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ACADEMY NEWS

WE’RE PROUD TO BE SHOWN AS THE BEST SCHOOL IN CORNWALL IN THE TIMES 2015 “BEST SCHOOL NEAR YOU” SURVEY

8th JULY 2016

BE YOURBEST

Best wishes

Principal’s Report

Sara Davey - Academy Principal

As we get closer to the end of the school year Academy life gets busier and time seems to speed up. This week has been no exception, with a number of outstanding arts events. The Recital Evening on Monday was an exquisite programme of beautiful music run with professionalism by Tim Boulton and Sarah Hanley. The Jazz evening was also a tremendous success with a large receptive audience being offered an arts menu ranging from ‘big band’ performances to individual keyboard pieces, as well as dance presentations by a large group of over 70 Year 7s down to two mesmerising dancers offering delight to the mixed audience. This was all produced and compered professionally by Maisy-Sky Lumbers for her Gold Arts Award. She worked in association with Shelley Claxton, the Spindrift Dance Company and The Big Dance Company. It was great to see dance featuring so strongly in the culture of the Academy once more.

Miss Osborne has been co-ordinating a group of six Mounts Bay students who have been part of the cast for the World War One memorial theatre piece called ‘The Trench’, based at Levant Mine. This has been offering some of our more talented Drama students the opportunity to learn innovative and exciting new types of theatre performance and has been a great success.

Today we held the national conference of our Teaching School Alliance ‘Applied Minds’ at Tregenna Castle Hotel. Over 100 people attended a thought-provoking and entertaining event offering an optimistic perspective on the future of education, despite the turbulent times we are living in. A big thanks must go to the Teaching School Alliance team including our excellent Administrator, Helen Rodgers and our Vice Principal Les Hall, who have worked tirelessly to ensure we have some of the best speakers in the country delivering high quality professional development for the teachers and support staff in West Cornwall.

Finally, it was disappointing to have to inconvenience all our parents by having to close the Academy on Tuesday. At Mounts Bay we have a significant number of colleagues who are part of the National Union of Teachers and they nearly all decided to take action to protest against the educational cuts that have occurred this year. At Mounts Bay we have been able to absorb the cuts in budgets this year without compromising any class sizes or courses and we will endeavour to keep our average teaching group size to 24 and the wide range of GCSEs and Technical qualifications that ensure we offer an outstanding education for all.

Just a reminder that next week is Adventure Learning Week for Years 7 – 9 and Work Experience Week for Year 10. Be ready for a bumper edition of the newsletter next with week photos of all of our students in action.

BEINSPIRED

New Junior Leadership Team

Congratulations to the new Junior Leadership Team who were appointed after interviews for the positions. There were some truly outstanding candidates for the roles, and making the final decision was tough. Thank you to everyone who applied and well done to the six students who now take on a leadership role at MBA.

Look out in next week’s newsletter for statements from each of the team, explaining how they wish to implement and develop their roles, and their plans for the future at Mounts Bay Academy.

I was lucky enough to visit the House of Lords on Monday 4th July to celebrate the work of our Cornwall School Games cluster co-ordinators.

Baroness Sue Cambell and Ali Oliver CEO shared their vision of the Youth Sport Trust’s commitment to supporting local leaders for PE, school sport and physical activity. The Youth Sport Trust’s offer has been deliberately designed to support and add value to the work being done within schools nationally. As a national partner the YST offers schools quality and challenge, to really enhance their PE, school sport and physical activity provision.

With three weeks to go until she departs for the Olympics in Rio, Alex Danson (GB Hockey) has the following message, “Being better every day will stand us all in good stead in the weeks and months to come!”

The team:Anya Burlton, Head Girl

Horace Halling, Head BoyHannah James, Deputy Head GirlStan Roynon, Deputy Head Boy

Mackenzie Oliver, Deputy Head BoyLamorna Tregenza-Reid, Deputy Head Girl

House of Lords Visit

Report by Mr N Eddy

All of the Year 10 students enjoyed a taste of life at Penwith College to support their Post 16 choices when they took part in an experience day enabling them to try out vocational and academic courses across a range of abilities. Martin Tucker College Principal reported how well-behaved the students were throughout the day. Popular courses included Fine Art learning the skills for drawing portraits, Scientific experiments , Catering delights as well as team challenges in Construction with both boys and girls showing interest in this sector. All in all a successful day throughout.

