building, climbing. Also - Disco every night, cultural trips into local towns fancy dress competition. Cost - £801 - payments staggered.

4

Sports Update Year 9 Rounders team

On Tues 24th May Yr9 girls headed to Uffculme for the East Devon tournament. The girls had attended training regularly and were keen for some competitive matches.

In their pool matches they faced Exmouth, Kings and Honiton. All three games were incredibly close with only a half rounder or a whole rounder seperating the teams in any of the games. The Axe Valley girls displayed some superb long range fielding as well as quick accurate reactions around 2nd post. They made some good decisions to run hard on any ball which put the opposition under pressure. This play led to them achieving a semi-final place against Colyton.

Again, the girls played well as a team in the field and also put together some strong running and hitting but unfortunately Colyton took a couple of very good catches and displayed quick fielding and accuracy at 2nd post to stop the half rounders. Final score was 3 and 1/2 - 5 in Colyton's favour.

A good afternoon's work which demonstrated the Yr 9 Girls continued drive to be competitive and always looking to achieve their best.

Well done to: Ellen Turner (player of the day) Millie DeBono (captain), Sophie Sharp, Alisha Meaker, Jemma Hoare, Freya Board, Hannah White, Maia Booth, Becky Smitham, Neve Wellman

Athletics

Congratulations to Amber Banner, Poppy Tooze, Samidi Nanayakkara and Tyler Wilson who all competed at the Devon Combined Events Athletics meeting on Sunday 22nd May.

This competition requires athletes to complete 5 events (Hurdles, 800m, Long Jump, High Jump and Shot Putt) It is a fantastic way of keeping all aspects of athletics fitness and as most athletes only have one or two strong events it can often be a surprise as to who emerges as the overall winners as all events count to your final score.

Congratulations to Poppy Tooze who came 5th in her age category with two Personal Best performances in High jump and Long Jump

Year 7 Super 8’s Team athletics

On Tues 17th May 8 Year 7 students competed at the East Devon Super 8’s athletics meeting.

The event requires 8 girls and 8 boys to compete in 8 athletics events (4 track; 100m, 200m, 800m and 75m hurdels and 4 field; High Jump, Long jump, Shot and Javelin)

Everyone MUST compete in a track event AND a field event

6 schools entered and Axe Valley finished a very creditable 4th (ahead of Honiton and Exmouth)

Some stand out performances on the day were

5

from Freddie Paterson-Stack, Yannick Barrett and Joe Richardson who finished 6th, 7th and 10th respectively form 48 boys and Amber Banner who finished 8th out of 48 girls

Hopefully we can build on this and include many more athletes at the East Devon Championships at the end of June.

East Devon schools Athletics

The following students represented our school at the annual Exeter V's East Devon schools Athletics competition. Merely getting to this event is a huge achievement and our students should be very proud of their commitment and dedication to Athletics. A special mention must go to our 3 Year 11 students; Jess Lee, Becky Griffiths and Jack Harwood who have had the added pressure of revision & exams! All of our athletes performed well, and were a credit to themselves and our school.

Jack Harwood 1st - Triple Jump Jess Less 2nd - Triple Jump, 3rd - Long Jump

Becky Griffiths - 3rd Discus Will House - 400m Ethan Day - 1500m

Britney Macklin 2nd -Javelin Molly Stemp - 100m

Megan Herbert - 800m Reece McAbe 2nd - Long Jump

Katie Burnett - High Jump Min Dack - Javelin

Samidi Nanayakkara - 200m

Well Done!

After attending the selection meeting last night the following students have been selected to represent Exeter and East Devon schools in the County Trials on Sat 11th June:

Jess Lee -Triple Jump and Long Jump Becky Griffiths - Discus

Jack Harwood - Triple Jump Will House - 400m

Britney Macklin - Javelin Reece McCabe - Long Jump

U13 East Devon Schools Cup Cricket Tuesday 24th May @ Cloakham Lawns

The mixed team of Year 7 and Year 8s played a 16 over cup match against Honiton Community College and kept them down to 63 runs with some good fielding and bowling by all.

Axe Valley got off the mark very quickly with some quality batting with Kieran Downton and Miles

Akeroyd opening. Kieran had a very good batting innings hitting an impressive 5 fours and retiring at 25 runs.

Axe Valley quickly hit their target of 64 runs to win with 6 overs to spare. We will now play Exmouth or Uffculme in the semi final.

Mr T Davies - PE Teacher & Year 8 Leader Cycling Event

Two teams from Year 7 and Year 8 took part in a cycling competition at Kings. Each team consisted 4 Year 7 and 4 Year 8 riders. Year 7s would only Comoran against other Year 7 cyclists and the same rule applied for the Year 8s. Times were then combined for the overall result.

Axe 'A' were in Group A, and finished 2nd in the group, winning 1 race and losing the other, which put them in to the semi final. Axe 'B' improved as the competition went on but lost both races in the group section. However in the group section Axe 'A' Year 8s produced the quickest time to the group, completing the 6 laps in 2 minutes 54 seconds.

Axe 'A' produced a solid performance in the semi final against Kings 'A' but lost out by 10 seconds when the combined times were taking into account.

Axe 'B' were next on track in a race off for 5th/ 6th place and again produced and massively improved performance in terms of team work, but just came up short.

