Another Amazing Year!

It doesn’t seem possible that we have almost completed another school year, and we are saying goodbye to another cohort of students. It has been a fantastic year for the schools in our Trust. Beginning with the move away from The Bramcote School to Bramcote College, we have had so many memorable occasions and events, including our first visit to China, amazing plays and musical performances, outstanding sporting success, our students playing leading roles in their community including the posts of Youth Mayor and Deputy Youth Mayor, and continued and growing excellence in teaching and student progress, which we expect to see reflected in great summer results. In this special end of year edition of the Newsletter, we reflect on many of these highlights – I would like to thank all of the staff and students for their dedication and commitment that enable these successes to take place. At this time of year, we also say goodbye and thank you to staff who are moving on, whether to retirement, relocating to another area, or moving to a promoted post elsewhere. This year, from the teaching staff we are saying goodbye to: Dr Lancley, Head of Social Science; Ms Iwanczuk, History teacher; Mr Clifford, Biology teacher and deputy head of 6th Form; Miss Deakin, PE teacher; Mrs Power, History teacher; Miss Williams, English teacher; Mr Baker, Computer Science teacher; Miss Sewell, Business teacher.

From our support staff, we say goodbye to: Mr Powell, Head of Support Services; Mrs Brown, Reprographics assistant; Mr Baldwin, Science Technician; Mrs Hendren, Learning Mentor. Some have been with us for a relatively short time, some for many years. It has been a pleasure and a privilege working with them, and I wish them every success in the future. Replacements have been secured and I am pleased to report that we are fully staffed for the new school year. I would also like to offer my sincere thanks to all of our parents and friends who have provided us with such fantastic support over the year. We know that any success we have is entirely as a result of our partnership with you all, and the participation in Parent Forum, PTA and attendance at school events demonstrates very clearly your engagement with school life. In the last couple of weeks, we have been remembering Owen Jenkins, a student from Chilwell school, who drowned at Beeston Marina a year ago. Owen’s tragic death brings home the importance of staying safe, particularly around water, roads and railways, and we will be reminding our students of this as they break up. I would like to wish you all a safe and happy summer break, and we look forward to seeing our students at the start of the new term.

Dates for your Diary

July 19th 20th 21st

Cabaret Performances Alderman White School Hall 19:00

23rd -25th Mount Cook Maths Residential

23rd Y12 Next Steps Day

26th Summer Holidays Begin Schools Closed

August

16th A / AS Level Results Day 08:00 - 12:00

23rd GCSE Results Day Results for both schools will be available from Bramcote College. 09:30 - 12:00

September

4th 5th

INSET Days Schools closed to students

6th Schools Reopen Autumn Term Begins

Please see our school app or websites to view a full calendar of events and important dates.

Newsletter The White Hills Park Federation Trust

Issue 179- 20th July 2018

FED AWS BC BC6F

Paul Heery

Executive Principal

A Busy Year at Alderman White

The autumn term at Alderman White proved to be a really busy one. The new term welcomed the opening of our KS3 Haven and KS4 IMP (Individual Mentoring Program). Our Haven also received the highly recognised 'Autism Charter' from Autism East Midlands. The Maths Department hosted 'The Spaghetti Challenge' and the PTA held their annual AGM. Lydia Stott in Year 11 launched 'The Awesome Awards' and courses for parents commenced in partnership with Nottingham College, initially, 'dealing with stress' alongside all the Languages College classes for adult learners offering a wide range of languages from Arabic to Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Over 200 hundred adults attended classes during the week with many families taking advantage of the range of family language classes at the weekend. The Nottingham Chinese School based at Alderman White has expanded and now encompasses almost 200 learners on Saturday afternoons. Alderman White’s Confucius Classroom status has enabled us to deliver new Mandarin classes to students in Years 7 & 8 and introduce a range of engaging cultural activities which have included Chinese cuisine and calligraphy. Alderman White has developed into a language hub for the region, offering language-facilities to students from as far away as Lincoln. In October we also organized another very successful residential trip to Madrid. Our newly formed Student Council reconvened, welcoming Sam Hay as Chair and celebrating the success of Alfie Russell as Broxtowe Youth Mayor. In December we had our annual Christmas Fair and held a Christmas afternoon tea for local senior citizens with dance performances and carols. December also saw our 7 and 8 students visiting Beeston library for a talk by the

