Student Voice May 2014 

Hi!

It’s been a busy term packed to the brim with exciting events and

news for you…..

This edition covers all the information about past trips,

exciting info and clubs as well as House news and a mind-

boggling maze. You’ll find Mr Nartey’s ICT Revision App

Reccomendations as well as a book review and the top 10

tracks to listen to this half term!

Included is also a list of the best films around, music news and

some exceptional English work.

Also our main feature is Swindon Youth for Christ Worker, Chris

Priddy. Go to pages 6 & 7 for this feature!

A special thank you to Ms Bradford (a trainee English teacher) who has helped

tremendously with the research for these articles. I really hope

you enjoy reading it!

Tilly (Acting editor)

MAIN NEWS On the 23rd July, Kingsdown School is holding an ‘Activity

day’ for students. You can take part in 1 of the following

activities:

Music and Drama

Sport Activities

Jewellery Making

Let’s Get Cooking

Arts and Crafts

NG Kids Trip

Cotswold Wildlife Park Trip

Thorpe Park Trip

Oakwood Theme Park Trip

Duke of Edinburgh Expedition

Harry Potter Studios Trip

GCSE Business Studies Trip

Year 8 Germany Residential Trip

General News Chess Club

Chess club meets 3 days a week, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thurs-day lunchtimes. You can play and eat your lunch. We have recently had a tournament and the winner received a stick of Blackpool rock and a certificate. In first place was Jordon Benjamin. In second was Sam Hacker and in their place was Warren Thompson. The results for

each completion will be sent to the heads of houses and certificates will be handed out in assembly. Feel free to join. Come to Mr Finney’s room

on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday lunchtime to play!

Riveting Readathon

The shortlisted books for our annual Riveting Readathon are:

‘The 5th Wave’ by Rick Yancey

‘Heroic’ by Phil Earle

‘Infinite Sky’ by C.J Flood

‘Hostage Three’ by Nick Lake

‘Monkey Wars’ by Richard Kurti

These books will be read by a small group of Year 9 students and on July 2nd, they will meet up with other Year 9 students from Dorcan and Highworth Warneford schools to debate which book they consider

should be awarded the Riveting Read of 2014!

To get an insight into one of these riveting reads.. look at the Quick Book Review further on in the magazine!

Tilly Wale

 

Top Ten Music Tracks Look out for these tracks this half-term

 

1. Hideaway = Kiesza 2. Nobody to Love = Sigma

3. Touch = Shift K3y 4. All of Me = John Legend

5. The Man = Aloe Blacc 6. Stay High = Tove Lo

7. Happy = Pharrell Williams 8. I got You = Duke Dumont ft. Jax Jones

9. Fancy = Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX 10. My Love = Route 94 ft. Jess Glynne

Kiera Beardsell

Clubs at Kingsdown

Year 8 Boys Football Team

Well done to the Year 8 Boys Football team, who have gone through to this year’s Cup Final. Mr Upwood would like to congratulate the boys for all their effort and for representing Kingsdown. Their captain is Ryan Harris in 8.8. Congratulations!

Reminders…. 1. Girls Rounders Club practise will take place every Thursday after school from 3:20pm—4:15pm. All ages and abilities are welcome.

2. Athletics Club Athletics training will take place every Wednesday after school from 3:20pm—4:15pm. All ages and abilities are welcome.

Year 7 Girls Futsal Team Congratulations to the Year 7 Futsal Team for winning the recent Wiltshire Schools Futsal Competition. They were undefeated in all games they played and will be representing Kingsdown School at the next South West regional finals in June. Well done girls!

Tilly Wale

Orchestra

Choir

The Orchestra have been working towards the Summer Concert, as well as many of the members taking part in Recital Eve-

nings. They have been working on pieces like the March from Carmen to the Doctor Who Theme Tune. To hear all of our recent

repertoire, come and support us at the Summer Concert! If you play an instrument and would like to be involved in Orchestra or in a Training Band, please speak to Mrs

Barnes or Mr Wicker.

