Swakeleys News - Swakeleys School for Girls

Swakeleys
News
May
2010
Swakeleys election result : Conservative : 35%
Liberal Democrat: 33% Labour: 32%
U13 footballers win Middlesex Cup
£811 raised on non-uniform day
A new online parents’
school network has been
recently launched for all
secondary schools in the
UK by Netmums, working
with DadTalk. This
means that our school
has got its own forum
on Netmums – a local
board where parents can
post new messages and
reply to others. It’s all about parents keeping in
touch with each other and with what’s
happening at the school. All sorts of topics can
be discussed from the after school activities your
child does to how you motivate your child to do
their homework!
If you would like to join in, go to:
www.netmums.com/schoolnetwork
and from there you will be able to find our
school listed.
On 28th
April, six
Swakeleys
girls:
Joanna
Grant,
Serife Gunal, Zeena Valenti, Samantha
Richards, Veronica Ward-Horner and
Monique Downie were invited to the Civic
Centre to take part in an afternoon of debate
with the NSPCC. The focus was on the
upcoming elections and improving life for
kids in Hillingdon. We took part in tasks and
discussions and produced and presented
manifestos and our ideas are to be put forward to the Hillingdon council later in the
year. It was a very insightful and thought
provoking afternoon. Zeena Valenti
From the Headteacher’s desk
It was another interesting start to term
with the air travel chaos created by the
volcanic ash cloud! I was hugely relieved to
find that we only had five staff stranded in
far away countries and so school was able to carry on as
usual. Everyone is now back safely and we are all working
hard to prepare the girls for their forthcoming
examinations.
At the start of a new term I would like to welcome new
staff – Mrs Rabbani joins us as Head of ICT, Ms Silla as
teacher of Health and Social Care and Mrs New as
Welfare Assistant. We are also joined by Mrs Patrick as
display technician and Miss Fleming as a Learning Support
Assistant.
Year 9 are about to sit their end of year exams having
chosen their GCSE options and Year 8 girls will also be
starting their GCSE courses in September. Staff are busy
preparing for this big curriculum change and will be
working on this on our extra training day of Monday
July 5th 2010. It really is a very busy time with public
examinations about to start, girls preparing for
humanities week and sports day etc. Please can I remind
you again that under no circumstances should girls be
taken out of school during term time for holidays. The
last day of this term is Friday 23rd July.
If you have any ideas about what you would like the
school to focus on in the next academic year, please do
send them in via a letter or email to:
swakeleys@hillingdongrid.org
Sue Pryor
Literacy Focus Months.
Each month we cover a different topic,
with posters displayed around the school.
So far we have covered:
Capital letters (January)
Apostrophes (February)
Paragraphs (March)
Colons and Semi-colons (April)
Our Literacy Focus for May is Homophones.
These are words that sound similar, but are
spelt differently and have different
meanings. Common examples are:
off/of - their/there/they’re - to/too/two
Generation 2012
Najma Nurudin in year 13 and Nabila Abani, one of our former students,
are representing our school as part of Generation 2012. Last year they
attended the BBC world service for journalism training so they can be
involved in the multi lingual broadcasts for the world service coverage of
the 2012 Olympics.
The organisers were very keen to have Najma Nurudin and Nabila Abani
take part in a tour of the Olympic site to hear more of their thoughts about
the coming Olympics. Najma writes: “It was a privilege to visit the Olympic
site before it was finished as no one except the builders had seen it before
so it was an exciting feeling. We all met up at Stratford station in East
London, the closest
station to the site. We
travelled by coach to the site and stayed on the coach throughout our
guided tour because of the construction works. The site was bigger than
I had imagined and everywhere you looked there was something to see.
The Veladrome and Aquatic Centre were taking
shape however we were worried that it would not
all be finished by 2012. Following our tour, we were
taken to the BBC at Bush House where we made a radio programme including interviews,
poems and raps about what we had just seen. We then split into groups according to the languages we
spoke. I was involved in an interview in Swahili and then was a guest at a live radio broadcast in Swahili. It
was a fascinating day!”
