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Head teacher’s message Well done to all the students involved in this Tuesday’s Spring Concert organised by the Music Department. There were many dazzling performances. The Junior Orchestra gets better with each performance and some of our younger members of Rock School are challenging the Year 11 for the title of rock kings! It was great to see so many parents attend. Thanks to the PFTA for their support. Special thanks to Mr Jevons, Mrs Maby, Mr Griffiths and all the members of the Music team for organising another great event. In the Sports Update section there are some fantastic photos of the recent Swimming Gala and Dance Festival. Mrs Oxley has done a superb job in supporting our students to run these events for pupils from partner primary schools. Whenever I drop in on these events I am struck by the maturity and confidence that many of our students demonstrate. The primary pupils always seem to be having a great experience and relish the chance to learn new skills. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our primary school partners for their ongoing support of the School Sports programme.

In the next few days two separate trips depart for France and you will see on Page 5 that more trips overseas are planned for next year. I would strongly encourage students to get involved in these life-changing experiences. Visiting Europe not only widens cultural understanding but it gives students the confidence to use their language skills in a real context. Congratulations to all the students who won prizes in the recent celebration assemblies. I would like to thank Mrs Conroy (Pastoral Support Co-ordinator), who is leaving at the end of term, for her great contribution to TAVCC since joining us in 2012. Mrs Conroy is taking up a new role in the Honiton Learning Community. Lastly, please note we have an Early Closure Day on Thursday 1st May. Martin Smith - Head teacher

The Update The Axe Valley Community College Newsletter: Friday 4th April 2014 - Issue 13

Diary Dates: Tuesday 22nd April - Start of Summer Term

The Junior Choral Group singing “Sailing” at the Spring Concert.

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Year 7

25 students earned achievement certificates

for their progress in the Accelerated Reader

programme. Additional maths certificates

were also awarded to 15 students for their

outstanding progress.

Kate Long was awarded a medal for her

achievement in shooting, and for the most

positive behaviour and achievement points

this term Ethan Huntley and Emily Slade.

Mrs Osborne—Year 7 Leader

Year 8

Last Thursday we had the Celebration Assembly for Year 8. Everyone enjoyed a great opening to the assembly as Jenny Weber and Amanda Mettam sang a fantastic acapella version of Jessie J's 'Price Tag.' Next, representatives from each tutor group came up to celebrate their successes.

Notable mentions went to the football team who remain undefeated. Year 8 have a netball team and we hope that their successes will come in the future. There has been participation in a number of events, the Maths Challenge, a Navy Day, an ASPIRE art workshop and running events. In terms of fundraising events we have had a mobile cake sale for the British Heart and a disco to raise money for ELF.

In terms of prizes, Ethan Crossley-Sloman and Amanda Apsey had accrued the most points in the year group. Ethan scooped up another prize alongside Erin Moles

for producing outstanding homework. The other prizes went to Jazmine Thom, Jordan Fletcher, Katie Richards, Adelaide Williams, Elizabeth Heighway and Oscar White.

The assembly was wrapped up by Issi Allis on guitar accompanied by Adelaide Williams singing 'Juliet' by Lawson which was extremely brave as Adelaide has only been with us for a short time. I throw a challenge down to the boys in the Year group to provide the entertainment next time!

Miss Mandy - Year 8 Leader

Student News

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Year 9

Year 9 gathered on Tuesday for our Spring

Term Celebration Assembly. There was much

to celebrate and we enjoyed reflecting on

some fantastic individual performance as well

as a generally good terms work from the

group.

It is obvious from the latest teacher data than

an enormous amount of progress has been

made and we expect that the Maths and

Science SATS results (exams sat this week and

last) reflect that. We were entertained by a

great performance from Year 9 musicians, Jess

Hill, Abigail Pidgeon and Sam Lawson as well

as a showcase of Year 9 Art and English

Pieces.

Particular congratulations to Georgia Searle

and Fraser Beament who were selected as the

leading girl and boy for their academic

progress this term.

Mr Carr - Year 9 Leader

Sixth Form visit to Clitheroe 13 students attended an Institute of Economic Affairs Conference in Clitheroe Lancs on 27th March. Stopping in a Youth Hostel the night before was an enjoyable experience. Students

lived through a full English breakfast cooked by me. Attending the conference was "really good. The talks and debates were relevant to our learning" said Year 13 student Fiona Gage. The students discussed economic

growth in the UK, market failure and the Living Wage and National Minimum Wage debates.

