WINCHCOMBE NEWS

December, 2019

A round-up of recent events in and outside school

Season’s

Greetings!

Christmas Lunch Thursday 19th December

Mary and her team in the kitchen served up their usual delicious turkey roast or Caramelised

Butternut Squash, Brie and Cranberry Tart for vegetarians.

Mary has to order ingredients at least a week in advance, so next year, if your child wants

Christmas lunch, please look out for the letter and order early!

In this issue:

Christmas Celebrations in School

Live Lounge Music Evening

Remembrance Day

STEM Science Show and Lectures

Careers News

Y10 Mock Interviews & Work Experience

Library & Catering

Le Théâtre Français (MFL Department)

WiSPA House Hampers Fund-raising

Health Awareness Day

Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme

PE Department Reports

Headmaster’s Message

Kitchen staff have every-

thing ready to go for when

the first sitting of Christmas

dinner starts at 1pm.

The chocolate fudge pud-

dings are all ready for

collection

Tables are laid for Christmas

dinner and waiting for stu-

dents to arrive back from

the Carol Service

School Carol Service—Thursday 19th December

We are always delighted to be able to visit Encounter Church on

Gretton Road for our annual Carol Service, which is large enough

(just!) to accommodate half of the school and their teaching staff.

Two Houses walk down to the church for each service, with Y11

prefects performing marshalling duties to help everyone to cross the

road safely. Mrs Turner organises the service, this year she was as-

sisted by Ms Broekman, our peripatetic strings teacher, who also

played violin with the student ensemble.

Rehearsing at school for Carol Service

Pastor Mark Bailey (above) ad-

dressed the students, staff and

parents who attended each of

the services and reminded us

that we are all loved.

Left: Encounter Church awaits

the arrival of students attend-

ing the first service

The service comprised congre-

gational carols (O Come All Ye

Faithful and Hark the Herald

Angels Sing) interspersed with

Christmas-themed poetry and

readings plus instrumental and

vocal pieces.

A fabulous start to the festive

season!

HOUSE DAY — WEDNESDAY 18th December

Well done to Sudeley and Langley who were the joint winners of the House debate on

Climate Change (thank you to Geography teacher Miss Hale, for putting together a thought

-provoking Power Point to help start the discussion).

Meanwhile in the gym, Years 7-9 played in a table tennis tournament, with Sudeley taking

the lead, next Cleeve in 2nd place, then Langley followed very closely by Prescott.

If any KS3 students are interested in playing table tennis, Mr Waller is still running his

Monday lunchtime club in the gym.

Live Lounge Music Evening

A colourful welcome to the Live Lounge !

Mrs Turner’s Live Lounge Music Evening in No-

vember was a student-led event, showcasing

over twenty talented students from all year

groups who performed a mix of cover versions

and their own compositions.

An enthusiastic audience also welcomed the

return of former students Izzy Winstanley (2017

Leaver), Molly Albutt, Ben Carley-McCauley,

Aidan Cheale and Isabel Cornwall (2018 Leavers).

Mrs Turner says that the money from ticket sales

(approx. £150) will contribute to the further

development of performing arts resources and

equipment - we look forward to watching anoth-

er musical production next summer!

The Lion Sleeps Tonight Ensemble

Remembrance Day 11th November 2019

Our Head Boys and Girls attended the Winchcombe Abbey Terrace Remembrance

Service on Sunday 10th November with Headteacher Mr Templeton and Assistant

Head Mr Young. A two-minute silence was held on Monday 11th November at

11am on the car park at the front of school. The whole school stood in their tutor

groups at a short ceremony in which four pupils who are members of the Bishops

Cleeve Air Cadets lowered the Union Jack to half mast as a mark of respect. Former

student Jerome Edwards (2017 Leaver) played The Last Post and Reveille.

Ed Cowper (Y10) was in the audi-

ence; he writes:

‘On Tuesday 26th November, many

talented musicians of Winchcombe

school, including ex-pupil Izzy Win-

stanley, performed in Winch-

combe’s Live Lounge with a variety

of different musical performances.

The pieces ranged from smooth

solos to a brilliant finale of “The

Lion Sleeps Tonight” performed by

y10 GCSE music students. They used

various instruments such as the

xylophone and the saxophone. It

was a brilliant evening which show-

cased the talent of Winchcombe

School’s Music Department.’

