BGA Creative News Issue 5

Creative News Issue 5 . Spring 2016

News, views and information about Bethnal Green Academy

Welcome to issue 5 of Creative News – keeping you informed about the creative learning opportunities and social action projects at BGA.

Message from Thank you to students, parents, carers, staff the Deputy Principal and other members of the community.

‘Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education’ Martin Luther King There are lots of things that make Bethnal Green Academy a very special school. The students themselves, parents and carers and of course our staff.

The culture of character building is at the heart of everything we do at BGA. We empower our students by promoting character traits, attributes/behaviours that give our students the best possible start in life. This is underpinned by a set of four entitlements: Achievement - motivation, drive and ambition, perseverance, resilience and grit Arts, sports and culture - Confidence and optimism, conscientiousness, curiosity and focus Well-being - honesty, integrity and dignity Social action - tolerance and respect, neighbourliness and community spirit Our students demonstrate this on a daily basis and have made a significant contribution to raising money for charity this year.

We have SOLFEST 2016, the Oscars and many more exciting events coming up at the end of term. In the meantime, may I wish all the students taking exams this year every success.

Jennie Montgomerie Assistant Vice Principal

BGA has recently received thanks for raising over £3,000 for First Love Foundation’s ‘Love at Christmas’ donation appeal. The selfless donations of the BGA community enabled hampers, toys and gifts to be distributed to over 600 people in the borough, including young people in supported accommodation, women and children in domestic violence refuges and other vulnerable families. The funds raised by the academy also enabled the charity to hold a Christmas event for nominated families including a meal and entertainment, with children’s activities alongside hampers, toys and gifts for guests. We raised over £750 in our loose change appeal in a week! In

addition to this, we also collected over 1000 food items.

Representatives of First Love Foundation praised the Academy for transforming Christmas for those unable to celebrate themselves. The benevolent donations enabled guests to receive emergency food, but also the sense of belonging and festivity. The efforts of the Academy led to the unprecedented success of the appeal, building the Tower Hamlets community and providing hope and support for the most vulnerable of the borough.

Year 7 deserve particular thank you. Some students donated all the a pennies that they have collected since the age of five. Another student produced a power point that was shown to the whole school community.

It just proves that together we can make a real difference to ourselves and other people.

Issue 5 . Spring 2016

Social Action at BGA

Journey to Justice

JtoJ’s Martin Luther King Day event at the V&A Museum of Childhood 18th January 2016 The evening was facilitated by JtoJ teacher and management committee member Parul Motin and opened to great acclaim by five students of Bethnal Green Academy who told us about their heroes and sheroes including Martin Luther King and welcomed Journey to Justice to Tower Hamlets.

This is the text of a speech performed by Joseph Parker (Year 7) at this event.

Martin Luther King had a dream...

“That one day his children would not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.” ....

His words touched the hearts of millions of people... and they inspire me today.

Martin Luther King fought for fairness and equality. He believed America had to change but violence wasn’t the answer. He never used violence to help African Americans win their fight to end segregation. In 1955, he led an African-American bus boycott that lasted 381 days. For over a year, people refused to use the Montgomery bus service. They walked for miles every day to school and to work, rather than be told they were not good enough to sit at the front of the bus.

And no matter what the white Americans did - black Americans never retaliated. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled schools would be desegregated but in the South, White supremacists threatened black children with violence to scare them off going to school.

When I was reading about stories of civil rights heroes like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks I learnt about Emmitt Till - a boy little older than me. In August 1955, Emmitt, a fourteen year old Chicagoan, went to visit his great uncle in Money, Mississippi. His mother warned him: “careful how you speak. Say ‘yes, sir‘ and ‘no ma’am’. Do not hesitate to humble yourself even if you have to get down on your knees.”

A few days into his holiday, Till went into Bryant’s grocery to buy bubble gum. As he was leaving he whistled and innocently said. “Bye, Baby” to Mrs Bryant. His friends laughed, “don’t you know you’re not supposed to say goodbye to a white woman?” ....

Three days later, Till’s mangled body was pulled out of the river.

But still Martin Luther King never gave up hope. He never gave up fighting to desegregate the south and get the right to vote. He never gave up during the Birmingham campaign, a massive programme of boycotts, marches and sit-ins.

He never gave up in Chicago when trying to change the extreme economic inequality between black and white Americans. Because of his determination to bring equality to America, in 1964 Doctor King became the world’s youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. A year later, African Americans were granted the right to vote.

JtoJ’s travelling exhibition will be on display at Rich Mix in December 2016, a catalyst for arts and education events and training focused on local history and current social justice concerns. Rich Mix is a cinema and cross-arts centre in Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets and our exhibition will be on display there in December 2016 with a programme of complementary events. www.richmix.org.uk His words are, as relevant today, as they were fifty years ago. His dream will never be forgotten....

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Conscientiousness, curiosity and focus

A talent for giving: £1,500 raised for charities March 2016: BGA Year 8 students have taken part in a new initiative in conjunction with First Give; a charity that works in partnership with secondary schools to help young people to give their time, tenacity and talents to improve their local communities. The duration of this project consisted of 8 hours within school time, in addition to independent research and rehearsal in students own time.

First Give’s vision is to build a new generation of motivated and switched-on young people who want to use their skills to support local charities and make the lives of others in and around their communities better.

BGA’s vision and values are truly aligned with this charity’s vision and our students and staff relished the opportunity to take part.

Our students were involved in a wide range of projects as part of the initiative; learning research skills, working as part of a team in line with a ‘project manager’, connecting with their chosen charity, developing their presentation skills through media/ IT and delivering impassioned speeches. They also developed key skills which they will use throughout their academic life and as global citizens of the future including confidence building, taking the initiative, harnessing ambition and learning how to be empathetic towards each other.

In the final, all groups were posed the challenge of communicating why they wanted their chosen charity to receive £1,000. Working with BGA Year 9 students, the Year 8s pulled together all the techniques they had learnt, including drama and creativity, to deliver powerful presentations. Year 9 students supported the project to launch the challenge of devising a presentation both in Year 8 assemblies, and through tailored support during ‘Teaching Take Over Day’.

Representatives from the First Give organisation and a panel of judges awarded the following Year 8 teams their prizes: MIND - £1,000; Help for Heroes - £250; and Women’s AID - £250.

Ms Higdon, Head of Drama and Student Leadership, commented: “Our students have benefited from developing an understanding of their community whilst developing an intrinsic understanding of how to work towards a common goal. As a result of their own initiative and creativity, they have been able to participate in meaningful youth social action. Well done to everyone involved. We are truly proud of what

our students have achieved. Thank you to all charity organisers, parents, carers and staff who attended to support our students – the reaction of the announced winners was both emotional and a profound achievement for our community. The sense of pride in the room was overwhelming.”

Teaching Take Over Day

On March 2nd 2016 Bethnal Green Academy participated in the first ‘Teaching Take Over Day’, which involved students from different year groups teaching a class from their chosen subject.

Our student council rose to the challenge of planning innovative lessons with the support from their peers and subject teacher. All students who participated gained a sense of achievement, independence and responsibility. Through having a special day like this the students were really able to get an insight into how different students learn, creating a buzz for learning and instigating more students asking to be involved in future student leadership activities.

All students who participated took part in a teacher training workshop and developed their own resources and power-points to facilitate the lesson. During this day students were able to develop the learning of others through creative script writing, to starter activities on complex algebra formulas.

Miss Higdon’s star teachers of the day were Aslihan, Tahmid and Layla.

Aslihan, Tahmid and Layla delivered a very complex maths lesson for a whole double period. Their resources were insightful, prepared and challenging. I was so impressed by the engagement of the whole class and the students ability to feel safe with expressing their answers and challenging them also. Every section of the power-point presentation reinforced the learning objectives with clarity and challenge.

“All three students supported each other, displaying a common goal, to support the learning of each and every student within their class. I’m so proud and having struggled with maths at school myself, I wish I could go back in time and have you all teaching me! Outstanding job!”

Ms Higdon

Issue 5 . Spring 2016

English at BGA

Perseverence, resilience and grit

World Book Week

BGA opened its doors to the world of literature, creativity and imagination, encouraging students to enthusiastically engage with books from around the globe.

WBW originally stood for World Book Week, but now it surely has to stand for What a Brilliant Week!

Students, staff and visitors to the academy all came together in March 2016 to celebrate reading with an incredible array of events.

We were lucky enough to have visits from successful authors M.M. Vaughan, Erica Wagner, Antonia Honeywell and Philip Womack who held writing workshops in the library, attended by dozens of students who raved about the skills they learned.

Ms Stack organised a Desert Island Book display and assemblies where staff and sixth formers talked about the one book they would take to a desert island (Mr Messam’s poetry slam on dictionaries was a particular joy to watch).

Students also volunteered to take part in a Readathon, raising over £100 in only 5 days for children’s charities – just by reading a few books!

At lunchtime each day Jackanory sessions were held in the library where Ms Bellingham, Ms Higdon, Mr Walsh, Ms Robertson and Mr Marsh performed extracts from different books for students, many of whom came each day, mostly to listen, but maybe also hoping to win a copy of that book for themselves...

such as Katniss Everdeen, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Tin Man, Marvin the Paranoid Android and Juliet all rubbed shoulders for the day. This culminated in 14 of the best – and bravest – students competing in a fancy dress competition, making speeches in character to try to cinch the coveted Kindle! Every student who stood up for the audience was brave, entertaining and funny (and sometimes dangerous, with Ms Scales narrowly avoiding being speared on one of Katniss Everdeen’s (aka Fatima Koroma) ‘arrows’!)

The judges had an incredibly tough job in choosing the four winners, but the honours finally went to Siham Mohamed in Year 7, Munira Abase and Munira Hassan in Year 9 and – the grand winner - Aziza Mohsin in Year 7 who had performed her Queen of Hearts speech in rhyme! Special mention also has to go to Antony and Cleopatra (aka Mr Kwarteng and Ms Adams) who very deservedly won the staff fancy dress prize.

A huge well done to Ms Laskus and her team for organising such a fun, exciting and successful week.

There was plenty going on in the Street too, from Mr Paterson’s Countdown quiz to Ms Irwin and Mr Messam’s poetry writing workshops to Ms King’s treasure hunt. Then there was the ‘Who’s Behind the Book?’ competition where students had to identify staff members pretty much just from the tops of their heads.

Finally, Friday was fancy dress day – for many the highlight of the week - where classic literary characters Honesty, integrity and dignity

Antonia Honeywell, author of ‘The Ship’ commended BGA, commenting that it was a ‘privilege’ to visit the academy. Antonia continued her praise commenting, that ‘the students were receptive, enthusiastic and brilliantly creative. I left having learned at least twice as much as I taught’.

Ask Our Teacher Name: Mr Marsh Subject: English One interesting fact about yourself: I used to be an actor and still stay involved with the theatre - mainly now through writing.

What do you like about BGA? The friendliness of students and staff.

The fact that there’s never a dull moment. And the food!

What would you like to achieve in a year’s time? I would like to have my first play performed somewhere at a theatre near you.

Inclusion at BGA

Celebrating Difference Week

BGA students celebrated difference in a week of appreciation from the 22nd – 26th February 2016

Students at Bethnal Green Academy displayed integrity, awareness and support this week in recognition of the differences within our learning community.

The week gave our students the opportunity to champion and promote their peers with SEN and Disabilities; raising understanding within the academy community. The whole academy took part in cultural, social and moral learning opportunities; contemplating and celebrating difference.

BGA students enjoyed a rich and diverse itinerary with visits from disabled artists, photographers, disabled speaker Javed Moore (left), athletes and representatives from the Invictus Games Foundation who spoke, coached and inspired them with stories of success, motivation and exceptional feats.

The variety of events, included inclusive football coaching from West Ham United and an England International Cerebral Palsy footballer. Students tested their debating skills in the ‘Don’t Dis My ability’ Debate Mate competition and participated in an extensive Q&A session with an Invictus Games Gold medal winner.

Celebrating Difference Week also saw BGA students unleash their creativity through a disability photography lesson with published author and photographer Rosie Barnes, and they took part in BGA’s first ever disability podcast.

The week ended with the Celebrating Difference Awards, an evening where staff, students, parents and carers were invited to celebrate the achievements of some amazing students and enjoy musical performances from our talented young singers. Invictus Games athletes Gaz and Rob presented the awards and Year 11 student Abdulahi Yussuf was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award.

Thank you to everyone who helped to organise this fantastic week!

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Issue 5 . Spring 2016

Science at BGA

Three...two...one... we have lift off!

BGA students embark on nationwide science experiment

Students at Bethnal Green Academy have been selected to receive a packet of 100 seeds that have spent several months in space. The seeds have been sent as part of Rocket Science, an educational project launched by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and the UK Space Agency to inspire careers in STEM subjects.

Motivation, drive and ambition

Hydrogen Challenge

BGA students will become space biologists, growing the seeds from space alongside normal seeds and measuring the differences over seven weeks. It will remain a mystery as to which seeds were on the International Space Station until results from all 10,000 chosen schools have been collected by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and analysed by professional biostatisticians.

Through taking part in this experiment our students are experiencing first-hand the ground-breaking research into preserving human life on other planets in the future. The scientists will use the plants to think more about the difficulties surrounding growing fresh food in challenging climates and the requirements of long-term space missions.

Mr Palmer, Science Teacher said, “We are very excited to be taking part in Rocket Science. This experiment is a fantastic way of teaching our students to think more scientifically and share their findings with the whole academy and our local community.

I personally was very impressed with how wonderfully the students observed the transformation in a very mature and gentle way, especially when the butterflies were old enough to be released.

Year 10 took part in ‘The London Schools Hydrogen Challenge’, a workshop that uses hydrogen to fuel a Lego car which they designed and built. The cars that each team built had a race of efficiency – the car which traveled the furthest on a fixed amount of fuel won!

Students were encouraged to build their models as quickly as possible, then raced their cars a number of times in a process of iterative design. Each time, they went back and made changes to their car in order to try and improve their distance.

The workshop used practical skills and learning from Science and Technology in a challenging, exciting and fun way. An activity all students were engaged with and fully enjoyed.

Six teams were taken to the final and placed fourth in the whole competition. The engineers of the future?

Sixth Form at BGA

It was all about the money, money, money at Bethnal Green Academy’s Sixth Form Centre on Wednesday 20 January 2016. Our Year 13 students took part in a lively Barclays Life Skills event that was run in conjunction with Efe Ezekiel, Founder and Youth Mentor of UShine IShine.

The workshop was devised to inspire young people to get the skills they need for a better future and the session focused on personal finance with the main aim of preparing our students for the reality of university life and managing their own money sensibly.

Efe Ezekiel, who runs her own business and has experience in media production ran the workshop with Katherine, Richard and Claudia from the Barclays team. She was engaging, enthusiastic and inspiring and the students thrived on the experience and the knowledge they received that would help secure their future after leaving school. The workshop allowed students to understand how student finance works, the details of setting up a bank account and the best tools to manage their loan and their money throughout their time at university.

Karen McEwan, Director of Sixth Form commented: “The session was the perfect mix of practical information alongside huge doses of inspiration that allowed our students to look at themselves and think about what they really wanted to do. We would like to thank everyone involved, particularly our presenters and Claudia Gwinnutt a member of our Local Advisory Body who made this event possible through her contacts at Barclays.”

“Bethnal Green Academy is such a great school and the Sixth Form students were phenomenal and a joy to work with - they all have such bright futures.”

Efe Ezekiel, Founder & Youth Mentor, UShine IShine “Efe really inspired me and I want to make sure I succeed now. I have always wanted to manage my own clothing line but have been scared to do anything about it, but she made me feel like I can make my dreams come true if I put my mind to it. She made me realise that hard work always pays off.”

Fayeza Uddin, Year 13 student

Sixth Form Interview Week

During Sixth Form interview week in March 2016, the team also hosted a taster event on the 17th of March 2016. Extremely well attended, this enabled the prospective new intake for September 2016 a chance to see opportunities that would be available should they chooses to come to Bethnal Green Academy. There were displays highlighting the amazing workshops and activities that took place during this academic year as well as information about Sixth Form fitness, careers advice and information and guidance on higher education.

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Name: Mr Smith Subject: Teacher of Physics One interesting fact about yourself: I have a black belt in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

What do you like about BGA? I love how enthusiastic the students are to learn, I love the characters in the school that make me laugh every day and I love the sense of community that I see across the key stages everyone helping each other to be the best that they can be.

What would you like to achieve in a year’s time?

I would like to see myself progress in my career like any other year. I would like to see as many students as possible joining in the HEAL club and if just one student is inspired by me to work harder to succeed in their life I will be happy.

Astronomy at BGA

Studying astronomy at GCSE is an exceptional opportunity available to few at Bethnal Green Academy. Astronomy is a fascinating subject as it is a window into how our universe functions; a field in which there are endless possibilities and discoveries to be made. As it is an extra GCSE option, studying astronomy requires much determination as well as passion for the subject because it involves learning and remembering a lot of new information on top of all the work required for other subjects. Presently, our astronomy classes take place every Friday evening, after school for one hour.

Honesty, integrity and dignity

The Realities of Life Brought to Life

Students left the workshop buzzing; they felt inspired and motivated to take on the challenges of university life with a newly found knowledge of personal finance and ignited aspirations to realise and fulfil their dreams.

Ask Our Teacher

UrbanPlan UK

On 10th March 2016, Year 12 BTEC students spent an exciting day with UrbanPlan UK taking part in an innovative new project learning about real estate in a relevant, hands on way. The students had to research an imaginary town, meeting the needs of an existing community whilst also creating new buildings and areas. At the end of the workshop each team presented to the ‘council’ after having their bids accepted. The students gained understanding in how communities are created and how urban areas are regenerated. The winning team will be invited to a prestigious networking event at City Hall London during the summer holidays. Students will get the chance to meet other college and university students that have completed and won the challenge, as well as industry professionals “It helped me develop my presentation skills and my team work skills because I had to complete the challenge with the help of my class mates. It also challenged my way of thinking as I had to develop a town plan which involved rebuilding an area.” Year 12 student, Komol Onik Hasan “We learnt about urban planning techniques, processes and planning law. We also learnt about problem identification in planning and design. I had a really fun day.” Year 12 student, Yasmeen Ahmed

Issue 5 . Spring 2016

Humanities at BGA

Conscientiousness, curiosity and focus

What’s happening in Humanities Humanities have been busy over the last two terms developing new topics for all year groups to study. As a result of this, Year 9 historians enjoyed a trip to the Rio cinema in Dalston in December 2015 to see the film ‘Suffragette’. There was silence across the cinema as Carey Mulligan’s feisty character fought for her rights and those of other women, with many cheers across the cinema and lots of tears as the film came to an end!

Year 8 are also about to take part in an exciting project with the museum of childhood who have produced an excellent exhibition about the story of child migrants.

From the middle of the nineteenth century until as late as 1970, hundreds of children from children’s homes and in the care of the state were deported to colonies of the British empire, most notably Canada and then Australia. Unfortunately many of these children suffered trauma and abuse because of the experience, and some, now in their later days of life, are only starting to find out the truth about their real families. Year 8 students will be visiting the museum

and handling artefacts to learn about the journey that some unfortunate children were forced to take.

Finally, a selected group of excellent Humanities students visited the National Archives to handle artefacts from the Battle of the Somme as part of the centenary commemorations of the Battle in 1916. The Somme is notorious for seeing 20,000 casualties in one morning at the height of its bloodiness, and we were delighted to take a group of students whose effort, enthusiasm and attitude are consistently excellent across their Humanities subjects.

National Archives reward trip Here are a few pictures from the trip to the National Archives where 26 students who have shown consistent hard work and enthusiasm in Humanities subjects, learnt about the Battle of The Somme using a range of artefacts and sources. All the students enjoyed the morning workshop and were a credit to the academy. A big well done from the Humanities department!

Good luck to Y8 making their options decisions, Y11 who are working hard for their exams in history and geography, as well as our Sixth Form Humanitarians who are soon to be leaving us to study at different universities across the country.

Maths at BGA

Pi Day

KS3 students throughout the week did lessons on investigating the properties of pi by measuring the circumference and perimeter of circular objects with string. We also spoke about how everyone’s phone number appears in the digits of pi at some point.

Mohamed Ali Mohamed from Year 9 won the “Memorise the digits of pi” competition. He memorised 32 digits by composing a pi-em (a poem where the number of letters in each word corresponds to the digits of pi).

Rushamba Wright in Year 10 won the “Guess the weight of the pi” competition - she managed to estimate to within 10g of the actual weight!

Hussain Mahmud Tamim in Year 8 won the Number Day activity by getting almost all of the teacher’s numbers and answering the related pi questions.

Ask Our Teacher

Name: Ms Davis Subject: History/Humanities

One interesting fact about yourself: I am starting my own toy company.

What do you like about BGA? I feel at home here and as it is the smallest school I’ve worked in I enjoy knowing most students’ names!

What would you like to achieve in a year’s time?

I would like to have completed my after school course in plumbing and my triathlon in the summer.

Perseverence, resilience and grit

BGA Arts Update Overview

Bethnal Green Academy was awarded Artsmark Gold status in October 2014. The academy was commended for proactively creating opportunities for all students to access and develop through the Arts; generating significant personal and social outcomes across the whole student body. BGA was named national finalist and KS4 London Region winner at the 2015 Pupil Premium Awards, earning a prize of £100,000 in recognition of its exceptional student provision.

The approach

A commitment to excellence in cultural education and the Arts is deeply embedded within academy life and ethos. All students have access to arts-based activities regardless of their choices at GCSE and A level. The curriculum embraces elements of drama, dance, music and art to support and enhance an engaged learning experience. Role play and performances are broadly used across subject areas to develop communication, pronunciation, memory and cultural understanding.

Projects have been wide ranging: from small classroom based activities such as a roman banquet in Latin, to those on an international scale, such as a WWII drama collaboration with a school in Seattle.

The academy uses partnerships and connections with

arts organisations to enhance its student experience.

Work with vocal specialists, artists and arts organisations have improved student progress whilst opening up the Arts as a career pathway. Students are provided with high quality work placements and integral support in applying to foundation courses. The extended, rich, academy student experience includes visits to the theatre, art galleries, workshops, arts careers fairs, journalism conferences and taster course days.

Arts ambassadors sit on the student council; they volunteer and develop focused advocacy as an integral part of provision across the academy. Students can earn bronze and silver Arts Awards and their work is celebrated annually with an Oscars Awards evening, creative newsletters and ‘What’s on in the Arts’ promotional leaflets. Students with potential are identified, added to the gifted and talented register, and provided with additional opportunities.

The result

• The highest student attendance level in Tower Hamlets for the last four years at 97.6%.

• Outstanding academic achievement 2015: over 90% of students achieved 5 or more GCSE’s A*-C including English and maths (placing BGA in the top 5 nationally).

The Arts at BGA • Development of transferable learning skills: creativity, communication, confidence and positive learning attitudes.

• Personal enhancement: self-esteem, optimism, conscientiousness, curiosity and passion.

• 91% of students volunteer on a regular basis gaining unequivocal life skills of tolerance, respect and community spirit.

Conclusion

As summarised by Mark Keary, Principal of Bethnal Green Academy and CEO of Green Spring Education Trust:

“The experience of performing in front of an audience, of learning a musical instrument, and of working in a team and achieving success together helps young people to grow in so many ways. The academy promotes the philosophy that all young people deserve exceptional opportunities to support their talents and believes that a cultural education can open up a world of possibilities which might previously have seemed out of grasp.

An understanding of the Arts can cut across racial, cultural, social, educational and economic barriers and enhance cultural appreciation and awareness for everyone – our students deserve it.”

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MFL at BGA

Art and Design at BGA

Issue 5 . Spring 2016

Confidence and optimism

Issue 5 . Spring 2016

Motivation, drive and ambition

PE at BGA