March 2015 4

NewsletterI am delighted to report that, on Monday 2nd March, Eggbuckland Community College became a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) with Austin Farm Primary School. This means that our College is now responsible for the strategic decisions that affect the running of the primary school and, consequently, their performance. The formation of the MAT has been an extremely lengthy process which started 15 months ago but we had to ensure that we were doing absolutely the right thing for both schools and, most importantly, our students. The Local Authority has been extremely supportive throughout this journey and have committed funds to address some of the issues that Austin Farm faces, particularly related to improving the school's learning environment.Apart from Austin Farm Primary School now being known as Austin Farm Academy, there will be no immediately obvious changes. However, in time, I am confident that the students, staff and parents of both schools will really see the benefits brought about by this new partnership. Most of all, I believe that it has the potential to really improve the life chances of the young people who attend our schools.Katrina Borowski, Principal

Community CollegeEggbuckland

Plymouth University students visited to deliver “Citizen Science”, collecting information about the wildlife in the College grounds. Our students had a great time looking at leaf litter and pond organisms and went in the woodland to look at lichens and winter twigs.In addition, Year 6 students from Eggbuckland Vale have been to the woodland to look at habitats and adaptations. They researched the behaviour of woodlice back in the laboratory, building mazes and they found worms for a wormery, that they took back to their school.

Years 7 and 8 from

Eggbucklandand Year 6 from

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LearningOutdoor

... make use of our Woodland Area for

City ChefsThree Year 10 GCSE Catering students entered the Young Chef Team Challenge competition at City College recently. The team was required to design a three course menu suitable for Plymouth Raiders' players, Jordan Clarke and Ben Mockford, who judged the event at the College's PL1 Restaurant. Local chefs Mike Palmer from the Two Bridges Hotel, Dave Jenkins from Rock Salt and Richard Farleigh from City College also judged. Eggbuckland students battled it out against six other local schools. Jack Brown, Brandon Reeve and Jacob Wollington produced an exciting menu consisting of tempura battered vegetables with a homemade mayonnaise and sweet chilli sauce for a starter. The main course consisted of pan fried haddock served with creamy spinach linguine, followed by a vanilla pannacotta served with apple crisps and blackberry and apple coulis. The boys did fantastically well by winning the best main course in the competition. A massive well done to the boys for their hard work preparing for the event as well as their efforts on the day.

With the General Election only a few weeks away, Eggbuckland Community College will be running their own in-College election and have been helped in their preparations by the local candidates and MP. Johnny Mercer (Conservative), Jonny Mercer (Green), Alison Seabeck MP (Labour) and Stuart Bonar (Liberal Democrat) have all given generously of their time to come into College and meet with the students

who will be mounting their own campaigns in the build up to the General Election. The idea was to run an in-College election alongside the General Election, fielding

representatives for four parties – (Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and the Greens) with a brief to mount a campaign to win hearts and minds and a College-wide vote to be

thtaken in tutor groups on the morning of May 7 . The teams selected were: Jenson Sheppard and James Linford – Labour; Lottie Stevens and Laurie Sheridan –Green; Ellie Sheridan and Gabrielle Wood – Liberal Democrat; James Stoneman andTom Boddy - Conservative.Having met with the real life candidates, the next stage for the students will be planning and running a campaign within the College. This will involve ensuring they are clued-up on their policies and able to present them convincingly. They will be asked to present their policies in

a party political broadcast to be shown in tutor groups as well as running their own individual campaign through April and into May.

stHustings are planned for Friday 1 May and students will be encouraged to vote for their chosen th

candidate in morning registration on May 7 with the result to be announced later that day.

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thOn Thursday 5 March, Eggbuckland joined the World in celebrating World Book Day. This day shows the importance and privilege of reading and encourages everyone to share their favourite books and imaginative ideas.Eggbuckland celebrated by inviting staff to dress as their favourite literary character; Ev Spiking looked fantastic in her Noddy costume.The Library hosted visiting author Peter Lockhart who gave a fantastic presentation of his newest book, Time Raker. He discussed his process of writing and how and where he gets his imaginative ideas. He spoke to students about how he became a writer, what inspired him to write about time travel and his new novel Time Raker. The story combines time travel, history and science fiction, in which 14-year-old Tom Raker travels back in time and meets history's most famous rulers and leaders in his quest to find his missing father.Some Year 7 and 9 students also had the opportunity to try on Viking costumes and chainmail. Also visiting the Library was poet Michael Sullivan, the first Adult Poet Laureate of Plymouth. He was engaged in November 2013 and performs his poetry at different events as well as being commissioned to write poetry for different organisations such as Derriford Hospital. He led with the

stquestion “Is poetry still relevant in the 21 century?” and argued his case to persuade most of the students by the end of the session. The Library ran two Doctor Who competitions and the winners were Mollie Calvert-Townsend and Jack Knowles. There was also a short story competition, the subject being “Time Travel” and the winners are to be announced on

thWednesday 25 March with prizes of 2 Kindle Fire HDs.

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thPrior to the Solar Eclipse on Friday 20 March during Period 1, we have been fortunate enough to do some work with Hannah from Exeter University, who is completing her PhD in AstroPhysics. Hannah was able to speak via a Skype link to students in Year 8, Year 10 Triple Science, the Astronomy group, and some Year 12 students. Hannah explained to us how we can view the eclipse safely, as well as why an eclipse may occur. We aim to stream a live video of the event (weather depending) across the College using some of the College telescopes and cameras so that you will be able to see the moon passing over the sun. This is a safe way to view the sun, whereas looking directly at the sun, even for a very short period of time, will cause permanent eye damage. Following the assembly Hannah commented, “I think video chats are a great way of engaging with schools and I am glad that you are embracing it as a means of education. “

Preparing forthe darkness & the

thOn Friday 20 March, Students witnessed, for the first time in their lives, a partial Solar Eclipse. You can see a video of the eclipse that was recorded from the College telescope, and broadcast to local primary schools, via our Facebook page which had over 27,000 hits.

Year 12 aspirations to raise money for Comic Relief proved to be another 'Super Sixth' success. Sporting events organised through the week to inspire interest saw Edgcumbe House victorious in both Key Stage 3 and 4 football tournaments whilst Year 7 and 8 playing dodgeball proved amazingly popular. The main event on Friday included a fantastic Main Hall concert from our multi-talented musicians plus stalls and games throughout the College. Final totals raised during lunch by Year 12 topped £250 and the final Eggbuckland total was a brilliant £946.16.Well done and thanks to all involved.

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thOn Wednesday 11 March Eggbuckland received an invitation to lunch at the Royal British Legion in Crownhill with Mr Alan Tapper, President of the Crownhill Royal British Legion, and Mr David Carnell, Chairman of the Branch.Mrs Western, Mr Hateley, Mrs Troughton, Rebecca Morris 8-E6, Clayton Sargent 8-E3 and Dan Woodman 8-C1 were treated to a tour of the facility and enjoyed a delicious lunch as a thank you for raising £550 from the sale of the Ceramic Poppies made by Year 8 students in Art last year.Mr Tapper presented the students with a certificate of appreciation and a selection of poppy gifts and asked that we pass on their thanks to the students and staff who were involved.

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A group of Year 7 boys enjoyed a day of dance with professional dancer and choreographer James Wilton. James has recently performed his touring work 'Last Man Standing' at the Barbican Theatre. Before travelling to London and then on to China to complete his tour, he managed to fit in a visit to Eggbuckland Community College. James spent the day working with the boys on a variety of repertoire, but the most memorable has to be when he taught them the choreography he created and performed for the Rugby League World Cup in 2013. The boys really enjoyed working with James and the buzz for boys' dance is starting to grow. As a result of this workshop a request has been made for a boys only dance club. This will run on Wednesday lunch times in the Dance Studio, starting on Wednesday

th18 March. All year groups are welcome. Thank you to all the boys who participated so enthusiastically.

thOn 18 March Eggbuckland student, Megan Homer, spent the day on HMS Ocean as a HMS Heroes Ambassador. The event marked the launch of Armed Forces Day in Plymouth and Megan had the opportunity to meet with personnel from the Royal Navy, Army, Royal Air Force, Royal Marines, as well as representatives from the Royal British Legion, the Veterans community, local children representing Plymouth's Community Covenant and representatives from the cadet services. Whilst Megan was busy on board HMS Ocean, another Eggbuckland student, Jacob Wollington, was attending the Council Chambers as part of HMS Heroes network meeting where he met the Lord Mayor with 20 other service children from around Plymouth and had the opportunity to sit in the chambers and ask the Lord Mayor questions. HMS Heroes is an organisation that offers support and opportunities to

children and young people who have parents and siblings serving in any of the Armed Forces. Eggbuckland has been

involved with the project from the very start and many of our students have benefitted from a

range of events and activities. If you have a family member serving in the Armed Forces and are interested in joining HMS Heroes or would like to find out more, please contact Mrs Kelly Palmer who is based in Hartley House or email her on kpalmer@eggbuckland.com.