Stem - news from the science department

Mr Squire, Head of Science, writes:

“On Monday 25th November we welcomed the STEM roadshow team once again. They

represent the combined effort of the RAF and BAE in bringing Science, Technology, Engi-

neering and Maths (STEM) into schools. Each year they bring in exciting real life examples of

STEM careers and cool gadgets to engage audiences in years 7 and 8. This year they brought

in Sphero robots, silly hats and a full size Zorb to explain concepts of mobile phone commu-

nication, programming and encryption. Thanks once again to the roadshow team for an

exciting, educational and engaging show. We hope to see them again next year.”

Tom: STEM visited and talked about

Engineering in the Navy and RAF and

how computation is valuable and rele-

vant to everyday life. It didn’t feel like

an ordinary thing because of the inter-

action they showed, making things

relatable and easier to engage in. Hover

boards were part of the show and it

was cool watching them race around

whilst they were talking. They were all

quite funny because they were using

puns and play-on-words to get their

point across.

Another side of the visit was under-

standing mathematics and equations.

To demonstrate how many circumfer-

ences it takes to get from one side of

the room to another, one of them

climbed into a large inflated ball and

was rolled by students to the other end

of the room.

A cool new gadget was tried out by

lucky students: a small ball that could

change colour and roll every which way

at the click of a button. After that in-

credibly interesting and informative talk

I am definitely considering a job in

STEM.

Jasmine: The STEM show was a lot of

fun and taught me and others a lot

more about phones and new technolo-

gy.

Before the show, I wasn’t interested at

all in STEM but afterwards I was more

interested in it and wanted to learn

more. I liked how they included us in the

experiments - not a lot of shows do this,

so it was nice that we could get in-

volved.

My favourite part of the show was

when they got the giant zorb and

pushed it to the other side with one of

the presenters inside filming it so we

could see her on the screen.

They explained the show well so that

everyone could understand.

Jasmine Phelps and Tom Hunter (both 8CL) watched the show; here are their

impressions:

Year 8 Trip to The Gloucestershire Schools’ Christmas Lectures

A group of very keen Year 8 budding scientists

headed off to Dean Close School at the beginning

of December for the Christmas Lectures. Put on

by the Cheltenham Festivals team, they aim to

inspire students in future STEM roles (Science,

Technology, Engineering and Maths) with exciting

and innovative presentations.

The first lecture was by Antonia Forster and she

looked at ‘The Secret Stars of the Space Race’. As

a scientist working in the field of virtual reality,

we found out about

how the lunar land-

ing of 1969 was

broken down into 5 main problems and how each of these was

solved.

As part of this, we saw two of our students picked by Antonia, to

demonstrate the difficulties of computer programming. Arianwen

had to program a blindfolded Tom, to make a sandwich with just

simple code. Who knew caramel biscuit spread worked so well

with barbeque sauce? Tom even tried it just to see!

Mrs A Hamblin

Stem - news from the science department (continued)

If students have been inspired by their introductions to STEM and want to attend a

specialist Engineering, Design and Digital/Cyber academy after finishing GCSEs at Winch-

combe, SGS Berkeley Green Technical College (near Stroud) are now accepting applications for

post-16.

https://academytrust.sgscol.ac.uk/sgs-berkeley-green-utc

Careers news

Or would you prefer to join

the farming industry?

We’ve heard from the Three

Counties Showground in Mal-

vern that there is a bursary avail-

able to 18-25 year olds living in

Gloucestershire who are plan-

ning to study an agriculture-

related subject.

Maybe someone in your family

would like to apply - or perhaps

one of our current students

might find this useful in a couple

of years’ time if the Society con-

tinues to offer bursaries in fu-

ture years. Worth a look!

Careers news (continued)

On Friday 15th November, we were delighted that over 20 local volunteers with experience of

interviewing in the workplace were able to visit school to give our Year 10 students an oppor-

tunity to practise their interview technique.

The students had previously been asked to complete a ‘mock’ job application form, which was

then reviewed by their interviewer. Each student spent around twenty minutes being inter-

viewed and receiving feedback.

There will be a further opportunity for current Y10 students to practise in March 2020, when

we’ll ask them to review the Personal Statement part of their application form.

If you have experience of interviewing at work and would like to become involved in similar

future events, please contact sedwards@winchcombeschool.co.uk. It is a very positive experi-

ence for all involved!

Sarah Edwards

Isabella Carter (10PR) was one of the students involved; she writes:

My mock interview experience was very beneficial, it helped me to understand what a

real interview would be like and the interviewer was very polite and he was interested

in what I had to say about my future plans and school life.

The interview made me more confident in terms of speaking to an employer and I think

it has made me feel more prepared for when I have a job interview in the future.

Year 10 Work Experience

Year 10 students also spent a week out of school early

in December at Work Experience with a large variety of

employers.

