Inside this issue:- Page

Paralympic Success 1

News from the Head 1-3

Uniform 1

Useful Information from Matron 4

KS3 Focus Week 4

Congratulations 5

Wendover Youth Club 5

Yr 13 Stock Market Challenge 5

Sixth Form News 6

World Challenge 2012 7

Holiday Dates 7

Advertisements 8

A Specialist Humanities College

NEWSLETTER

Issue No. 95 September 2012

NEWS FROM THE HEAD

Former John Colet student wins Paralympic Gold

Congratulations to Pamela Relph who won rowing gold in the mixed coxed four at Dorney Lake. Pam has suffered from arthritis since she was seven but has not let this stop her achieving sporting excellence. Pam represented the school in many sports and found ways of adapting her training given her disability. A post-box in Weston Turville has been painted gold to acknowledge this fantastic achievement.

Well done, Pam from everyone at John Colet!

Welcome: Welcome back to everyone and a special welcome to new students who

have joined us throughout the school in September.

We have also welcomed new staff to the school.

• Mr Allsopp (Learning Support Assistant, LSA)

• Mr Craker (Business and Administration Apprentice)

• Mrs Duodu (Maths)

• Miss Gladwin (LSA)

• Miss Hodson (Maths)

• Mrs Holt (Science)

• Mr Howarth (Caretaker)

• Mr Jackson (Geography and PE)

• Miss Pilkington (Science)

• Miss Roberts (LSA)

• Miss Stewardson (LSA)

• Mr Underdown (Geography)

There have been some internal staffing changes.

• Mrs Whyle is now Senior Technology Technician

• Mr Bevan has moved to part-time teaching in Maths

• Mrs Walker (Science) and Mrs Whitehouse (PE, Child Development) have moved to full-time teaching

Mrs White will be off work for up to 3 months following an operation. I am pleased to be able to welcome Miss Razzack to John Colet and she will be covering for Mrs White. Miss Razzack is an experienced teacher of Art and Photography up to A Level. We all wish Mrs White a speedy recovery from her operation.

The Governing Body are very much aware of the responsibility upon them, as a large local employer, to offer employment opportunities for local young people. We currently employ local young people aged 17-22 in four different areas of the school – Finance, Site, Office and Individual Learning (IL). Two of them are on Government Funded Modern Appren-ticeships.

Farewell: Sadly at the end of last term, we said farewell to our Data Manager Mrs Ca-dogan. Mrs Cadogan had worked at the school for ten years and was at the forefront of the development of the use of data within the school. We wish her well on her promotion to a school in Milton Keynes.

UNIFORM

We now have, in the Library, a selection of John Colet School sweatshirts and polo shirts for trying on, to ensure correct sizing before you place your order in the normal way with Stevensons. To make sure they are available please contact Mrs Clark prior to coming into school to try them on.

Page 2 NEWSLETTER

Exam Results: We had an excellent set of results this Summer and all of the students involved in external exams must be congratulated upon their performance. A lot of hard work from the students, staff and parents goes into the success.

In Year 13, there was a 98% pass rate with over 30% of the grades at A*- B. The top performances were Will Gurton with 2 A* (Sociology and Sports Studies) and 1 B (Religious Studies); Alice McDonagh with 2 A (Communication Studies and Sociology) and 1 B (Business Studies). Congratulations to Will who also achieved 100% in one of his Sociology papers.

In Year 12, the top performances were Josh Smith with 3 A (Business Studies and Double Award ICT) and 1 B (English Literature); Ruby Dobson with 2 A (English Literature and Psychology) and 2 B (General Studies and Communication Studies); Rachel Durrant with 2 A (Business Studies and ICT), 2 B (Maths and Double Award ICT) and 1 C (Further Maths). Congratulations to Rachel who achieved 100% in one of her Business Studies papers.

Congratulations to Emma-Louise Simpson who passed the first module (Design and the Web) of her Open University degree.

In the GCSEs, the 5 A*- C results, not including English and Maths, was 73% which was up on last year. 98% of students completed Year 11 with 5 GCSE grades including English and Maths.

