Monday 9th March 2020

Headteacher Mr T Carroll

Tel: 01525 636700 Fax: 01525 636701

Email: office@vandyke.cbeds.co.uk

Va

nd

yk

e V

oic

e

Va

nd

yk

e V

oic

e

Ex Head of Sixth Form,

Terry Carter visits Vandyke

We were delighted recently to welcome Terry Carter to school. Terry was Head of Sixth Form at Vandyke in the very early days of the school and had not visited for many years. Director of Sixth Form, Sean Downey, met with Terry and showed him round. “Vandyke was always a special place and I am delighted to see it flourishing,” Terry said. “The plans for the new Sixth Form centre are especially exciting.

Good luck to everyone at Vandyke for the move into the new building!”

Year 9 Poetry By Heart

Competition Recently we had the grand finale of the Year 9 Poetry by Heart Competition as students took to the stage to exhibit the fruits of their labour from their English lessons last half term. Students have studied a range of poetry from the classics to the contemporary and have chosen a poem to learn by heart and perform in classrooms. Each class selected students to go on to the final in the theatre where students performed in front of a panel of judges and their peers. The quality of every performance was outstanding. The poems performed ranged from powerful William Blake’s Jerusalem, to moving presentations of WW1 poetry classics such as Dulce et Decorum est,

right through to entertaining and humorous entries including a protest poem on behalf of all turkeys at Christmas. All performers should be incredibly proud of their bravery and skill. Well done to all involved.

Ms Peplow Team Leader of English

Law Reading Challenge As part of a new reading initiative, law students were set a law related challenge with the promise of a prize for the first three correct entries. Students needed to read a (lengthy) legal judgement from the case of R v Bentham [2005] HL to identify some key elements of the decision. These were (in Latin), the “Ratio decidendi” (the reason for the decision) and the “Obiter dicta” (other things said). Students also needed to find reference to the correct rule of statutory interpretation used by Judges to interpret the Firearms Act 1968. The facts, in brief, of the case are that the appellant broke into the house of his employer in the early

hours of one morning, with the intent of committing a robbery. Towering over the victim in bed, the appellant had his hand inside his zipped up jacket, forcing the material out, so as to give the impression that he had a gun. He demanded money and jewellery, threatening to shoot the victim if he did not comply. In fear, and believing the appellant had a gun, the victim handed over some possessions. The appellant pleaded guilty to robbery, but appealed against the charge of possessing an imitation firearm under Section 17 of the Firearms Act. The question for the students was, according to the House of Lords, did the appellant “possess” an imitation firearm, with the actual question of interpre-tation being, could he in law possess his fingers?

Three students successfully completed the challenge: Gracie Trotter, Harry Hyland and Ryan Kelly. They all received a book as a prize, titled “The Secret Barrister”.

Miss Davies Team Leader of Law

Band 1: 1

st Prize: Cobi Wilson

2nd

Prize: Toby Scholfield 3

rd Prize: Alex Delahunty

Band 2: 1

st Prize: Eddie Minguez Seed

2nd

Prize: Antonio Borrelli 3

rd Prize: Josh Abrams

Thursday 12th March Year 13 Subject Consultation 4.00 - 7.00pm Thursday 30th April Year 13 Awards Evening

Monday 23rd March Vandyke Voice published Monday 4th May Vandyke Voice Published

Friday 3rd April Non uniform Day. End of Spring term Thursday 7th May Year 11 Awards Evening

Monday 20th April Training Day no students in school Vandyke Voice published

Friday 8th May BANK HOLIDAY

Tuesday 21st April 1st day of Summer Term for Students Monday 11th May GCSE/GCE Exams start

Talking to Students about Road Safety We continue to work closely with Central Bedfordshire Council officers to help ensure students are safe on the way to and from school.

Mr Carroll met again last week with Tim Oxley and Joanne Glen from CBC Traffic Management, to discuss a number of concerns. Students in Years 9, 10 and 11 have had talks again in assembly about road safety and after Easter a further session is planned and will delivered by the council officers.

24 Hour Bounce-a-thon A massive well done to our Sports Leaders and Cheerlead-ers who completed a 24 hour Bounce-a-thon on Friday 14th February. The event was planned to help raise money in order to purchase gymnastics equipment for our new cheerleading activity. This equipment will allow us to offer new activities including our extra-curricular Cheerleading club. The event started at 4pm on Friday and finished at 4pm on Saturday. The students worked together to ensure that one member of the team was always bouncing on the trampoline for the entire 24 hours. Their tactic was to divide in to 4 groups and complete 1 hour at a time as a group.

With the aid of some great music choices at 4am, a very timely Domino’s Pizza and the occasional 30 minute power nap, the students absolutely smashed this challenge. I am very proud of all our

students as even though there was little sleep had by all involved, both teachers and students, the students displayed amazing attitudes throughout the whole event, making the 24 hours fly by and a very enjoyable experience overall.

Mr Moodie PE Department

Mr Turney added: “Thanks to everybody who came to show support, and a huge thank you to Mr Moodie, Mr Winch, Miss Pollard and Mrs Ward. These events take considerable planning and organisation. We are all extremely grateful for their time and effort.”

Robert Glover from University of

East Anglia speaks to Year 12 Robert Glover, Student Liaison Officer at Univer-sity of East Anglia, came to speak to our Year 12 students on Thursday 13th February. He spoke about degree apprenticeships and the

importance of choosing the right university course. Students found the information very useful as they now plan their future pathways.

Sixth Form

Cross Country

County Championships Our students performed exceptionally at Ampthill park in the cross country championships. A massive well done to Amy Killick who charged in taking 3rd place, shortly followed

by Julia Bell who secured 6th place. We wish these students the best of luck as they qualify through to the English school championships. They were shortly followed by Rachel Kitt and Max Rhodes who came in at a phenom-enal 13th place. Well done to all of our runners for their fantastic efforts, performance and high-spirits throughout the cold English weather we faced that day!

Runners: Kyle Cutler, Jess Stenner, Jack Middleton, Julia Bell, Jack Barchard, Joe Bradford, Millie Curtis, Josh Hamm, Amy Killick, Rachel Kitt, Max Rhodes and Isabel Watkins.

Miss Jennings PE Department