Swakeleys News

2012

July

.

From the Headteacher’s Desk

As term draws to a close, it is time to say goodbye and thank you to those

staff who are moving on. Also, to welcome new staff who are starting their

careers at Swakeleys and joining us in September. All staff have been busy planning and

preparing for the new academic year while finishing off the teaching for years 7 to 10.

The end of term has been busier than ever with Enterprise Days, Olympic themed

afternoons, Yr 5 Gifted Days, Yr 12 Induction, the Art Exhibition, the PLTs performing

Arts Evening, Yr 6 Taster Day and Transition Evening, and of course another hugely

successful Sports Day. Feedback from all of these events has been fantastic. We also

had the Yr 11 and Post 16 Proms - both events were very successful and the girls

looked amazing.

I have had the pleasure of interviewing the Yr 10 and Yr 12 Prefect candidates and

was very impressed. I look forward to working with them all next year as part of the

leadership of the school.

I hope that you all have a good summer break and that you enjoy the London Olympics.

It is really exciting that so many of our girls have tickets.

Thank you all very much for your support this year.

SUE PRYOR, Headteacher

Year 11 Girls have a Fantastic Prom at Brunel Chloe Townsend - Sports Personality of the Year

Ellen Clarabut breaks two School Records at Sports Day

Olympic Capsule comes to Swakeleys!

With the all important London Olympics approaching, Swakeleys and several Primary schools in the Borough contributed to donating Olympic themed work to be put in the

Olympic capsule. Photographs of our Olympic Murals completed during Humanities Week

2011, Olympic competition entries and presentations completed with our partner schools in Chile and China all made the cut. A special thank you to Sarah Wilson, 9MC (pictured)

who contributed significantly to the project. Mr Hepner

Pupils from different schools and backgrounds learned the value of a pound when they

gathered for an interactive interfaith learning session in April to make them think about how society

views material wealth. The event, titled ‘Money is the Root of all Evil’ was led by Swakeleys and

included a number of activities such as ranking seven gifts including in iPad, a big house, £1million a

year for life against others such as happiness, health, friendships, etc in order of which was most desirable.

Poet Isaac Nartey shared some of his thought provoking poetry and The Mayor of Hillingdon and members of

Hillingdon Interfaith also attended.

In April, Year 9 GCSE music students visited the Prince of Wales

Theatre in London to see Mamma Mia. I had recently won the Jack Petchey

Award and decided I wanted to spend my £200 in the Music Dept by taking my friends and fellow classmates to

the theatre. We were all excited to be seeing the show and our excitement

was worth it - the live music was fantastic, amazing and terrific. The story line was funny,

brilliant and lovely. We all thoroughly enjoyed the show and we musicians hope to be as good as the live band playing at the show. Unfortunately the show could not last forever but the audience sang along to the last two songs to finish the

show which was such fun. We sang all the way on the train journey home too! It was a great afternoon out and I

recommend anyone to book tickets NOW. Thank you to Mrs Torrent and other staff members who helped me organise

the event. Sonam Shinmar 9RP

Congratulations to Lily Green,

Danielle Stone and Annie Hewitt who have

been regularly selected to represent Middlesex

County in football. On 15th May a group of 30 students went to

Heathrow Airport to experience a German language

based day of activities. First we prepared ‘passports’

before moving on to a game of pictionary based around

useful vocabulary for use on board the ‘aircraft’. Next

we boarded the ‘plane’ where we made announcements

and role played being cabin crew. The day ended with a

tour of the amazing ‘Waterside’ building, BA’s

Headquarters. Here are two accounts by girls who

participated in the trip.

The German BA trip was amazing! We all had a great

time there—it was so worth missing lessons! We

played a game called Pictionary and it was so much

fun. There was a fake aeroplane and we acted in

German which was so funny. The best oart was a tour

around the building—there was water everywhere - it

was so cool! I would go again any time. Kiran 9AF

The trip was amazing—it allowed me to

experience how to use languages in a working

environment. The tour of the BA buildings was

amazing. The FengShui and atmospheric design

were so cool and calming. It allowed me to have

an open mind for the future. I would

recommend others to go on this trip, it’s so

helpful.

