THE COTSWOLD SCHOOL

Bourton-on-the-Water

Gloucestershire GL54 2BD

Tel: 01451 820554 Fax: 01451 810658

e-mail: admin@mail.cotswold.gloucs.sch.uk

Th

e C

ots

wo

ld N

ew

s

June

2011

An ‘Outstanding’ 11-18 School, Ofsted 2009

Specialist Language College, since 2002

DfES Leading Edge School, since 2004

Specialist Science College, since 2006

An Outstanding Academy, since 2010

Friendship ~ Knowledge

This summer term we have been delighted to welcome 20 students from our Chinese partner school, Suzhou Foreign Language School (SFLS) and their teachers, Yang Lin and Wu Jian.

The term is flying by with them here and once again it is proving a fantastic experience for all concerned. Families who are hosting the children have made solid friendships as well as having the chance to learn something of the culture of this important country.

Maisie Laughton, a year 7 pupil hosting this year spoke of how much she is enjoying the experience: ―I‘m really glad we‘ve had Lucy to stay. We chat loads and her English has improved so much‖ The Laughton family have even been treated to a home cooked Chinese meal as well as introducing Lucy to plenty of English dishes, with pizza now one of her favourites.

Our visitors have really thrown themselves into life here; many attended street parties to celebrate the Royal Wedding less than a week after they arrived in the UK. They have visited local places of interest such as Oxford where they toured Balliol and New Colleges, some with a view to returning there for longer in the future!

Suzhou and Cotswold students enjoy making new friendships and learning together

They have also witnessed sheep shearing at The Cotswold Farm Park and learnt some survival skills at The Cotswold Forestry School. While the rest of us were relaxing in the half term break, our visitors went on a coach tour to Birmingham, Cambridge and London, taking in all the famous sights as well as some important shopping stops.

Back in school they are now having intensive English lessons with Miss Hamlyn, reading the book ‗Coralie‘. They are providing plenty of opportunities for our students, with a Mandarin club every week as well as a Badminton club where our students have picked up some tips on China‘s most popular sport. As a celebration of their visit we will once again be holding an East Meets West concert, on Thursday 14

th July (at

7.30pm in the School Hall), with traditional Chi-nese and British performances. We are delighted to have hosted SFLS students

once again and we hope that we have given them a fantastic experience here which will be useful for them throughout their lives. This would not be pos-sible without the hard work of the homestay families, the coordi-nating teachers and every pupil in the school who has made our visitors feel welcomed, so thank you to everyone who has contributed.

Th

e C

ots

wo

ld N

ew

s

Congratulations to:

Tor Smith, who was crowned 2011 Charles Owen British Pony Champion earlier in June. Tor won the competition at Brand Hall, market Drayton, with Phoebe Russel‘s pony Chit Chat III in a top ten which included several of the Gold Medal winning British team from the 2010 Pony Europeans. She led on the dressage phase and then put in foot perfect cross country and show jumping rounds to take the title. Well done, Tor, on such a fantas-tic achievement—we are very proud of you!

Ex student Max Goodman who has achieved a 1st Class Masters Degree in Chemistry from Durham.

Oliver Forbes, Year 7, who has been made the captain of the County Schools U12 cricket team.

Gavin Haseler, who was the District triple jump winner, Harry Lewis who came 2nd in the District 400 metres, and Andrew Scull who was the winner in the District 200 metres in their respective age groups All three have now qualified for the South West Athletics trials.

Louise Wiseman, who won the 500 word story competition.

Matt Loxton, Charlie Roddan and Harry Gaden, who are through to the U15 Acad-emy 12-a-side Rugby competition.

Sam Arthurs, who has been selected to play for Gloucestershire County Under 14‘s Cricket team.

Callum Mitchell, who has been training with the RYA South Zone Sailing Squad and is competing in Regional and National events —we wish you all the best.

Andrew Scull, who took part in the Oxford-shire Track and Field Championships. An-drew came 3rd in the 100 metres running in a time of 11.80, 3rd in the 200 meters in a time of 24.14 and 1st in the 400m in a time of 53.96.

Jay Taylor, who was scouted at a recent tournament and will now be taking part in football trials for West Bromwich Albion.

Alistair Wilson, who has secured a place on the Youth National Schools Symphony Orchestra course.

News from the Music Department

Year 9 Showcase This month we celebrated the musical talents of Year 9 in an outdoor lunchtime concert. 30 pupils performed solo items, duets and small ensembles to a hugely appreciative audience of about 120 people. Congratulations to all the performers (who included eve-rybody in Year 9 planning to take GCSE Music) and a big thank you goes out to Mr Dark for putting the concert together. Well done, Year 9 – more next year, please! [pictured: Tom Wise sings ―Life on Mars‖]

“Oh What a Lovely War!” Plans for next year‘s school musical took another big step forward this month as auditions were held for the cast of the show and Mrs Steckbeck and Mr Briggs had the difficult task of selecting from a very strong field. After lots of discussion they decided on a company of 35 pupils drawn from across the whole school. Rehearsals start later this month - and the dates for your diary are November 9, 10 and 11.

“I wish I knew” Back in Black strike gold again with ―I wish I knew‖ which is their new EP recording. Featuring the title track ―I wish I knew how it would feel to be free‖ sung by Sarah Frosh together with seven other exciting songs, the CD showcases the tal-ents of many of the jazz musicians in school. The CD will be available for sale from pupil reception in the next few days. If you wish to reserve a copy please drop an email to Mr Briggs on tbriggs@mail.cotswold.gloucs.sch.uk

Vocal Showcase The recent Vocal Showcase was a thoroughly enjoyable evening with a wide variety of talent from years 7 to 12 on show. There were popular solo songs from the likes of Adele, Leonard Cohen and Vanessa Carlton, a medley from the musical ‗Wicked‘ and a captivating arrangement of ‗Wonderwall‘ by Oasis including a Cellist. There were dreamy, spacious solo and barber-shop jazz numbers suiting the summer evening

and the grand finale of rock classics from the likes of Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, together with

more recent popular songs such as Forget You by Cee Lo Green, performed by Ben Pearson and the Charlies.

The evening was a great success and thanks are due to Mr Dark, Mr Briggs, Mrs Elliott and all those who performed, assisted and supported this lovely event. Well done and we look forward to seeing you at the School Concert on Thursday 14

th July and at Sherborne Parish Church on Fri-

day 15th July.

Th

e C

ots

wo

ld N

ew

s

News from the Science Department

Earthwatch Congratulations to Beth Pudifoot who has won one of only 10 highly contested places on a fully funded biology conservation project in Costa Rica. It will run from 20

th -29

th July 2011. She will be

working with local farmers and researchers on cof-fee plantations in Santa Maria de Dota, in the Los Santos Region. Beth's tasks will include collecting data on biodiversity, soil conditions, shade cover-age, erosion and plant yield. The project aims to help determine factors that affect farms‘ sustain-ability. The hotly contested place was finally awarded to Beth after she had successfully com-pleted a lengthy application form which included research about the project AND completing three essays on related subjects!

Lockheed Martin Tri@RIAT Engineering Challenge We are delighted to be sending a team of Year 9 pupils to The Royal International Air Tattoo on Sat-urday 16

th July 2011. Alex Murray, Aidan

Chalmers, Andrew Everitt and Fraser Wilson have been invited to take part in an Engineering Challenge and they will be working with a selected number of aerospace companies, particularly BAE Systems. We wish them the best of luck and if you would like to visit The Royal International Air Tat-too then under 16‘s are free and all other tickets can be booked on line at www.airtatoo.com

The Cotswold School lights up EDF Energy A team of Year 8 pupils took part in the final of the STEM challenge sponsored by EDF Energy at the Cheltenham Science Festival. Connor O‟Driscoll, Amber Cartlidge, William Cleaver, Emily Weller and Tom Butler took on the task of designing a

wind turbine to power bulbs to light up the EDF Energy sign for the 2012 London Olympics. The challenge re-quired the pupils to use all their knowl-edge to create both the structural and

electronic components required to power the lights, as well as the designing the sign. They came up with an excellent solution using twin motors to power through their heat against Barnward Park and Archway Schools. They then met the winners from the other heat, Cleeve School, in a final head to head.

Both teams had to present their solution to members of EDF board commenting on why EDF should choose their design. The team from the Cotswold School gave a fantastic presentation on the technical aspects of their design which they managed to get to power 3 bulbs, the most of any team and were eventually judged as Silver Medal Winners! Well done to all of you. Thanks go to EDF Energy for their kind sponsorship of the com-petition, STEM works for running the Event and to Mrs Clarke for organising and supporting this valuable opportunity.

Trip to Cheltenham Science Festival Forty pupils recently attended an exciting trip to Cheltenham Festival of Science. The day began with a bang with an exciting ―Life, Fire and Gas We Can‘t See‖ pres-entation by chemist David Wharton, cov-ering all the proper-ties of various gases in the atmosphere. Next up was a robot building workshop run by Lego® Educa-tion. The challenge for the students was to de-tect the location of cracks in a long narrow pipe. This involved students constructing robots, pro-gramming them and then analysing the data the robots collected via data sensors as they trav-elled in and out of the tube. George Bridgwa-ter, Ben Darwent and Will Burdett were the team coming up with the most accurate meas-urements.

The BBC Science Zone was next on the agenda with Dr Yan from Bang Goes the Theory prov-ing very popular with the autograph hunters! Final event of the day was the interactive Discovery Zone, with the students‘ aim to complete as many as

activities as possible, whilst claiming as many ―freebies‖ as they could. Amongst the many ac-tivities to try, several students showed off their disco diva moves in The Dance Lab, generating some highly variable data which will be used in a national experiment. They also used their maths skills to decommission a nuclear reactor, looked at codes with GCHQ, investigated fer-mentation with the Society of Microbiology and constructed circuits with the Institute of Engi-neering & Technology. This was a really benefi-cial event that everyone involved thought was ―super duper‖!