BECURIOUS

Penwith College Experience

Report by Mrs Masters

BEINSPIRED

Last Thursday marked the end of the first year of the Junior Academic Academy programme organised by Penwith College for students interested in a variety of cross curricular activities. Over the course of the year students have had sessions focussing on psychology, money management, global perspectives, Shakespeare and finally journalism. Student feedback for all these events has been very positive and we look forward to participating in the programme next year.

The Journalism session started with an introduction from Mr Mike Stevens who shared the objectives with the students and introduced his guest Abbey Clarke who, at the end of Year 13, had achieved full marks in one of her pieces of coursework for her journalism course and will be starting university in September. Abbey and Mike shared some tips on the techniques journalists use when interviewing people and writing reports such as parallelism. They then demonstrated these skills as Mike interviewed Abbey about her band the ‘The Bicycle Thieves’.

Then it was the students’ turn. After passing through ‘security’ and receiving our wrist bands we were shown into the performance theatre for a small invite only performance from the band ‘Miss Jones’. We were treated to a 30 minute concert from the duo of Year 12 students who have been performing together over the past year. At the end of the concert the students interviewed the performers to get more details about them and their band. Then it was off to the library where the budding journalists started to write their articles working to a tight deadline of 6pm. Below is the first two paragraphs from one of our students;

The Jones Show

Black curtains, red lights. Two people. The ‘Miss Jones’ are two performers from Penwith College, they showed us seven songs that they have written themselves including their first song, ‘Comfort Days’, which gripped the audience with intent and curiosity to see what they had in store for the 30 minutes they had. Their songs are based on different genres including jazz, folk, pop and indie; along with their inspirations like Amy Winehouse and Wuthering Heights.

They started singing and writing two years ago when they started college together, but they have known each other for a long time before that. They play different instruments like the piano, guitar and many others so they have a variety between them, which gives them different sounds to use to their likings.

At the end of the session the feedback from the students was very positive as they had all learnt a great deal from working with Abbey and Mike and also had a great time. Next year’s events promise to be even better still. Report by Mr Jack

Junior Academic Academy - Journalism

On Monday the Year 10 Product Design class visited Headland Printing in Penzance with Mr Sibley and Mr Kilby. The students were given a tour of the print works by Mark Clements, co-owner. During their tour students saw the whole manufacturing process from generating artwork on computers to four colour lithographic printing to die-cutting and the scary industrial guillotine! The processes they saw are an important part of the Product Design curriculum and regularly come up in the GCSE exam.

Headland Printing carry out a lot of signage and print work for Mounts Bay Academy. We are very grateful to have been welcomed into their factory and for Mark's time and enthusiasm.

BECURIOUS

Year 10 Visit to the Printers

Report by Mr Sibley

Dominos Visit

Our sincere thanks to Dominos, Penzance who hosted Year 9 Catering students on Wednesday. Students were enlightened to the huge logistical challenges a large corporate franchise faces; from marketing, stock control, HACCP regulations, to the production of their pizza’s themselves.

Students got a chance to learn to make pizzas of their choice, and as a result impressed so much as to being offered jobs when they become 16! Thanks to Dominos for such a successful learning opportunity.

Report by Mr Bromfield

BECREATIVE

SpeakEasy Dance Event

On Tuesday 5th July I ran a show called ‘SpeakEasy’ for my Gold Arts Award. The show featured 25 performers from Mounts Bay Academy along with 33 primary school performers. We also had two performances from The Big Dance Company.

The event was based on 1920s Cabaret and featured musicians, dancers and even a magician. The event ran from 7pm till 8pm. We started the show in reception where we had the jazz band perform a couple of pieces. It then moved into the hall for ‘The Great Gatsby’, a dance piece performed by the Dance Leaders, followed by ‘Do Your Thing’ from the primary schools. Nina Micciche was up next with the musical number ‘You Know How I Feel’. To end the first half The Big Dance Company's street crew, ‘Initiate’, performed two amazing dances.

During the intermission we were lucky enough to have Sid Rainbow perform some amazing card tricks and Horace Halling play the piano whilst the audience enjoyed some refreshments. The second half started with an acro-dance performed by the Big Dance Company followed by ‘Welcome One and All’ by a group of Mounts Bay students. The second half also featured the premier of ‘Tribe’, a dance film starring 80 Year 7 and 8 students which was professionally shot here at MBA. The show ended with the MBA Dance Club performing a piece called ‘Underground Groove’.