Choir is made up of students from all Years. As well as working to-wards the three Christmas Concerts we performed; one at St Phil-lips Church, one in the School Hall and one to Senior Citizens from

around the area; we have been working towards the Summer Concert. We have a range of different songs lined up for you, all in two part harmony! The songs range from a beautiful arrange-

ment of ‘Scarborough Fair’ to ‘A Tall Story’, which is very jolly. There will also be a few numbers from the school’s Chamber

Choir, a select group of students. Please come to the Summer Concert to support our choir in their music. We will also be joined by Year 11s, who have just left as well as past music students who

left several years ago!

Tilly Wale

Swindon Youth for Christ Hi! I’m Chris and I am from SYFC (Swindon Youth For Christ). SYFC is a organisation that works with youth and schools work in Swindon. We run lunchtime clubs, lead assemblies, a also deliver an education programme called LUSH. You may see us once or twice a week coming to talk to you at breaks or lunchtimes for a friendly chat! If you are interested in faith or just finding the answers to the big questions you have, why not talk to an RE teacher, or a close friend, or come to the SYFC

Chatroom on a Monday lunchtime? Fun social events like Stratton Scouts, the BI-OS Van, Impact and Waggelb are great places to make new friends, explore faith

and eat sweets!

The Chatroom has been running for 5 years now and there are 8 different Chatroom’s in Swindon. The Chatroom is somewhere where students of all years can go and ask questions about faith and the bigger thing in life like God and creation and Heaven and Hell. We play games, share stories, ask and answer questions and, like all of the best things in life….. eat lots of sweets!

The BIOS Van is a mobile youth club sup-porting positive choices. It is at Kingsdown on a Thursday lunchtime and rotates be-tween the years and is also at Mead-owcroft Rec from 7:45-9:30 pm. We are very grateful to the Police and Crime Commissioner who has provided funding for this and supported us all the way! With X:Box’s, Ipads, seating, music devices and more, why not spend the lunchtime in style at the BIOS Van?

Tilly Wale

About me - Chris Priddy Hi! I’m Chris and I am the Director, or Team Leader at SYFC! I actually planned to go to university to study Electronic Engineering but then later decided to take a gap year and do youth work. At school, my favourite subjects were Physics, Maths and Media Studies, but I hated cutting things up in Biology! I decided to be-come a Christian around the age of 12. I was born into a Christian family so faith was always around me and so when I was 12 I started asking questions and be-came a Christian.

Chris won the Leadership and Social Influence Award at the Wiltshire Business Award Ceremony.

We asked him about the award ceremony:

Was I surprised? Oh yes! There were three of us on the stage and I was ready to take a step back and then they announced

my name!

Well done Chris! This is a huge achievement and Kingsdown is very lucky to have you. Here he is getting his award!

Tilly Wale

Miss Sutton and Bruno Miss Sutton:

Bonjour! I have been at Kingsdown since November and have been covering Miss Master’s lessons as a French teacher. I am from the North East of France, near Strasbourg.

At school my favourite subjects were the languages but my least favourite subject was maths! When I was younger my dream job was to be a vet and have had many pet cats over the years. My favourite food is seafood and my hobbies include watching movies and going to the cinema and also swimming.

I am really enjoying being at Kingsdown because the school has a very friendly atmosphere and everyone has been so kind and helpful. Au revoir!

Bruno:

I’ve been working as a foreign language assistant for about 8 months now. I basically help students in their Spanish classes with speaking practise and a few tips on how to improve their pronunciation. I come from Chile in South America; the longest and narrowest country in the world. I grew up (for 17 years) in a small city in the West coast of Chile called San Antonio. It

was really boring and there weren’t many things to do! As a consequence, I moved to Santia-go, the capital as soon as I finished high school. I speak Spanish as my native tongue, but I

also learned English.

English was my favourite subject at school; we learned English from scratch, like you would learn German, French or Spanish. I didn’t like Science, and Science didn’t like me! I’d love to

work as a rock music journalist. I’d like to go to concerts, take professional pictures and inter-view bands. I also love animals and I have two cats in Chile.