Our final race involving an Axe team was the 'A' team in a 3rd/ 4th race off. The Year 7s finished 10 seconds behind their Kings 'A' counterparts meaning the Year 8s needed to be at least the same time ahead of there opposition. It was a close race, but with 2 laps to go Axe decided to kick on and they crossed the line in 3 minutes and 1 second, given us a total time of 6:08. Kings 'A' had a combined time of 6:15, meaning the Year 8s had dug deep to overturn the deficit.

Our overall results were 3rd place for Axe 'A' and a 6th place finish for Axe 'B'.

6

MET Office Science Camp - 20-21st May

18 ASPIRE Year 7s went to the MET office on Friday afternoon. After an early supper and some ‘getting to know you’ games with the MET office reps the students embarked on a carousel of fascinating workshops each focused on an element of the weather with interactive activities. They made clouds in bottles, demonstrated the differences in air pressure, simulated wind speeds, made anemometers with ping pong balls, explored the complexities of the super computer, discovered the importance of temperature changes to agriculture and industry, and even plotted the probabilities of storm movements on a giant floor map with tennis balls.

Every activity was designed to illustrate a small piece of the giant complex puzzle that makes up the business of the MET office.

By midnight the students were ready for bed and we all camped in tents in one of the board rooms. Early the following morning the day kicked off with a Q & A session in the library with experts in various fields, weather forecaster, aviation specialist, IT expert and oceanographer. This was followed by another carousel of workshops this time focused on the forecasting and the presentation of data. Students were able to have a go at being the forecaster on TV, they were given a tour of the central office with all the screens for the whole country and were then shown the equipment at a weather station, all finished off with a quiz of extraordinary weather facts.

It was an incredible, information packed, 24 hours that the students enjoyed immensely and are now all inspired to work in careers in science.

Poetry Workshop

Students from Year 7, 8 and 9 worked on their poems about Axminster with Ms Thomas-Davies yesterday in anticipation of the Queen’s Birthday. Their work will be entered in the Axminster Council Competition that will be judged this weekend.

Coming Up:

Skills for Success - Presentation Skills Wednesday 15th June 3.30pm—5pm We are delighted to have Andy Brudenell from EDF visiting us to talk about public speaking, confidence and presentation skills. This workshop is aimed at Year 8 & 9, please let Mrs Pemberton know if you would like to participate.

Bring a Parent Maths Workshop - Year 5 Wednesday 15th June 2.00pm - 3.00pm

Year 5 students will be visiting Axe Valley with their parents for a fun maths challenge.

Exeter Maths School - 24th June

Year 9 and 11 ASPIRE students that have attended earlier workshops have been invited to a celebration event on 24th June.

Music Mix Festival - 28th June

This annual event will be at Bridwell House in Uffculme this year. As always there will be a range of workshops to enjoy including Taiko dumming and Samba as well as many performances and try-out sessions. Letters will be sent after half term.

WW2 Heritage Project

In conjunction with the Axminster Heritage Centre ASPIRE will be working at a series of workshops to collect oral histories, recreate music from the time and prepare vintage decorations and refreshments.

Recording oral histories - technique 22nd June Years9 & 10 ASPIRE General

Music - Classic wartime tunes 22nd & 28th June—Year 7-10 ASPIRE Music

Art - Textiles - Catering

We are currently exploring the possibilities for these workshops and will have more

information and dates for these soon.

The results of all these workshops will be celebrated at a special WW2 Tea party on the 6th July at the Axminster Heritage Centre.

Mrs K Pemberton - ASPIRE Co-ordinator

ASPIRE

7

8

REACH

Years 8 Royal Marines Day

Year 8 REACH students spent the day with the Royal Marines today on team building activities, fitness training and military skills. The students had logic challenges to work out and had to learn to rely on each other for support or back up. It was a great day and gave real insight into the life and training of the marines as well as to some of the exciting possibilities of a career in the forces.

Coming Up next Half Term:

Year 9—Forensics Workshop Thursday 16th June

Year 9 REACH students will be spending the day in the science department looking at the techniques used to assess a crime scene, fingerprinting and blood spatters are just a part of the topic that they will explore.

Careers visit to PETROC Years 8 , 9 & 10—Thursday 7th July

We have been offered this fantastic opportunity to visit this diverse and forward thinking

company who will be offering workshops in various parts of their business. More information to follow shortly.

Bushwacker Tour - Coast Forage Year 10 - Friday 8th July

At the end of term Year 10 REACH students will be invited to spend a day with coastal foraging expert Paul Burkhardt who will take them on a coastal hike, forage for wild foods and cook with them on the beach. Students will receive an invitation after half term. Trill Farm - Survival Skills Year 7 - 13th July Year 8 & 9 - 14th July

Last year the Year 10’s spent an enjoyable afternoon foraging for wild food, shelter building and fire lighting at Trill Farm. This July we plan to meet with expert Chris Holland to repeat the experience with Year 7, 8 and 9. Please look out for an invitation in the next couple of weeks with further details and dates.

Mrs K Pemberton - REACH Co-ordinator

9

Community Noticeboard

Have a

great

half term

everyone!

10

Anyone intending to register/attend the trials should let the PE department know (they have spare registration leaflets).