At the end of a very busy Summer term, the staff and students of Northfield School and Sports College would like to wish everyone an extremely happy holiday. Special thoughts go to our World Challenge team, who are about to start their expedition through the jungle in Costa Rica. Full details of their adventures will be reported in our October newsletter. Have a fantastic Summer everyone!

NORTHFIELD SCHOOL AND SPORTS COLLEGE

JULY 2012 NEWSLETTER

On Tuesday 3rd July the Year 9 students completed a Guinness World Record attempt for the highest number of bottle tops in a continuous chain. The record currently stands at 34,149 but Year 9 managed to achieve a staggering 37,170. All the paperwork and evidence has now been sent to Guinness World Records and we hope to hear back from them soon as to whether Northfield School is a world record holder. Well done Year 9!   

YEAR 9 WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT

olympic gamesmakerOur very own Mr Alderson has been selected to be a London 2012 Olympics GamesMaker for the Football at St James Park. He will be assisting various Olympic teams such as Brazil, Spain, Japan, New Zealand, and possibly Great Britain's Women's teams at the training venue. This is a once in a lifetime experience and he is really looking forward to watching some of the young and upcoming stars of the future, as well as stars from the strong Brazilian and Spanish teams.

SPORTING SUCCESSESThis year has been an extremely successful year for our sports teams. The following are just some of the many school’s achievements in a wide variety of sports:-

FootballYear 8 - Stockton League WinnersYear 10 - Stockton League Runners UpYear 11 - District Cup WinnersIn addition to this, two Year 11 Boys achieved scholarships at Professional Clubs starting next year :– Brad Walker (Hartlepool United FC) and Daniel Rowe (Rotherham FC).

" " " " " " " " Basketball" " " " " " " Year 11 Teesside Schools Finalists – 3rd Place

AthleticsESAA English Schools Track and Field Cup - Boys Round 1 - u13 Winners Year 9 and 10 Boys - Stockton League Winners" " " " " " " " "Cross CountryESAA National Finals held at Somerset – Callum Martin (Year 9) and Liam Ferguson (Year 10) both ran particularly well.

John Smith, Luke Metcalfe, Stephen Raybould, Callum Martin, Liam Ferguson, Hannah Featherstone, Sean Toole all represented Cleveland Schools Cross Country Teams.

PE

This year Northfield have joined the Teesside Student Librarian Training scheme for the first time. The training scheme is unique to Teesside with 20 secondary schools across the area involved this year. It has been running since 1999 to recognise and reward the hard work students do when helping in their School Libraries.

The scheme was offered to Year 8 Student Librarians and nine of them completed the scheme. This involved helping in the Library on a regular basis, completing activity sessions and worksheets on Library skills, creating a display to promote the Library, writing reviews and showing that they have learnt all of the different Library duties.

Our students were chosen to attend this years Student Librarian Awards evening held at the King's Academy. There they were presented with their certificates by authors Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore. Known as the '2 Steves', together they are Britainʼs most popular comedy writing and performing double act for young people. Having met over twenty years ago when they were both teaching in Nottingham, they have since written over 150 books together.

A great evening was had by all. Our students thoroughly enjoyed it, especially meeting the 2 Steves and joining in with their reading from 'Viking Blood' - a choose your own ending book from the ihero series. Another highlight was getting to meet Student Librarians from lots of different schools. Our school librarians provide a really valuable service to the school and it was fantastic to see them getting the recognition that they deserve. Well done to Katherine Carmody, Natalie Forrest, Sam Gamblin, Harry Gamblin, Alex Housley, Thomas Hoyle, Alisha Norton and Laura Stockton.

For information on the 2 Steves, visit www.the2steves.net

NORTHFIELD

LIBRARY

!

Throughout the week of 9th -13th July, students at Northfield were able to take part in a range of activities aimed at raising their awareness of disabilities.

During Morning Form Time, each tutor group participated in a range of tasks linked to the Paralympics and considered the impact that disabilities have upon our lives, as well as the many ways in which disabled people work to overcome their disabilities in order to excel.

In addition to this, a variety of awareness raising sessions were offered to students in our school libraries. Activities included having a go at typing Braille, attempting a tactile pictures game blindfolded, sign language hangman and foot and mouth doodles. Students were inspired to do this after seeing some of the amazing work produced by mouth and foot artists (see www.mfpa.co.uk for more information).

Our thanks go out to Mrs Donnelly for organising such a fantastic week!