I like taking photographs and I also write for a music magazine in Chile (www.rocanrol.cl). My favourite food in the world is lasagne!

It’s been pretty awesome! I’ve really enjoyed my time at Kingsdown, especially because I’ve practised my English and met so many fun and interesting people! When I go back to Chile, I’ll tell all my friends that Swindon, especially

Tilly Wale

Quick Book Review

Jammy and Sonny McGann are brothers. One is calm when the other is angry; one has a plan while the other lives purely in the moment. When Jammy returns from Af-

ghanistan a very different man to the one who left, Sonny is left to hold things to-gether. But just how far will he go to save the brother how always put him first? -

Blurb

give this book a 7.5 out of 10. Written as a series of diaries following Jammy’s tough ordeals in Afghanistan, Phil Earle takes his reader on an adven-ture. Experiencing guilt, responsibility, angst and longing for his brother, we see Sonny’s mind-set suffer as Jammy comes home a changed man. Sonny must handle his financial worries, his judgemental and frankly clueless friends, and Jammy’s odd be-haviour, all whilst keeping everyone alive. But just to what lengths will Sonny go to protect his brother?

Heroic shows all sides of a very real experience of siblings sepa-rated by war. Through intense and very authentically-written di-ary entries, the reader comes to terms with Jammy’s condition and empathises. But when Jammy comes back a changed man and infulences Sonny in ways with negative outcomes, Earle really makes you read on...

Maze Why not try to escape our maze?

The solution is on the back page!

Tilly Wale

House News We asked our new Heads Of House, Mr Lambourne (Stanton), Miss Bourton

(Lydiard) and Miss Colledge (Coate) some questions about their roles as Heads Of House and also some random questions to add into the mix!

My hidden talents are that I am a Grade 8 pianist and I play the flute.

I have a pet goldfish called Janusz. Funny enough, it was my first goldfish and all the others have died. I’ve had him for over six years now!

I became the House of Coate because I’m mas-sively competitive and love to win! Coate hadn’t won the trophy for years and my year 11s told me Coate never does better than last, so I wanted to turn it around for Coate. I did, we won!

I love to read and I am about to take part in a 10k run and unlike Mr Lambourne, hate running so that is a real chal-lenge for me. I want students to see me take on challeng-ing tasks so that they can also challenge themselves to do better and be winners!

I am really looking for-ward to Sports Day and the Spelling Bee. Also I am going to be running a Poetry Competition which is really exciting!

My hidden talents are so hidden, I don’t know them yet.

My favourite food… probably a delicious leek and stilton risotto with sausages - always hits the spot!

I wanted to be a dancer then an actress when I was younger.

I play pool and can be very competitive. I can also play chess. It is not really my tal-ents but the enthusi-asm to bring out the talents of the pupils.

I became a Head of House because I wanted to become part of the stu-dents’ lives outside of the classroom. I want to raise awareness of the various talents that our pupils have. It is important to me for young people to be the best they can and feel as though they are part of a community that can work together!

I became a the Head of Stanton… to pull the sleeping giant that is Stanton out of its slumber to dominate the house competition again!

Most of you probably know that I run; I’ll be gunning to win the staff relay on Sports Day!

Excited to be Head of Stanton? Someone pass me a thesaurus...

I am a lover of cats. I have three cats called Oscar, Jas-per and Gregory. I also have a house plant called Frank the Fern who consider a pet!

I am very excited and cannot wait to work with pupils and staff to organ-ise events. Mainly, I can-not wait to hold the trophy at the end of the year!

Tilly Wale

The preliminary rounds of Kingsdown’s Young Musician of the Year took place on Wednesday 30th April and Thursday 1st May. Following this,

some students went through to the final that took place on Tuesday 6th May and performed solo, or as part of an ensemble , either on a instru-ment or as a vocal performance. The evening showcased a variety of entertaining musical performances. The students would like to thank Mr

Wicker and Mrs Barnes for the opportunity to compete and for organising such an enjoyable evening.

