Issue Number: 8 Date: May 2020

We are delighted to announce that Tile Cross Academy has been awarded the ‘All

Together’ silver award this term. We started working on this project last

November, when we took part in ‘Anti Bullying Week’ activities, along with other

schools across the UK.

Tile Cross has proudly been announced as the West Midlands RICS Social Impact Award for our new build and our facilities. The award recognises world class examples of how the built environment can have a direct positive social and environmental impact on society. Unfortunately due to current restrictions the Midlands final Award Ceremony was cancelled but winners were announced online at the beginning of May. Click the following link to see Tile Cross being announced as winners by Phil Spencer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8QiqQE_jxI Our School now goes through to the London Awards in September where we will compete against all the National educational projects from the past year.

Tile Cross gains Anti- Bullying award!

Tile Cross Wins Midlands Award for our Facilities

Our school policy was updated at this point, and we consulted with students about how to improve our processes. We also participated in wellbeing surveys, audited our practice and created an action plan. The work will continue when we return to school. We know, like all schools, that we need to make sure we react to any alleged bullying sensitively and robustly. We are proud of the tolerant, kind

attitude of the majority of our

student population and want to build

on their skills with more targeted peer

support training. We are aiming for a

gold award next academic year !

Erasmus+ News

We live in a time where Renewable energy sources are becoming more and more used on a daily basis. Windmills are producing electricity and many new cars are now Hybrid, which means the use a combination of petrol and electricity. These cars do not pollute the environment as much and they save a lot of money for the driver. Therefore , it is time for you to take part in creating a cleaner planet and use energy better. This is a project in which you must use simple materials to produce a Home-made Windmill. The skills you use in this project might one day help you with career. We would like to celebrate your success, so please take a picture of your finished Windmill and email it to Mrs Dizdarevic at B.Bullock@tilecrossacademy.com We want to show off your creativity and skills. Please do not hesitate to ask me for help. Good luck! Ms Dizdarevic

Snow Boarder

Instructor Training

during Lockdown Cristian Cuciuc was due to be our third pupil and Sea Cadet to train as a snow board instructor with the charity Snow Camp. He had been attending weekly sessions every Sunday at the Snow Dome in

Tamworth and was due to spend a week on the snow in the Austrian Alps over Easter. Although hugely disappointed Cristian has continued his training remotely. Like other trainees he has had virtual teaching sessions providing one to one to support to complete the theory side of the Excel course and help him cope with the stresses and strains of lockdown. Cristian has played a full part in these sessions, from winning a weekly exercise challenge to delivering a virtual snowboarding lesson, as well as attending sessions led by the charity’s Uplift Counsellor on Sleep or Stress.

Homemade Wind

Turbine - STEM Project

Congratulations to Salada Dirie, 11TM for

having her Bronze DofE Award completed,

signed off and verified this term. Well done!!

Paula, the TLC guinea pig, sends her best wishes to everyone. She is having a well earned, relaxing break in Mr. Bibb’s garden, spending her evenings in a new hutch and her days running around in her usual playpen. She misses all the attention she normally gets during the school day, and is looking forward to returning to the TLC and seeing all your smiling faces (and being overfed with tons of lettuce again…!) Hopefully see you soon, Paula !

Paula’s Holiday during Lockdown

DofE News

The school have submitted two new applications for the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme. If successful the grants will fund two year projects the

support the curriculum and provide fantastic opportunities for our pupils to collaborate with and travel to meet other students in Europe. The two projects are: World Choir This will involve schools from Germany (Hamburg and Berlin), France, and Sweden collaborating with us to write and perform songs. The songs will reflect the Olympic Values and the values of the European Union. We hope to enter the combined choir into the World Choir Championships! STEM through the America’s Cup Yacht Race This will build on our ongoing relationship with the 1851 Trust, the charitable arm of the Ineos Team GB challenge. It will look at how cutting edge STEM is used in this F1 of yacht racing. Pupils will build and race radio controlled model yachts and explore the careers available in the STEM and sailing industries. Our European partners are from Sardinia, in Italy, where the Italian team are based, and St Martin – an island in the French Caribbean. For both these projects we have included our local partner Solihull School.

Tile Cross Friday Challenge

The Tile Cross Friday Challenge is a fun activity for all students to extend and enrich their home learning experience.

Every two weeks a creative or logic based challenge will be set for students in which house reward points and prizes can be earned.