author, Laura Dockrill and the launch of our second parent course 'Building effective communication'. A key highlight of December was our head school chef, Donna Spiers, being awarded regional winner in the School Chef Of The Year competition. The Maths department coordinated a successful maths mock preparation trip to Mount Cook for Year 11 and Lydia Stott in Year 11, took the lead in our whole school Christmas card competition. On Tuesday 19th December, we launched our student leadership programme, our Taekwondo class made the grade and our Year 7 Sutton Scholars experienced university life. This very busy term concluded with the traditional visit to the Christmas Markets of Cologne, the Christmas Carol Concert at Beeston Methodist Church as well as performances of this year’s main musical production, Voyage of the Sloop John B’ which received brilliant reviews. Our thanks go as ever to Geoff Liptrot for writing and directing this epic show as well as to Cameron Wedgeworth for arranging and conducting the live music.

During the spring term we held taster sessions to celebrate Chinese New Year, making traditional Chinese dumplings and the traditional German Exchange, which has been running for over 40 years, took place over February half-term. 30

Year 5 & 6 pupils joined our students for a production of ‘Space Race-Rendezvous’ which proved to be an instant hit with pupils and parents alike. In March heavy snowfall resulted in the Paris trip being postponed but the new dates in June proved to be a much better time to see Paris given the warm, sunny weather! Mrs Metcalfe organized another great Dance Festival, showcasing performances from both Alderman White dance groups and dancers from a range of primary feeder schools In the spring we also thanked our inspiring Maths mentors for-peer mentoring Year 7 and hosted Canoville Coachings speed kick-event, raising funds for Newark Mind, a local mental health charity. There was a Cambridge University trip for Year 9 Sutton Scholars, the PTA fashion show and the long countdown started for all our GCSE candidates with revision sessions being really well attended after school and in the holidays. Finally, we had our BBC School Report, Brilliant Book Award and we were featured in the Spring 2018 Young Fundraisers magazine for the NHS Trust, recognising our efforts in aid of the children's cancer wards.

Haven Donation From On-Call Recruitment

Adrian Rawden, Managing Director from On-Call Recruitment visited the Haven Classroom this week to meet staff and students to gain an understanding of the vital work that takes place in this specialised area of school. He enquired how the Sensory Area that has been specifically audited by Autism East Midlands and the environment helps individuals, and what necessary or specialised resources are required. After tea, juice and biscuits he presented a cheque of a voluntary contribution of £500 towards ensuring that more equipment can be purchased to enhance this facility. The recently appointed joint Haven Ambassadors, Joel McWilliams and Harley Simpkins, helped publically receive the cheque and personally thanked Adrian for his company's kind donation and ongoing support of Alderman White School. Thank you Adrian! Mrs S Neal KS3 IMP Leader and Haven Co-ordinator

In the summer term we celebrated the launch of our third parent course- 'building self-confidence' and Year 9 students took part in 'unbiased youth jury' at Nottingham University as well as celebrating 2nd place success at a regional Franklin Scholars event. Year 7 and 8 students participated in The Healthcare Skills Show at QMC and our residential trip to Hagg Farm was a huge success. There was a great opportunity for students to participate in a two-day residential visit to London to see Andrew Lloyd Webbers 'School of Rock'. We also welcomed our first ever Chinese Exchange students from the Jiangshan High-School in Ningbo. 9JRR collected over 100 food and hygiene items to distribute to the homeless and we have supported various other charities throughout the year including Children in need, Sport Relief, Cancer Research, Young Minds, Tracy's Kitchen, various projects at the QMC, The Little Princess Trust. Our very active PTA held a car-boot sale, a very successful Summer Fayre and sold refreshments during sports day. We installed a defibrillator in honour of Andy Beardsley, who passed away in October 2016, thanks to his wife Alison and son Oliver. More recently our Duke of Edinburgh students have successfully completed expeditions, we have celebrated the World Cup as tutor groups, welcomed local primaries for Year 5 and 6 days, and celebrated Carnegie. There was a stunning summer concert with an international theme as well as the highly entertaining production of Cabaret du Soleil. We have welcomed external providers to talk about tax, money matters and relationships in the modern world and we celebrated Grace Hawkins as school Physicist of the year. What a year! The recent record number of graduation awards celebrated at the Graduation ceremonies on Monday reflect both the number and the diversity of all the year’s achievements. Miss J Francis Mr K Stephan KS3 Deputy Inclusion Lead Director of Language College/Enrichment

Proud to be Bramcote

If I think about all the ways I describe Bramcote College to prospective parents, visitors, friends and colleagues from other schools when they ask what it’s like, my thoughts are all positive and pride fills my comments. Bramcote is a brilliant school and the staff and students of Bramcote should be walking tall after the fabulous year that we have just had; the changes and challenges we’ve faced, the achievements we’ve celebrated, and all of the wonderful things that lie ahead of us.