Creative Campus Challenge
A team of Year 12 students have come 2nd in the Creative Campus Challenge at
Thames Valley University on 23rd April. The students who took part were Sian Prior ,
Robert Dan , Sophie Cheadle , Nelissa Rose , Rochelle Todd, and Hannah Smith.
They achieved Silver (2nd place) winning £250 for the school, and £25 vouchers for
themselves. As part of the challenge our Post 16 students delivered a short presentation
about what they did and how they came up with their concept, and then presented a
short film they had made to promote the London 2012 Olympics. “After 4 meetings, two
full days taken from the holidays, and endless amounts of travelling and filming, you
would think the team of 6th form students and their helpers would be fed up of the creative campus challenge and Thames Valley
University. Instead it’s all smiles after an enduring final push has led us to achieve second place in a national competition,
earning each member a £25 prize voucher and an amazing £250 for use in the school. Our short film beat hundreds of other
teams who were required to produce a media piece that promoted the Olympics to a youth audience. A unique idea of taking
negative stereotypes of young culture and shaping it to make positive ends enabled us to stand apart from the rest. The only
question now is what will we spend our money on?” Sian Prior
HP has teamed up with PC4PE to put a little bounce into this
year's education! If you are thinking of buying any PC
products, try visiting this site:
http://www.supportingsports.com/welcome/index
All you need to do is buy any of the HP products listed and then donate
your points to Swakeleys. We can then redeem these for sports equipment of our choice! For every £1 you
spend you'll earn the school 1 point!
Over the past few weeks, we have been involved in maths
masterclasses. Year 8s and 9s from all over the borough took part.
We were able to expand our mathematical knowledge with a variety
of activities. Between us we got 6 prizes. We also got to try out the
new IT facilities at Bishop Ramsey where we made ‘indestructable’
shapes. It was an interesting experience and we wish next years
contestants good luck. Miss Beitverda
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24 Game - Maths
On Thursday 18th March six students from year 7 Sonam Shinhmar, Sonia Shinhmar, Anastasia Sonaki, Aaisha
Khan, Sarah Wilson and Helen Philbrook went to Ruislip High to compete in a competition for „24 Game‟. Loads of
people went with about 14 schools in total arriving and over a hundred children and a few parents staying to watch.
When we arrived we got into three teams and the competition began with some rather easy questions in the first
round- we scored 25 points between us, Then the second round began with some double digit numbers we ended
this round 22-24 points between us. At this point we had a break for refreshments. When we settled down for the
third and final round we were all worried that we would do badly. So we were relieved when we finally reached the
end of that round with a good score of 20-25 points. When the scores were being counted and the results about to
be revealed you could feel the excitement in the air. When the results were read out sadly Swakeleys finished 4 th,
but we tried our best and we are proud to be in the top five. Helen, Aaisha, Anastasia, Sonia, Sonam and Sarah
PE News
Football
On the 26th March the U13 Football team played Ashmole School
in the County Cup Final, Swakeleys put in 110% and were
rewarded with a 5-1 victory making them County Champions.
Goals coming from Georgia Lloyd -Sutton (2) and Annie Hewitt
(3). It has been a fantastic season a huge congratulations to the
whole squad.
Netball
The year 7 netball team won the Hillingdon schools league this year, only
losing one match throughout the season. The girls also came 3rd in the
borough tournament, narrowly losing to the eventual winners St Helens in the
semi finals. A fantastic achievement girls, well done!
London Marathon 2010
Jade Nettleton year 11 took part in this year’s mini marathon as part of the Hillingdon team. She
competed in the 15-17 age group and was the third Hillingdon runner in her age group with a time of
21 minutes. There were 1377 runners in total and Jade was placed 60 th in her age group and 120
overall. This was an excellent achievement; she had a strong finish overtaking several runners in the
last 600 meters. Well done to Jade from all at Swakeleys.
Sports Day Friday 18th June
Sports Day is getting closer so you all need to start thinking about what events you want to take part in.
Athletics club is held on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday lunchtimes this is the perfect opportunity for
you to practice those events. There is also Cricket club Monday lunchtime and Rounders club on
Wednesday (for all years).
For those pupils in year 7 & 8 who enjoyed playing netball during the winter there is an external coach
coming into school on Wednesday lunchtimes who will be helping us get ready for next season.