Ellah Mwale 9AF

Interfaith June 2012

On 28 June, year 8 students (Courtney Owens, Sophie

Bloodworth, Alisha Padaruth and myself), Miss Jussab, Mr Hepner

and some Post 16 students went on a trip to Northwood Synagogue for the ‘Interfaith’ event. Lots of schools

other Hillingdon took part. During the event they interacted with pupils from different schools for a variety of activities such as freeze frames of the London riots,

what it means to do a certain role in the community and more. After the activities we were also privileged to

meet Nelly Ben-Or, a woman who survived the Holocaust who talked to us about how she felt during the time of the Holocaust and how she hid her religion and identity. Later, we finished with another activity

within our schools to persuade judges which protest was most effective. The topics discussed were Famine, The

London Riots and Racism and Swakeleys came joint second! Everyone from Swakeleys enjoyed the event

very much as well as the beautiful venue. Mursal Kharoti

TfL Safety and Citizenship Scheme

As part of a project to improve safety on transport in and around London for young people, all year 10 took part in a piece of research about the service offered by TfL. As a result of our responses and the sheer number of students who took part, we won a prize of £100! Not only will this money help to buy valuable resources for the Citizenship department, our participation

in the research has given valuable insight as to how TfL can improve the safety of their service for young people. Many thanks to all year 10 involved. Miss Laxton

Library News The suggestion box in the library has been recently

emptied and new books have been purchased as requested. These will be available on the shelves as soon as

possible.

Maryam Obeid has been offered a place to study Law at UCL. Maryam has been attending Pathways sessions

at UCL for the past two years and, on her own initiative had secured a mini-pupillage in Barristers chambers

following a visit to the Inner Temple. This is an opportunity not readily available even to undergraduate

students!. Maryam was nominated by UCL to be interviewed for a promotional Pathways video and was one

of only four students who were chosen for the final edit. Many congratulations to

Maryam for making the most of the opportunities she has been offered so far,

and our best wishes for continued success.

Widening Participation News

Health Careers Fair

On 31st May, 12 Yr 10 students went to a Health Careers Fair at Brunel University (Maryam Zazay, Ayesha Khan, Ilham Jama, Maimuna Ali, Sasha Hughes-Darby, Laila Miran-Bux, Husaina Taher, Amran Ahmed, Wahida Ahmed 10AF, Lorna Ioskevich,

Tanisha Sharma, Jasmine Shahzad). They attended various workshops such as veterinary science, biomedical engineering, midwifery, physiotherapy and forensics, as well as a

lecture on infectious diseases. Here’s what some of them had to say about the day: “The trip was an

amazing experience! We particularly enjoyed the forensics session. We would definitely recommend it to the next Year 10s!” (Amran, Lorna & Ilham)

“We found the trip inspiring, aspirational and really enjoyable as it allowed us to discover a range of professions in the health

industry. The most humorous and interactive experience was the midwifery one where we learned what to do in a scenario of a woman giving birth on a bus or in

Tesco!” (Maryam, Ayesha & Maimuna) “We enjoyed the whole experience at Brunel. Our highlights of the day were the forensics and biomedical workshops.

We would advise the new Year 10s to go!” (Laila & Sasha)

Sports Careers Fair

Lily: “It’s helped me to decide what I want to do in the future. I‘ve de-cided I want to go to university to do something with sport.”

Danielle: “I now have a full understanding of the career that I want to do in the future. This day has given me the opportunity to view the Different careers available in sport.”

Annie: “I am grateful for going there as I have learnt a lot from this day and it has helped me for what I want to do in the future. I would recommend the opportunity to attend this event to anyone!”