Proud of our Students

Bramcote students have certainly risen to the challenges which have been set for them this year. September 2017 started with our staff and students settling into a new location as the park moved up the hill and Bramcote School became Bramcote College. Students have quickly become used to the up-stairs and down-stairs, the trek between Maths and Science and THE corridor. We have happily expanded into the space that the Bramcote College site offers us; at break and lunch times there are always several football games on the AstroTurf, and dozens of tennis pairs on the courts, as well summer time picnic lunches on the field. The number of lunch and after school clubs has blossomed with students now enjoying Mandarin, Football teams for boys and girls in a range of age groups, art club and chess in the library to name but a very few. An especially proud moment this year has come from our Student Leaders; we have been overwhelmed by the number of applications with students joining ‘Team Inspire’ to get involved with charity events (cakemageddon raised £250 in 10 minutes), the breakfast club, running lunch time activities and reading with Year 7 students in form time. Mrs Crouch has done a wonderful job working with this dynamic and enthusiastic team of young leaders. Our pride in Music and Drama increases daily; we now have a growing musical group and not to be overlooked, THE Band, both of which supported our biggest graduation evening so fantastically. They have, of course, also been heavily involved in our first big production for a few years. Footloose has been a highlight of the year for so many reasons; staff from almost all corners of the school have worked together with an amazing cast and crew to put on two wonderful nights of performances and a matinee performance for Albany Juniors. The most remarkable thing about a production like this is that such a diverse range of students get involved, ranging from those who are front and centre in most things, to students who have kept their remarkable talents quiet up to now. The production has been such a success that the next one ‘Annie’ is already being planned for next year, with plans to include dance clubs from local primaries and, by popular demand, a third performance night. Congratulations to the Footloose trailblazers. Speaking of trailblazers, it would be hard to miss the trail blazed by Mr Bateman and the girls’ Netball team, taking them all the way to the National Championship (representing the East Midlands, having already been crowned Regional Champions) and securing 13th place in the whole country. This is amazing when you consider there are over 3,000 secondary schools in the country and just over 2,200 private secondary schools; 13th out of 5,000+ schools is amazing and creates a legacy for the next generation of Bramcote netballers. Other success stories for this year include the achievements of The BBC News Report, Debate Mate, The Brilliant Book Award and Carnegie, our STEM team and young Mathematicians in various challenges, as well as Football, Netball and Cricket teams. Student have also had an opportunity to go on trips to theatres, universities, businesses, museums and the great outdoors on various activity weeks. They have visited Paris, Madrid, Cologne, Lisbon and even Aberystwyth. Next year a (very excited) group of students will be visiting our partner school in Ningbo in China! The World, it seems, is at Bramcote’s fingertips!

Proud of our Achievements

We are always proud of the team of staff in our school but this academic year we had an especially proud moment when Mr Bateman was nominated by the Netball team (and their parents) for the Nottingham Evening Post Inspirational Teacher of the Year award and WON! The teachers are also very proud of the fact that our Year 11s (and some Year 10 and 9 students) tackled the new GCSE exams in a mature and, most importantly, confident way. In a year when the press was full of how hard the new GCSEs are, our students worked hard (looked after themselves) and took on the challenges of new style exams. Booster sessions, revision support and the holiday study lounge pointed students in the right direction and regular information about how to cope with the pressures of exams by sleeping well and balancing hard work with relaxation meant students we ready for the exams when they started. After the exams we were proud to celebrate the achievements of our Year 11s at their Leavers’ Assembly and their Prom.

