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The St Lawrence Academy Autumn 2016 Newsletter
Celebrating Autumn 2016 Volume: 19
Welcome to our Newsletter Celebrating Autumn 2016 After a long,
very busy Autumn Term yet again, here we are beginning a new year,
a new term and a fresh start for us all.
We have some exciting events and trips this term ranging from
our ski trip to Italy and the Creative Area trip to Berlin during
the February half term, and all the other day trips, our RAD and
many visitors scheduled to come in to the academy. So, another busy
varied term to inspire, excite and engage the students to
participate and take full advantage of the many opportunities,
alongside doing their best academically.
Once again, as always, we need your support to ensure we
continue on our journey to become outstanding in all aspects of our
work. Remember, if you have any suggestions as to how we can do
even better in the future, please do not hesitate to get in
touch.
I wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2017.
Joan Barnes
Principal
National Citizen Service
Last summer a number of St Lawrence students embarked on an
adventure filled experience of a lifetime when they completed the
National Citizen Service Programme with Scunthorpe United Trust.
The 4 phase programme included:
A weeks residential in the Lake District participating in
adventure activities
A weeks residential at the Lawns University Campus in Hull,
learning new skills such as self defence and project planning to
name a few
A week planning a social action project with their team
A week delivering their social action project in the local
community.
Every student in Year 11 will get the opportunity to take part
in NCS keep an eye out during the Spring Term for more information
about how you can get involved.
For information about our 2017 NCS programme check out
www.ncsyes.co.uk or email us on [email protected]
Keep an eye out for NCS in the academy soon!
Mrs Joey Kock (Year 11 ATL)
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On Thursday 20th October we held our annual Sports Presentation
Evening and we were delighted to have a number of VIP guests with
us to inspire students and present awards, they included Graham
Alexander, Rob Vickerman and representatives from the Rugby
Football Union and Scunthorpe United. Once again the evening proved
a popular event with great support shown from students, parents and
staff. Our youngsters were awarded a variety of accolades and
certificates to celebrate their sporting year of 2015/16. The
winners of the 10 main awards were as follows:
Participation & Progress Sam Fisher
Team of the Year KS3 Street Cheer Squad
Leadership Award James Ray-Solanke
PE Department Outstanding Achievement Award Megan Diggle
Outstanding Sports Day Award Oliver Spindley
Y11 Outstanding Male George Graham
Y11 Outstanding Female Kate Robinson
3rd Place Sports Personality of the Year Olivia Tuffs-Moulds
2nd Place Sports Personality of the Year Cameron Harrington
1st Place Sports Personality of the Year Oliver Spindley
This was the first time in the history of the event that we had
the same students placing in the top three positions for sports
personality as the previous year, an exceptional achievement for
them considering it is an award voted for by the students at the
academy. Likewise, it was the first time that we have ever had a
double winner, so huge congratulations go to the talented Oliver
Spindley.
Well done to all the students who won one of the 10 main awards
and also to all those that were awarded certificates for
participation on the evening. Our students continue to show passion
and commitment towards sport at the academy and our celebration
evening is always a fantastic way to reflect and embrace the
previous years achievements and successes.
We look forward to seeing you all there again next year!
Mrs Lindsay Shutes
(PE Subject Leader)
We recently took 12 students over to Hull to take part in the
Inclusive Football event against other schools from North
Lincolnshire. Both teams participated in fun activities and drills
in the morning and then played a tournament against the other
schools in the afternoon, our U16 side went on to win the full
tournament which rounded off a great day overall.
Mr James Stainton
(PE Technician)
PE Department News
Sports Presentation Evening
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The Big Dinner
Rugby Kit Design Students create a legacy as our Creative
and
PE departments team up Our talented Year 10 students have
designed our first ever Rugby Kit. Their creative skills will leave
a legacy with the Academy as our new Rugby Kit which they designed
will be part of our Sports Uniform for many years to come. Our
designers are: Jessica Bush, Bethany Busby, Vanessa Carapinha and
Habibah Shah. The students designed our new Rugby Kit as part of
the Canterbury All Schools Workshop in the Autumn Term. They will
be able to use the processes they completed for the design for
their final assessment for their GCSE Art and Design, Textiles. We
are delighted to see their work a reality as we are now able to
unveil the final product for both matches and for the community to
see as we showcase the completed rugby shirt in our academy
reception.
