INA Secondary Newsletter
Newnham College, Cambridge Pg. 10
13 November 2015
Can you support INA?
We need more Work Experience placements!
Do you work in a career that would interest our students? If so please contact us: info@ isaacnewtonacademy.org Year 10 students will complete a work experience placement from Monday 20th June 2016 – Friday 24th June 2016 and we need your help! If you feel you can offer a placement please read the placement guide below and contact Mr Crowther-Green by email: info@ isaacnewtonacademy.org with the title Work Experience. Please provide a work address, brief details of the type of work, potential duties and include a contact name, telephone number and email.
Placement guide
• Employers must have a Health and Safety policy and Public Liability Insurance • Placements should be easily reachable from INA by public transport • Students should not be working in a confined space with a single employer (safeguarding reasons) • Employers offering placements will need to complete an agreement and send details of dress, days, times, tasks and any specific information • Students will complete a project which they will work through during their placement We welcome friends and family of INA students to offer placements to INA students. We want students to broaden their horizons and we want students to be completing a work experience that they could not easily organise themselves. Therefore students cannot complete work experience with family and friends. If you have an questions please contact Mr CrowtherGreen by email: info@isaacnewtonacademy.org.
Mr Crowther-Green 2 INA Newsletter
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Dear Parents and Carers hope that our Hindu and Sikh families enjoyed a happy Diwali. The fireworks in the Ilford skies were certainly really impressive!
This week has served as a reminder of how lucky our students at INA are with the wealth of rich additional opportunities offered to them by our staff. In this week’s newsletter you can read about: · · ·
The Teen Tech winners visiting Buckingham Palace to receive their award from the Duke of York A group of Year 9s spending the day at Newnham College, Cambridge The upcoming visit of author Rohan Gavin to address the Year 7s.
In addition to that, on Wednesday a group of our Year 8 and 9 students had to opportunity to perform an abridged version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth on the RADA stage in Central London to a packed audience. The cast had been directed and the play produced by Year 10 students, supported by Ms Field and Ms Rayner, and they brought the house down. This was part of the Shakespeare Schools Festival which a number of Ark schools were participating in. Congratulations to all the performers and back stage crew: it was a truly memorable evening. With best wishes,
Rachel Macfarlane Principal
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STEM CLUB: WINNERS CEREMONY AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE
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n Wednesday 4th November our Teentech winners for the health category were invited to attend a winner’s ceremony at Buckingham Palace! It was a real privilege to be able to attend the ceremony with the three boys, Chirag Shah, Muaz Nawaz and Daanyaal Ali, who were super excited to be able to go and see what Buckingham Palace looked like! They were awarded their winning certificates by the HRH Duke of York, Prince Andrew. They were also given a complimentary tour of the Royal Mews, a part of the palace which holds all the transportation which has been used over the years for special occasions by the royal family. It was a really lovely event for the boys to attend and they should be really proud of their achievements. As an educational institute it has been excellent achievement to have been the only state school to have won one of the categories at the Teentech Finals. We are proud of you boys, well done!
Ms Ahmed High Attaining Ambassador
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PE AT ISAAC NEWTON ACAD Fixtures and Results Redbridge Handball Girls under 15s Championship
NA hosted the tournament this year again and entered two teams into the competition. Both INA teams showed great desire to improve during the build up to the tournament by attending lunch time practices. INA girls showed unbelievable team spirit throughout the competition and a real determination to win. One of the INA teams only lost to the winners of the tournament 2-1; this shows how close the teams were. A special mention for their perseverance and bravery goes to Reem Shoaba 10E with a superb goalkeeping display and
Year 7 Netball On a dark, breezy evening we travelled to Ursuline
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School for our first away fixture! The girls were buzzing with excitement at the thought of getting to travel on the minibus and go to play a match away from home soil. Unfortunately they found themselves up against a very quick Ursuline team, who had a very accurate GA. Their excitement and buzz soon dimmed down as they found it hard to settle into the match. The overall result was soon something that we soon tried not to focus on. The Ursuline team were gracious in victory and nominated Glory Mondua player of the match for INA.; a nice touch to finish the game on positive note. Our girls were in total agreement that their WA was their player of the match. As we travelled back to school on the minibus their spirits were soon lifted as they had a good old sing song to the radio!
