Defoe Road Ipswich IP1 6SG Telephone: 01473 464545 Website: www.ormistonendeavouracademy.co.uk http://twitter.com/WeEndeavour

Endeavour News Highlights from around the Academy

Summer 2015 No 4

In this issue:

1. Message from our

Principal, Mrs Woods

2. Uniform

+ Drama Club

3. Homework Help

+ Parent Mail

4. Endeavour Attendance

+ Year 9 Rewards Trip

5. The Hub

6. Future Leaders

+ Tennis Club

7. Ormiston Remembers WW1

8. Humanutopia

9. Student Artwork

+ Energy drinks info

10. Endeavour Stars

11. News

12. Free uniform

+ Dates for your diary

Dear Parents and Friends,

Since my arrival, time has flown by and I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect back over the last half term and look forward to the coming one.

The publication of the Ofsted report has helped the academy identify our priorities and all staff are geared up to move forward at pace to ensure we offer the best educational opportunities for your children. Thank you to all the parents who attended the parents’ meeting and for showing your support for the academy. I remain as optimistic as ever and am constantly amazed by the dedication shown by the whole community. If you would like to become more involved in the academy’s development, please feel free to join the parents’ forum. The next meeting is on Tuesday 23 June at 6pm.

Our main focus during the last half term has been on presentation of self and learning. The students are wearing their uniform with pride and I’d like to thank you for your support in making this happen. Students are also making an effort in presenting their work neatly and demonstrating that they can meet our high expectations.

As for the near future, exam season is already upon us and we recognise the pressure that this brings to students who are involved. Your support is vital at this time and so if you are worried about your child at any point, please do not hesitate in contacting the academy so we can work together to ensure every student achieves the very best results.

If you are the parent of a year 11 student, you will have heard about the prom being held on the 26th June at Belstead Brook Hotel. Staff and students alike are looking forward to this celebration of achievement for all those who will be leaving us at the end of this academic year. This event is always one of the highlights of the year for me and I know that the students will make us all proud.

Message from our Principal, Mrs Woods

Uniform

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Homework Help

We are really pleased that our students wear the correct uniform and shoes to school and take a real pride in their appearance.

We recently asked our students why they think it is important to wear uniform and we had an overwhelmingly positive response from all years.

The students felt that “uniform unifies people and makes them feel like they are part of something”, “we wear uniform for a smart approach and to make us all equal” and “we wear uniform as it stops people judging each other because of what they wear”.

However, if any student comes into the Academy in the wrong uniform or defies the jewellery, hair or make-up standards, we will continue to challenge this.

The expectation is that all students come into the Academy prepared and equipped to learn.

Your support with this is invaluable. If you need further guidance on our uniform standards, please refer to your parents’ handbook that went home before Easter or check the information on the Academy’s website.

The after-school Drama Club is preparing for the annual New Wolsey Theatre Youth Festival.

We will perform on Thursday 2nd of July at 7pm; tickets are already available through the Theatre box office.

We have also put our names down for the Norfolk Festival which will be held at Ormiston Victory on 3rd of July. The evening starts at 7pm. More details to follow.

We will be performing the same piece at both venues.

Mrs Cox-Eaglesham

Drama/English Teacher

Drama club performances

Uniform

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Homework Help Homework!

What is it? Is it worth it? Does it matter if my children

do not do it?

As we know home study will always be a touchy subject with students and parents as it can create undue stress and even arguments when you ask about it. Whether you believe in the benefits or not, it is proven that students who regularly complete home study to a 'good' standard will outperform those around them that do not... In fact they will be 6 months ahead of them. To help ensure that we do not create these potentially argumentative situations the academy has already been developing a better way of giving and recording home work, with the use of Show My Homework: https://endeavour.showmyhomework.co.uk. Every teacher will have all their homework electronically added to our academy calendar, which you can access from our website or directly from the link above. As a parent or student you can search for subject, teacher and year group and all work can be filtered by deadline dates to help keep you organised. To make this system even more personalised students already have a log-in to show only their homework and you will to! By now you will have received a letter with your log-in details. The website can be accessed anywhere in the world, there is also a Show My Homework App available on both the iTunes and Android markets.

