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Chestnut News Date: 15

th July 2016 Issue No: 38

The past week has been dedicated to project week, the theme of which has been human rights. I have been so impressed with the variety of activities on offer and the quality of the learning that has taken place. Teachers and support staff have worked tirelessly to provide students with an incredibly rich learning experience which has enabled them to reflect on the importance of human rights and why none of us should ever take our rights for granted. Over the course of this week I have seen our ‘Creative Learning Community’ have an impact on the students that we teach and it has made me incredibly PROUD of the fact that we dedicate curriculum time to ensure our students receive a well-rounded education. I have spoken to literally hundreds of students, all of them have been brimming with enthusiasm for the opportunities they have been given and the enjoyment they have experienced.

I would like to thank all of the parents and carers for their continued support over the course of this year and I would like to wish the whole Chestnut Grove community a peaceful and safe summer and look forward to welcoming the students back to school in September.

Update on new building works

The structures for the new buildings are now out of the ground

with most of the concrete walls and floors in place.

Progress is expected to continue rapidly through the summer

with internal fit out starting around November/December.

Regular meetings are now happening between Kier, the

contractors, and the school to agree internal colours and

finishes etc.

It is going to be necessary to move the electrical substation,

which sits within the school site, 2.5 metres to the left.

The building programme is broadly on schedule to deliver the

buildings for occupation around Easter 2017.

Demolition of the existing site (not the Victorian building or art pavilions) will begin in April 2017,

with everything finished by October 2017.

Refurbishment on the art pavilions starts this week and is aimed to complete by September 2016.

Steve Wallis Business Manager

MESSAGE FROM THE HEADTEACHER

PSBP BUILDING UPDATE

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Dear Parents/Carers Thank you so much for such a wonderful year! Performing arts has been busy as ever, culminating in this year’s production of Disney’s High School Musical. Our samba band has been out in force this year performing at Furzedown festival and at local primaries. We have also been entertaining local primary schools with performances from our BTEC Performing Arts class as they created a pantomime of Cinderella. Students were delighted with Rufus and Rafe’s interpretation of the Ugly Sisters! Congratulations to all of the students who have successfully past ABRSM and RockSchool examinations this year! This grows every year and we are immensely PROUD. We have seen the start of our community choir ‘Voice of the Grove’ this year and have had two fantastic concerts. We look forward to starting this again in September and always welcome new members. There have been several dance recitals including a fabulous performance of the GCSE dance work. Drama has seen some standout performances of Pygmalion, GCSE drama performances & Shakespeare for Schools. High School Musical

We had a marvellous turn out, with three sell-out shows, and the cast and crew were amazing. Thank you so much to everyone for their hard work during this production, the students (both on stage and backstage), the band and our fabulous staff. As ever, costumes were supplied by PYT and this year’s set was by Prosceneium. The DVD will be available to view next year. Thank you Thank you to our peri team – without you, we cannot function; Clare, Pete, Ben, Chris, Joel, John, Lindsay, Gemma, Ben (H), Anna. Thank you PTA and Conrad Withey for their continued support of performing arts. Goodbye & Welcome This summer is a sad time as we say goodbye to our technician Toby Owen. Toby, thank you so much for all of your hard work and dedication to the students and the team. We have loved working with you and the students will really miss you. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Welcome to Sam Mills, our new technician. Look out for his correspondence over the first few weeks re: Peri lessons.

PERFORMING ARTS

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Classorama We are also immensely PROUD of our Steel Pan band who came 3rd at the annual Classorama Steel Pan competition. The video of their performance can be viewed on www.youtube.com/missdurbanmusic. They were truly exceptional and blew the crowd away with one spectator saying ‘I was so amazed I just started crying and couldn’t stop!’ (we hope this was a positive thing!) Plans for next year In September we shall hit the ground running with rehearsals for some high profile events. Our tour to Paris is in February (there are still approx. 5 spaces available) and we shall be preparing for our inaugural concert in the new theatre. Of course we shall be running our usual Christmas concert (19th Dec), carol concert (1st Dec), spring concerts, dance shows, drama productions and everything in between! Peri lessons will begin in the second week back (new Year 7 auditions for steel pans will be on Friday 9th September). Please note Mr Burstow’s drum lessons will be transferred to Ben Hartley as of September. Enza Durban Head of Performing Arts Thank you for supporting the summer raffle, which raised £543 for the school. The FoCG have proudly donated £5,000 of the funds we've raised in 2015/2016 to the school refurbishment programme. Save the date We are running a number of events in the autumn term which we hope you can attend: Thursday 6th October: Bodean's Music Night – look out for further info in September Tuesday 8th November: Friends of Chestnut Grove AGM – all welcome Thursday 1st December: Christmas Carol Concert at St Mary's Church, Balham