The winners are as follows:

Year 7 Winner = Kayleigh Gibbs & Nyan Purnell

Year 8 Winner = Kate Palmer

Year 9 Winner = Chey Holer

Year 10 Winner = Abigail Daniels

Year 11 Winner = Amelia Bryant

Junior Young Musician of the Year = Chey Holer

Junior runner-up = Kayleigh Gibbs

Senior Young Musician of the Year = Amelia Bryant

Senior runner-up = Rosie Mundy

Junior Ensemble Winners = Kate Palmer and Tilly Wale

Senior Ensemble Winners = Alice Moore and Daisy Faulkner

Young Singer of the Year = Abigail Daniels

Kingsdown School Young Musician of the Year 2014

Tilly Wale

Meet …. Mrs O’Hanlon, Ms Bradford and

Ms Seddik Hi! We're currently student teachers through Swindon SCITT. We all

teach in our subject areas and are assigned to a tutor group each. We all teach a range of year groups and sets so we get to know lots of students (you!) and the ways in which you learn. The main goal of our

training is to become the best teachers possible and we are supported by our department and other staff to do this.

Hi. I’m currently a trainee teacher in Maths. I am really enjoying being at Kingsdown. My pet is a fat, feral cat called Fatty Mc Fat Cat. An interest-ing fact about me is that I rowed in the fastest under-18 British rowing team!

Mrs O’Hanlon

Hi! I’m a trainee teacher in Eng-lish at the moment. Being at Kingsdown is great, especially as I have been placed in a wonder-ful tutor group! My favourite TV show is Hollyoaks. I am quite ad-venturous and I have climbed the O2 Arena.

Ms Bradford

Hello. I’m currently a trainee teacher in the MFL department. I come from France and teach French as well as Spanish at Kingsdown. My favourite foods include cheese, bread and chocolate! An interesting fact about me is that I have 9 brothers and sisters.

Ms Seddik Tilly Wale

Exceptional English Skills

"(Running) No. No. No. Gotta keep running. Hide in the brush. That's what George said. 'Cause I did a bad thing. I didn't mean ta do it. It jus' hap-pened. But what about the rabbits? Maybe... just maybe George won't let me tend the rabbits. But he promised he would. George won't let me

down. He's always looked after me. George will fix it. George will put everything alright again. He's George." (Lennie monologue, Of Mice and

Men by Aaron Marchant, Y10)

When I opened the door to the demonic, soul-sucking house, bats with blood dripping from their fangs flew out of it. Some blood dripped

on my hand. As I wiped the blood off my hand, I looked up and saw someone or something.

When I blinked, it disappeared. I thought about running away but some ghastly thing tempted

me in further. Jack Marshall (Y8)

 

Dear water soaked, salted, diary,

I woke up on an island with only my pen and you... the diary. I ven-tured across the island seeking for help when I came across some

crazed, bearded people with black bandanas on their heads that also had a skull and crossbones on. That's when I realised they were pi-

rates and they were fighting over their last food supply. A grape. I ran away so I wasn't captured and forced to give my grapes up. I found a doorway under the sand whilst digging, I opened it and a small cellar filled with rum was present. But that's when I got caught. This may be

my last entry because I may die. This is how it started though..." (Diary describing an encounter with pirates by Harry Harvey Y7)

These excep onal pieces of English 

work have been put forward for this 

edi on. The students’ English teachers 

have asked for these pieces of work to 

be published because they are just so 

good…. Well done to those students! 

Tilly Wale

History Trip to Lydiard Park Academy for 4 Year 9 students

Local historians Mike Pringle and Mark Sutton from the Swindon in the Great War project were invited to Lydiard Park Academy on 21st March to work with over 40 Year 9 students from the academy, Commonweal, Crowdy's Hill, The Ridgeway, St

Joseph's, Nova Hreod and Kingsdown schools. The day’s findings and products would be presented to the family and friends of participating students as well as

teachers and children from Oliver Tomkins’ school.

Throughout the day the student split up into groups – Photography, Cooking, Leaf-let, Poster, Video, Research, Day Trip (going to Radnor Street cemetery) and the

Newspaper groups.