Do you know the following about our new website?
All school dates for next year can be found under ‘School Calendar’.
Our extra-curricular timetable can be viewed at ‘About us/extra curricular’.
Interested in our canteen menu – take a look at ‘About us/healthy eating’.
Our most recent achievements can be viewed on the Ticker on the home page and also at ‘Galleries and
Achievements’where photos can also be viewed.
Humanities 2010 activity booklet is available for download via the ‘Specialist Status’ page.
Year 11 can access a range of useful links via ‘Curriculum/year 11’.
If you want to view our most recent newsletter, or look back at previous editions, use the link on the
bottom of the home page under the DVD.
Is there something else you want to know? Why not try using the search function.
Is there something else you would like to see on our site? Email us at swakeleys@hillingdongrid.org and let us know!
There is so much more – why not have a browse for yourself!
Happy surfing!
Oxford Aspiration Day
On April 20th, five Year 10 Aim higher students (Puneet Bhachu 10FN, Zeena Valenti
10JA, Rebecca Elwood 10EB, Abbey Stokes 10EB, Katrina Mogey 10EB) were invited to
visit St Anne’s College at Oxford University. Two students tell us about their fabulous
day:
“In the morning, we learnt about what higher education had to offer us and were taken on a quick
tour of the campus accompanied by Oxford undergraduates. They spoke to us about their courses and what
life at Oxford University is like. Then, we were put in small groups with students from other schools and
asked to complete quizzes related to Oxford with the help of undergrads and tutors. After a lovely lunch,
we took a walk though a beautiful park to go to the Science labs. When we arrived there, we were given the
task of creating indigo dye and colouring white cotton, which gave us a small taster of a Chemistry lesson at
Oxford. Overall, the day was fantastic, successful and extremely enjoyable. We are grateful for the
opportunity! We would love to do it again!” Puneet
“It was very interesting, a good experience and I really enjoyed it!” Zeena
LIBRARY AND ENGLISH NEWS
WORLD BOOK DAY A WINNER AT SWAKELEYS
World Book Day was on the 4 th March this year and to celebrate, ‘Skulduggery Pleasant’ the leading character from the book
of the same name, made an appearance in the library! Every girl was given a £1 book token and I hope many have taken the
opportunity to purchase one of the specially published books priced at £1.
Throughout the day the library ran several competitions, and the winners were: Amy Fieldhouse 7RP; Rachel Vodden 9AF;
Gemma Brown 9AF; Malika Sachdeva 10JA and Summayya Khan 10 JA they all received prizes of a Chimes voucher. Well
done, and thank you to all who entered.
In addition to the above, the whole school took part in a Drop Everything And Read programme (DEAR) where a bell rung
and girls were required to read for 15 minutes. Parental questionnaires were sent home and pupils completed special book
related activities in their English lessons. Staff were quizzed about their reading choices too – results published in next
newsletter!!
KID SWAP FOR THE HILLINGDON BOOK OF THE YEAR
An exciting event took place took place on the 18 th March for our Hillingdon Book
of the Year Club. Six girls from the group were able to attend a formal function at
Winston Churchill Hall and show their presentation based on the book they had
chosen as their favourite. After working hard over the last few months, reading the
six short listed books, preparing display material and giving talks in assembly, our
girls chose Kid Swap by Michael Lawrence. It tells the story of how Jiggy Macue’s
family swap him…FOR MONEY!! Our girls rehearsed the story carefully and
performed brilliantly whilst at the hall, and to top it all, they met the Mayor of
Hillingdon. All in all, it was a lovely day of literature for all who were able to
attend. Mrs Stone (Librarian)
£811 raised on ‘Purple Pinkie Day’
A cheque presentation took place at Swakeleys on Thursday 6th May
following a non uniform day in aid of this worthy cause.
DIARY DATES
Monday 31st May - Friday 4th June
Friday 18th June
Friday 2nd July
Monday 5 July
Tuesday 13th July
Wednesday 21st - Friday 23rd July
Friday 23rd July
HALF TERM
Sports Day
Training Day (no pupils in school)
Additional Training Day (no pupils in school)
Taster Day for Yr 6 Pupils
Humanities Days
End of Summer Term