FRIENDS OF CHESTNUT GROVE

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Refugee week 20th-24th June To celebrate refugee week at the academy, Ms Taylor, head of PBE, prepared some tutor-time lessons on refugees to help the students think about the issues that force people to leave their countries. In advance of Refugee week, we were lucky to have a presentation from Breaking Barriers (a charity that finds work placements for people from refugee backgrounds). Led by Eiad (pictured), a Syrian who is now residing in the UK having claimed refugee status, the students learned about his two-year journey to England via various, dangerous modes of transport, including the news-making, treacherous boats to Greece. We look forward to inviting Eaid and Breaking Barriers back in the weeks to come to talk to all year groups about his treacherous journey from Syria to the UK, so watch this space. We have also put up colour posters around the school about the contributions refugees have made to the UK in order to expressly destigmatise the word refugee and challenge misconceptions of refugees in the UK. EAL Learning Support Assistants We are also very happy to have welcomed two new EAL LSAs to Chestnut Grove. Abdeen Arabab and Lissom Dieudonne are both from refugee backgrounds and were placed with us by Breaking Barriers in order to give them valuable work experience in the UK. Abdeen is from South Sudan (speaker of Arabic). Having grown up in Darfur, he studied English Language and Education at university in Sudan. Lissom is from Cameroon (speaker of French and Swedish), and obtained his PhD in biochemistry from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. They will continue to support students in lessons. Thank you to all students for welcoming them into your classes.

Lissom Abdeen

EAL DEPARTMENT

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Refugees Welcome Schools Summit On 21st June, five outstanding Chestnut Grove students were invited to participate in Refugees Welcome Schools Summit at St Gabriel's College due to their insightful contributions to PBE. Edan Prabhu, Iris DuBois-Smith, Sonia Zia, Delilah Jarrett and Mervyn Wong. In the weeks to come, in collaboration with the schools at the summit, Chestnut Grove's students, EMA and PBE departments will be making a plan of action of how we can make a meaningful contribution to assisting refugees in the UK. In the first instance, we look forward to continuing our partnership with Breaking Barriers in the long term to ensure that we do everything we can to integrate people from refugee backgrounds into British society.

On Wednesday 6th July, Year 4 students from Sellincourt Primary came to visit Chestnut Grove for a literacy and numeracy workshop. In literacy, Year 9 students who had written their own children's stories, read their work aloud to the Year 4s. The Year 4 students then had the chance to write their own stories with the Year 9s, before showcasing them at the end. All students found it incredibly useful, and were a credit to both schools. In numeracy, Year 4 students took part in a problem solving day in the maths department. The budding young mathematicians showed fantastic resilience when solving some difficult challenges and also displayed excellent teamwork throughout the session. Every student returned home with a ‘mathlete' certificate for their efforts, and it was great to see them already embodying the 'PROUD' ethos. Ms Robinson and Mr Proudfoot

LITERACY AND NUMERACY

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Thank you for all your support throughout the year - this term we have been working on some applications for larger grants which we hope will add value to the school over the next few years and will keep you informed on progress! The balance in the Chestnut 21 account is around £10,000 and with the funds donated from the Friends of Chestnut Grove, trusts and grants and donated time and materials, we have raised the equivalent of £70,000 to date! Thank you all for your donations and efforts to contribute in any way! Sainsbury's Active Kids We collected a total of 9,300 vouchers which was a great effort considering the new printing system so thank you all. We have ordered £500 worth of cookery equipment with the funding. The overall winning house was Da Vinci and including the winners of the monthly collections the points are being distributed as follows: Da Vinci – 800 Kapoor – 700 Hepworth – 500 Blake – 300 Turner – 200 Kahlo – 100 Well done and thank you all for your involvement! IT4Kids - thank you for your donations to date. We are continuing with the scheme in the new school year, so please do bring anything in that you find lying around at home! If you want to donate from home in the holidays, please go to the following link https://it4kids.co.uk/chestnut-grove-academy/ Easy Fundraising You can also continue to support us over the summer through our easy fundraising page http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/chestnutgroveacademy/ - you can raise money by shopping online for anything from your weekly shop to your holiday! Cash 4 Coins After a successful drive last year, we will be again collecting coins and notes when we come back to school in September - please do save these from your holidays! These can be foreign coins and notes and/or old currency from any country. Last year we raised £150 from this so let’s try and beat this! Teachers raising funds In the autumn term, history teacher Ms Sweeney will be taking part in her Duke of Edinburgh Diamond Challenge to raise funds for underprivileged children to take part in DofE. There are several other teachers who will be 'tagging' along with her to raise money for Chestnut21 - so please look out for information in the newsletters when we come back to school!

