WHS NEWS Important

Dates

Tuesday 6 January Year 7 Visit to Imperial War Museum

Thursday 8 January

Year 9 Parents Evening/Options Evening

Tuesday 20 January Tower Hamlets Year 7 & 8 Girls Sportshall Athletics at Central Foundation Girls School

Wednesday 21 January from 4:00 - 6:00pm

Table Tennis Fixture against East London Science School

Thursday 22 January

Tower Hamlets Year 7 & 8 Boys Sportshall Athletics at Bow School

Friday 23 January Year 8 & 9 Only Connect Crime Prevention Performance & Work-shops

Wednesday 4 February from 4:30pm - 8pm Year 9 Options Interviews

Wednesday 11 February Tower Hamlets Year 7 Netball at Langdon Park

Monday 16 February to Monday 23 February Spring Half Term

Tuesday 24 February

First day back

Tuesday 24 February Year 9 Immunisations

Tuesday 24 February Tower Hamlets Year 7 - 9 Netball at Langdon Park

Message from the Head

Wapping High School—Issue 4 December 2014

Raising Aspirations | Broadening Horizons

There were so many highlights during last half term, particularly in the lead up to

Christmas that it would be difficult to single any out any individually. Our final

week of term saw a whirlwind of activity the highlight being our very own moment

in the spotlight as we welcomed the film crew from Talk Talk TV and X-Factor

celebrities Rylan Clark and Only the Young. It was wonderful to see the surprise

on the students faces when the stars arrived to sing at Assembly the video can be

viewed on Youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDQJFk8Ou7Y&feature=youtube

It was a pleasure to see you at the Winter Concert and PBL World War 1 exhibition

too. Sometimes it is easy to forget just how talented students at Wapping High are

and these recent events have certainly showed it. From a newly formed choir’s

first performance, a top quality Art exhibition, a TV dance act to individual soloists

and dancers, everyone was simply amazing!

Finally, I am sure you will join me in saying farewell to Ms Mohamed, Mr Flynn,

Miss Francois, Mr Sharif and Mrs Goff who leave at the end of term and welcoming

Miss Orton, who joins us as DT Teacher, Mr Gallie as Music Teacher and

Miss Daley as my PA in January 2015.

Many best wishes to all of you for a happy and prosperous 2015!

Karin Rowsell

WHS News—December 2014

Project Based Learning—What’s it all about?

We will remember them - Visit to the Tower of London Poppies

“Project-Based Learning” refers to students designing, planning, and carrying out an extended project

that produces a publicly exhibited output such as a product , publication, or presentation. It is related to

enquiry based learning, and problem-based learning. The distinctive feature of project based learning

is the publicly exhibited output. At Wapping High we have chosen to focus on project-based learning

because it incorporates enquiry, and because, in our experience, public exhibition is a tremendously

powerful motivator for both students and staff.

Project-based learning isn’t a new phenomenon – it was popular at the beginning of the 20th century

(most notably championed by John Dewey) and again in the 1970s. During the 1970s, it picked up a

bad reputation (in some circles) for being unstructured and lacking rigour. However, since then there

have been two key shifts that have reignited teachers’ interest in project-based learning and helped it to

shake off its stigma. Firstly, and most obviously, digital technology makes it easier than ever before for

students to conduct serious research, produce high-quality work, keep a record of the entire process,

and share their creations with the world.

Secondly, we now know much more about how to do good, rigorous project based learning, and we can

evaluate its effectiveness. Today, teachers around the world are designing projects for their students

because they ignite a shared passion for learning in both students and staff; they foster a wide range of

skills (such as time management, collaboration, and problem solving) that students will need at college,

university, and in the workplace; and they can be tailored.

Since September students and staff have achieved some phenomenal outcomes from our project

based approach with the Historical Heroes Book published in October, the World War I murals in our

School’s entrance foyer and the Geocaching which you can gear more about by looking at the students

blogs on http://projectbloggedlearning.wordpress.com . We are particularly lucky at Wapping as we are part

of a nation wide pilot of PBL and we have consultants from the innovation unit coaching and supporting

our staff, ensuring our planning and delivery are outstanding.

In November, two year 7 classes went to visit the 'Blood

Swept Lands and Seas of Red' installation at the

Tower of London to mark the centenary of WW1. Stu-

dents and staff were taken aback at the scale of the

project, which is now in its final week. The year 7

students are using this as a starting point for creating

their own WW1 memorials in Project-Based Learning

this term.