Mr Holland - Assistant Headteacher

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Axminster Youth club! As many of you may know there is great risk of Axminster Youth Club being closed down. Major cuts are being made to many youth services around Devon. As well as the youth clubs, day care centres for the elderly are at risk too.

I am a senior member youth worker as well as a young person at the youth centre. The

closure would be a great shame as it is the only place for the young people of Axminster to go.

I have spoken to some of the young people

from the youth club and their response

about the closure is mainly worry, what else

have they got to do? Where are they meant

to go? , “surely if there is no youth club,

crime rate is going to go up?”

We are all concerned that without access to

this service some young people may end up

getting into trouble.

I believe in everyone having a voice, and it

seems we are not getting heard. Even at a

meeting arranged for us to ask questions

etc., we were not listened to properly and

not one of our questions was answered

properly, we either received brief answers or

they avoided ones that put them in a difficult

situation.

SO IT’S TIME TO BE HEARD!

If you want to get your opinion across and

try to make a change please go to:

http://new.devon.gov.uk/youthreview/how-

you-can-join-the-debate/

Lauren and Beth Year 11

Piano Success

Marcus Wood - Year 13 heard this week that he scored three marks off a distinction for his Grade 8 piano exam. This was the first time he had taken the exam so it is a fantastic

achievement. Marcus started playing when he was five and a half and started taking exams when he was 7. “I am very pleased that all the hours of practise have paid off. Music is my love and I will never stop playing.” Book Deal for Emma Carroll English teacher Emma Carroll has recently signed a new three book deal with publisher Faber and Faber. Her debut novel Frost Hollow Hall was published last October and has been longlisted for the Branford Boase Award and shortlisted for the North East Book Award. Her second novel, The Girl Who Walked On Air, which is about a tightrope walker in a Victorian circus, is to be published in August.

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French Trip - October 2014 We are delighted to be able to offer your child the opportunity to join us on a residential trip to France in October half term. We will be travelling with PGL to their centre in Normandy called Chateau du Tertre. This trip offers students fantastic opportunities to use and improve their French language skills and to see its practical implications. Students will have the chance to enhance their studies of French using real life situations, experienc-ing French culture, life & cuisine. There really is no substitute for spending time in a country speaking the language they’re learning. Using what they have learned in a classroom and understanding what is being said improves their speaking and listening skills, their confi-dence, self-esteem and hopefully their passion for learning.

We will leave Axe Valley very early Monday morning, 27 October 2014 and return late on Friday evening, 31 October 2014. During our stay we hope to visit a Goats Cheese Farm, a Boulangerie, the castle in the old town of Fougères, possibly a cider muse-um and a French Market in Evron, where stu-dents will complete an activity buying food to prepare lunch for us all. Our evenings will be filled with activities organised by the PGL Staff and if we have time, we will also be able to spend an afternoon doing activities on site

such as Archery & Rock Climbing. If you have any questions, please do not hesi-tate to contact the MFL department! eSafety Advice – Safe Browsing Just being able to use the internet does cer-tainly not mean that your child has the maturi-ty or experience to handle everything they might find there. Talk to your child about safe surfing, and point them to some child-safe sites. Make sure your browser is set to offer you its built-in security, safety and privacy features and search engines filter out results that con-tain potentially harmful content such as sex-ually explicit images, racist content and mate-rial on eating disorders and self-harming. Without such controls, your child will almost certainly run into something that really isn’t appropriate for their age … or any age. If you find that your child has been looking at or ex-posed to such content, do not assume that it was idle curiosity and talk through why it’s not a good thing. Talk to him or her about the kind of websites they look at. Encourage them to speak to you if they come across some-thing they find worrying or upsetting on web-sites, games or while social networking. (Source: https://www.getsafeonline.org) Some more specific advice can be found: http://bit.ly/1cEA1YN Additional eSafety guidance can be found on the web links listed on: http://axevalley.devon.sch.uk/parent/esafety/

School Notices

http://bit.ly/1cEA1YNhttp://axevalley.devon.sch.uk/parent/esafety/

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The Spring Concert opened to a packed audience of parents and friends on Tuesday night. The first half, that included mainly classical pieces and solo performances, was opened by the Junior Orchestra with a rendition of Mama Mia. The pieces that followed were all individual achievements of talent and nerve, many of the students being on the stage for the first time. Particularly moving was Marcus Wood’s performance of the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, reminding many a bride (and groom) of the emotional moments of walking

down the aisle on their wedding day. The second act had a more modern flavour with some upbeat and lively numbers that made the audience want to get up and dance.