Upcoming fixtures 16th November • Year 9 Netball vs Mayfield (away) 18th November • Year 7 Netball vs Palmer Academy (home) • Year 7 Indoor athletics at Beal School 19th November • Year 8 Football team vs Loxford (away)
DEMY PE department extracurricular and enrichment clubs After school Lunch time DAY CLUB
TEACHER VENUE
Mon
Handball
DB
Sports Hall
Netball
EH
MUGA
Table Tennis GW Tues
Judo Club
External
Activity Studio Sports Hall
Wed
Yr 9 S+C
BH
Sports Hall
Rugby Club
OT
Knox Field/ MUGA MUGA
Thur
Fri
Yr 10 AT Football Table Tennis BW
Day
Wed
TB
Activity Studio MUGA
Fri
External
Sports Hall
AN
MUGA
Football/ Cricket Yr8
AG
MB
Basketball club (BH)
Girls Handball Year 8 & 9 Year 7 Handball Boys and Girls Basketball (Year 7) Girls and Boys
Tues
Thur
JL
2nd Lunch (year 7,8 &9) Boys Handball (Year 8 &9) Basketball club (Year 8&9
Mon
Activity Studio Sports Hall
Yr 8 Basketball Seated Volleyball Football/ Cricket Yr 7 Badminton club Girls’ Sports club Bike Club
1st Lunch (Year 10)
Handball Club (BH)
EC, DH, BB MUGA Knox Field
Improve your skills! Try something new! Keep fit! Make new friends! Unleash your energy! Increase your chances of getting into a team! INA Newsletter 7
Well done to the following students who are this week’s Mathematicians of the Moment. Please collect a merit from Mr Dukes
This week’s Mathematicians of the Moment Elanah Summers (9A)
Sajjad Ali (7A)
Ekam Sehmbi (8S)
Kisanth Ravi (7I)
Israel Vallejo (9N)
7I 30
8I
9I
7S
8S 60
9S
7A 40
8A 170
9A 430
7C
8C 30
9C
7N 40
8N
9N 600
7E 70
8E
9E 160
7W 110
8W
9W 530
7T
8T
9T 560
Announcement! Mathematician of the moment can now be found on fronter
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The Mathematics department would like to encourage all students to enter next week’s Mathematician of the Moment competition. Have a look at the problem below. Answers to be written on a Maths postcard to be placed in the Maths post box no later than 4.10pm on Wednesday 11th November. Good luck and may the best form win!!!
YEAR 7 - PROBLEM OF THE WEEK Monday 16th November to Wednesday 25th November
How many triangles? Answers on a postcard to be handed to Mr Dukes (G42) by Wednesday 4.10pm latest!
YEAR 8 - PROBLEM OF THE WEEK Monday 16th November to Wednesday 25th November
James was looking through the family photograph album, which has a photo of each of his parent, each of his grandparents, all the way up to each of his great-greatgreat-grandparents. How many photos is that?
Answers on a postcard to be handed to Mr Dukes (G42) by Wednesday 4.10pm latest!
YEAR 9 - PROBLEM OF THE WEEK Monday 16th November to Wednesday 25th November
Using four straight lines join all nine dots together without letting your pencil leave the paper.
Answers on a postcard to be handed to Mr Dukes (G42) by Wednesday 4.10pm latest!
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Year 9 Physics experience at Newnham College Cambridge On Monday the 9th November, the following year 9 students were selected, based on their high levels of attainment in Maths and Science, to visit the prestigious Newnham College in Cambridge and walk the same hallowed halls as alumni such as Rosalind Franklin, Jane Goodall, Sylvia Plath and Emma Thompson. Zaynab Mahiya 9A Amal Sohail 9S Haider Waqar 9C Omar Gill 9I Isahni Punj 9S Alfie Southall 9T Anushri Menon 9T Gurinderjot Singh 9T Husna Umarji 9W Tahsin Waher 9W “We arrived at the University and listened to an encouraging talk about the courses universities offer. We went on a tour around a campus which made us think about the aspects of life at a university. We also participated in experiments and a talk on Astronomy to experience the manner of teaching at a university” – Amal Sohail 9S “The trip to Newnham College was a good experience for me to learn about the life of a student for the future. On this trip I learnt many things such as what it is like to live at a college. We also went to the Cavendish laboratory which is one of the best research laboratories in the world. The best part of the trip was definitely when we got to do experiments with giant Jenga blocks!” – Omar Gill 9I As always the students were a credit to our school and upheld the values we have come to expect from students at Isaac Newton Academy. It was a pleasure to accompany them to such a highly regarded scientific institution.
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A Clift-Matthews Head of Science
A Warm Invite to INA’s Awards Assemblies – Friday 18th December 2015 On Friday 18th December we will be holding our first awards assemblies of the year. This is an opportunity for the staff, students, governors and parents/carers to formally celebrate our students’ achievements at the end of the autumn term. There will be a separate assembly for each year group. Please note the times as follows: Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10
12.00-12.45pm 11.05-11.50am 12.00-12.45pm 11.05-11.50am
At the assemblies we will be presenting awards in recognition of students’ academic progress and attainment, personal progress and the development of their BRIDGES dispositions. Excellent attendance and punctuality will also be celebrated. It is also a great opportunity for you to see some examples of the activities and events your child has been participated in this term. We believe that it is important that every student is represented by a parent at the Awards assembly for their year group and would like to invite one parent to attend on behalf of the family. If you would like to attend, please ask your son/daughter to collect a ticket for the awards assembly from his/her form tutor. Please request your ticket by Friday 11th December. Due to limited capacity in the viewing gallery, we are unable to accommodate very many additional family members. However, if you would like a second place, please notify the school office and we will do our best to allocate an additional ticket. I look forward to seeing you on the 18th December. Jo Spencer Vice Principal.
GCSE French and Spanish Controlled Assessments - Speaking Year 10 students will do their first Speaking controlled assessments during Friday 4th and Monday 7th December. This means that any student in Year 10 who is doing Spanish or French GCSE will be required to attend a 1:1 Speaking assessment with their language teacher for about 10 minutes. The controlled assessments will take place in formal exam conditions. The focus of the controlled assessment is sports and leisure. Students are preparing for the controlled assessments during their French or Spanish lessons. Students should also spend time as part of their independent learning revising and practising key vocabulary and phrases to ensure that they fully prepared and can approach their assessment with confidence. If you have any questions please contact your son/daughter’s MFL teacher. Jo Spencer INA Newsletter 11
Community Languages GCSEs Does your son/daughter speak a language other than English at home e.g. Italian, German, Russian, Urdu, Bengali, Polish, Turkish, Mandarin, Arabic, Portuguese? Can he/she read and write the language to a good standard? If you answered ‘Yes’ to these questions, your child may be able to take an early entry GCSE in the language at INA. Students will need to study independently for the exam. The school will supply past papers for students to practise and will pay the exam entry fees but we are unable to offer any tuition in the language. Students will need to make a commitment to studying independently for the exams. What happens next? Ms Spencer will be talking to students about the process in assemblies in the week beginning 17th November. Any students interested in finding out more should attend a meeting with Ms Spencer and Mr Crowther Green on Tuesday lunchtime. Ms Spencer will distribute a past paper GCSE paper and a mark scheme for the language for students to do at home. Parents will need to mark the paper and students should return it to Ms Spencer by Monday 23rd November. The school will then make a decision as to whether the student can be entered for the exams next summer. Mr Crowther-Green will contact parents directly to discuss the decision. Should a student not be deemed ready to take the exam, he/she may be able to take it the following year.
Save the date!
If you would like to would like more information or you would like to discuss the matter further, please contact Ms Spencer or Mr Crowther-Green.
Friday 27th November 2015 INA DISCO for Secondary Students More details on buying tickets next week! All funds will go to support student opportunities. Ms Alibhai-Watson & The FOINA Team
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Visit to Phillips Exeter Thanks to the generosity of Mr Griffin, Ms Ahmed and Ms Rudd both had the privilege of visiting his old school, Phillips Exeter, during the second part of the October halfterm holiday. During the two days that they spent there they observed a total of fourteen separate lessons between them, ranging from Physics to Philosophy, alongside their own subjects, Maths and English, of course! In every lesson they saw students leading their own learning through the use of the Harkness method, which students here at INA use in their subjects once a half-term at least. While no two Harknesses were the same, they did have some key things in common, including the impressive preparation students were doing for I/L before arriving to each lesson; students' willingness to make both educated guesses and mistakes; and students' insatiable curiosity, which spurred them on to make some truly fascinating discoveries. Inspired, Ms Ahmed and Ms Rudd spent one more day out in the States, visiting the prestigious universities MIT and Harvard, where they were blown away not only by the beauty, but also the opportunities available to students from all over the world, including INA!