Do you find letters from school at the bottom of your child’s bag, scrunched up and barely readable or worse still you don’t receive any letters or newsletters at all? Does your child struggle to make the parents’ evening appointments that you want them to and sometimes forget to tell you that there is a parents’ evening! Well, those days will soon be a thing of the past. We are currently in the process of setting up ParentMail. We will be able to email all letters, newsletters and communications straight to you without the fear of them getting “lost” on the way home. You will also be able to make parents’ evening appointments from the comfort of your own home from your phone, tablet or PC. However, we don’t currently have every parents’ email address and for this to work we need it! If this is the case, please go the schools website oeacademy.co.uk and then click on the “parents’ access request” link on the left hand side. This will then get sent through to our communications team and will also allow you access to Sims learning gateway which has information about your child’s achievement, attendance and behaviour, Show my homework and Vivos. Better communication means we can all work together to ensure “excellence is standard” for our students. Thank you,

Mrs Baker

Vice Principal

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Endeavour Attendance The Hub

Some of our fabulous year 9s and Dr Sterno enjoying “Rameses’s Revenge” at

Chessington World of Adventures. A great day was had by all.

Year 9 Rewards Trip

96-100% well done

85-90% serious risk of

underachievement

91– 95% risk of

underachievement

Full attendance maximises learning opportunities and research suggests that just 17 days’ absence in any one year can mean a drop in achievement of 1 GCSE grade.

Below 85% Serious cause for

concern and

underachievement Fasttrack

by Local

Authority

At Ormiston Endeavour Academy excellent attendance and punctuality is our aim for every student. Our Academy attendance target of 95% is the minimum that we expect for all students. You will see from the statistics below that excellent attendance really does matter.

To achieve 95%, a student should have no more than 9½ days’ absence in an entire academic year.

If a student’s attendance falls to 90% this is the equivalent of missing half a day every week;

85% is equivalent to a student missing around 6 weeks in an academic year.

Missing six days every term of every year is the same as missing one whole school year.

We are committed to working with parents to improve every student’s attendance and attainment. Our support for learning team meets with every parent and child whose attendance has dropped below 90%.

If you are concerned about your child’s attendance and would like some further support, please contact the school on 01473 464545 or email attendance@oeacademy.co.uk

Mrs Baker, Vice Principal

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Endeavour Attendance The Hub

Aukse Valaite has certainly been expressing her artistic talents whilst being in The Hub, so much so that she has now been given the opportunity by Mrs Baker to take Art as an option. The image above is on display and I am very proud of Aukse’s work. We as a group have also been experimenting with other art techniques, which we will keep you updated with. I am a firm believer that art is a very therapeutic tool for anybody to use and it can be a great way of communicating thoughts, feelings and personality.

In other news myself and Mr White have established two new year 7

groups. We are working on building positive relationships. We cover a

wide range of topics and dilute any internal issues with friendships. The

group has only just started and we are confident that the students will

benefit from the set-up and practise what we deliver to enhance their

school experience.

Miss Stephenson, Additional Needs Instructor

Here in The Hub we have a broad range of activities happening, dependent on individual requirements. Whether we have group work or 1-1 sessions, we aim to develop skills and learning to support success in school.

Artwork by Aukse Valaite

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Future Leaders Ormiston Remembers WW1 I have recently had the privilege to take some of our Ambassadors to Ipswich Town Football Club to attend a Future Leaders Conference. This initiative was set up and organised by Bob Dool from Suffolk One.

We delivered the training to year 10 and 11 students during the Summer term of last year, and due to its positive impact within our schools, we decided to repeat the conference this year.

The opportunity arose for us to deliver the same programme to yr 9 students and put on an additional conference for years 7 and 8.

Representatives from each of the schools prepared and delivered various leadership activities which students attended on a carousel throughout the day.

On the first training day for year 9, each school took 2 students who had attended the training last year, to assist us and use their leadership skills, demonstrating their own personal development as leaders.

Adele Morley and Rose Gant did a brilliant job delivering an activity on Leadership Scenarios, demonstrating their improved confidence and communication ability. All students who attended the events received a certificate, and I look forward to working with them over the forthcoming year to develop their skills further.

Mrs Sewell, Teacher of Food Technology

Our new lunchtime tennis club has been a big success with lots of students taking part everyday - they’ve even been queuing up to take their turn on the court!