Theo Young (10SU) was lucky enough to secure a place-

ment at Swansea City FC Media Centre and his work

was published in the programme for the Championship

match Swansea v Blackburn Rovers, which was tele-

vised on 11th December.

Well done Theo!

Mrs Barnes and Mrs Cowper have been or-

ganising Christmas-themed activities in the

library, with Christmas pictures, letters to Santa

quiz, card and gift box making and a Christmas mu-

sic quiz - one event each lunch break.

Mrs Barnes says, “There has been a fantastic amount of reading done this term. Nearly 63

million words were read by KS3 pupils and we already have 8 word millionaires! At our as-

sembly yesterday we celebrated the effort and achievement of our pupils, most of whom are

fully participating in Accelerated Reader and are completing their 20 minutes a day reading

each evening. We very much look forward to next term and the opportunity to introduce

pupils to all the lovely new books we have just added to our well-stocked library.“

What’s been happening in the

library Recently?

A Request from the Catering Department

Mrs Brooks asks - if you happen to have any unwanted sweet tubs

or tins after Christmas - such as those pictured right - please could

you send them into the Catering Department for students to use to

take home their cooking? Thank you!

p.s. Ms Paxton in Science is also collecting plas-

tic milk bottle tops for a friend who uses them

to raise money for guide dogs.

MFL: French play (le theatre Français)

Following their resounding success with previous year groups,

Mrs Playfair (Head of MFL) arranged for Onatti Productions to visit the school in mid-November

with their French language play, Ecris-Moi (’Write to Me’). All Y7 students watched the perfor-

mance.

Reviews have been submitted by Imigin-Mai Perry, Anabelle Martin, Jessica Hall & Skye Dunlop,

Amber Herbert and Philippa Fleck. Thank you to all of them for sharing their views with us.

Imigin-Mai Perry: I really enjoyed the French play about René and Ashley it was especially

good because I could hear really well and see really well because I was at the back. Did you know

that Ashley lives in Cardiff and Renée lives in France? I felt they were very organised and it was

very entertaining when they got everyone involved and embarrassed the students. In the play

there was a man and a lady and they were emailing each other but one was French and one was

English so they had to know how to write in a different language. The lady invited Ashley round

and she was looking for him at the train station with a sign in her hand saying his name, he was

hiding behind a magazine. Finally when she found him they thought they were the same gender

so they didn’t want to hang around. Ashley thought it was the worst trip ever. In the end they

liked each other and visited The Eiffel Tower and many more places.

Over all it was a really good play and I would recommend it very much to the new year 7s. I give

it 5/5 stars.

Annabelle Martin: This play was one of the best plays I have ever watched. One of my favour-

ite parts was when they came into the audience and got people to hold up signs so they could

visit all their favourite places. It was also quite fascinating to find out what they eat. Renée [the

girl from France] eats snails almost every night. However Ashley [the boy from England] eats

normal English dinners including burgers and pizza.

The funniest part of the play in my opinion was when Ashley accidentally broke Renée’s toy di-

nosaur [I think it even made the teachers laugh!]. I would definitely recommend this group of

actors to different schools. I would give this play a 5 star review!

Jessica Hall and Skye Dunlop: The play was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen. My favourite

part was when they came into the audience and chose different people to hold up the signs. I

also liked the fact they performed it in French and English. The Onatti actors were amazing and I

thought it was very entertaining. The French actress was called Renée and the English-speaking

one was called Ashley. They started by emails and then they met up in Paris.

The play was very funny; I thought the funniest part was when Ashley knocked Renée’s dinosaur

off the bed.

Amber Herbert: On Thursday 14th November at about 9.30, the Ecris-Moi play by Onati started

and I would 100% recommend it to soon to come Year 7s. It was about a boy named Ashley from

Cambridge and a girl named Renée, who were pen pals.

My favourite part was when the actors got volunteers to hold signs of places and acted like they

were going there and it was quite funny. Another one of my favourite party were when Ashley

found out that Renée was a girl and Renée found out that Ashley was a boy.

I thought that it was very well organised as well as the quality. I could tell that the actors had

practised as the costume changes were very quick. I also thought that the actors were very con-

fident with their lines. Overall I would give the play a 5 star review.

Philippa Fleck: On Thursday 14th November, Onatti Theatre Productions came to Winchcombe

School to perform to the whole of Y7, leaving everyone with a smile on their face.