In the press, you will have read about the issues surrounding GCSE English Language this summer. In line with many other successful schools nationally, we have been affected by the unexpected change in grade boundaries which especially affected Controlled Assessments; work worth a grade C in January 2012 was worth a grade D in Summer 2012 – exactly the same piece of work. Nearly 20% of the year group would have been awarded a different GCSE English Language grade. We have put in appeals for a large number of English Language results and are awaiting the outcomes.

The English Language GCSE affected our 5 A* - C results including English and Maths and is about 50%. If the 20% of students who got a lower English grade had got the higher one then the 5 A*-C including English and Maths would have been close to 60%.

Our top performing students were:

Liora Michin with 10 A* and 2 A grades

James Davis with 5 A* and 7 A grades.

Congratulations to the following students in Year 11 who got 100% in modules:

Charlotte Allen (Additional Physics); Victoria Allford (Additional Physics and Chemistry); Daniel Atkins (Additional Physics); Mike Austin (Science Ideas in Context and Additional Chemistry); Jemma Bennett (French reading, German listening, Chemistry and Additional Physics); Steven Betts (Additional Physics); James Bowers (History); Niamh Brady (Chemistry); Emily Bronicki (Additional Physics); Ryan Brooks (Additional Physics and Chemistry, History); Ewan Brown (Science Ideas in Context); Kelvin Cheung (Additional Biology); Thomas Creasor (Additional Chemistry); Nicole Crossley (Science Ideas in Context, Additional Physics and Chemistry); James Davis (Chemistry); Ramsay Elmiliek (Additional Physics); Georgia Galvin (Additional Physics); Bishwas Gurung (Additional Physics); Emily Hall (RE); Jake Hall (RE); Felicity Harrington (Additional Physics); Sarah Harris (Additional Chemistry); Rachelle Harrison (French listening and reading); Rob Hazard (in 2 History modules); Chloe Hinchliffe (Additional Chemistry); Isabelle Hooper (Additional Physics); Charlotte Jarrett (Additional Physics); Lauren Jarvis (Business Studies); Nicole Lester (Graphic Products coursework); Sophie Lock (Additional Physics and Chemistry); Kieran Mackay (Additional Physics); Hope McIntyre (Additional Physics); Ryan McSweeney (Additional Physics and Chemistry); Liora Michlin (German writing, Additional Physics and Chemistry, Business Studies, RE); Megan Minall (Business Studies); Charlotte Morris (Additional Physics); Ryan Murray (Additional Chemistry); Simran Ojale (Additional Physics); Dillon Roche (French writing); Jack Rootes (Additional Chemistry); Amy Russell (Business Studies); Amanda Sanchez (Additional Physics and Chemistry); Jenna Sandford (Additional Chemistry); Cameron Shirley (Science Ideas in Context); Lauren Skinner (Additional Physics); Arran Stewart (Additional Physics); Adeeb Taj (Additional Physics); Hope Taylor (Business Studies); Sarah Windeatt (Additional Chemistry); Luke Thurkettle (Additional Chemistry);

Year 10 students also took a variety of modules which they will be building on this year. Congratulations must go to the following students who achieved 100% in a module:

Ross Baughan (Chemistry and Biology); Jordan Brazier (Chemistry); Nick Dean (Chemistry and Geography); Oli Inkley (Chemistry); Billy Millins (Chemistry); Lewis Price (Chemistry); Haleema Siddique (RE); Harry Stroud (Science controlled assessment); Hollidae Wilkinson (Chemistry); Daniel Yazdani (Chemistry).

Page 3 NEWSLETTER

School Strategy: Our main focus will still be on raising achievement for all students. We have reviewed the way that we set homework in the school and parents/students will have already noticed changes in this area.

Over the last couple of years, we have been developing and increasing our work with the local community. Students who participate in this have to work with others, show initiative and creativity, problem solve and adapt according to circumstances. These are all skills and qualities which employers and Higher Education say that they need from young people today. A further development of this will take place this year with the introduction of the John Colet Community Award. Mr Measures who is leading on this will send out more details once it is finalised and ready for launch. This award will be unique to John Colet and a “selling point” for our students when they attend interviews.