Mrs Helen Parker
The Big Dinner Event, held at The Baths Hall on October 9th, was
a culmination of months of planning to design, cook and deliver a
three-course menu after being supplied a brief by noted local
Winteringham Fields Restaurant Owner Chef - Colin McGurran. The
evening saw the launch of the of North Lincolnshire Councils
Childrens Literacy Trust. Colin said the Big Dinner aimed to expand
young peoples confidence and expand their horizons for when they
look to embark on a career. The students of The St Lawrence Academy
and Frederick Gough schools contributed ideas for the menu, which
Colin then put his own twist on. Two of our year 10 students,
Demetri Nikolaidis and Harry Kafarski, spent a day with Colin and
his team at Winteringham Fields practising some of the ideas for
the menu. On the day of the event, the students were given training
by the Baths Hall staff in how to set up the banquet tables for the
200 guests expected and how to work as part of a team. The Year 11
students involved in this were Taylor Cox, Daniel Pollard, Warsame
Dualeh, Courtney Smethurst, Gabi Levkova and Diana Veidere, The
guests tucked into a starter of salt and pepper poached prawns with
red pepper sauce. The main course was blackened pork loin with
barbecue pork belly, red cabbage and roasted root vegetables.
Dessert was peach melba cheesecake with marinated peaches,
raspberry and coconut ice cream. The whole event was a huge success
and the students worked until the end of the evening clearing the
tables. All the students involved were presented with certificates
of congratulations and a goody bag, and two special awards were
presented for outstanding contribution to work in the kitchen to
Demetri, and during service to Courtney. Special mention to Rowan
Tierney, who delivered a excellent speech charting his own personal
journey with reading and writing, and Diana Veidere whose logo
design idea was chosen for the tickets and posters. Mrs Karen Regan
(Food Technology)
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Literacy Across the Curriculum
Since September, we have introduced a new online Reading
Programme called Lexia, primarily to Year 7 Polaris students, to
improve overall literacy and reading skills. The focus of the
activities help students increase automatic word recognition by
reinforcing phonic elements and sound symbol relationships. There
are a broad range of independent interactive activities (basic to
advanced) enabling readers of all levels to improve their skills.
To date, we are very pleased with the positive results, seeing 55
students increase their reading level by at least one or more in
the last term alone. We will continue to use this throughout the
year and look forward to its continued success. A number of
students have been appointed in the positions of English Leaders,
Literacy Leaders and Literacy Assistants. So far, the English
Leaders successfully performed at the Year 6 Open Evening reading
poems and extracts from our curriculum texts to visiting parents
and students adding a literary flavour in the evenings events.
Literacy leaders have had formal training from Sarah Tiplar who
represents,Words Count, this is to enable them to be effective peer
readers to assist younger students in the Academy and we look
forward to beginning these sessions in this term. Literacy
Assistants have been appointed for every tutor group and help on a
daily basis with Word of the Week and sharing and encouraging
fellow students to engage in writing and poetry competitions. As
you can see it has been a busy yet positive start to the academic
year.
Mrs Kate Williams (LAC Coordinator)
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Reading Stars
We recently accompanied some Year 7 and year 8 students down to
Study Parks at Glanford Park as part of the Scunthorpe United
Reading Stars within school. They dressed up as reporters,
completed a fact sheet and made a video of the new Scunthorpe
United football ground.
Mrs Mel Woolnough
MFL Reward Card Competition Grace McLaughlin (7A) made a
rewarding start to Year 7 as she won the Modern Foreign Languages
Reward Card Competition. Her talents have not only received
recognition from staff and students but will be recognised by
parents as this reward card has been produced for the
department.
Ruby House Update
This term Ruby House has been getting involved with all of our
exciting house competitions with great success, both in terms of
participation and wins. Some of our achievements have included a
group of students from 7R, who won the My School, My Business
competition earlier this term. They designed a camping trip which
they then had to pitch to their tutor group and then to a panel of
judges, including Mrs Barnes. They came out on top winning the
competition and told us that, It was a great experience and it was
a lot of fun to win.
Well done to our budding entrepreneurs!
Another success came from the Diversity Month poetry competition
which was won by Simla Chowdhury with her brilliant poem about how
the world would be boring without the diversity we have. Simla told
us after her win, Im glad to have won as its good to celebrate our
diversity especially through things like poetry. Congratulations to
Simla and everyone else who participated.
Weve had some great participation and our top participant this
term was Dylan Bennet who also went on the Airkings reward trip for
his enthusiasm. Lets hope for this level of participation next term
as well!
Shiuli Bhattacharyya (10Ruby)
House News
House Rewards Trip As students battled their way to gain top
participation for their House Activities they were rewarded with a
trip to the new Airkings Trampoline Park. As students bounced to
new heights they can think about out upcoming competitions and how
they can stay the top of their House.