The THIRD of our Tile Cross Friday Challenges needed students to problem solve and work out the answers to a range of cryptic puzzles. We had lots of great entries to this difficult challenge. Our Overall winners were Hayden Mcfall (7m) and Mahedy Basher (10m) who got 8 correct answers each. Both of these winners will receive a £10 Amazon Voucher. Answers for this challenge can be found on our website at http://tilecross.academy/

The FOURTH of our Tile Cross Friday Challenges needed students to be creative and develop a design for the front of a new 50p coin inspired by VE day to celebrate the 75th anniversary. Students needed to think carefully about what images they would use to make their design as distinctive as possible.

Our Overall winner for this challenge is Musfira Murtaza (8c) who designed a a clear 50p coin that celebrated the 75th Anniversary of VE day the best. Musfira will receive a £20 Amazon Voucher as the winner of this challenge.

Look out for more of our Friday Challenges coming soon.

To support students whilst studying at home we launched our Tile Cross Friday Challenges.

House Competition Launched TCA has teamed up with Get Set to bring you an exciting House Competition. Design your own mascot for the 2020

Tokyo Olympic Games (postponed until 2021). All the information you need to enter the competition can be found on

the website - http://tilecross.academy/house-competitions/.

It would be brilliant if lots of you not only entered the House

competition but actually sent in your entries to Get Set too. All

entries must be received by 31st May 2020. Details of where to send

all entries are on the website. Good luck!!!

A special mention to Dominika Maliszczak 8I who designed a coin for the NHS and the current pandemic. Well Done!!!

£9000 Sport England

Grant for Sailing!

As part of our exciting European Union funded exchange project each school had to enter a design for a logo to represent the programme. Pupils from Spain, Germany, and England then voted on line to choose the best design. Tile Cross students were the most enthusiastic with 128 pupils making the effort to vote. The most popular logo was this one:

This excellent design below by Shiza Noor came third out of five. When people are allowed to travel again we will be sending STEM students to Barcelona and Hamburg to work with our partners to learn about space exploration.

Space Race Logo Chosen

Building on the amazing support we had from the

1851 Trust for the Rebels Crew sailing project

which last year enabled all of year seven and eight

to learn to sail, we have just been awarded £9100

from Sport England to establish a free after school

sailing club for those pupils to progress and

continue their sailing journey. It will also fund

some pupils to continue their training and become

sailing instructors! The funding will also support a

weekend sailing camp on the Isle of Wight.

MFL Students Work All KS3 MFL students were asked to describe in Spanish what they were doing during lockdown. Others have described the Mexican celebrations for the 5th of May.

KS3 Art & Design Showcase

Art by: Shiza Noor, Luana Mihalachescu, Musfira Murtaza, Hayden Mcfall

Welcome to VE day-Home

Learning challenge from the

History DepartmentOn the 8th May the Nation come together to celebrate 75 years since VE day known as Victory over Europe, but the war continued in Japan until August VJ day announced the end of World War Two. The History department set an online home learning challenges to celebrate the day with a number of tasks for students. These series of tasks, some long, some short, some easy and some more difficult. Students had to decide which tasks they wanted to do. Here are some example of the challenges:

Our fabulous TCA students have been extremely busy during Children’s Book Week!Students have competed in the Bumper Book Quiz, created their own, fantastic characters and have designed story guides. Well done to all students who have participated in our reading celebration and keep up the great work!

Charlie Lyons

Gareth Busst

English Work

EAL Work Soumaya in year 7 writes about a trip to the supermarket and about her community. Soumaya has completed a range of sentence and text level tasks which show her development of the English language. Well done Soumaya. Ms Reid

The PE department continue to be delighted by the videos being sent in of our pupils taking part in the various PE challenges that are being set every week. So far the star pupil is Noor Mohssine Elaamani (9M) who has sent in clips of herself doing every single challenge set so far. Currently the younger year groups are beating the older ones with their level of participation. The leading forms in each year group are: 7M, 8C, 9M and 10K. We will be continuing to set a variety of challenges over the coming weeks and look forward to seeing all your efforts. Videos can be shared via your school OneDrive if they are too big to email. Mr Austin

PE Challenges

Year 9 English work – Conflict Poetry Special award goes to Noor Mohssine Elaamani for completing all the tasks even the Extension tasks to such a high standard

Year 7 and 8 students have been set weekly art challenges to work with unconventional materials and practice their drawing skills by following online tutorials. Staff have been overwhelmed by all of the students’ creative interpretations of the tasks and thank you to all of you that have emailed photographs of your artworks. Some of the challenges have included toilet roll art, creating a rainbow from objects and making a T-Rex from a milk carton! Keep up the imaginative work KS3! Mrs Gray.

Each month we will be providing useful information to support parents with some of the important issues you may be facing at home. In this issue Maintaining Mental Health during isolation will be the focus.

There are lots more links of things to do whilst not at school on our website http://tilecross.academy/