It is important that students have a wider awareness of the world in which they live. We are making changes to morning registrations so that every student looks at current affairs for that week. We are also introducing literacy, numeracy and problem solving activities into this time as well.

The Olympics, Sport and John Colet: I know that many people were inspired by the Olympics and there has been a great debate about school sport in the press since. We are very proud to have a Paralympic gold medallist as a former student.

Here at John Colet, we see sport as a key part of our curriculum. As well as helping students to be healthy and active, research shows that regular exercise improves achievement. We offer a wide variety of sports from the traditional football, netball, rugby and basketball to handball, dodgeball, zumba and ultimate frisbee. We are a very competitive school but also recognise that some students prefer to use sport to stay healthy rather than be competitive.

All students in Years 7 to 11 have four hours a fortnight of timetabled sport. In addition, there are many lunchtime and after-school clubs for students to take part in. Through Mrs Whitehouse’s work, we have developed links with external sports clubs so that students can take part in sport out of school as well.

Student participation in timetabled sport is very high and we do operate a policy of “Fit for school, fit for PE”. Parents/carers would not write a letter excusing a student from say Maths or English and so we do not accept letters of excuse for PE unless there are medical reasons backed by a GP or medical practitioner Where there are medical reasons backed by the GP, a student is still expected to participate in the lesson by perhaps providing feedback to students on performance or keeping the score.

I am very grateful to all of the staff who give up their time to offer extra-curricular sporting activities for our students. The range of opportunities on offer is outstanding as was recognised in our OFSTED report.

I do hope that lots of students, inspired by the Olympics, Paralympics and Team GB, will take part in the high quality sport offered here at John Colet.

Exam changes: Over the last year, the Government has announced changes to GCSE and A Level exams. We do not have any definite information about the changes as very little has been formally published. As and when we get official notification of changes we will let you know.

The School Canteen: Recent articles in the press have highlighted the fact that Academies do not have to follow the School Meals Regulations which were brought in following Jamie Oliver’s campaign.

At John Colet, we strongly believe in students following healthy lifestyles and so when we converted to an Academy, we continued to follow the regulations.

Given our kitchen/dining facilities, we are not able to offer everything in the regulations but at the same time, everything that we do offer fully complies.

Now that we have refurbished our Science facilities, we are turning our attention to kitchen/dining facilities. Our first priority will be to identify a suitable space, then draw up plans and finally fundraise. This will not be a short-term project but it is our next major capital project.

ICT: Over the summer, we undertook a major upgrade of network servers and software so that our ICT network had the capacity for further growth over the coming years. This was at a cost of over £50,000.

As with all ICT upgrades, we have had many issues and we ask for your patience if you have been affected by it. The website software became a problem and we were not able to update the website in certain places for the first few days back.

Mrs C McLintock - Headteacher

Page 4

NEWSLETTER

USEFUL INFORMATION FOR THE START OF THE SCHOOL YEAR from MATRON

Welcome back to all of our returning students and a special welcome to those who have just joined the school. May I just remind all parents that should they have any medical issues or concerns regarding their offspring, please do not hesitate to contact me. All medical information forms are available for downloading from the school website and these need updating annually, please. If a student should be away from school unwell, please could I ask that you telephone or e-mail the school each day of the absence and that a note is handed in when the student returns to school. Currently, a number of students have been unwell with a tummy bug and I would like to emphasise that a student should not return to school until 24 hours after the last bout of vomiting or diarrhoea, to minimise the risk of spreading the infection.

A large number of students travel to school by bus and if students have misplaced their pass for a school bus then they need to obtain a temporary pass from the front office. We are able to supply a pass for up to 5 days, but following this students wil l be required to pay for a daily ticket from the front office at the cost of £2 each way. We therefore, encourage parents to phone and obtain a replacement pass from Client Transport at Bucks County Council at the cost of £10 as soon as they have clarified if the pass is lost. Drivers of ‘school buses’ are not allowed to take cash.