Emily Faulkes and Tilly Wale both participated in the leaflet and newspaper groups and Harry Mundy and Oliver March worked in the research groups and handled

many artefacts. Emily said, "We learnt a lot about what it was like to be in Swindon one hundred years ago. I was interested in what it was like for all the mothers and

girls when all the men went off to become soldiers. I think all of us will pay a lot more attention to the documentaries on World War I." Oliver commented: "It's hard to im-agine what it was like to be in the trenches; life was really hard for the soldiers and

so many didn't come back."

Right, Mike Pringle and Mark Sutton with Year 9 students Oliver March, Emily Faulkes, Tilly Wale, Harry Mundy

Tilly Wale

History Trip to Lydiard Park Academy for 4 Year 9 students

This day was an amazing opportunity for students to handle artefacts and discover Swindon’s involvement in WWI. All students really enjoyed the day and would to

thank Mr Finney for organising this for them.

Following the day, Mr Finney said, “The day was very successful. Handling 100 year old military equipment fas-

cinated the students as was looking at and discussing photographs from so long ago. At school the immediate information and sources are available but students rare-ly have the opportunity to experience the sheer weight

of the uniforms, see the type of food soldiers would have eaten and handle typical guns from World War

One. It was really enjoyable learning about the different specific links of World War One to Swindon and its peo-ple. The information from 100 years ago became so re-

al. It was a fantastic opportunity for our students.”

Tilly Wale

Recital Evening

On Tuesday 18th March, the Kingsdown School Performing Arts de-partment hosted a Recital Evening. This gave all students the oppor-

tunity to show off their musical talents in front of other students, friends and family. It also gave year 11 music students the chance to practice their GCSE practical pieces just before the real assess-

ment.

Many students attended the evening, including lots of year 7 stu-dents who performed at the evening for their first time. Mr Wicker

opened the evening by playing a piece on the schools’ new piano. He was then followed by solos and duets of both singers and instru-

mentalists.

Ex-student Tim Kay, who was the winner of last year’s Senior Musi-cian of the Year, came along to support his sister Sophie Kay and also had the opportunity to play the brand new piano, which he

said was excellent.

The evening was a great success and was enjoyed by all who at-tended. Thank you to Mr Wicker and Mrs Barnes who put the even-

ing together and to all of the students who performed.

Kingsdown’s new piano - Yamaha C1X Grand Piano

Kiera Beardsell

New Film Releases

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (12)

Jennifer Lawrence reprises her role as Katniss Everdeen in the second instalment of the Hun-ger Games trilogy. Katniss, and fellow winner

Peeta, return home to District 12 for some much needed rest. But soon after, while on a 'Victory Tour' of the other districts, she becomes aware of growing dissent to the Capitol's rule, and re-alises that rebellion is in the air. As Panem pre-

pares itself for the third 'Quarter Quell', autocrat-ic ruler President Coriolanus Snow, still smarting from the Capitol's humiliation in the last games, stacks the deck to ensure that the upcoming tournament will wipe out any resistance from

the districts once and for all.

Saving Mr Banks (12)

The film is a poignant, sharply funny and mov-ing recounting of Walt Disney's quest to fulfil a

promise to his daughters to make a film of their favourite book, and of its fiercely protective au-thor PL Travers, who had no intention of letting her beloved nanny go to Hollywood. SAVING MR. BANKS follows Walt as he has to pull out all the stops to change PL Travers’ mind and is ulti-mately forced to reach back into his own child-

hood to discover the truth about the ghosts that haunt her. Together they set Mary Poppins

free to become one of the most endearing films in cinematic history.

Disney’s Frozen (PG)

The coolest comedy-adventure ever to hit the big screen. When a prophecy traps a kingdom

in eternal winter, Anna, a fearless optimist, teams up with extreme mountain man Kristoff and his sidekick reindeer Sven on an epic jour-ney to find Anna’s Sister Elsa, the Snow Queen, and put an end to her icy spell. Encountering mystical trolls, a funny snowman named Olaf, Everest-like extremes and magic at every turn, Anna and Kristoff battle the elements in a race

to save the kingdom from destruction.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (PG)

A classic story of a day-dreamer who escapes his anonymous life by disappearing into a world

of fantasies filled with heroism, romance and action. When his job along with that of his co-worker are threatened, Walter takes action in the real world embarking on a global journey

that turns into an adventure more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined.