Spring Concert

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Other more soulful pieces such as “Time after Time” sung by Grace Carpenter and “Black and Gold” by Marcus Wood and Emily Glover had tears in many of the audience’s eyes.

The students put on a truly wonderful performance, that was even more remarkable since they had been unable to rehearse in the hall due to the hall being used

for exams during the last few weeks. A special thank you should go also to Mr Jevons, Mr Griffiths and Mrs Maby for all their hard work putting together such a varied and entertaining show and providing the students with such a variety of musical opportunities.

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Photography Club The recent taster session given by profession-al photographer Mark Hall was a great suc-cess. The students looked at examples of his and other students work whilst they dis-cussed the concept of composition, lighting and special effects. The students were then each given the practi-cal task of taking a group picture of all of the rest of their colleagues with the only require-ment that each one was completely different from the last. The results were great fun with each one showing their own particular imagi-native slant. Mark will be running a six week course on Wednesdays after school starting on the 30th April. Any student may sign-up for the course even if they did not attend the taster day. The course is being subsidised by the PTFA, how-ever students are asked to contribute £6 to show their commitment to the six sessions. A maximum of 12 students will be able to join the course, so if you’re interested please re-serve your place with Reception.

Study Club After school study club will be moving to the sixth form study room after the Easter holi-days. Students can use the college computer facilities to do their homework. The club is supervised by several of our teach-ing assistants who are there to help you if you get stuck with tricky questions. There are late buses available at 5pm (and 5.30pm on Tues-days) so that you can get home afterwards.

Clubs and Activities

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Spring Concert The refreshment stall at the Spring concert did a roaring trade of popcorn, ice cream drinks and snacks which together with the raffle raised a profit of approximately £78.00. When added to tickets sales the evening raised a total of £358.00 which will go towards equipment for the recording studio. Thank you to the PTFA, particularly Claire Craven, for all their efforts on the night.

NEXT PTFA MEETING The next PTFA meeting will be on Tuesday 6 May at 7pm. Everyone is welcome!

TAVCC PTFA Update

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ASPIRE Update ASPIRE General Law Project January – April 2014 Exeter University hosted the final of the AS-PIRE Law Project on a warm afternoon at the end of March. The younger students were given a guided tour of the campus and the older students were treated to a Law Seminar by one of the Law Professors. After generous portions of cake and tea, all 50 students were taken to a large lecture room where the final mock trial and final mooting sessions took place. All the students rose to the challenge and took part with great confidence and enthusiasm. Erika Bor-ley is the Pathways to Law & Widening Partici-pation Coordinator and has produced a fasci-nating project introducing the world of Law to the students over the past two months. Erika said “Working on the ASPIRE Law project has been a real privilege, and I am incredibly grateful to The Axe Valley Community College for inviting us to be involved. Throughout the term I have been continually impressed and inspired by the students’ enthusiasm, energy and intellectual ability, and I hope that many of them will consider pursuing a career in law!”

Thanks must also go to the Exeter Law Stu-dents who supported the project, coming to Axminster to participate with our students, demonstrating the Law skills and showing our students what to do. These were Mallory Long, Emily Au, Gemma Edey, Jolene Lin and Yazmin Russ. Feedback from the students was immensely positive

“I really enjoyed this project and getting to see the university – thank you very much”

“Nothing could be improved, everything was great”

“I knew nothing of law beforehand and have learnt a lot!”

“Fun and informative, Exeter students were awesome!”

“I really enjoyed the mooting as it felt very useful (I was very nervous though!)” The winning students showing confidence and skills will be announced shortly and the trip to London for these students will be con-firmed in due course.

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ASPIRE ARTS Art Workshops The Upper School artists on ASPIRE ARTS have been working with Ricky Romain on oil paintings, and producing some amazing re-sults. The students love working with pro-fessional artists and gain so much confi-dence and new ideas and skills from an out-side perspective. Thank you to Ricky for coming and working with our students.