I would like to thank everyone who came to the show to support the Arts Award program as well as all the performers, choreographers, tech team and staff involved who made the event possible.

Report by Maisy-Sky Lumbers

BECREATIVE

Year 10 Art students have completed a ten hour mock exam this week.

This is a really valuable learning experience for all, as planning for a ten hour sustained final piece can be quite challenging.

Judging the suitability of materials with time is key to a successful outcome and below are some examples of the final pieces produced.

Report by Mrs Dale

Mock Exam Yields Stunning Art Work

Esme Dale Megan Frampton

Maisey May

BECREATIVE

Zoe PyneAmber Nethersole

Jodie Marks Romy Crago Crystal Trevennen

Emily Harvey Emily Harvey Esme Dale

BECREATIVE

CreatEd Trip

Recently 48 Year 8s visited the CreatEd exhibition at Falmouth University. They couldn’t quite believe that they were looking at work done by students! It was a very worthwhile trip to see the fantastic resources at Falmouth University and look for inspiration amongst the top work made by students across Cornwall. Those attending should be able to kick off their own GCSEs with pages of primary research and plenty of ideas.

“I really enjoyed looking at all the work and felt inspired about next year!"- Dulcie Nixon

"It was really interesting to look at the work and it has given me ideas for my Photography"- Daniel Whiteway

"I really liked the costume designs because they were modern and some of the video documentaries were really interesting. All of the work was a really high standard."- Luke Stoten

Report by Mr Cross

MBA Third in Cornwall School Games

Congratulations to everyone who took part in the Cornwall School Games. The 2016 event was the biggest and best year ever, and MBA competitors certainly pulled it out of the bag to produce our highest ever position in the final points table. We came in an impressive third position in Cornwall, and were highest placed of the Penwith schools.

Thanks must also go to all the student Games Makers who gave up so much of their time and energy to make the event run smoothly.

Well done everyone!

BECREATIVE

Violin and Flute Concert

On Monday the Performance Centre hosted a Recital Evening of the Academy's leading violin and flute students. The event, led by peripatetic teachers Tim Boulton and Sarah Hanley featured solo performances of everything from early grade pieces to Haydn concertos! The show was watched by a warm and enthusiastic audience of parents and friends, and the show was topped with virtuoso performances from both tutors. It was a great celebration of talent, and something we'll be doing lots more of next year! Massive thanks to Tim and Sarah for their amazing energy and inspirational work with our students.

Report by Darren Roberts

BECOMPETITIVE

Friday was a very successful day at the Cornwall School Games athletics meet at Carn Brea. Everybody gave it their all across the board, in track, field and relay events. When not competing, the team was  supporting each other, and people were doing whatever they could to help us gain as many points as we could for the team.

It was a very good day. Thanks to Miss Tripp, Mr Strong and Mr Lawrence for taking us and the people who made the games happen.

Some notable individual results include:

Immy Wood 1st 300m Intermediate GirlsHarry Hocking 1st Junior Boys shotTom Ellery 3rd Junior Boys hurdlesIris Tanner 3rd Junior Girls 300mFletcher Stevenson 3rd in the high jumpIntermediate Girls 3rd in relayJunior Boys 1st overall in the team event

Report by Amber Sanders

Athletics at Carn Brea

BEADVENTUROUS

Show Jumping

Report by Mrs Williams

Novice team: Alex Woollock, Ella Leiworthy, Dulcie Nixon, Ismay Cornish-Murphy

Open team: Phoebe Lagor, Steph Sampson, Poppy Burford, Ross Gilmour

Our open team jumped extremely well to bring home second for the team, with Phoebe and Steph qualifying for the individual competition and being placed second and fourth respectively. We won't mention their tack and turnout result....

Last Thursday two teams of show jumpers travelled to Coleraine Equestrian Centre to represent Mounts Bay Academy in the Cornwall School Games show jumping competition.

Our novice team showed extreme grit and determination to bring home fourth after a disappointing first round for some and a nasty fall for Alex. Well done all of you!

Cricket Bronze

BECOMPETITIVE

Congratulations to the Girls U15 Cricket team who played magnificently on Friday during the Cornwall School Games and came away with the Bronze medal. Well done!