Mrs Helen Parker
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Other News
TSLA UPCOMING
EVENTS
Wed 25th January = Y11 Narrowing the Gaps Evening
Wed 15th February = Raising Achievement Day
18th February to 26th February = Ski Trip to Italy
17th February to 22nd February = Graphics Trip to Berlin
Fri 17th February = close for Half Term
Mon 27th February = academy re-opens
and goodwill for our academy Christmas Trees, preparing sketches
and prayers for the Christmas services & singing carols while
exploring our theme of generosity to others. The services, held at
St Lawrences Church, Frodingham, were a wonderful celebration for
the end of term. Thanks to Mr Shepherd and Miss Staiger, the choir
lead us in singing and celebration, with students lighting candles,
reading from the bible, sharing prayers they had written
themselves, offering their gifts in stockings, performing short
plays and singing solos. It has been wonderful to see how
respectful and open the students are, always keen to participate
and make a difference in so many different ways.
Sarah Spencer (Chaplain)
Project Blyth Formula 24 Car A team of Year 10 students have
been recruited to join Project Blyth. The team will build a Formula
24 Car and race against 60 other schools in the massive race around
Hull City Centre in July. The team meet weekly after school and
gain support from Mr Cretney to build the car and develop the media
team who have started setting up website and awareness raising
media. Our school mentor is Skills Centre Plus who will support the
build, links with the engineering industry and skill development.
We look forward to keeping you updated on the progress of the build
and the pre race results in June.
Mr Matthew Cretney (Technology)
Diary of a Chaplain Back in September, I started here at TSLA in
the role of Chaplain. It has been a joyous and welcoming first
term, meeting and greeting students and staff alike, and finding my
feet in this energetic and vibrant community. I started by spending
time with the new Year 7 students (we were all finding our feet!)
by accompanying them on a long five mile walk each day. It was
great to be out of the academy, and chatting with them about their
homes, their hopes and their interests. We discussed the
environment, observed the wonderful life of birds, we picked up
litter and studied nature in action. Then, my focus turned to the
Year 10s and Year 11s with a busy year ahead, it was a privilege to
meet each tutor group, and wonder with them how we might love our
neighbours as ourselves and use our time, our talents and our
treasures to help others. They were very responsive, and considered
both the effect they have right now, and in the future. These
reflections became a noticeboard, covered in colourful hands,
containing their thoughts and their prayers. Once again, the
generosity of all the students emerged during the week building up
to Harvest, as boxes and boxes of goods, all decked out in house
colours, arrived and accumulated in the Hall. Thanks to the big
heartedness of your children, Scunthorpe Food Bank received a
whopping 570kg of food & groceries from us here at TSLA, up
130kg from last year - enough food to feed 68 people for 3 weeks. A
fantastic achievement. After half term I visited Years 9 and 8 for
reflection time. We considered the things that pull us down and the
things that lift us up. We spoke about God being with us in both
the ups and downs of life, during the good times and the bad. Each
student decorated an origami bee and offered their highs and lows
to God, re-assured that we are not alone. As the days grew shorter
in November, Year 7 came in small groups to the reflection room to
think about prayer. We built prayer candles, and wrote and shared
prayers together; prayers of thanks, of regret and prayers of
request. There were some very moving responses and quiet moments
for students for whom life has not been easy. December brought the
excitement and business of Christmas. In the academy we prepared
with an Advent countdown challenge, filling stockings for
disadvantaged kids in the Scunthorpe area, writing messages of
hope
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TSLA join the Local Authority project as part of Word Count
exploring themes of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, using
basic creative coding to program geometric shapes, text and images
using 'Processing' open source software.
Work produced will be combined together with artworks by Genetic
Moo into an interactive installation which will be exhibited at
20-21 Visual Arts Centre early 2017.
Mrs Helen Parker
THE ST LAWRENCE ACADEMY
Doncaster Road Scunthorpe
North Lincolnshire DN15 7DF
website www.tsla.co.uk e-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 01724 842447
The St Lawrence Academy wanted to use the theme of Power For
Good through the use of positive words to show all students they
are supported.
Peer Mentors provided every student with information about
bullying, the impact of bullying and types of Bullying. Discussions
around bullying and banter also helped students consider situations
where intentions were not to bully but the outcome may make someone
feel bullied.
Peer Mentors supported students to write a kind message on a
butterfly to create our Power for Good wall display. Messages were
positive and thought provoking. The display is located in the main
central atrium for all to see and symbolises that hope and freedom
is within all of us.
Jordan Canvass 10G
FAO: KS4 students and in particular Year 11 students
Take advantage if you haven't already of 2 free apps for your
phone and tablets. Available on IOS and Android. See your subject
teacher and Head of Department in MATHS & ENGLISH for your
log-ins and passwords.
Mr Phill Dalowsky (SLT)