Drivers are within their rights to refuse to allow students on the bus if their pass is broken or defaced. Drivers are also within their rights to ask students to leave the bus if their behaviour is deemed unacceptable. The students should not be eating and drinking on the bus. Students are encouraged to report episodes of bad behaviour to school staff where we can take appropriate action.

Students who travel on public buses but who have privately purchased a pass need to speak to the bus company directly if there is a problem with a pass.

If students are planning to travel home with a friend on a different bus after school then they need to bring in a note from parents stating that they are happy for their son / daughter to travel on a specified bus and then obtain a ticket from the front office at the cost of £2.

Clearly to avoid missing buses, it is better if students come to the front office at break or lunch time rather than 5 minutes

before the bus leaves Maddie Jenkins - Matron

Key Stage 3 Focus Week 2012

On the 5th to the 11

th of July 2012 we had a very successful Focus Week for Years 7, 8 and 9. This is a curriculum

initiative that involves themes from the National Curriculum for KS3. These themes are taught in cross-curricular subject groups to develop strong links between subjects and enrich the curriculum. It has a focus on education, rather than an activity week with trips to theme parks, although many trips did take place.

The normal timetable was suspended and students were based in different areas of the school in order to complete a variety of activities. Examples of these in Year 7 included Healthy Lifestyles; Creativity and Critical Thinking – Mars Project, Technology and the Media – Computing through Code breaking, Global Dimension and Sustainable Development – visit to Whipsnade Zoo, Identity and Cultural Diversity- visit to Neasden Mandir, Culture and Heritage – Normandy visit for Year 7 students.

In Year 8, Identity and Cultural Diversity - Bollywood Experience; Creativity and Critical Thinking – visit to the Imperial War Museum, Global Dimension and Sustainable Development, Healthy Lifestyles and Enterprise activities.

In Year 9, Heroes and Villains, Healthy Lifestyles, Army Orienteering, visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and a ‘Who dunnit ? Murder, mystery and suspense day.

Students rated the week as mainly excellent to good in the evaluation sheets they completed after the event. Examples of the comments made by students in Year 7

– “ the code breaking was great fun”; “ Neasden Mandir was really pretty and interesting – finding out about Hindu culture”. “ Trip to Normandy was brilliant and the lovely bus driver”; “enjoyed the trip to Whipsnade”. References to ‘fun’ were often repeated and students appeared to really enjoy the events.

Comments from Year 8 included: “ really enjoyed making propaganda posters for the Blitz day”; “I enjoyed looking around the Imperial War Museum;” “setting fire to liquids in Science and Art”. “Cycling and swimming in Healthy Lifestyles”. “Enjoyed the music and watching the film – Bollywood experience”. “Enjoyed the Happy Puzzle Company” and “Team Building”.

Positive comments from Year 9 included: “Finding the killer in ‘Who Dunnit’?- I enjoyed this”; “GPS activity in the woods”; “ analysing samples – especially vomit”. “ I enjoyed looking at fashion in the Victoria and Albert museum”. “Filming a drama scene and acting with costumes”; “Heroes and Villains - watching the Hancock film”. “A big thank you to the teachers, who made a real effort to make Focus Week so successful”.

I could list many more positive comments about the week, but the good news is that we will be repeating and

developing these experiences for next year. Jan Firbank - Assistant Headteacher for Teaching and Learning.

NEWSLETTER Page 5

CONGRATULATIONS!

EX-STUDENTS GOING FOR GOLD!

We are delighted to be able to share with you the successes of two of our ex-students. We are thrilled at their achievements.

We are all very proud to share in the pleasure of Pamela Relph achieving a gold medal in the Paralympics.

