Bushey Meads News Issue 60 26th February 2016

Oliver! Mr Turner – Executive Principal We were very pleased to receive this email of congratulations from the parents of one of our performers in the recent school production of Oliver and thought it would be good to share it with the BMS community:

Dear Mr Turner, Please pass on our congratulations to all the performers of this year’s production of Oliver. They gave an amazing performance and should all be really proud of themselves, Bushey Meads really has some great talent. Please pass on our appreciation to all the staff involved for also giving up their time especially Miss Brown who has put so much work into The Band. Our son who is in Year 8 played the trumpet in the band and has told us what a great experience it has been as he has never played in a band before and he is sad it is now over, although he is looking forward to a huge lie in on Saturday!!! Looking forward to next year’s production already! Yours sincerely, (Parents of student)

27th February Y7/11 Stoke Mandeville Sports Camp 28th February Antiques Fair 29th February – 4th March Year 10 Work Experience week 2nd March F1 schools event - Year 7, 8, 9 Wednesday 9th March Marking and moderation – school finishes at 1.20pm for students 14th – 18th March Fitness week 15th March Raising achievement evening 6.30-7.30

16th March UCAS convention Year 12 Year 9 Options Evening 17th March French conference – Year 9 and 10

This week's Student of the Week has been nominated by the Senior Pastoral Manager, Miss Dhanecha. Ella in Year 10 Sycamore has been nominated because of the fantastic work she has put into organising her revision timetables well in advance of the exams in May. Ella has made incredible efforts since starting Year 10 to ensure her success at Key Stage 4. Very well done Ella! Keep up the great work!

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This week’s Key Stage 3 student of the week is Jessica in 8Beech. Jessica has the most achievement points in the whole of KS3! With nearly 200 reward points and 0 consequence points. Jessica is a great example to the rest of Bushey Meads School. Keep up the good work and no doubt you will reach your potential.

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Dan 12Sycamore Our KS5 student of the week is Dan who is in year 12. He has been given the award for his superb contribution to the drama department with his leadership of the technical theatre group. Dan is currently studying graphic design, ICT, media studies and photography.

Danielle Bowe - Lead Practitioner for English and Whole school Literacy

Language is empowering This week at Bushey Meads we are thinking about the word transparent and how it can describe the ability to see through an object and the concept of secrecy.

Y7 Student Receptionists of the Term Spring 2016

Year 7 student receptionists have continued with their amazing work during the first half of this term and have

all been so fantastic that we really do not feel we can choose just one student as our receptionist of the term. For this reason, this half term we are awarding the following students with 10 achievement points and a

certificate of acknowledgement. These students have all been a pleasure to work with and they most certainly went the extra mile during their time on reception and we both feel thoroughly deserve a special mention:-

Lia Flanagan 7Maple

Eric Hinkley 7Maple

Virat Sangasinha 7Maple

Nehal Pabari 7Oak

Brandon Trickett 7Oak

Taylor Bees 7Sycamore

Thank you all so much and well done. Thank you also to all Y7 students who have been student receptionists

this term, we really would be lost without you.

Mrs Nealon and Mrs Biggerstaff

Debating Society: Wednesday 10th February 2016 by Elodie Mayo (year 13)

To coincide with the well-known occasion on Sunday 14th February, the last debate before half term focused on differing standpoints towards Valentine’s Day. The event was heralded sublime by Huda Farooqi (8_) and Zarmina Galmne (10W) who argued that it reinforces the appreciation of, as well as amending of, relationships. It is a day where love is celebrated and dates back to ancient times long before the legend of St Valentine. Conversely, this ‘celebration’ was disregarded as

ridiculous by Elodie Mayo (13E) and Cyntheiah Siva (12A), who stressed that the event has become

not only a manipulative business ploy encouraging the large sales of merchandise but also a pressure exerted by social media through its public interface. Indeed a statistic of an average couple’s spending was approximately £100 and it has been found that the statistic for suicide rates increase on that day. The audience was delighted and fired numerous questions to both pairs of speakers. Do we oppose it on the grounds of personal jealousies? Should we not celebrate close relationships throughout the year and not just on a particular date? It was finally held that Valentine’s Day is ridiculous. So, many apologies to those who busily wrote their Valentine cards! There will be more exhilarating debates fortnightly on Wednesdays in H2 as per usual. New members are always accepted.

Stakeholder Surveys and Questionnaires

At Bushey Meads School we listen carefully to all members of the school community and work together to improve the school. Every year we conduct a number of surveys involving all of our key stakeholders (students, staff, parents and governors) and feed the information obtained into our ongoing school improvement planning. All parents are being encouraged to use the online Parent View Questionnaire. If you haven’t yet completed this questionnaire, please do click on the link below to access it and enter your opinions of our school.

https://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/login?destination=give-your-views

By Mr Turner, Executive Principal

The certainly sessions enabled students to put in those few extra hours that will undoubtedly make the key difference between those all-important grade boundaries and help

them secure their true potential in the forthcoming examinations.