Cheltenham Science Festival: Girls‟ Science Day Year 9 students Lucy Robbins, Emily Lay, Holly Woodcock and Fran Roxburgh had the unique opportu-nity of spending a day exploring some fascinating scientific topics alongside girls from several other Gloucester-shire schools in an event hosted at Cheltenham Ladies‘ College and sponsored by L‘Oréal. They tackled practical workshop sessions ranging from royal DNA analysis to filming the effective-ness of a crumple zone of a car they had de-signed. Fran Roxburgh said ―It was a really good experience to see how all the elements of science can combine and fit into everyday life‖. The excellent event was rounded off with each participant cheerfully receiving a large bag of L‘Oréal freebies.

Th

e C

ots

wo

ld N

ew

s

DIARY DATES — July 2011 Friday 1st July Year 5 Science and Technology Day

Sat.2nd-Sun 3rd July Year 10 Bronze DofE Expedition

Monday 4th July New Sixth Form Induction—Day One Sport Awards Presentation Evening, from 6.30pm, School Hall

Tuesday 5th July New Sixth Form Induction—Day Two Primary School TopLink Sports Festival, run by Junior Sports Leaders

Wednesday 6th July Year 6 Induction—Day One

Thursday 7th July Year 6 Induction—Day Two Meeting for Year 6 pupils and their parents, 7pm, School Hall

Sat.9th—Mon.11th July Year 12 Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award Assessed Expedition

Monday 11th July Year 7 Parents‘ Evening, 5-7.30pm

Tuesday 12th July School Sports Day, 12.15pm-3.15pm

Thursday 14th July End of Term Music Concert, 7.30pm, School Hall

Friday 15th July Summer Concert, Sherborne Parish Church, 6pm

Monday 18th July Year 10 Work Experience begins; Year 12 UCAS week begins

Tues.19th—Thurs 21st July Years 7-9 Activities Week

Friday 22nd July Term ends, 2pm

The Cotswold School Academy Trust is a company incorporated in England and Wales, limited by guarantee with registered Company number 7338767.

News from the Languages Department

We have just finished our adult holiday language French course which received some very positive feedback-thanks to Mrs Hudson for running it.

The year 11,12,13 oral season is now over for another year but it will soon be the turn of the year 10 pupils who will be sitting their first oral exams on July 8

th (French GCSE) July 14th

(German and Spanish GCSE and French NVQ) Please put the date in your diary now!

We have just completed the NVQ course for the second time with our year 11s who have worked hard to complete their portfolios. The external assessor from the board was very happy with all our entries and all candidates have achieved all the skills for which they were entered . Mrs Kel-man has achieved her training as an official as-sessor and Mrs Hudson will be training up as an internal verifier assessor next year which will give us much more independence as a centre.

Our French trip to Paris 2012 sold out within min-utes recently! Receipt cards will be issued in due course when cheques for the full £100 deposit have been cashed. We will shortly be advertising our French exchange 2011-2012. Anyone in year 9 interested in taking part is welcome to come and ask Mrs Hudson or Mrs Moss what it is all about. Check out the display board too!

Year 11 Leavers „Day 2011 - was a huge suc-cess with Matt Cook, Kieran Wiseman and Mi-chael Lenton providing music and Amber Grif-fith singing, whilst the rest of the pupils enjoyed a buffet lunch. After lunch, students were given their yearbooks to sign, along with their leavers‘ hoodies. The whole year group then proceeded out onto the school field to have an inter tutor tug-of-war competition—thanks to Mr Thomas for or-ganising the event. The whole day was enjoyed by all, though with some tears shed at the pass-ing of an era and the departure of the class of 2011!

MAMMOTH CAR BOOT at The Cotswold School on Sunday 18th September. The cost if £5.00 per car, £6.00 per trailer and £2.00 parking all day. The field will open at 8.00 am for the car boot arri-vals and 9.00 am—12.00 midday for sales.

Governors‟ Corner

One of the important roles undertaken by individ-ual governors is to visit the school and meet with key staff responsible for a specific aspect of school life. This has recently included valuable governor visits to three outstanding departments: Mathemat-ics, History and Physical Education.

Throughout the year, two of our governors – Mrs Bygrave and Mrs Joyce – have developed exten-sive links with the school‘s Special Education Needs (SEN) team. Their visits and observations have enabled them to see and report back on:

the skilful support of teaching assistants in

providing discreet support, encouraging pupils to evaluate their own work and think for themselves

the full integration of pupils with SEN into les-

sons and their ability to participate and contribute

the variety of different learning methods used

by subject teachers

the cooperative and supportive attitude of all

pupils towards others

the successful transition of statemented pupils

into year 7 and the excellent teaching provision on offer for them

the rigorous recording and monitoring of pro-

gress of all pupils on the SEN register, involving pupils in reviewing their own progress and identify-ing new targets

the inclusion of SEN pupils in extra-curricular

activities and whole school life

the well attended homework club and learning

support room Governors would like to thank and congratulate Mrs Grover (the SEN Co-Ordinator), Mrs Rolfe (the Assistant SENCO) and the whole SEN team for their commitment, enthusiasm and hard work.