Woodlands Newsletter. Inspiring. Challenging. Achieving. A Message from our Head Teacher

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3 Woodlands Newsletter ISSUE 31 27/05/16 At Woodlands we aim to become an outstanding school by INSPIRING and CHALLENGING our pupils so that they ACHIEVE well and are able to enjoy successful and happy futures A Message from our Head Teacher Dear Parents, Carers and Students, This week we have been focussed as a school on the appointment of our new senior prefect team, particularly the new Head Boy and Girl. Each of the candidates has given a presentation to the whole of Key Stage 3. Presenting in front of almost 400 people is no easy task. We were all impressed with the quality of the presentations and the confident delivery. Each candidate then had a gruelling interview with a panel from the Senior Leadership Team and the Governing Body. The results of the whole school voting voice, staff vote, interview, presentation and behaviour and attendance records will all be analysed in order to reach the final decision. By the time you receive this newsletter the new Head Boy and Head Girl will have been announced in the whole school assembly. In our newsletter after half term we will announce who they are. The school is closed for half term this coming week. We return to school on Monday, 6 th June at the normal time of 8.25am. During half term the school will be open for revision sessions for Years 10 and 11. We hope to see many there. I wish you a restful and safe half term. Best wishes, Toni Sambrook May 30th May 30th June 6th June 18th June 23rd Upcoming Diary Dates Half Term From 30th May to 3rd June Spring Bank Holiday Monday Return to School At 8.25am Community Wellbeing & Fun Day From 11.00am to 3.00pm Year 7 Parents Evening From 5.00pm to 7.00pm Inspiring Challenging Achieving Sports Report Last week, Woodlands U13 s went into their second cricket fixture against top of the league St George s, full of confidence after their previous victory over Cantell. Woodlands started the match in bat and got off to a great start with Ben Harbour scoring a few runs early on. St George s bowled well and had their first wicket, dismissing Ben Ballard in the second over. In came Harvir Boparai, who again put in a solid performance, hitting more fours and increasing Woodlands score. However, with some strong spin bowling, within no time St George s managed to dismiss two more Woodlands batters. Jake Curtis took the field, settling some nerves and increased Woodlands run tally at the same time. Woodlands suffered more dismissals which saw Kieran James pairing with Jake Curtis, both very familiar with each other s playing styles. These two continued to increase Woodlands score with some fantastic shots and communication, but eventually resulted in Jake being caught out through some more superb St George s bowling. Ethan Hartfield and Faisal Malakyar added the final few runs with Woodlands finishing their 16 overs with a respectable score of 58 runs. It was now time for Woodlands to bowl. St George s looked very comfortable in bat, scoring 11 runs in the first two overs. Harvir Boparai came in to bowl and made a miraculous catch after delivering his first ball. Two balls later, Woodlands had another catch but this time it was down to wicket keeper Aiden Parker. Kieran James was gifted with a catch, shortly followed by Jake Curtis delivering some fantastic balls, resulting in another wicket. Things then came to a standstill and it looked like St George s were going to run away with the game due to some very credible batting. Woodlands stayed focused and came together as a team and eventually had three wickets in 2 overs due to another catch by Kieran James, excellent fielding by Aiden Parker and a wicket by Jake Curtis through his consistently accurate bowling. Before we knew it, it was the final over and St George s needed 2 runs to win the match. Unfortunately a dubious wide ball was given on the third ball of the final over and St George s had won by 2 runs with a very highly regarded score of 60. Although the team had suffered their first defeat, Woodlands had improved their run total from their previous game against Cantell and fielded exceptionally, taking 8 wickets, 5 coming from outstanding catches. Yet again, Woodlands showed great sportsmanship towards St George s and were very gracious in defeat. They would like to thank everyone who came to watch and are looking to bounce back in their next match against Bitterne Park. Streetspeare is coming soon to a street near Woodlands has social networking accounts on Facebook & Twitter