A Year at Bramcote College

At Bramcote College this year, we have a had a dedicated team of Year 7 students forming the BBC School Report Club. It started with the School Report Day in February when the students put news reports together in a day, and the club has met every week, working on different aspects of the news and reporting. They are a great group of students; committed, enthusiastic and always looking for a new story! To round off their first year, here are a selection of extracts from their reports on completing Year 7: “In my first year I have had a really good time. At first I came up with four boys from my primary school and I had to work hard to work out the dynamics of friends, but since then, I have made many friends and now have a really strong friendship group. The lessons are very different from primary school. It is weird at first moving classes for every lesson but I soon got used to it. I also went on a trip to Paris. I had a blast there and saw lots of the Paris sights!” Jessica “Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my 190 days at Bramcote. Some of the subjects I have enjoyed the most are the highly advanced Maths and Science lessons. Another subject that has been considerably better is English; the lessons are very engaging and of a higher level that I enjoy.” Leo “My school year has been very exciting. The amount of activities and clubs is quite amazing. I had joined Drama and Debate club so I could have some more time with my friend and it turned out to be fun. I started to go to the competitions in debate club too. At this point I had to leave drama club since I had joined Attenborough C.C. and needed to have more time. But I’m really glad I had a go, as I enjoyed myself.” Harjit “My time at Bramcote College has been brilliant and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. One of my favourite subject has been Maths and my teacher is brilliant! Science and English were also great with my teachers making it exciting and doing extra things to make for exciting lessons. Spanish lessons are fun and educational and now there will be three Spanish teachers next year. I am hoping Year 8 will be just as good. BBC School Report is also going to continue, allowing a new generation of budding journalists to join the club! “ Jacob “At first it felt strange and I had absolutely no clue where to go but after I found all of my classes, I was fine. It didn’t take too long to remember the timetable as well! In English, one of my favourite projects has been the Enterprise project. In groups of 4, we created a new brand of crisps; this included the packaging, the crisps themselves and a slogan. Also we had people from a local company, GeoSlam, came in and we got to do elevator pitches for their ZEB-REVO scanner. The winners have won a trip to their office nearby. We’ve also had lots of trips going on like the trip to Walesby and to London to see School Of Rock. Generally most lessons are fun too so don’t think that unless it’s a trip it’s not fun! I have really enjoyed this year and I hope the new Year 7s find it fun too.” Adam

Looking Forward to Next Year

Bramcote is going from strength to strength and we are excited about plans for the future, both in lesson and the extra-curricular activities our students are getting involved with. We are also looking forward to finding out more about our new school building and seeing the plans go ahead. We are also looking forward to welcoming our new Year 7 classes into the school in September and continuing to work closely with the primary schools in the area. 2018-2019 here we come! Miss J Cooper Deputy Head of School

BC6F - What A Year!

Despite our rather nervous wait for our new temporary KS5 accommodation back in September, it’s safe to say we’ve all had a thoroughly fantastic and productive year in what we affectionately have named our ‘6th Form Village.’ Our students have appreciated and fully utilised the KS5-exclusive rooms and IT equipment and the ‘Village’ has been at the centre of endless hours of hard work, inspiring lessons and productive learning. We have also worked hard to ensure our students have become positive role models to those in KS3 and KS4 through a range of extra-curricular activities. In addition to this, we have all continued to develop opportunities beyond the classroom and have successfully undertaken a momentous trip to China, which is hoped to be an annual 6th form event.

China in October

As you may be aware, some of last year’s Year 12s undertook an extra-curricular programme of study comprising of 40 hours of Mandarin lessons. In October 2017 we flew out 18 very excited students (along with two rather nervous teachers!) to Shanghai to begin the first leg of our 2 week tour of China.

From the flight out from Frankfurt on the impressive double decker Airbus A380 to the exciting high speed train journey across China from Shanghai to Ningbo, we certainly travelled in style throughout our trip. Once there, we were not disappointed with the fun-filled and culturally rich package of events put on by our colleagues at Confucius Classroom. Some of the highlights included a traditional Chinese ‘Coming of Age’ ceremony to celebrate one of our students turning 18 on the trip. We also thoroughly enjoyed experiencing the Chinese education system through our visits to two boarding schools. Our students were inspired by the academic dedication shown by the Chinese students and couldn’t hide their delight at the A-list celebrity-style reception they received from their peers! It was also a fantastic opportunity for students to practise their Mandarin skills in real life situations; spending time studying the language in seminars at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, as well as bartering for bargains in the Silk Street Market with the animated stall holders.

KS5 Trips

There have been lots of other brilliant opportunities for students to extend their BC6F experience beyond the classroom this year. Year 12 Geography students had a great time on their field trip to Portugal and certainly got lucky with the weather whilst we were all still shivering in a typically chilly British February. The Media department organised a tour of the BBC studios and our students (and staff!) got to try out their presenting skills. China and Portugal weren’t the only overseas opportunities given to BC6F students this year with students visiting

Disneyland Paris to experience the ‘Psychology/Media Live!’ conferences as well as getting the opportunity to meet Goofy!