AND

We are pleased to celebrate the achievements of Tom Piers who attended John Colet School from 1997—2003, and graduated from Leeds University with a 2:1 in Pharmacology, completing an industrial placement research year with GSK in Harlow between his 2

nd & 3

rd years. Following university, he was again employed by GSK in

Singapore to help establish a new company research and development model, which was subsequently rolled out throughout the company. After one year abroad he returned home overland on the Siberian Express via China, Mongolia, Siberia and West Russia meeting up with his fiancée Claire Williams, also an ex-student of John Colet, in Moscow and St Petersburg before returning home. Tom immediately started a three year research doctorate degree course at the Institute of Neurology, University College London and graduated with a PhD in Neuroscience, completing the research required in under three years. The ceremony was held in London on 28

th August 2012.

Tom now works as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in a world renowned laboratory at the University of Bristol, performing research into the cellular mechanisms associated with Alzheimer's disease to aid in our understanding of the disease and hopefully contribute to the development of new medications

Wendover Youth Club

Looking for a fun night out with your mates or a way to keep in touch with your friends now you’ve moved to different senior schools? Why not come to Wendover Youth Club on Wharf Road (Wendover School Campus) and see what’s going on? We’re open on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 7.00 - 9.00 p.m. and we’re always happy to see new faces. Age range: 11 - 18 years.

Check us out on our Wendover Youth Club Facebook page for our regular updates. We’ve planned an exciting Autumn term:- the football cage in September and we know how you loved the sumo suits, so they’re coming in October. We are also working on a trip to Thorpe Park and possibly late night ice-skating.

We have been open during the Summer and we’ve got lots of new ideas we want to share with you.

Year 13 Stock Market Challenge

Every year I provide some of our Year 13 students with £1,500 of real money to invest on the stock market (providing the previous year’s team don’t lose it all!) with the promise that any profit the pupils make on the value of their shares, they keep. This year’s successful team of Sean Smith, Andy Kane, Jake Castling and Charlie Robinson managed to finish with a portfolio worth £1,856 leaving £356 to share among themselves! This placed John Colet 6

th

nationally and 2nd

in our regional league, an outstanding achievement. Well done, lads! I hope the next batch of investors are just as successful!

Mr. Gardiner - Head of Business Studies

Sixth Form News

The new academic year has begun and the Sixth Form now consists of 122 students, 56 in Year 13 and 66 in Year 12. In Year 12, we wel-comed 8 external students who have come to us from the Sir Henry Floyd, Mandeville, Branston Community Academy in Lincoln and St Bernard’s in High Wycombe. We wish them well in their studies at this school.

This year we have introduced Vertical Tutor Groups, which means that we have mixed together the Year 12s with the Year 13s. We now have five tutor groups and the tutors are as follows: Mrs C

Griffin, Mrs M Johnston, Dr P Myatt, Mrs S Taylor and Mrs V Walker. All have years of experience in tutoring and I know they will be very supportive to all their tutees.

For the Year 12 Induction, on Wednesday, 5 September, the RAF spent a morning doing various team building exercises so that the Year 12s and the external students could get to know each other better. The RAF initiated a number of taxing, yet amusing activities and the morning was a great success and exceptionally enjoyable. I would like to thank Wng Cmdr (Ret’d) Lee Cobley for organising these activities with the help of a group of his officers.

At the end of last term, the Head Boy, Head Girl and their deputies were voted in and the results are as follows:

Head Boy – Jason Gooderham

Head Girl – Kate Bowman

Deputy Head Boy – Jamie McIntyre

Deputy Head Girl – Emma Eastgate.

We wish them well in their new roles and I am sure that they have many exciting ideas to promote in the Sixth Form this year. Mrs Jane Larkham, the Editor of Wendover News is coming in to interview them at the end of September and will be writing an article about them in a forthcoming edition.

On 24 and 25 October, most of Year 13 is on Work Experience. They have found placements and will be work-shadowing various people in different companies in the vicinity. Hopefully, they will find this both beneficial and enjoyable.

Year 13 are, at the moment, doing their UCAS applications and tutors, teachers, Head of Sixth Form and myself are all busy reading their personal statements.

We are very proud that two ex-students from this school have recently made a name for themselves in the sports’ world. You have already read about Pam Relph winning gold at the Paralympics.

Another ex-student, Rebecca Stephenson, now 26 years old, has with a group of young people, just swum the Channel in a relay event. She had to swim for one hour. Again this is quite an achievement.