4 Curious Minds : Speakers for Schools: On Friday, 16 th October as part of our Curious Minds project, Woodlands was fortunate to host Paul Bainsfair, Director General at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. This was part of our work with the nationally recognised speakers for schools programme. 3: University Masterclasses: As part our continuing relationship with Southampton University, Woodlands has participated in Years 7 to 10 University masterclasses at the University this academic year. The students involved in this project will be tracked through their time at secondary school and at college. The focus of these sessions has been to ensure that our students develop important transferable skills and confidence. These soft skills are increasingly important in the 21 st century. 5: Oxford Classics Department: On Tuesday, 19 th January, a group of Year 9 and Year 10 students ventured to Oxford to take part in a day of Classics study at Oxford University. The students were very fortunate that the University had organised a fantastic day of academia, which featured some of the top Historians, at this world renowned University. A group of Year 7 and Year 8 students were also fortunate enough to participate in a similar day in March. 7: The Brilliant Club: Woodlands has been fortunate this year to be the only school in Southampton working with the Brilliant Club. Over the course of 5 weeks students participated in weekly workshops with their allocated PHD graduate on the imagery of William Blake. Students had to produce a 2000 word essay on William Blake and the Book of Job. The students did brilliantly with a number achieving First Class Honours. The level of work was of an exceptionally high standard. 2: University Mentoring: All year a group of Year 9 and 10 students has been working with undergraduates from Southampton University on a weekly mentoring programme. This culminated in presentations at Southampton University and Solent University. The students developed important transferable skills that they have been able to apply across their studies. 4: Oxford University Pathways Programme: This academic year Woodlands has been participating in the Oxford Pathways Programme. The aim of the programme is to ensure that students have access to experiences at Russell Group Universities. (The leading research Universities in the country). On 11 th February 2016 a group of Year 10 students attended a session that was focused on ensuring that students are clear about the UCAS process and their next steps. 6: Question Time: On Monday, 18 th April Woodlands was proud to host the first Business Week: Question Time Event. Business people from across The Solent took part in a discussion about responsible business and careers in the UK. Representatives of companies including The Southern Co-operative, Menzies, Colas and Southampton Solent University joined pupils for the event organised by Business in the Community (BITC). 8: Oxford Debating Competition: On Monday, 14 th December a group of Year 10 students participated in an Oxford University debating competition workshop at King Edward s school Winchester. This project was aimed at helping build students transferable skills. In particular this project was aimed at building confidence in public speaking.

5 Woodlands Voting Voice Should celebrities be allowed to pay for injunctions to keep their private lives out of the public eye? 1. They shouldn t even need to do this; their privacy should be respected as it is a basic Human Right (173 votes). 2. Yes, celebrities are unable to keep their lives private without an injunction and they deserve the right to have privacy (213 votes). 3. No-they live in the public eye and therefore the public have a right to know about their lives (64 votes). The voting voice for the next fortnight will allow all pupils to exercise their democratic right by voting for their favourite candidate for Head Boy and Head Girl following the candidate presentations in assemblies this week. This will contribute to the decision making process, alongside a formal interview and analysis of each candidate's attendance and behaviour over their time at Woodlands. Accelerated Reading The activity in Key Stage 3 Library lessons this week has been to explore Eclipse, the online Library portal. This is the system we use for issuing books. Students can access it to track their own reading progress, explore stock, review trends, record their own opinion of books they have read and reserve titles that are not on the shelf. Look out for these labels which indicate reader-friendly designs suitable for everyone! Our ** Reading Stars of the Week ** are Rosie and Sophie Lacey. We are delighted to recognise the effort and positive attitude of two sisters, Rosie and Sophie (pictured left), who have both pushed themselves to achieve high pass rates on texts above their expected reading level and who have shown a mature attitude to using this to improve their learning. Sophie conveyed this very eloquently: "I have never really enjoyed reading, however now I have realised that reading will have a huge impact on my future, therefore I have begun to try new and harder books to expand my vocabulary and understanding of words." What an admirable attitude! Congratulations to them both. Our ** Book of the Week ** is Old Dog New Tricks by Bali Rai: Book Level 3.3: Points 2.0 According to his biography, Bali Rai had three childhood dreams: playing football for Liverpool, being Bob Marley and becoming a writer. By the age of eleven inspired by the entertaining writing of Sue Townsend s Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, and presumably an inability to achieve the other two, his future path was set. His novels have been nominated for numerous awards and are included on the main GCSE reading list. Old Dog New Tricks is one of a series of short novels published by Barrington Stoke. These provide a stepping stone between a quick read and a full novel which, though rewarding, demands a bigger commitment in terms of time and concentration. The series also has the huge benefit of a user-friendly format with clear font, good spacing and tinted page colour. 100% Week This week was 100% week. All students who passed their reading quiz with top marks received an extra reward, as well as their name on the star board and two stamps in their planner. We hope this occasional extra incentive encourages students to keep working hard focusing on their reading. This term students have broken records with their high pass rates. We are immensely impressed with their attitude and feel sure that their efforts will benefit their learning across all school subjects.