Year 10 You will be sitting your first GCSE Mathematics Mock Exam Tuesday 17th November Period 4/5 1hour 30min paper Non Calculator This paper will provide us with your current GCSE working grade. It could include any content from the new GCSE specification (some of which you will not have covered yet). To prepare you should: • Review all learning from Units 1-3 • Use ActiveLearn to complete additional learning on target topics
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Praise & Recognition
Merits
Year 7 T C W S E N I A
632 545 454 432 371 333 325 315
Year 8 C S A E N I W T
421 360 355 354 351 343 294 220
Year 9 T E N W C S I A
558 338 208 159 138 134 132 92
Year 10 W E N S A T C I
168 115 112 99 96 90 78 63
Ahmed Al-Khafaji Award (Peer Commendation Award) The fourth awards have been decided by the previous week’s winners. Ahmed was well known for being kind, for helping others and for being extremely polite. He was also someone known for his hard work and absorption; the idea, therefore, is that the winner should be someone that encapsulated one of these qualities in that week. Year 7: Isha Haque 7S Year 8: Shaaista Patel 8S Year 9: Omar Gill 9I Year 10: Aqsa Bano Rafiq 10C Good Deed Feed Nomination from Ms Coates: Amir Chergui is doing a super job helping out with tag rugby at the primary school. The children have told me it’s their favourite part of the week!
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Jennifer Byrne Year 9 Pastoral Leader, i/c Praise and Recognition
ATTENDANCE Regular attendance is a crucial factor in students’ educational development and ability to achieve their full potential.
7C
100
8A
98.9
9A
100
10I
98.8
7S
100
8S
98.9
9E
97.8
10N
98.4
7A
99
8E
97.7
9T
95.7
10A
97.8
7N
98.9
8W
97.7
9C
95.5
10C
97.7
At Isaac Newton 7E 98.3 Academy every student 7T 97.7 is set the target of 100% attendance. We 7W 97.7 know that attendance has a direct link 7I 95.5 to progress, and would urge you to really consider if a day off school is necessary.
8C
96.4
9I
95.5
10T
97.2
8T
95.8
9S
92.9
10W
96.7
8N
95.3
9N
92
10E
96.2
8I
93.2
9W
91.3
10S
94
Well done to 7C and 7S and 9A for meeting their 100% target!
Year 7 98.4% Year 10 97.1%
It is still possible for any tutor group to take the lead, so keep giving your form the chance to win by being here every day!
Year 8 96.7%
Ms. Abbott-Jones Lead Pastoral Leader
BRIDGES How we build learning power and develop character at Isaac Newton Academy “We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” Isaac Newton The secondary BRIDGES programme commences on Monday 14th September. BRIDGES are habits of mind or learning characteristics that develop a student's character and learning power and enable them to grow into well rounded individuals and resilient learners. On a two weekly cycle throughout the year, Year 7 and 8 students are introduced to one or two new habits of mind or learning characteristics that will permeate throughout the curriculum. This will take place through a range of interactive activities. In addition, the students will experience BRIDGES learning objectives in each and every lesson throughout Isaac Newton Academy. Year 9 BRIDGES lessons will focus on strengthening certain BRIDGES learning characteristics through exploration of PHSE topics and themes. Each fortnight you will find top tips in the newsletter of ways of supporting your child to develop the BRIDGES habits of mind and learning characteristics within the home.
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INA BRIDGES
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Planning and Prioritising
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Key Dates for the Autumn Term 2015: Secondary Wednesday 18th November Thursday 19th November Wednesday 25th November Saturday 28th November Tuesday 1st December Tuesday 8th December Friday 11th December Saturday 12th December Thursday 17th December Friday 18th December
Rohan Gavin, author, visiting Year 7 Parent Workshop re Literacy Staff Training: school closed to students Saturday Stretch: Psychology Year 9 Options Evening Community Party Christmas Lunch Saturday Stretch: Geography Winter Concert Awards Assemblies. Term ends at lunch time.
Spring Term Monday 4th January - Thursday 24th March Half Term 15th - 19th February INSET days: Monday 4th January and Friday 12th February Summer Term Monday 11th April - Wednesday 20th July Half Term 30th May - 3rd June INSET days: Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th June, Friday 8th July
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