Hopefully the students are now fully settled into the Sixth Form. It will be a very busy year for both Year 12s and Year 13s not only with their studies but with all the extra-curricular activities in which they are involved.

Jayne Gott

Assistant Head of Sixth Form

Page 6 NEWSLETTER

WORLD CHALLENGE 2012 – SWAZILAND John Colet and Princes Risborough Schools

On arrival at the airport, we met the whole group for the first time, the people we would be sharing the

experience with and upon whom we soon became totally reliant. With 100 teddy bears in hand and our team

leader we departed for Swaziland.

Our trip had been split into three separate phases the trekking , project and relaxation. Before we started

our trekking phase we each got the chance to take part in zip wiring. There were 13 zip wires across the

Gorges, an incredible experience, which I’m sure none of us will forget. The trekking phase began soon after

and gave us a chance to go out into the wilderness and camp wild. We relied on the river to wash in and

trangia stoves to cook on, as well as each other for moral support. We woke up each day with some form of

wild life outside our tent and the sun beaming down ready for the day ahead. We all enjoyed the second from

last day of trekking the most, as we were able to swim in the natural pot holes where we set up camp;

although they were freezing!

The project phase was something that I think was personal to all of us and we each

took something away from it . Arriving at the orphanage, we saw that the children

were being taught under an avocado tree and that we were to help build a classroom

for their lessons. Each child had a beaming smile upon their faces with the excitement

of meeting new people. We quickly became known as ‘teachers’ to them. Most days we

started early on the project, making bricks, bricklaying and levelling out the ground

which was conducted by Mr Brand, before stopping in the afternoon to play football

with the locals and play games with the children. We sat around the campfire every

evening reflecting on the day and preparing for the excitement of the next.

The relaxation phase gave us an opportunity to reflect on the trip so far and have more amazing

opportunities, such as horse riding across the African Plains, mountain biking and a safari seeing animals such

as Hippos. On the last evening with all had a meal out to celebrate.

However, the trip was not without its problems including getting lost and my having an asthma attack whilst

out there and being stretchered back to camp. However the Out of Africa team, the in-country agents,

meant that everything was soon sorted quickly so that we could carry out the rest of our trip. We had an

incredible time and learnt so much about ourselves. it is well worth doing if you get a chance. The best part

of the trip was the people, we all got on incredibly well and became close very quickly, without this the trip

wouldn’t have been the same. After a sponsored 55 mile walk, numerous practise walks and an incredible time

we completed our trip to Swaziland. I would like to thank the teachers and everyone who made the trip so

amazing. Lauren Hall—Year 13

NEWSLETTER Page 7

AUTUMN TERM 2012

October 1/2 term: School closes at end of afternoon Thursday 25th October and re-opens on morning of Monday 5th

November.

Christmas Holiday: School closes at

12.10 p.m. on Friday 21st December.

INSET DAY:- Friday 26th October 2012

SUMMER TERM 2013

School re-opens morning of Monday

15th April.

INSET DAY: Friday 26th April 2013

May 1/2 term: School closes at end of afternoon on Friday 24th May and re-opens morning of Monday 3rd

June.

Summer Holiday: School closes at

12.10 p.m. on Wednesday 24th July.

SPRING TERM 2013

School re-opens morning of Tuesday

8th January 2013.

February 1/2 term: School closes at end of afternoon on Friday 15th February and re-opens morning of Monday 25th

February.

Easter Holiday: School closes at end of

afternoon on Thursday 28th March.

INSET DAY: Monday 7th January 2013

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JOHN COLET SCHOOL Wendover, Bucks. HP22 6HF

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The school would like to thank all the advertisers, although John Colet School cannot endorse or accept liability

for goods or services advertised.

If you have a business or an event you would like to advertise in the John Colet Newsletter we would be delighted to help. We ask for a small fee of £5.00 per advertisement which is paid into the John Colet School Fund and used to help purchase much needed equipment for the school. If you are interested in this facility please contact the school office on 01296 623348 or E Mail: office@john colet.co.uk