Volleyball Bronze

Congratulations to the Girls’ Volleyball team who came away from the Beach Volleyball finals with a Bronze medal. The team, which was made up of Years 7 and 8 girls, played in the Years 7, 8 and 9 category, which makes their achievement even more impressive.

Well done to Sol Gonzalez, Lucy Egan, Zoe George and Keziah Roberts.

BEADVENTUROUS

Karate International

Following on from James's incredible honour to have been selected to be on the England Team at the recent WUKF World Karate Championships in Dublin, he now has three more major competitions on the horizon.

Next weekend, on Sunday 17th July both he and his sister are at the O2 in London competing in the International Karate Open Championships. Various Karate disciplines will be testing their skills against one another ranging from the traditional Japanese Shotokan style to the more specialist Korean Karate styles, two of which James and his sister Jennifer practise.

Then the following weekend, Sunday July 23rd, he's heading up to Cambridge to compete with a team from Cornwall, our very own ISK School of Martial Arts in Redruth, to take part in the EMTF-UK British Championships. The competition will take place at Cambridge Regional College, Kings Hedges Road, Cambridge CB4 2QT and there will be clubs from Scotland, Cornwall, Essex, Cambridge, Bedford and Wales taking part, just to name a few. The EMTF stands for the European Moo Duk Kwan Tang Soo Do Federation.

He will also be gong with the same Cornwall team to the European Championships in Athens, Greece at the end of October.

Exciting times ahead for James, our talented young Martial Artist. To be competing internationally at World level at just 12 years old is quite an accomplishment.

Well done James!

BEADVENTUROUS

Kayak Club Overnight Trip

This week the Academy's Kayak Club students went on an overnight canoe trip up the Helford River. Chris Stevens, Louis Williams, Oliver Rider, Benjy Cahalane and Ritchie Payne were accompanied by Mr Helliwell and Mr Fish.

Putting in at the Ferryboat Inn beach we had quite a tough start to the trip as we had to paddle into quite a strong headwind. Eventually we made it up the Point Field which is owned by the National Trust, who allow people to camp there and have even provided the luxury of a long drop toilet. We set about making camp - putting up tents, getting the fire going for supper, testing out the hammock and exploring the local area by foot.

The return trip was much easier with a light wind and a strong tide behind us. We had time to explore Frenchman’s Creek and got to the beach in good time. Well done to all involved. Mr Fish even managed to remain conscious this time!

Report by Mr Fish

BEINSPIRED

The students and weather put on an amazing show for the Year 11s’ Prom held at Tregenna Castle Hotel in St Ives last Friday. The sun shone as the students, resplendent in their smart suits and dresses, arrived in (or on) a variety of quirky, exotic and deluxe vehicles!

The students enjoyed a delicious meal followed by an evening of dancing and socializing. The evening ended with a firework display specially laid on to celebrate our ‘millennium babies’ leaving Mounts Bay Academy.

It really was a fantastic evening, the perfect way to say ‘goodbye’ to a truly outstanding Year group.

BEIMPRESSIVE

Year 11 Prom

BEINSPIRED

BEIMPRESSIVE

BEA WINNER

Maths Quiz

This Week’s Puzzle:

Last week’s solution:

The numbers are 1, -1 &3 1 x (-1) x (-3) = 3 = prime1-(-1) =2= (-1)-(-3)

Could you write next week’s puzzle?If you would like to set the numeracy puzzle for a future week click here. You will win house points.

Win an iTunes voucher

Whoever submits the most correct answers over a semester will win an iTunes voucher – prizes are also awarded to the top scoring parent/carer/staff.

House Competition

Red: 68 PointsBlue: 66 Points

Yellow: 48 PointsGreen: 41 PointsPurple: 32 PointsOrange: 18 Points

Click here to submit your answer

This Week’s House Totals

Closing date for Entries: Thursday 12:00

BEA WINNER

To enter, simply write an original sentence correctly using the word parliament. Send in your sentence using the link below.

Competition

Congratulations to Aston Siney who wins an Edge of the World Bookshop Voucher.

Click here to enter the competition

Aston receives his prize

This week’s word is: Government

Definition: Government: the group of people with the authority to govern a country or state; a particular ministry in office.

Etymology: Government comes from the term govern. From Old French governer, derived from Latin gubernare "to direct, rule, guide, govern", which is derived from the Greek kybernan (to pilot a ship).