HEAD TEACHER’S MESSAGEI continue to be impressed by the students at Taunton Academy; their resilience, their conduct, their efforts and achievements. This week over 30 Year 11 students achieved either an A or A* in their ECDL exams. This is a GCSE equivalent qualification and is highly favoured by the business community and employers. It is expected that all Y11 students will have achieved similar success in the next few weeks.

Elsewhere in the academy, as you will see from this edition of our

newsletter, students are getting involved, winning prizes, putting tremendous effort into many different areas and being highly successful. This all relies upon excellent teamwork both from within school and from the wider school community. We are grateful to the large numbers of parents and families who continue to be so supportive of the school and share our goals of providing an excellent educational provision for all students. Together I know we will make this happen.

Mrs J Veal, Head Teacher

NEWSLETTER01 March 2017 | Issue 23

OPTIONS INFORMATION EVENING IS ON 7TH MARCH AT 6PMFOR YEAR 9 STUDENTS ONLY

WELCOME TO WONDERLANDThe English Department is thrilled to announce that 53 of our amazing and imaginative students have been asked for permission for their short sagas to be published in the ‘Welcome to Wonderland’

anthology - a copy of which will be on permanent record in the British Library. With titles ranging from ‘Unicorns Can’t Fly!’ to ‘The Future Awakens’ we look forward to sharing our students’ success with the rest of the world!

STUDENTS OF THE WEEK For high merits:Year 7 - Kayleigh and Jon. Year 8 - Tilly and Aidan. Year 9 - Taylor and Elizabeth.

SUCCESS FOR JOSH Year 9 Joshua Lukins has been selected to represent England at the European TaeKwonDo Championships in Liverpool this April. This will be his second cap for England, after representing them in Greece last year.14 year old Joshua started TaeKwonDo at the age of eight, when his father bought him a taster session as a Christmas present. He joined Evolution Martial Arts in Taunton and instantly loved it. He quickly progressed from a white to a black belt and is now a 1st Dan (the highest is 9th Dan, which can take decades to achieve!)Joshua trains twice a week and travels to the England training camp in Oxford. He divides his time between that and his other love, football - he is currently training with Exeter FC’s junior academy.He says: ‘’I enjoy it as it’s easy to pick up, you have to get used to the physical contact at first but once you get it that’s not a problem. It does take a lot of commitment to keep going, but it’s a really fun sport.‘’Last year at the finals in Greece I missed the European bronze medal by one point, so I am really hoping to get a medal this time.‘’After that I’ll be aiming for the World Championships in Italy in 2018. I’m pretty sure I can achieve it, it’s great to know that you are one of the best in your country at something!’’Mr Mason said: ‘’Obviously we are all very proud of Joshua. What’s great about him is that he is also such a fantastic lad. He works hard at school, is a leader, well behaved all around the school and is a good role model to other children. He helps run our sports clubs and always leads from the front. We wish him all the best.’’Josh is sparring in the -52kg category as an individual and also team sparring with the junior boys (u18s).

TEN TORS

For high attendance:Year 7 - Shannon and Henry.

Year 8 - Jessica and Alfie.

Year 9 - Kayleigh and Cameron.

For smart uniform:Year 7 - Alana and Josh.

Year 8 - Ash, Millie and Liam.

Year 9 - Rebekah and George.

WORLD BOOK DAY

Please encourage your child to enter our World Book Day Competition. All entries to Mrs Councill or their English teacher by Monday 27th March.

It’s time to go DOODLE CRAZY for this year’s fantastic DESIGN A NATIONAL BOOK TOKEN COMPETITION. The overall winner’s design will be made into a real National Book Token gift card and distributed to bookshops nationwide in time for Christmas.

Entries to Mrs Councill or your English teacher by Monday 27th March

Collect your template and entry form from the library at break time or lunch

Year 7 and 8

Reading doesn’t have to be all about words; from picture books to graphic novels, illustration-heavy stories come in all forms!

Design your own comic style book

Year 9

100 word story competition

Can you write a story in 100 words?

Year 10

The best books get turned into movies! What book would you adapt into a film?

Choose a book that you think the world needs to be a movie. Design the film poster for your chosen book.

All entries to Mrs Councill or your English teacher by Monday 27th March

LRC REVAMP RUGBY NEWSOur new look Learning Resource Centre is coming on well. We now have an Accelerated Reader student notice board where student quiz results, most progress, word millionaire, form group, English classes quiz results are displayed. Accelerated Reader is very popular with our students with some even taking quizzes during lunchtime and break.

Ben from Year 9 holding his training jersey from Bristol Rugby Academy. He recently went through a rigorous process of trials and was selected to attend the Premiership Rugby Academy which is a fantastic achievement and one we’re very proud of. He attends training at Bristol every Tuesday and Thursday .

PERFORMING ARTSWill and Brad have been offered places at The SPACE (Somerset Performing Arts Centre of Education) to undertake a two year BTEC Extended Diploma in Performing Arts. They follow in the footsteps of Todd Jeffery (2015) and Nathan Mew (2014). The SPACE has an outstanding reputation, exceptional results and a glittering record of progressing its graduates into universities and acting and dance schools.

ART BEGINNINGSYear 11 Art and Photography students visited The Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter as part of their research for their exam theme ‘Beginning and /or End’.The students found a wealth of connections to document for their theme and to connect to their own ideas, from Egyptian relics to grandfather clocks and nature specimens collected hundreds of years ago. We look forward to seeing their ideas develop in readiness for their exam before Easter.

Our brightest mathematicians were entered into the the UK Mathematics Trust Intermediate Maths Challenge last month. We are thrilled that these Year 9 and Year 10 pupils did so well in the national test:

Luke - Silver

Karol - Bronze

Sophie - Bronze

Tyler-Lee - Bronze

Our star mathematicians, pictured with Mr O’Rourke.

MATHS NEWS

LOGICAL PROBLEM SOLVINGA fun challenge from Mr Gillingham.Answers in the next edition!Logical Problem Solving PuzzlesNonogridsRules: Find all of the black/shaded in squares. Each square will be black/shaded in or contain an X. Beside each row/column are listed the lengths of the runs, in order, of the black/shaded in squares for that row/column

Example