DISABILITY

AWARENESS

WEEK

Between Monday 11th June and Friday 6th July, Achievement League Tables were run in school. Teachers have been encouraged to give out approximately three achievement points every lesson and these were logged for each student and subsequently for each tutor group. The results are now in and we are giving rewards in two distinct ways. The highest achieving individual student per year will be awarded a voucher in their end of year assembly and the tutor groups with the highest collective totals per year have received ice cream treats at lunch times in the last week of term. The winning tutor groups were: Year 10 – 10MR (Miss Donaldson’s group) Year 9 – 9TE (Mr Whem’s group) Year 8 – 8MO (Mrs Roberts’ group) Year 7 – 7TT (Mr Pickup’s group)

Huge thanks go to Mr Wallace for setting up the Achievement Point Leagues, to our Catering Department for the fantastic ice-creams and to Guidance Teams for pushing this over recent weeks.

On the 28th of June, we said farewell to our amazing Year 11 musicians at our Leavers' concert. The programme comprised of a diverse mix of musical genres ranging from the school band's rousing rendition of 'Eye of the Tiger' through to the clarinet trio's beautiful 'Dance of the Little Swans'.

The following were all fantastic solo performances by our Year 11 leavers:-

Nuvole Bianche- Rebecca Ball (Piano)Jar of Hearts- Grace Baxter (voice)Grave-Emma Hardy (clarinet)The Meadow from ʻTwilightʼ- Alexia Yiannouli (piano)I Giorni -Edward Snowdon (piano)The Skaters Waltz- Katherine Neeson (violin)Rolling in the Deep- Ebony Birmingham These soloists also joined together for  'I Dreamed A Dream' from Les Miserables,  'Lean on Me' and the highly appropriate finale, 'That's What Friends Are For'.

A tremendous evening was had by all and we wish our Year 11s every success for the future!

MUSIC

ACHIEVEMENT LEAGUE TABLES

On Thursday the 12th of July, thirty-six students from Years 7 and 8 climbed Roseberry Topping in memory of one of our Year 7 students, Matthew Olley. Matthew passed away last November after fighting cancer for eight months and students took this opportunity to remember him whilst also raising money for two fantastic charities, CLIC Sargent and Butterwick Hospice. Mrs Carey, Mr Houlgate, Miss Booth, Mrs Gilkes-Imerson and Matthew Olley's dad and grandad all undertook the climb with the students and joined them for a picnic at the top. Everyone had a great time and it is hoped that they will have raised over £700!

Northfieldʼs Chair of Governors, Mr Les Wadey, was chosen to bear the Olympic Torch as it passed through the local area last month. Nominated as a result of his support of Northfield School and his dedication to helping the community, Mr Wadey ran with the torch through Shildon on June 17th. Firstly joining the HSA of the school during the time his children attended, Les chaired the committee for a number of years raising funds and organising events to support and promote the school. He then joined the governing body, where he has undertaken a number of roles including vice chair and his current position of chair. Les works tirelessly for the school and during his time as governor he has seen Northfield go from strength to strength. A keen runner, Les has supported the Rainbow trust charity for many years and has completed 10 Great North Runs, raising in excess of £5,000 for the charity.Everyone at Northfield is really proud to see that Les has been honoured in this way as a result of his valuable contribution to our school life.

OLYMPIC HONOURS!

Charity

work

Representatives from Lucite International came to visit two year 7 Science groups recently to introduce students to how science works in industry. Lucite International is a global leader in the design, development and manufacture of acrylic-based products and they made three visits to each class to demonstrate the processes involved in creating perspex products.

In the first hour they explained what their company does and Dr De la Motte did a demonstration of making nylon (called the magic rope trick). This was followed, in the second lesson, by a practical challenge in which students had to use the things they had learnt in Science this year to solve a real industrial problem relating to acids and alkalis. During the third lesson the students did a review and evaluation of the practical work and then they had to design a product made from perspex. It is hoped that experiences like these will allow students to gain a more practical perspective of how science can be used in the world of work.

SCIENCEINDUSTRY AWARENESS

A group of forty American Performing Arts students from the Young Americans initiative are visiting us in March to create a whole school show with our students. The Young Americans promote music education and performance opportunities to young people all around the world, through the provision of music and dance workshops. Over 250 students will be involved including local primary schools and this will be a fantastic way of bringing our local community together. Watch this space for details but in the meantime, visit www.youngamericans.org/ to find out more.

Dates for your diaryFirst day of term for students

Open evening for prospective Year 6 Parents.

GCSE Drama exams

October Half Term Holiday

PD Day

Tuesday 4th September 2012

Monday 24th September 2012 6pm

Week beginning 22nd October 2012

Monday 29th October - Friday 2nd November 2012Monday 5th November 2012

If you have any ideas for stories for our October newsletter, please contact Mrs Poppleton as soon as possible.