Tennis Club

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Future Leaders Ormiston Remembers WW1 On the 22nd March, Ben Cox, Sam Cheetham and Mrs Parsons all waved farewell to OEA and set off to Belgium, accompanied by two students and one teacher from each of the other Ormiston secondary academies. The visit was part of the centenary remembrance tours which allows two students from each academy to visit some of the battlefields and cemeteries of world war one. We spent four days travelling, exploring and remembering with tour guides from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Day One: Trip to Ashford - We were picked up at OEA on Sunday morning, and made our way to Ashford, Kent after picking up more staff and students from other academies along the way. We stayed at the Kingswood centre and met all of the staff and students on the visit. That afternoon we did some team-building activities on the high-ropes courses. After dinner we had an artefacts session during which we got to handle grenades, rifles, bullets and artillery shells from World War One. We were joined by two modern-day soldiers too, who told us how they compared to their kit today. We also had an opportunity to look up relatives or people local to us who fought and died in the war. We looked for people on the Whitton war memorial, as well as the two men who are named on the Akenham war memorial. We could use this information to find the graves of these men to pay our respects.

Day Two: Into Belgium - Today was a long day on the coach. We travelled through the tunnel into France, and then drove through to Belgium. We were staying in Ypres which was a key battleground in WW1. We visited the Canadian memorial which remembered where Gas was first used in the war in 1915, before heading to Tynne Cot cemetery. It was huge. There are 35,000 men remembered there, either with marked graves or on the stones around the edge as they have never found their remains. We spent a long time here walking amongst the graves and trying to locate Arthur Perkis. We did find him, and left a cross for him as an act of remembrance from OEA. After the cemetery, we headed to a museum. This museum had reconstruction trenches in so we spent the rest of the afternoon walking through these and trying to figure out how on earth men managed to live in these for weeks at a time. In the evening we took part in a memorial service at the Menin Gate in Ypres. This service happens every evening, and has done since the end of the war in 1918. The Menin Gate service is open to all, and we watched as the last post was played and some wreaths were placed on behalf of OAT. Once we had paid our respects we had some free time in Ypres before heading back to the hotel and to bed.

Day Three: The Somme - The Battle of the Somme is often described as the most disastrous moment in the war for the British. On the Tuesday, we visited the site of the Battle of the Somme and looked at the trenches the Germans and the British fought in, which were just a few hundred metres apart. We explored the battlefield itself as well as a memorial set up to remember those who fell there. We learnt that some bodies are still being recovered from the sites and that there were shells and bullets still being found in the ground as well. We also visited the cemetery of the Indian troops who served in the war; over 100,00 men came to join the British in their fight against the axis powers in 1915.

Day Four: Homeward Bound - Before we left Belgium we held our own act of remembrance at a cemetery which housed troops from all nations who fought in the war. We reflected upon the impact this would have had on those left behind, and left words and notes behind as part of our act of remembrance. A fantastic visit in which our students learnt first-hand about the horrors of World War One, and the legacy that it leaves today.

Handling artefacts ahead of seeing them in the battle fields & researching our local heroes.

8

Humanutopia Student Artwork

Just before Easter, we had Humanutopia come in and run day long workshops for our year 7 and 9 students. Humanutopia is a social enterprise company that creates and runs inspirational courses in school for all ages of students.

The day long course went though a programme called “The theory of change" getting the students to reflect on the type of person they are and the type of person they want to be. The students took part in lots of different exercises and fun self reflection activities culminating at the end of the first day with a group of year 9 students volunteering to become Heroes and help run the course with year 7 and lead the change in attitude and self esteem.

The year 9s were then given extra training on the second day and then ran the third day with the Humnautopia staff, inspiring the year 7 students to aim higher and succeed. The three days were emotional yet hugely inspiring and all the students took away ideas to help them succeed in school and in life.

We are very proud of our students and the way they took on board all the new ideas and how they are still now using them to endeavour and succeed in all they do.

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Humanutopia Student Artwork

Energy drinks can cause a number of unwanted side effects for teens. The caffeine in energy drinks can

lead to jitters, nervousness, upset stomach, headaches, difficulty concentrating, difficulty sleeping and

frequent urination. Any caffeinated beverage can cause these side effects. The difference with energy

drinks is that some contain excessive amounts of caffeine. Some energy drinks contain more than 500 mg

of caffeine, which is a toxic amount that is equivalent to 14 cans of common caffeinated soft drinks.