WHS News—December 2014

X Factor comes to Wapping High

X Factor comes to Wapping High as

students celebrate victory in

TalkTalk TV’s Spotlight Competition

2014

Students were delighted to welcome former X Factor

contestants, Rylan Clark and Only the Young on 17

December to film the School’s winning entry in the Talk

Talk TV’s Spotlight Competition 2014.

Led by Miss Alexandra Piechoczek, students from Year 7 and 8 were delighted to receive the news

of their achievement in being crowned winners of the competition. Now in its second year the com-

petition encourages young people to embrace their creative talents by performing, producing and

submitting an act of their choice using TalkTalk’s Mix Off app. The team’s free style street dance

was developed during the School’s lunch breaks and enrichment hour and choreographed by stu-

dents.

With the help of fellow students across the School, the team had their performance transformed into

a professionally produced music video with the stars. Performers felt like pop stars for the day as

they had their performance professionally directed, filmed,

produced and showcased to 1.1 million homes on TalkTalk

TV. A team of professional hair stylists and make-up artists

were even on hand to perfect the performers’ look before they

even hit the stage.

Commenting on the event, Karin Rowsell, Headteacher said:

“The prize, awarded today, provides a fantastic opportunity

for the students to work with professionals to put their artistic

talents to the test. As a School our aim is to broaden the

horizons and raise the aspirations for our students to help them develop inquisitive minds through

our personalised and enriched curriculum. I am very proud that Wapping High School has had this

opportunity to showcase our truly unique 21st century learning environment. My thanks go to Miss

Piechoczek, and the team from TalkTalk TV for providing this amazing opportunity for our students.”

The film was shown on Talk Talk TV on Monday 22 December. A link to the film is available on the

School’s website.

WHS News—December 2014

Charity Fundraising

Anti-Bullying Week

Child Whispering Workshop We were honoured to have Sandy Kennedy visit our school and talk to us about anti-bullying. The Child Whispering workshop taught us about bullying and mature ways to deal with it. Sandy intro-duced us to the cartoon heart kids; these were characters that had different personalities but they all had heart shaped heads and two toned headshots. Child whispering is unique in that it uses colour,shaped and characters to communicate key life messages for a healthy, happy and successful journey through childhood into adulthood. To learn more go to www.childwhispering.co.uk Children, teachers and parents in all schools should be shown the important messages behind signpost for life. “A signpost for life is great and really makes you think about your behaviour. It should be shown to children of all ages” By Dianna Nourridine

Our Charity Fundraising activi-

ties have continued to keep us

busy this half term.

For Children in Need day staff

and students transformed

themselves into their favourite

super heroes. More fancy

dress fun was enjoyed in

December when we joined the

National Christmas Jumper

day. A total of £310 was

raised for charities Save the

Children and Children in need.

Sport Wapping High Boys 1 Vs LEA 1 On Thursday 23 October, Wapping High School's Year

7&8 football team played against another local team,

LEA (London Enterprise Academy) in a 45 minute

match. It was an intense and spine-chilling affair for the

teams and the audience. Who was going to win?

At the beginning of the match, Wapping High took kick

off and the starting 11 had to only contain year 7s , but

due to the fact that there weren't enough year 7s, 1 year

8 pupil had to come on. LEA had very soon taken the

ball as their attack was quite good but once they passed

it to their goalie, one of our star players (Sami) found an

opportunity in their goalie's mistakes and intercepted his

pass which led Sami into an easy and swift goal. It was

1-0 to Wapping High.

Nearing the end of the first half, LEA's attack were thriv-

ing with chances to score. Unfortunately for us, our

goalkeeper presented the ball directly to a player from

the opposing team who had a 1 on 1 chance with which

he scored. After that it was 1-1.

Once the second half had begun, both teams had pos-

session and chances to score. Wapping High had many

chances but our players just couldn't finish them off.

LEA also had chances but our midfield was solid.

In the end, no one came out as winners. However, the

teachers were discussing if the pupils were going to

have a rematch very soon. But all in all it was a fun

game and it was something everyone enjoyed. Finally, a

big shout out to Mr Wood and Mr Bartlett for hosting all

of this. If it wasn't for them, none of this would've hap-

pened.