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7 School Uniform As some of you will be aware, we have a stock of spare uniform for students to borrow if they are not in correct uniform. However, unfortunately this uniform is not always returned to us at the end of the school day. From Monday, 6 th June 2016, any student who does return the borrowed uniform will receive a 60 minute detention. If you have any uniform items at home that belong to the school, we would appreciate it if you could send them in as soon as possible. During the Year 11 leavers assembly, we will also be collecting unwanted blazers and ties to add to the borrowed uniform stock. Thank you for your assistance in this matter. Numeracy Across the Curriculum This Friday, pupils spent 20 minutes learning about the mathematics behind the Google search engine. Google originated as a mathematical PhD research project and pupils learnt how various mathematical algorithms are used to determine the order in which webpages appear after a search is made. They learnt that one key factor that influences this order is the number of links which are made to a webpage from other pages and how these are weighted depending on the reputation of the website making the link. They also found out some interesting facts and figures about Google. Did you know that the name Google came from the mathematical term googol? A googol is a very large number, it is 1 x , which is a 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Science News **30 days - until the Additional Science GCSE exam** Tips for Effective Revision Make the most of your child s revision style. Using coloured highlighter pens to mark keywords in their revision notes makes good use of mind maps. Homework Remember, your child s Science teacher will set homework at the beginning of every week. This must be completed by the following Friday. **Please note that STEM Club is not running this half term** A teenager has shown that snakes go dark to soak in the sun. In south USA snakes can be vibrant and bright. In north USA they can be dark and drab. At the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, 15 year old Gianna Fantell presented the results of her serpentine research which suggests that this may help northern snakes soak up heat from the sun more quickly than their southern kin. And a quick solar heating could prove an advantage in colder climates!! Eco Zone **Attention Parents** Paper and card make up about a fifth of the typical household dustbin. About half of this consists of newspapers and magazines. Please note that scooters and motorbikes need to be locked using a secure lock in the lockable bike shed. They must not be left in the open motorbike shed, if they are this is at the student s own risk. Thank you for your support with this.

8 Registered Charity May 2016 Half Term Playschemes **Free of Charge and Open Access** SCPA are running Playschemes during May half term in Harefield and Townhill Park for children aged 5 and over. Children Under the age of 5 years are welcome to attend with an appropriate adult. The Playschemes are for all children and families to attend free of charge who live in the SO18 area. The Playschemes will be running everyday from Tuesday to Friday. Sessions will run from 10am until 12pm and 1pm until 3pm. The Playschemes are Open Access which means children are free to come and go as they wish. There is no need to book places you can just turn up. Each child will be required to get a contact form completed by their appropriate parent/carer. Harefield Playscheme The Scout Hut, Bramdean Road, Harefield, SO18 5HW Thursday 2 nd June 2016 & Friday 3 rd June 2016 Townhill Park Playscheme Moorlands Community Centre, Townhill Way, SO18 3NU Tuesday 31 st May 2016 & Wednesday 1 st June 2016 For more information please contact SCPA Telephone: (023) or office@scpaplay.org.uk Visit: