Newsletter

As we come to the end of our Autumn Term I would like to thank all pupils, parents, staff and

governors for their support and wish you all a very peaceful and joyful Christmas. Having

worked hard all term, the students and staff will be ready for a well deserved break. We have

had a busy and productive term once again.

Year 11 have completed their mock examinations, alongside year 10 who also completed mock

examinations in both Maths and English. All pupils have demonstrated exemplary conduct

during the examination period and have begun to receive their results.

Reading the newsletter I never ceased to be amazed by the abundance of talent our

students possess. During our recent Christmas concerts students demonstrated how far they

have come and how much talent they possess. It was also wonderful to see a sneak preview of

our show ‘Beauty and the Beast’ that will take place on 17th and 18th March, 2020.

On Tuesday 17th December we held our termly ‘Accelerated Reading Awards’. This recognises

students that have made substantial progress on our reading programme, well done to all who

were invited to attend.

A special well done to all of our Year 7’s for completing their first term in secondary school.

We pride ourselves on positive relationships throughout the school with the pastoral team at

the heart of this. If you would like any support for your child do not hesitate to contact their

form tutor or house team.

Students return to school on Tuesday 7th January at the usual time of 8.25am.

Holly Rigby—Head of School

Autumn 2019

PE News Football

It has been a busy term of football with County and District competitions on the go.

Year 7’s took part in the ESFA 5-a-side competition at AFC Telford. Unfortunately we couldn’t replicate last years girls success but a great effort by the students who attended.

The Year 7 girls played their first round in the County Cup, beating Ercall Wood 6-3. The boys had a bye in the first round of the District Cup and will be playing Ercall Wood in round 2 after Christmas.

The Year 8 girls continues their success from last year by beating Shrewsbury Academy in the first round of the County Cup, winning 6-2. They will play Thomas Telford in the quarter finals after Christmas. The boys unfortunately lost v Ercall Wood in the District Cup.

The Year 9 boys had an exciting game v Burton Borough in the District Cup. The game ended 2-2 and the boys unfortunately lost 4-3 on penalties. They will now be entered into the

District Plate after Christmas.

Year 10 boy’s played Ercall Wood in the first round of the District Cup, losing heavily to a strong team. They will now be entered into the District Plate after Christmas.

The Year 11 boys have played in both the Presidents Plate, losing to Charlton and played Meole Brace from Shrewsbury in the County Cup, unfortunately losing 3-0. They will begin their defence of the Presidents Plate after Christmas.

Netball

The Year 9 & 10 combined team took part in the TWSSA competition this term. Unfortu-

nately due to poor weather they only managed 1 round of the tournament where they

played 3 games. No wins but it was the first time some girls have played competitively.

Well done to all that took part!

Shropshire County Football Squad

Following his successful trials last year, Preston Whinnerah has been playing for the

Shropshire County team in several games this term. He has scored a few goals and has

been impressing the coaches. Well done Preston, keep it up.

House Sports

This year we have begun to add to the Inter-House competitions. Each half term we are

running an event; term one saw Orion win the first event – badminton. During the last week

of this term we are running interhouse 5-a-side football. The points from all events will be

added to the Sports Day points to crown our overall House Sports Champions!

Twitter

The department has a Twitter account where all PE & Sport related news is give. We

will give results, fixtures and photos of sporting life at Telford Park School.

Follow us on: @TelfordPrkSchPE

Remembrance

On Friday 11th November the school held it’s Remembrance Day assembly, as part of the assembly both the choir and the Year 10 Drama students did performances, this year’s performance was centred on the theme of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disor-der). The choir began with an emotional performance of Dua Lipa’s Homesick, telling the story of a soldier leaving loved ones behind.

The Drama performance that followed was prepared and presented by our Year 10 Dra-ma students who based their moving flashback on the lyrics of A Soldier’s Memoir by Mitch Rossell. The performance featured a soldier returning home from combat, and, through the other performers on stage, he relived his experiences. Students created still images and moving pictures and used costume and imaginary boxes to represent attempts to remove the thoughts and troubles from the soldier.

I can still taste the powder, from the barrel of my gun

And I can hear my sergeant screaming' "Run soldier run"

I can feel the backpack on my shoulder, God it weighed a ton

And I can see death in every single thought

They taught me how to put that uniform on

But I just can't get it off”

Mr Smith (DT) spoke about his Great Uncle Jack's war diary. He served in an anti-aircraft gun battery in North Africa and then in Italy between late 1941 and the end of the war in 1945 including the battle of El-Alamein in 1943. His diary describes life in the army in some detail and gives a great insight into what war was really like. Many of the students have told me that seeing the photos of the actual battlefields made them realise how brave the soldiers were on both sides.

Some said that it made Remembrance Day seem more relevant to them.

Mr Hylton again spoke about his former Army colleague Gunner Paul Sheppard who was sadly killed on operations in Northern Ireland in 1978, Mr Hylton spoke about how he had contacted the Ministry of Defence to try and get some information on the IRA gunmen who had killed Paul.