At around 9.15am, students gathered in the hall to watch a French play by Onatti. The story was

about an English boy called Ashley writing to a French girl called Renée They get on well through

Email until Renée invites Ashley over to Dordogne. When Ashley gets to France they don’t rec-

ognise each over as they are looking for different people. After a while they find each other and

go back to Renée’s house both disappointed. They don’t speak to each other until the last full

day when they go shopping around France. This introduces marvellous places and gets the audi-

ence involved by acting out the landmarks, this made the audience laugh a lot. When they get

back they realise that Ashley must go home to Cambridge again, but before he leaves Renée

invites him back in the holidays. This ends the play and the whole audience gave a giant round

of applause to them. I would highly recommend this play to other year 6’s and year 7’s as it is a

fun way to learn French.

WiSPA Christmas Tombola and House Hampers

Thank you for your generous

donations for the House

Hampers as well as the

Chocolate Tombola stall at

the town’s Christmas Fayre.

You have helped us raise

around £1,000 for the school!

Carol Service 2019

If you have any final online Christmas

shopping to do, please take a few

minutes to sign up to our Easyfundrais-

ing account (Winchcombe School Asso-

ciation - Glos). If you visit Amazon,

Argos, John Lewis or M&S, we may get

a percentage - as another retailer says,

every little helps!

WiSPA also collects used inkjet cartridges, which we

send to Recycle4Charity, who pay £1 for certain

types of printer cartridges: Canon, Dell, HP,

Lexmark, Neopost and Samsung. So if you have any

of these, please bring them into school.

Health awareness day in school

On 21st November, a number of different organisations, including the police, nurs-

es, drugs counsellors and youth support groups visited school to talk to KS3 stu-

dents in an informal setting. Cora Bolton 9LA gives us an insight here:

Throughout the day, classes were given the opportunity to visit different stations in the school

hall focused on mental health and wellbeing. These included information about young carers,

drugs and police work, smoking, school counselling services and first aid.

At the first aid station, we all learned how to do CPR on

adults, children and babies. For babies, you need to use two

fingers to press down on the chest. We found out that every-

body needs 100-120 compressions per minute and that chil-

dren and adults require 30 compressions per 2 breaths.

I found out that a young carer is a child who is responsible

for caring for older or younger mem-

bers of the family. They may require

help and emotional support with this responsibility.

From the police I learned about the different jobs that police dogs do,

such as using scent to detect drugs and catching and holding criminals. I

also got some police dog Top Trumps!

There was also a wall displaying post-it notes describing different strategies to help maintain

good mental health, such as doing sport, talking to relatives and people you trust and listening

to music.

Overall, the experience was beneficial and helped spread awareness of health and wellbeing in

a memorable way.

Next WiSPA meeting is 21st January.

Quiz fans - watch out for our next

one which we hope to hold in March!

Duke of Edinburgh’s award

Mrs Caroline Russell is delighted that Year 9s have chosen to undertake such an

amazing assortment of volunteering, skills and physical activities as part of their

Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.

Helping at Rainbows / Scouts / Brownies / Cubs

Youth work Missing Maps organisation Fund-

raising charity work Cookery Club

Library Reading Buddies Helping with after-

school clubs (netball, football, hockey, rugby)

Helping the elderly /children / grandparents

Helping the community Guide dog training Gar-

dening Working in local café / radio station /

riding school environmental work Teaching

others a foreign language (French / Japanese)

Teaching dance / music / the ukulele.

Running Swimming Tennis Rugby Walk-

ing Street Dance Hip Hop Dancing Horse

Riding Football Netball Athletics Fitness

Gym Hockey Table Tennis Karate

Taekwondo Golf Climbing

Clay pigeon shooting Music Playing an

instrument Refereeing Umpiring

Drawing Pet Care Learning about Ma-

chinery Cooking Agriculture Learn-

ing a Foreign Language Rock Climbing Knots

Drama Horse Handling Gardening

Singing Cricket batting in Nets Netball

Shooting

The question is: Where will they go for their ??!

Charity fund-raising in school

During the final week of term, the Midwinter House Day (non-uniform/Christmas Jumper Day)

on Wednesday 18th December has raised just over £350, to be split between Save the Children

and ScooBDoo, supporting Gloucester Hospital’s neonatal care; these two charities were cho-

sen by the School Parliament students as this year’s beneficiaries. If you still owe £1 for wear-

ing non-uniform, please bring it to Finance asap.

Mrs Staddon’s Coffee Morning and silent auction for staff

(held on Tuesday 17 December) for Crisis, the homeless chari-

ty, has raised an amazing £460, which equates to funding for

15 places at a Crisis shelter this Christmas.