Yr 10 students who attended the Sports Careers Fair: Courtney Buchan, Danielle Stone, Annie Hewitt, Lily Green, Simran Kaur & Bemi Olaogun

Year 9 Summer School at Brunel University

“We went to a summer school at Brunel and did many activities during those three days such as: kick boxing, pottery, art, critical thinking and also attended a lecture by Professor Heinz Wolf. We really enjoyed the university experience and met lots of new people. We feel that we gained new skills and learnt how to be more independent and confident. It was great!” (Eleanor Greenwood, Chloe Lachasseigne, Julia Bahja, Ellah Mwale and Favour Barnabas)

Prizewinners: Ceramics : Ellah Mwale, Science: Julia Bahja, Campus quiz: Chloe Lachasseigne, All-round winner: Chloe Lachasseigne Well done everyone!

DIARY DATES

Wed 18 -Fri 20 July Humanities Days Friday 20 July END OF TERM—School ends at 1.00pm Monday 3 September INSET Day. Yr12 & Yr13 Enrolment Tuesday 4 September Yr 7 Induction Day Wednesday 5 September Start of Term ( whole school) Thursday 20 September Yr 7 Settling In Evening Thursday 27 September Open Evening for Yr 6 Pupils

Thames Valley University Trip Along with Mrs Prior and 13 pupils from yr 10, I had an amazing opportunity to attend the Young Chef Academy where we received a Level 2 Award in Food Safety and Hygiene qualification (providing you passed the exam)! at the West London /Thames Valley University. This was a course over 4 days and for the first 3 days we cooked 3 different meals including desserts such as bolognese, sweet and sour chicken, pizza, strawberry shortcake, victoria sandwich and triple chocolate cookies!!! On the fourth and final day we went to the Hilton hotel at Terminal 5 Heathrow. We had a tour of the hotel and made

wraps for lunch served with chips and salad. I enjoyed this experience very much and it’s a great opportunity. So don’t miss out on it if you are given the chance to attend in year 10. There were mostly ups and the only downside was when particular individuals had a heavy workload washing dishes! Wahida Ahmed 10AF

Swakeleys Girls are Senior Borough Athletic Champions

Last month two teams of athletes, one from year 9 and one from year 10, attended the schools Senior borough athletics championships held at Uxbridge track where they competed against 20 schools from all over the borough in a range of athletic events. As the weather had been so poor the girls had had little time to train but arrived at the track very positive and ready to compete…and compete they certainly did! Both teams produced outstanding performances which resulted in both Year 9 and Year 10 winning their overall competitions

and becoming borough champions for 2012.

Swakeleys girls won a fantastic 13 individual medals, including 5 gold, plus gold in the Year 10 4x100m relay

and silver in the Year 9 4x100m relay. The Year 9 borough champions are Analese Hayes 9FN, Lily

Bowden 9FN, Gemma Brinkworth 9RP, Ellen Clarabut 9FN, Kadisha Thomas 9JA, Georgia Law 9FN, Chloe Huguenin 9AF, Sarah Wilson 9MC, Amy Fieldhouse

9RP. The Year 10 borough champions are Lily Green 10RP, Gbemi Olaogun 10FN, Olympia Belfon-Brown 10JA, Sarah Murphy 10RP, Courtney Bouchan 10JA,

Antonia Isles 10FN, Annie Hewitt 10JA, Danielle Stone 10MC, Tanisha Sharma 10JA.

As a result of their performances on the day 8 girls (Yr9

Ellen, Georgia, Kadisha & Sarah – Yr10 Gbemi, Lily, Danielle & Olympia) were chosen to represent the

Hillingdon Borough athletics team at the Middlesex Schools Championships held at Copthall Stadium last week.

It was a long and very competitive day and 2 of our girls became Middlesex champions (Lily Green in the 80mH

and Ellen Clarabut in the Javelin).

PE News