Kiera Beardsell

On April 1st, 2nd and 3rd, Kingsdown School students performed Annie Junior. With classics like ‘It’s a Hard Knock Life’, ‘Tomorrow’ and ‘Easy Street’, fami-

ly, friends, staff and others from the community were truly wowed by the students’ performances. Please see next page for a basic summary of the

plot and the cast list of Annie Junior at Kingsdown School 2014.

“Myself, Mr Wicker and Miss Manners are extremely proud of the whole cast

and crew of ‘Annie’. They have worked really hard in

the last two weeks and have created a great

show.” – Mr Lawson (Director)

“The students have worked incredibly hard since October on this production and it has

been an absolute pleasure working with such talented young people. It has been a wonderful opportunity for students to form a strong sense of community between all year groups and observing the support, kindness

and encouragement the students in the production have offered to each other has made me extremely proud of our school.” – Miss Manners (Choreographer and Director)

“I was amazed at the Annie perfor-mance. It was brilliant. I thoroughly

enjoyed the music and watching all of our lovely, talented students per-

forming. Who knew that Kate Stickley could be so horrible! Well done to all involved. There was clearly a huge amount of effort put into this perfor-

mance and this really shone through. I can’t wait for the next one!” – Mrs

Green

Tilly Wale

Mr Nartey’s Revision App Recommendations

1. Revision App - App Giant Ltd, iPhone/iPad The ‘Revision App' supports students with revision on the move with over 1 million revision

notes, flash cards and quizzes covering everything both Key Stage 3 and GCSEs subjects. The app allows you to create your own flash revision cards with video, text or audio which can be saved for future revision sessions and sent to friends to support group studies. The

basic app is free. Add 69p for revision notes, flash cards and information on each subject.

2. Remember the Milk - Remember the Milk, iPhone/iPad. The app has an attractive and easy to use user interface, and lets the student organise and prioritise lists, revision sessions, reminders and tasks the way they want. Another great feature is the ability to view, change and bookmark tasks from mobile to the web to apps including

Outlook, iCal, Gmail, Google Calendar, Twitter. This is free.

3. MindMap - ThinkBuzan, iPhone/iPad One for visual thinkers and learners, MindMap is a brilliant mind mapping application that turns an iPad or iPhone into a personal brainstorming and thought-structuring device. The

app is great for dyslexic students, who often find visual learning a helpful revision tactic. It's a unique workspace for brainstorming; revising, note taking and planning that will automati-

cally cross-platform sync across iPhones and iPads. This is free.

4. Exam Countdown - Richard Knights, iPhone/iPad As the name suggests, this app is a countdown clock letting students input and know exactly how long they have before their exam dates. It's simple, but effective and allows students to

fully prepare for all upcoming examinations. This is free.

5. Evernote - Evernote, iPhone/iPad Evernote stores and edits the user's notes on their local machine, and can also have their

notes automatically synchronized with a master copy held on Evernote's servers. Its capabil-ity to work on all platforms and devices makes it simple to create, manage and record revi-

sion notes in a natural way, which makes it a must-have app for Learners of all ages.

Tilly Wale

Enjoyed reading the Student Voice Magazine? Why not write an article yourself to publish or give us some

feedback? The Student Voice Magazine needs you. If you have any exciting

event or news you would like to share with your school, please come along to meetings on Monday lunchtimes (bring your lunch) in Mr Lambourne’s room (A1.4). There are various ways of being in-

volved: interviewing staff and visitors, writing articles, producing comic strips or word searches or designing the layout and taking photographs for the articles. If you think you would like to be in-

volved, please come to our Monday meetings.

Congratulations! You escaped the maze!

Maze Here’s the solution to our maze…

Did you work it out?

Tilly Wale