The talented Mrs Sutton (Exams Officer by day, but clearly a

cake decorating super hero when she gets home!) created this

Christmas fruit and nut cake as one of the auction lots.

Congratulations!!

If you have news about your child’s success outside

school and want to share it with the school community,

please do email details to their Head of House.

Sports Fixtures News (autumn/winter term)

Netball results (from Mrs Russell):

25/10/19: Congratulations to the Year 10 girls who played against a challenging team of Year

10/11 girls from All Saints’ Academy and managed a draw. Also to the Year 8 girls who scraped

a win against ASA year 8 girls.

Well done to all girls for managing to keep their cool and for representing Winchcombe school

with a positive and respectful attitude. I’m proud of you girls - well done!

7/11/19: Congratulations to the Year 7 girls who played 5 matches in very cold conditions last

at ASA. The B team came 4th and the A team just missed out by 1 point to come a very close

runners up. Well played everybody, fantastic effort.

Rugby results (from Mr Coles and Mrs Marsh):

23/11/19: Year 7 team entertained Pittville Year 7 boys at Winchcombe today. Pittville got off to a great start catching the Winchcombe boys asleep and scored from the start of the game.

Then the Winchcombe boys started to take control with great runs by Louis Hockey supported by Alfie Kennard with scrum half Liam Hockey supplying the back line with quick ball.

Charlie Bingham started controlling the back line with Jacob Organ showing great pace on the wing with Winchcombe coming out the winners: 20 points to 5.

Well done boys - great performance!

12/12/19: Mrs Marsh took 14 boys from Year 9 to an inter-schools’ Touch Rugby Festival to celebrate their hard work. Mrs Marsh says they were fantastic ambassadors for the school and finished third in the tournament. A special mention to James Roles and Ted Deacon who both scored two fantastic tries; Ted was also awarded ‘Team Player’ for his effort, support for his team mates and fair play during all his games. Well done to all!

House Hockey results (from Mr Young):

25/10/19: Great House hockey competition tonight in terrible weather!!

Sudeley won the final against Langley, so are the Autumn champions.

1st Sudeley 2nd Langley 3rd Cleeve 4th Prescott

13/12/19: Winter House Hockey results (Sudeley still at the top of the table!):

1st Sudeley 2nd Cleeve 3rd Prescott 4th Langley

Badminton results (from Mrs Edwards):

18/11/19: Well done to Lara and Emily Chilton, Cora Bolton and Lily Stanton for their super

performance in the Gloucestershire Schools’ KS3 girls’ badminton tournament at Bournside

School. The team came second, ahead of both Cheltenham Ladies College and Pate’s Grammar

School. They worked extremely well together in terms of court coverage and communication

and were congratulated by the Gloucester Badminton organisers for the evident improvement

in their game since last year!

A Message from the Headteacher:

Mr Templeton and all staff wish you

a lovely Christmas and look for-

ward to seeing you back on

Tuesday 7th January (Week 2)

December 2019

Dear All

As my first full term draws to a close I just want to say a big thank you to all

the students, parents and local community who have made me feel so welcome

since joining the school in September. As you have no doubt seen it has been a

really busy term with students taking part in such a diverse range of activities.

What is not always acknowledged is the daily life of the school. Students have

been working hard in lessons under the excellent instruction of our dedicated

staff. I have been so impressed by the positive and fruitful relationships that all

staff and students have.

Thank you particularly to the members of WiSPA who help at so many school

events with refreshments. Their fundraising activities support the school in being

able to ensure that students have the very best opportunities. It is a real positive

to have such a caring and supportive group of parents. I know that they are al-

ways looking for extra pairs of hands so please do get involved if you can!

A personal highlight for me were the activities around Remembrance week. The

atmosphere as 500 students and all staff stood in silence as our flag was lowered

to half-mast was truly powerful. A ‘thank you’ to a returning student, Jerome

Edwards, for his excellent playing of ‘The Last Post’. I was also lucky enough to

be involved in the Remembrance Sunday march in Winchcombe. It was wonder-

ful to see a whole town come together to remember those who gave their lives

for us. A special mention to all students involved in the event, including our

wonderful Head Girl, Ellen Twine, who gave the reading with such confidence.

There have been so many excellent activities that I’d like to add a special thanks

to the staff who help plan and run them. Without their willingness to go the

extra mile, the enriching activities we are able to offer would be greatly reduced.

Finally, let me take this opportunity on behalf of myself and all at Winchcombe

School to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope

that you have time to spend with those that you care about. We look forward to

welcoming students back on Tuesday 7th January 2020!

Best wishes

Mr Templeton