It was real delight to see so many hard working Year 11 and Sixth Form

students attend the many and varied

focussed revision and coursework catch-up

sessions arranged during the recent half term

holiday.

I would like to thank all the hard working staff who made the sessions possible and

are continuing to support all the students in their studies at this crucial time.

Year 9 STEM Enrichment Day Mr Chalkley – Head of D&T faculty

The enduring question "Is there life on Mars?" gave year 9 students something to think about as they took on the challenge of designing and making a Mars Rover vehicle. Working in house teams, they researched, sketched, prototyped and tested their vehicles to carry valuable Mars eggs down a testing track containing hidden obstacles. Over the day, about 50 teams took on the challenge and more than

half managed to build a fully working vehicle that completed a successful test run.

ECDL NEWS (European Computer Driving Licence - GCSE level course)

Mr Fisher – Assistant Headteacher Over the half term break a number of year 11 students came in on Monday, and others came in on the INSET day too, to complete their ECDL course. The picture shows Kerrie, who already completed to an A* grade, coming along as an ECDL ambassador for the day to support her colleagues. As a result we have 33 more students now enrolled and started than in my report from two weeks ago, and 21 more top grades achieved. We are now up to:

104 year 11 students enrolled 69 students fully completed:

o 59 to an A* grade o 9 to an A grade o 1 to a B grade

33 students on the way to completion, also to high grades.

Watch this space as more students go the extra mile and aspire to achieve with ECDL

SPORTS NEWS

External Extra-Curricular clubs at Bushey Meads week beginning 1st March

Trampolining Sessions with High Springers Trampoline club

Monday’s in the gym - check the extranet and noticeboards for details or contact Charlotte:highspringers@outlook.com

Zumba - Tuesday’s in the gym 3.15 - 4.15, all welcome

Arsenal Ladies Football Coaching - Tuesday’s after school, all welcome

Athletics with Watford Harriers

Athletics club is on Tuesday’s

Bring kit and meet in the sportshall at 3.05

Sessions will continue throughout the Summer term on Tuesday evenings.

Gymnastics Club - Wednesday and Thursday after school

Boxercise - Thursday’s after school, all welcome

Hertfordshire Warriors Basketball Coaching with Hertfordshire warriors takes place on Fridays.

Open to ALL students from 3.05 - 4.30

Students MUST be in kit

High Achiever Awards – first half of Spring Term 2016

As many of you are aware last year the school introduced a special new award for students called a High Achiever Award. Throughout the year, every half term, each faculty is asked to nominate one student from each year group to receive a High Achiever Award based on the student’s work, effort, attitude and achievements made throughout the previous half term. Each student who receives a High Achiever Award will have their name published in the weekly newsletter, and a copy of their certificate displayed on High Achiever noticeboards which are placed in prominent places around the school site. They will also will receive a letter of recognition from the school and their certificate is posted home to their parents. I am delighted that the following students all received a High Achiever Award for their work during the first half of the spring term. We congratulate them all for their recent success.

COMPUTING AND FUTURE SKILLS

Franchesca Boselli 7B Excellent computer control work Elaine Chiu 8B Developing a great understanding of databases Anas Djahnit 9S Excellent achievement programming using Python Oswald Fernandes 10E Creating a wonderful Web Banner for his controlled assessment Harry Eagell 11S Being the first Student in BMS to complete the ECDL course Emily Wray 12W Effort, commitment and achievement in ICT Keshava Krishna-Das 13M Excellent Computer Science PPE result

DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

Hannah Barry 7E Excellent attitude and determination to produce high quality work Lorel Barchieri 8O Outstanding quality of work and a growth mindset George Hinkley 9M Superb problem solving skills and a great helper of others Keeley Geraghty 10M Fantastic skill development and high quality product manufacture Somer-Lily Blakey 11W Presenting her food to excellent standard & producing high quality written report Jade Booth 12A Being a talented designer producing fantastic sketches for her designs Olamide Oshisanya 13B Dedication to producing an innovative product & supporting younger students

ENGLISH

Bobbi-Rose Brindley 7S a fantastic attitude to learning, often completing extension tasks voluntarily Elaine Chiu 8B Submitting work early and for having an outstanding neat exercise book Jessica Storey 9E Working hard in every lesson Megan Marks 10E Being a focused and enthusiastic student Neil Shah 11S For insightful contributions in class and a consistently high attitude to learning Molly Thomas-Irving 12B Good progress and effort; using independent study to develop learning James Kumru 13M Mature, focused and reliable in all aspects of his study