Footloose

Our successful production ‘Footloose’ this year provided an excellent opportunity to get sixth formers actively involved in whole school events and we were thrilled that so many of our Year 12 and Year 13 students were chosen to have both front stage and back stage roles. It was one our most impressive productions to date and it was so lovely to hear that students in the sixth form had been such valued and inspirational role models. With next year’s preparations for ‘Annie’ now well underway, we are confident we can build on the success of Key Stage 5 representation in the show for next academic year.

Destinations

Our Year 13 students have worked exceptionally hard this year and we are looking forward to seeing their triumphant smiles when they return to collect A Level results in August. They certainly have lots of exciting futures ahead of them. We have again had a record number of offers from Russell Group universities and in August we are hoping to send students to study a variety of subjects such as Art History at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, Geography at the University of Loughborough and Adult Nursing at the University of Nottingham. We have also worked hard to secure a range of competitive alternatives to the traditional university route. We have maintained strong links with companies such as Rolls Royce and for the third year running we have students who have secured places on their incredibly competitive Higher Degree Apprenticeship Scheme. In addition to this, we are incredibly proud of our Year 13 student who managed to secure one of only 32 conditional places on one of the first ever police degree apprenticeships in the country. This is especially impressive given that he will be the youngest person on the whole course, with many of the other candidates being in their 30s and 40s. Overall, some fantastic destinations. The work for our current Year 12 is already well underway and the formal UCAS and apprenticeship application process will resume after a summer of student research and reflection. We are looking forward to another exciting year from September 2018. Enjoy your summer. Ms Faye Parker Head of Sixth Form

On the final leg of our tour we flew into Beijing where we finished our trip with an unforgettable trek along part of the Great Wall of China and managed to sneak in a cheeky selfie with one of the iconic pandas at Beijing Zoo. We are delighted that the trip is being repeated this October, with Melissa Rigley and Alan Lea taking out the next cohort of 18 excited Year 13 students who have studied exceptionally hard in Mandarin this year. We can’t wait to hear about their travels.

What do we do to improve the quality of Teaching and Learning?

Every member of staff in the federation recognises that we can never stop learning about learning, and this principle is at the heart of the CPD that we provide for our teachers. This year, there have been a number of opportunities for us to learn from each other, including group work on different topics such as healthy eating, changing mindsets and mental health. We have also led whole staff meetings to study new research and national change, developed individual coaching programmes and hosted a Primary & Secondary ‘TeachMeet’, where a range of staff present an inspirational teaching idea to others. We also understand the benefits of working in partnership with other schools and have developed close links with a range of other schools to share training opportunities and good practice. In addition to this, we have a number of teachers who continue to value their own education highly and have been studying for various qualifications such as an MA or a ‘Leadership Pathways’ programme. Our teachers are regularly involved in the following activities in order to make the quality of teaching and learning stronger and stronger:

Joint learning walks with students to ‘quality assure’ the work that our teachers do.

Training to improve marking, tracking and assessment.

External training courses to understand new GCSE and A level courses.

Observing each other and offering advice on how to improve lessons. We look forward to further improvements as we work to create ‘A Culture of Excellence’ next year! Mrs L Rockley Deputy Headteacher, Teaching and Learning

Mock Interview Day

This week saw two amazing days of mock interviews for Year 10 students at both schools. They had been following a programme of lessons that prepared them both for the mock interviews and for later in life. We give them the questions beforehand so that they can think about their answers, after all when we, as adults, go for interviews we anticipate what we are likely to be asked and prepare for it. On the day they have a ten to fifteen minute interview followed by feedback from their interviewers. All the interviewers are there to support our students and volunteer for these events because they understand how important it is to develop interview skills. The mock interviews are an opportunity that our Year 10s take very seriously. For some students this is an incredibly big deal that takes them way outside of their comfort zone. I am so proud of those students in particular, because I know how hard it was for them (they probably hated me at that point), but it was wonderful to see them talking to their interviewers, smiling and having grown as young people when they came out. We could not run these events without the support of the business community along with governors and local colleges, so we offer a big vote of thanks to them for all their hard work. Ms C Welch Federation Librarian and Careers Manager