HMSHeroes

Year 12 Biology students took part in the Microverse

Project organised by the Natural History Museum. The project involves taking samples from surfaces on the outside of buildings to discover the types of bacteria that live on them. Dr Anne Jungblut of the Natural History Museum wants to know how different types and ages of building and their position affects the type of bacteria that grow there.So on February 10th the Year 12 group took swab samples from the surface of one of the oldest buildings in the College built in 1978. We sampled the brickwork, the window frames and the windows and sent them in for analysis. The Museum will send us the results of their DNA analysis. We prepared agar plates and so already know that the window frames had the most bacteria living on them with up to 5 different types. It would be great to find out that at Eggbuckland we have a rare species!

College Studentsdo Researchfor the NaturalHistory Museum!

Tyler Horn has exploded onto the sport scene of the College. He had experienced indoor rowing while at primary school, so this wasn't a completely new sport to him when he was selected for the Plymouth Indoor Rowing Championships, held at Plymstock at the start of term. Tyler's performance in these championships, however, was a revelation to everyone.In a two minute sprint, Tyler managed to row 509 meters. For those in the know, that's very impressive; it made him the Plymouth Champion.Three weeks later, Tyler was thrown into a much bigger pool of talent, rowing against the best from the region when he competed in the next round of the nationals held at the College of St Mark and St John. This time around, Tyler was a virtual blur, pounding through a distance 539 meters in the two minutes and now he's the Regional Champion.This weekend it will be off to London for Tyler to compete in the national finals. He will be going up as part of the overall Plymouth Team and with him will be Kieran Kirby from our sixth form who has also qualified for the nationals.Fingers crossed that we'll see Tyler back in College with a third medal around his neck. Special thanks goes to s Mr Will Price, for his fantastic support.tudent teacher,

Tyler isRegionalindoorrowingChampion!

Our Year 11 Public Speaking Team comprising George Harvey, Abigail Cundell and Kieran West competed against five other schools in the South West Regional Final of the Churchill English Speaking Union's

thPublic Speaking competition at Blundell's School on Sunday 8 March. They performed with great competence and George excelled himself by being voted the best speaker overall! Mrs Barry, Mrs Bruce and Mrs Simpson were very proud of their performance and the hard work and enthusiasm they put into this.They are a credit to our College- well done!

The College is delighted that it has finally been possible to upgrade the seating in the Drama Studio. The seats are used most days for assemblies, for College productions and special events and were badly in need of replacement. At a cost of £42,687, this has been a significant investment but students and visitors are already appreciating the improvements.

As part of National Careers Week and National Apprenticeship Week, students th

participated in various activities on Friday 13 March to highlight the variety of options available to them. Activities included:

The Young Chef Team Challenge at City College

A visit by Years 10 and 12 vocational students to Open Doors Mi-Space at Mount Wise to look around the construction site.

A visit by Year12 Health and Social Care students to Derriford Hospital for the NHS Apprenticeship event

Plymouth City Council Apprenticeship team presented to Year 11 P4L students on apprenticeship opportunities across their organisation, where it was great to see ex-ECC student Jake Holmes promoting his career pathway, well done Jake!

Participation of Years 7 and 8 in a huge Enterprise Activity

A Year 9 aspirational visit to Plymouth or Exeter University

A Year 10 Careers Exploration Day which saw a large number of local employers delivering workshops to our students.

Jodie Williams and Kira Penaluna winners of the Year 10 Careers Exploration activity, have both won a £15 gift voucher and had this to say about the experience:“The objective of the work we did on Friday was all about raising students’ aspirations. It was a day to show students the endless opportunities available to them and to spend the time talking and explaining to them about those possibilities. We were lucky to have lots of help from Santander, Babcock, Growing Sustainable Futures, NHS, MARJONS, Peninsula Medical School, Cornwall College, Bond Dickinson, Careers South West, AMEY, Keepmoat, Focus Training, The Army, The Royal Navy, MIDAS, Plymouth University Business and Science Departments, Exeter University and the local Roborough Rotary club. We thank them all for helping to make the day so successful.”Don't forget to follow @Eggycareers on Twitter for further career information and opportunities.

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