Issue Number: 6 Date: March 2020

On 9th March eight lucky year seven pupils accompanied Mr Mackintosh and Mr Marano to London to attend the Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey. As well as the Royal Family and Prime Minister, the congregation were also entertained by Anthony Joshua, Alexandra Burke, and Craig David. Prior to arriving at the Abbey the children had a walking tour of London from Green Park, past Buckingham Palace, through St James’ Park, across Horse Guards Parade, and past Downing Street.

Tile Cross celebrated World Book Day on Thursday 5th March. Every lesson began with teachers sharing their favourite reads, sharing stories and talking to students about books that matter to them. There were reading based activities held in the library at break and lunch time with some students winning prizes for a book cover treasure hunt. ‘Get Caught Reading’ meant that students were rewarded whenever and wherever they were caught reading in school.

Every student received their book

voucher to use either as £1 off the price

of any book or they could swap them for

a £1 book in supermarkets and book

sellers. Well done to all the readers on

the day and to everyone who took part.

Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey

Sea Cadet trip to HMS Raleigh Over the February half term holiday 13 cadets from school attended a five day Royal Navy familiarisation course at HMS Raleigh in Cornwall. During this amazing trip they complete a very wet assault course which involved crawling through pipes almost full of water, a boat trip around Devonport Dockyard, fire fighting and sea survival training, and a lesson in HMS Chaos the damage control trainer.

A team of Engineering students from year 8-11 are working on the Green power electric car project. We have the expertise of 2 SIEMANS Engineers on board also. The Team are constructing the vehicle on Tuesday’s after school in MG03 with Mr. Miller. We have had 3 productive sessions so far. The plan is to take part in the regional races hoping to reach the national Finals at Silverstone. Feel free to see these budding Engineers in action.

On March 7th the Duke of Edinburgh groups had their first mini expedition with the help of Mrs Bowden, Mr Jones, Ms Begum and Mr Sofian. It was a chance to try out their navigation skills in unfamiliar surroundings. We travelled just up the road to Shustoke Reservoir from where they walked approximately 7km, navigating using just a map and route card. All groups made it to the end successfully but most of them walked more than 7km due to getting a little lost at times! The experience was invaluable as many thought it would be easy and discovered that it actually needed a fair bit of concentration and effort to find the right way. They are all now in a better position for their training expedition, which will hopefully be rescheduled for some time in the Summer term.

Duke of Edinburgh

Mini Expedition

Green Power!

Electric Car Project

Dear Mr Marano

Just a short email from HMS Raleigh, to say what a pleasure it has been to look after some of your students (Sea Cadets) this week.

I very rarely send emails on completion of visits, but due to their impeccable behaviour and giving everything 100% I thought it only fair.

They have been fantastic ambassadors for your school and you should feel justifiably proud of their achievements this week. The staff from the Sea Cadet unit have looked after them extremely well, they are all welcome to visit again in the future.

Kind regards

LT Garry Drew, XO SCTC HMS Raleigh

After all that hard work they also had a day at the Eden Project; The cadets did so well we received the following message:

Student Report: Trip to Ashmolean Museum for an

exhibit on Pompeii

Year 11 Mock Interviews In February all year 11 pupils had a fifteen minute mock interview with employers from industry, many of them former pupils. Prior to the interview the students had received an assembly from Andy Marshall, from Learn to Work, giving them advice on how to prepare.

Despite being very nervous before going into Central Hall all the pupils found it an enriching experience that will set them up for college and job interviews in the future. All our outside volunteers also found it a very rewarding MORING. Thank you to Mrs Akhtar for all her hard work setting it up.

Sport Relief at Tile Cross Academy meant a week of events including before and after school. On Friday 13th March we finished the week with even more fun sports events and a bake sale. Students and Staff were asked to were PE kits or sportswear for a £1 donation. Together with the proceeds of the cake sale we managed to raise a whopping £605.40! The weeks events finished with a Badminton tournament between School Staff. It was very competitive but great fun. It was great to see the whole school involved. Well done everyone!

12 girls Supervised by Ms Dizdarevic & Mr Sofian visited STEM Event at the Millennium point in Birmingham. A Variety of apprenticeships such as media and Construction engineering enthused and excited our students. Informative talks, discussions, apprenticeship offers and benefits, career choices and opportunities were brought closer to our students. Students commented: “It was a very interesting and educational trip” “I really liked getting to know about the architects career” “It was beneficial to get to know the details about construction careers and how well they are paid”.

Millennium Point

STEM Trip

Tile Cross Sport Relief

On Friday 10th of January 2020, a group of

Latin pupils went to the Ashmolean Museum

to see The Last Supper in Pompeii exhibition.

We were split into two groups of 6 and I was in

the first group that went to see the exhibition.

As we went up the stairs, we saw a massive

Bacchus statue (Bacchus was the God of wine).

We then got to see many items from Pompeii that had been preserved by the ashes from Mount Vesuvius’ volcanic

eruption. There were many artefacts and the one that stood out to me the most was the dead body of the woman

who was The Lady of Oplontis.

She was originally found in a tomb that consisted

of 60 other people but she was brought back to

the museum. Another thing that stood out to me

was the leg of a blackbird/thrush because of how

well preserved it was and it surprised me that they

ate bird legs. I was also surprised at how well the

bread was preserved.

Year 11 Celebration

We subsequently moved to the canteen, which had been beautifully decorated especially for the occasion, students sat together to enjoy a meal and make some noise with party poppers and horns! Finally, we ended the day with a party in Central Hall. There was entertainment provided by DJ Hutchinson and DJ Sayyed, a photo booth to capture and take away those memories made and plenty of time to sign shirts as a memento of friendships cemented at Tile Cross.

We wish our Year 11 students all the best for the future and remind you we are still available to offer any support

needed over the coming months. We will be in touch when there is more clarity regarding awarding of calculated GCSE

grades and the opportunity for exams in the autumn.

The unprecedented news of school closures and cancellation of state exams scheduled for May and June left a feeling of uncertainty as to when we would see our Year 11 students again. Therefore we made sure to send them off with a bang on Friday 20th March!

Students kicked off the day working together in teams to participate in ‘Name that Tune’ and ‘Guess the Celebrity’ quizzes organised by our team of City Year Mentors, with prizes of Easter eggs for those most in the know! This was followed by a PE lesson where students got to make the most of our sports facilities. There was a range of activities to choose from including basketball, badminton and football. Joynal Abidin scored a screamer of penalty in the boys football match after being given some top tips from Marius Vaduva.

After break we welcomed Year 11 into Central Hall for an assembly celebrating the highlights of their time at Tile Cross. There were barrels of laughs and a few tears too as we reminisced and marvelled at how much our students have grown and matured over the last five years. We all particularly enjoyed being transported back to a Year 7 PE lesson where our girls had choreographed some very entertaining dances to music from Frozen! We were also treated to moving speeches from Muna Essa and Aisha Nur.

Each month we will be providing useful information to support parents with some of the important issues you may be facing at home. In this issue the top 10 tips for remote learning for parents will be the focus.