HUMANITIES

Zeal Rathod 7M Fantastic attitude and effort in History Zuzanna Pawlaczyk 8E Superb effort and wonderful work in R.E. Marie Hofer Tillyer 9O Excellent participation and hard work in Geography Victoria Woolmer 10B Superb effort in History and outstanding organisation skills in leading ‘So Last Era’ team Tungvidya Samaji 11B Excellent attitude and commitment in GCSE R.S. Giuseppe Lourenco 12A Excellent attitude and improved effort in AS Geography Olivia Waites 13M Continued dedication and hard work in A level History

LEARNING SUPPORT

Francesca Martin 7M Continual high motivation and fantastic attitude Asher Reuben 8W Being fantastic in the school production and improved effort in English Sarthak Kanel 9E Excellent attitude (fun) in afterschool SEN PE Max Sheehan 10W Being, without a doubt, one of the hardest working charity fundraisers Archie Arthur 11M Persistent hard work and displaying a positive attitude

MATHS

Tejas Aiyar 7E Scoring an astonishing 90% in his Half Term 2 Test Lakshaa Srishankar 8S Scoring an astonishing 93% in her Half Term 2 Test Rafi Izhar 9E Scoring an astonishing 95% in his Half Term 2 Test Karan Mavji 10E Scoring an outstanding 100% in his Half Term 2 Test Elin Bonyadi 11S Achieving an A* (94%), which was the highest PPE result in her year group Noah Malancinas 12W Scoring an outstanding 100% in his AS Maths PPE Joseph Marks 13A Achieving an outstanding A* result in his A2 PPEs

MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Amani Wahabdeen 7O Constantly striving to succeed Charlotte Barnett 8E Working independently and striving to do her best Gita Dyjecinska 9S Constant effort and positive attitude Luca Castello 10B For trying until he succeeds Thimeshi Kulasinghe 11B Constantly striving for improvements Deborah Gosden 12E For taking a part of the lesson and for always trying to improve Shriya Pandya 13W Excellent commitment to written work

PE AND HEALTH

Luke Robinson 7A Excellent attitude in all aspects of PE Jessica Enevoldson 8B Excellent attitude in all aspects of PE Megan Sjollema 9M Extra attitude and effort in all aspects of curricular and extra-curricular PE Maya Parmar 10B Attending extra-curricular clubs and representing the school for the first time Ben Thomas 11E Making an excellent start to the GCSE PE revision programme Tommy O'Sullivan 12E Continuing hard work and attainment on AS PE course

PERFORMING AND VISUAL ARTS

Millie Ashford 7B For always trying her best and thinking outside the box in Art Jessica Enevoldson 8B Excellent sketchbook and class work in art Aidan Angold 9O Most improved attitude to learning in dance Devan Parmar 10S Excellent written work and participation in Oliver Georgie Collings 11O Excellent and committed performance in Oliver Laura McKenzie 12O For consistent work rate and always pushing the boundaries in AS level fine art Matt Hale 13S Hard work and commitment to A2 level photography

SCIENCE

Csenge Szabo 7A Consistent hard work and enthusiasm in science Levi Haughton 8A Positive attitude and engagement in lessons Louise Dwyer 9M Outstanding effort, focus and excellent engagement in activities Sajeethan Kanesamoorthy 10W Outstanding achievement and focus in science Jadd Jalkhi 11M Hugely improved levels of focus and engagement in science Giuseppe Lourenco 12A Full participation and engagement in AS Biology Sophia Colville 13M Persistence at Hardy-Weinberg calculations until she could do them!

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Dena Nunes 10M Her assistance with another student and her continued patience in Childcare Thimeshi Kulasinghe 11B Demonstrating hard work and resilience in order to exceed her Psychology target Molly Thomas-Irving 12B Work ethic and achievement in Business Studies Andra Dumitrache 13S Continued effort and achievement in her Law PPE

STEM

Zara Naghibi 7O Excellent attitude to learning across all STEM subjects Kara McMahon 8M Excellent attitude to learning across all STEM subjects Marie Hofer Tillyer 9O Excellent attitude to learning across all STEM subjects Ella Ward 10S Excellent attitude to learning across all STEM subjects Elin Bonyadi 11S Achieving an excellent EDCL result Luke Hemmings 12S Excellent attitude to learning in Science and Computing Andrew Taylor 13E Applying consistently high effort in Physics and Chemistry

Mrs Ash, Assistant Headteacher

Cheques no longer accepted By Finance Department

Please note from effect of the 1st March 2016 we will no longer be accepting cheques. All payments are to be made online, using your Tucasi secure scopay.com log-in details which have been recently sent to you. If you are unable to set up an online account or require your Tucasi secure scopay.com log-in details, please contact finance on finance@busheymeads.org.uk.

Thank you in advance for your co-operation

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ASH BEECH ELM MAPLE OAK SYCAMORE WILLOW

House Points 2015-2016