This year we had a record number of Cadets for the assembly, Jerry Lee-Jones, Jake O’Neil, Amos Alexander, Luke Morgan, Jake Stubbings, Cameron Chambers, Kalini Tay-lor, Sami Ahmed, Dylan Austin and Joe Stewart. If any students wish to join the Cadets then please see Mr Hylton, don’t forget you must at least age 12 and in Year 8.

For this year’s assembly we were fortunate to have come into school Mr Ian Macronald –Lyman, a former soldier and bugler, at the end of the assembly Mr Lyman played the Last Post and Reveille.

Performing Arts

Blood Brothers Theatre Visit

Performing Arts students from Years 10 and 11 visited the Birmingham Hippodrome at the

beginning of October to see Blood Brothers, the production. All students have studied this

play in their Drama lessons as part of Components 1 and 2 of the BTEC course, and so

seeing it live in a theatre, increases the student’s understanding and appreciation of the

whole production. Students have been quoted saying that it was even better than Fame last

year!

Mike Southern Blood Brothers Masterclass

Following our visit to watch Blood Brothers at the

theatre, Year 10 and 11 Performing Arts students

participated in a masterclass with Mike Southern,

an ex- West End actor. Mike had played the role of

Sammy on Blood Brothers on the West End for a

number of years, and will be joining the cast again when the tour reaches Liverpool. Mike

began his workshop with the students by encouraging them to behave like younger children

and engaged them in a very early morning game of Cowboys and Indians. He followed this

with a quick workshop on the Liverpool accent, and then read through and staged a scene

from Blood Brothers with our students. The students gained a lot from this morning and

thoroughly enjoyed it.

Upcoming Events:

Artsmark Celebration Event: 14th February 2020

Telford Sings: 25th March 2020

Beauty and the Beast: 17th & 18th March 2020

Rock School’s Concert: 11th May 2020

Christmas Concert

This year, Telford Park Performing Arts students gave two Christmas

performances; the first in the afternoon of 10th December to our feeder primary schools

Grange Park and Windmill; and the second was an evening performance to friends and fami-

ly. The shows featured many solos, choir numbers and Rock School pieces and included

Christmas numbers such as O Holy Night, Silent Night, All I Want for Christmas is You, and I

Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday. Audiences were also treated to a sneak preview of our

next whole school production Beauty and the Beast.

Careers across the Curriculum Year 8 students from both Park and Langley School visited the World Skills Live exhibition at the NEC Birmingham. This is the largest work and education exhibition in Europe and it pro-vided an opportunity for pupils to experience many different career opportunities in differ-ent sectors of work. Prior to the event students completed a questionnaire to find out which careers would be most suited to them giving an indication as to where they should focus their efforts on the day. At this exhibition there was a focus on 4 sectors each with different activities and competi-tions for students to engage with: Health, Hospitality & Lifestyle Construction & Infrastructure Engineering & Technology Digital, Business & Creative It was an amazing experience for all of our students, who learnt so much in such a short space of time, we’ll definitely be returning next year. Year 8 student William Young won a £20 Cineworld voucher for his review of the event. Thank you to Reassure for providing this. If you had a child who went on the visit we would love to hear feedback from you. http://bit.ly/parkcareersurvey (case sensitive)

Local Career Market Information Telford and Wrekin have produced an excellent digital resource about careers and training in Telford. We will be sharing this with students in school but thought it would be useful for you to have access to talk through this with your children at home: http://bit.ly/LMITELFORD (case sensitive)

Visit to World Skills Live – Birmingham NEC

My intention for the trip was to find my future job and I did. At the trip there were para-

medics, there was even virtual reality and it was a blast! There were formula one cars

and helicopters, planes and jets! It was extremely thrilling and everything I expected.

My favourite thing had to be the virtual reality because you could play with light sabres

and find out which animal you were most like. I could find out about college and univer-

sity loans! I learned about technology and how to rewire a mainframe; you could climb

walls and there were so many things to learn about I couldn’t keep up it was so big!

A quarter of the NEC was a live arena held by a youtuber who was showing us what a

human throat looks like inside a real living body!

The trip was exquisite; I could learn how to build a roof and how to tile it and really I

thought that building was easy but I quickly changed my mind. When I am older I want

to be an engineer. There were so many things there about engineering it was incredible.

There were careers like mechanical engineer, metal engineer and building engineer. I

think I would be a good mechanical engineer.

The trip was great, I would recommend it to year 7 for next year. The only downside was

that it was a long day and I fell asleep as soon as I got home, I was exhausted! I would

rate it 9 out of 10 and would have made it a 10 if it was a bit smaller but other than that

the trip was well worthwhile. I would love to visit again.

My overall thoughts were that the people that were there so nice and kind. They all de-

serve a pat on the back! The visit was awesome, my favourite trip at school by far and

the teachers did really well, it was amazing!