Additionally, many of the ingredients are unregulated.

The ingredients can interact with certain medications and cause serious side effects for teens with diabetes, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, seizures, cardiac abnormalities, mood disorders and behavioural disorders. For this reason we do not allow students to bring energy drinks on site.

Year 8 Art students have been learning how to draw human facial features, using a variety of techniques and styles. Below is one group showing off their homestudy work. Each student created an image of an eye on an A5 sheet of paper. The class below decided to have a group photo holding up their creations to make them all look like cyclopes.

Energy drinks

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Endeavour Stars News

Miles Miller - Excellent work in ICT

Avril Bethell for working her socks off at the gym this week

Cornell Godbold - excellent effort during Lexia sessions

Charlie Smith - excellent attitude and very helpful in rugby

Pheobe Carter - good work on Pythagorean theorem

Brandon Woolston - improved effort in all lessons

Harry Oxford - excellent drawing skills demonstrated

Owen Baker - excellent work in Science and Maths

Amber Sparkes - great attitude to learning

Bryony Gooch meeting all deadlines in ICT

Tiffany Hughes good work in Science

Mark Hughes for putting in extra work after the school day

Brendan Warner for teaching other students in Art

Thaine O’Connor for handwriting

Megan Mason - excellent work in Art

Myles Rogerson for receiving a merit in the ICT exam

Ryan Mallon for hockey enthusiasm in PE

Louie Clarke for having some fantastic reports from college

Fariha Ahmed - excellent work on binary in computer science

Tyler Webb for his improved attitude and behaviour in class

Mark Hughes for excellent effort in photography

Samantha King excellent attitude in maths

Abbie McLaughlin is fabulous in Maths

Liam Neal for his great effort with work in The Hub

11

Endeavour Stars News

On the 26th of April I ran 26.2 miles around London. I hadn't lost my car keys or lost a silly bet. I was taking part in the world famous London marathon. I was running, along with 38000 other people, along the streets of London. Without a shadow of a doubt it was one of the hardest things I have ever done but the sense of achievement I felt as I crossed the finishing line was simply amazing. Every single mile of the route was packed with people cheering us on as we battled on, ignoring our brains screaming at us to stop. 750000 people supporting you and cheering your name is a moment you can never forget. Everyone has their own reasons for doing it. Some run to raise awareness for charities. Some run for loved ones. Others run for fun. I guess I ran because I wanted to try and show you all that if you put your mind to it, if you really try hard and strive to succeed then you can achieve amazing things. Mr Lengyel Teacher of Science

Tommy Bradshaw from 7DSL is a very talented puppeteer and has been performing Punch and Judy since he was four. Tommy has performed at many events including Whitton Summer Fate and Christchurch Park. Tommy joined thousands of professional puppeteers in Covent Garden, London on Sunday10th May to celebrate 'The Art of Puppetry' on what would have been Mr Punch's 355rd Birthday.

If you would like to see Tommy in action he will be performing his Punch and Judy act at various venues this summer including Felixstowe Carnival.

The art of puppetry

Marathon news

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News Excellence is standard

Ormiston Endeavour Academy is offering a free blazer and tie to all the new year 7 September 2015 intake. Please contact the academy for more information.

FREE uniform

May

22nd May - Years 8, 10 & 11 Interim Reports

- Academy closes for half term

June 1st June - Academy opens after Half-term

- Year 6 Induction Day

4th June - Year 7 Parents’ Evening 4.30-6.30pm

10th June - HPV injections

18th June - Year 11 Leavers Assembly

23rd June - Parents’ forum 6.00pm

26th June - Year 11 prom

29th June - Year 10 Work Experience week

July

1st July - Year 6 induction day

- Year 6 parents’ introduction evening 5.00pm

2nd July - Years 7-10 final interim reports issued

- Tutor/Parents’ consultation 4.15pm-6.30pm

15th July - Summer fair

20th July - Celebration Assembly

21st July - Activities Day

22nd July - Activities Day

- Academy closes for the summer

Dates for your diary

Ormiston Endeavour Academy has kindly been supported in the production of our

newsletter by Gipping Press.