CHESTNUT 21

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Welcome to our creative writing after school club! The aim is not to teach how to write poetry but to expose students to more unconventional/experimental forms of poetry such as sound poetry, visual poetry, slam poetry, performance poetry etc. and to get them familiarised with contemporary authors. Through a vast array of creative writing techniques, students are encouraged to think about language differently and in a more creative way. Any student who is a writer or just with an interest in writing, regardless of age/year group, is welcome. This year's club had students from Year 8 and Year 9, but we welcome anybody to join us. Having only started last term, these young writers have produced amazing and very inspiring poetry. One example is this collective poem written by Rebecca, Jamie-Lee and Jaidah in Year 9 and Loredana in Year 8, on the last session of this school year. The students are already planning what they would like to do for 2016-17 and we have some creative challenges for the entire Chestnut Grove community in the works. We would also like to thank Chestnut Grove's librarian, Ms O’Herlihy, for all the support she has given to the club since day one. Ms Guerreiro

CREATIVE WRITING CLUB

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As mentioned in Issue 36 of our newsletter, our Art Specialists have been working on some illustrations for a book called Afterlife, written by one of our parents, Tracy Ogali. In an exciting development, on Wednesday 13th July, Miss Kench and one of the illustrators, Akhera Williams, went to London Live studios for an interview about the book with author Tracy and her son Kayne, a former CGA student. Akhera spoke very eloquently about her involvement in the process and it was all very exciting! Click on the link to see the interview and look out for an exclusive piece on the story in The Mail on Sunday’s 'You' magazine in September. https://youtu.be/VHKG6D2ge54

https://mobiletwitter.com/ARTCGA

YEAR 8 Dear all, We have come to the end of the academic year and can now relax and enjoy the break from school. Summer holidays are the time to get out and about, experience new things, read books, go and visit museums or some of the other wonderful places we have in the best city in the world. It's a chance to expand your mind in ways other than those at school. Please encourage your child to get out in to the fresh air, sunshine (?!) and get back to nature whilst we have the daylight and the weather to enjoy it. For those of you going away, I wish you safe travels and would love for you to send me an email at Chestnut Grove with a picture of you and your child enjoying their holiday, letting me know where you have been and what you've been up to. School restarts for Year 9 students on 7th September at the normal time and I look forward to seeing everyone back ready to learn. Have a wonderful summer! Katherine Striesow Raising Standards Leader Year 8

HOUSE NEWS

ART SPECIALISTS

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YEAR 9 Over the short time that I have been in post as the Raising Standards Leader, Year 9 ( RSL09) I have been very impressed the way in which year 9 have conducted themselves. Uniform is being worn correctly and proudly; the vast majority are punctual for the start of the academy day and to lessons; attitudes to learning have been impressive. I have had many positive conversations with students and have been impressed with their behaviour and attitude to learning. Project week was a great success and I trust all students enjoyed their activities! After a restful, fun-filled summer holiday, I am looking forward to the start of Year 10 (Key Stage 4). I will expect all students to be refreshed, and return with a positive, resilient, open minded, unified and determined mindset ready to embark on the new academic year! Enjoy the summer holidays – be good and stay safe! Karen Fletcher Raising Standards Leader Year 9

YEAR 10 Well done to all Year 10 students who are doing exceptionally well with their work experience placements. I hope you're all finding the experience useful. I wish you all a great summer. See you in September! James Wildman Raising Standards Leader Year 10