By Zain Syed Ahmed

WHS News—December 2014

Wapping Girls Triumph in their first football match Wapping High School :3 London Enterprise Academy: 1 On Wednesday December 10th the girls Year 7/8 football team went to a football match in Golding Street. The opposing team were from London Enterprise Academy. We warmed up and started our first match. The match started slowly but we soon picked up the pace. Wapping High girls were on fire, especially our team captain Sia Thomas. After scoring two goals it was half -time and we discussed techniques on how to beat them with our coach Ms Stonebanks. At last we reached our third goal until our opponents

tried to score but the goalkeeper, Abida, saved the ball. It was astonishing! Then we picked up on our last goal. This is how we led our school to victory! By Abida Rahman

Year 8 visits Bioscience Festival The Year 8 pupils went on a trip to the Great British Bioscience Festival which took place in the V&A Museum of Childhood Gar-dens. This event was held on the 14th of November 2014 and it

was the 20th anniversary of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

It was a great ceremony with lots of workshops for exam-ple; antibiotics, microbes, etc. There were activities that stu-dents took part in some of which were: experimenting with glow in the dark bacterias, talking to professional scientists and graduates and much more!

It was a wonderful and informative festival; the students of Year 8 enjoyed their time and we’d like to thank the people at Bioscience for being kind and friendly during our visit. By Emily To

Will I get Ebola for Xmas? This half term Mr Dean's Year 8 Science classes

have completed a project entitled "Will I Get Ebola for Xmas?". The aim of the project was to de-sign a leaflet that could be sent to Primary Schools to educate young peo-ple about Ebola while

reassuring them that the risk to people in the UK is very low. The final designs arrived back from the printers last Thursday just in time for the ex-hibition on Friday 12 December where the leaf-lets were judged by Tina Christodolou, a

virologist from Cambridge University.

Ms Christodolou was very impressed by the quality of scientific understanding and design and congratulated all the pupils for their efforts.

By Mr Dean

WHS News—December 2014 WHS News—December 2014

Science

Art Wapping collaborates with Whitechapel Gallery to create urban art

Students participated in a workshop on 13 November with noted international artist Bart Lodewijks, who has been working with the Whitechapel Art Gal-lery and the Youth Forum, Duchamp and Sons. The workshop, was part of the Whitechapel Galleries Masterclass programme an education initiative that aims to engage schools in the cultural arts by giving students the opportunity to have direct contact with creative pro-fessionals. Bart worked with year 9 students to explore how line can be used to represent the world around us in both conventional and unconventional ways. The lesson, organised by Art Teacher, Ms Campbell encompassed Art, Maths and Science and students had an opportunity to chat with the artist about the importance of his practice as well as lines, angles and colour in art and the synergies across the subjects.

By Miss Campbell

WHS News—December 2014

Artistic talent celebrated in Christmas Art Competiton Wapping High School’s first art competition took place at the end of December. The theme of the competition was Winter and the quality of entries was of an exceptionally high standard. Congratulations go to winners Okchung Park (1st), Cherish Willetts (2nd) and Imane Aliane (3rd). Okchung’s scene depicting a snowy winter landscape took pride of place as the programme cover for the Winter Concert held on 17 December.

1ST by Okchung Park 2ND by Cherish W illets 3RD by Imane Aliane

Year 9 Students get ready for GCSEs

WHS News—December 2014

It’s getting to that time when year 9 students start to make their decisions towards their future and choose future GCSE courses. On Tuesday 16 December 2014 the year 9s had their first assembly to decide what they might like to choose for their GCSE options in the summer of 2015. They will be the first ever students to have the privilege of doing their GCSEs at Wapping High School. A further parent/teacher con-sultation will be held on the 9 January with students making their final choices by 4 February 2015.

By Isabella Toomer

Parents Corner

Your Newsletter needs you! Our fantastic editorial team are working hard to build

on and improve our regular newsletter along with

providing stories for the School website. If you have

an article which you would like to include in the fu-

ture please email us at headspa@wappinghigh.org

We’d love to hear from you!

Lost Property Please be aware that there is a large amount

of Lost Property. If you have lost property at

school please ask at reception, any items left

at the end of term will be donated to charity.

Communicating with you Parent Survey

We are giving parents the opportunity to provide feedback about school communications and engage-

ment with you as a parent. We will use the results of the survey to improve the way we communicate

with you. You are welcome to provide your feedback anonymously but it would help us to have your

contact details. So, as far as you feel comfortable please provide us with the relevant details.

After completing the survey, if you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to

contact

headspa@wappinghigh.org

Please take a moment to complete a short survey online.

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