ASPIRE Met Office Science Camp – 9 /10 May The invitations have gone out on email to all the Year 7 ASPIRE students about the Met Office Science Camp in May. This should be a truly memorable event and we hope that many of our 19 students will be able to join us. I hear one of our students will wake up on his birthday in one of the tents - we look forward to sharing his special day! ASPIRE ARTS Lower School Residential 18 – 20 June 2014 The letters and details are going out to stu-dents and parents this week about the forth-coming ASPIRE ARTS Residential 18 -20 June 2014, open to all the ASPIRE ARTS Lower School students from Years 4-8. This year the residential is more local at Weycroft Hall and is themed “Surface to Image.” Please could all forms come back by the 1 May so we can make the necessary arrangements. ASPIRE French Trip – 3-6 April 2014 We are very much looking forward to this trip and will have lots of memories and pho-tos to share in the next newsletter!

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Football The Year 8, U13s have had the best Football League result for a long time! We were the only team to beat Exmouth (Winners), were undefeated and didn't concede a single goal in all 7 matches!! If they had scored just one more goal they would have won the tourna-ment. Axe Valley vs Woodroffe -Year 7 The whistle blew and Axe went straight in, bat-tling hard and winning challenges. Then Woodroffe got a free kick in a lovely position, they crossed it in and Woodroffe got a big and lucky touch but Frank Johnson pulled off an amazing save to deny Woodroffe their first goal. After that Woodroffe broke through from a good pass and finished outstandingly. Bradley exclaimed “head up boys” so we played the ball around until it came back to Will Hellier and he unleashed a mind boggling strike which left the keeper stunned and gob smacked. Then Edward Kenworthy used his splendid skills to get a penalty, the skipper then stepped up and then converted the pen. After half time Woodroffe kept their heads up and pressed high. Ten minutes in Woodroffe scored when the defence was stretched and after that we conceded again to make the score 3-2 to Woodroffe.

Bradley Conway - Year 7

Axe Valley vs Holyrood - Year 7 4th March and Axe Valley prepared for their game against Holyrood. The whistle blew and we were defending as Holyrood got off to a flying start. They got the ball down the right wing but Lewis Burridge was strong and quick to cut the attack. After that Edward Kenwor-thy played through a ball for Reece McCabe but then the defender came across to make a strong challenge. After that Holyrood took advantage and counted as they passed quickly and took apart Axe Valley defence and then scored. Straight after we grabbed one back with some great skills and immense pace from Reece who scored. Then Holyrood scored and then again before half time. For the second half Axe Valley were strong until ten minutes to go and Holyrood broke through and scored twice making the final score 5-1 to Holyrood. Better luck next time.

Bradley Conway - Year 7 Swimming gala Nine teams from our surrounding primary schools took part in the Year 3 and 4 Swim-ming gala on Monday 24th of March. This was led by Axe Valley Year 10 girls PE group and 4 Year 11 GCSE boys – Kyle Gould; Max Richards; Diowel Cruda and Jacob Rowe. The year 10s took part in training and also lead the Year 5 and 6 swimming gala in November so had pre-vious experience to run a successful gala for the primary school children.

Sports Update

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As usual it was an exciting affair with a lot cheering and close races. Added to the excite-ment were the nerves of the Year 3 swimmers, for many of whom it was their first competitive gala. The standard as ever was high and the swimmers performed at their best. There were some very close times between All Saints and Beer on a few races. Once again I would like to say thank you to our primary coordinators and leaders who continually help with the running of our galas. Swimmers did not disappoint. Jen Patchett from Beer won the Year 3 one width on front and Gracie from Kilmington won the Year 4 race. Daniel James from St Mary won the Year 3 one width on front. Noah Payne from All Saints won two races and swam very well. The girls from Axminster won the relay race which included egg and spoons! A great afternoon for all.

Mrs Oxley - Sports Coordinator

Dance Festival—1st April Axe Valley Yr10 PE students lead a Dance Festi-val for local Primary Schools this week. The primary students were treated to dance expe-riences based on themes such as 'The Weath-er' 'Spiderman', 'Dancing Animals' and 'Growing Flowers'. The Yr 10's lead with confi-dence and enthusiasm and the primary pupils smiling faces said it all!

Mrs Moran -- PE Department

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It all starts at

YES

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