Caludon Update Summer 2017

July 2017

Headteacher’s Letter Year Group News Student Successes

Graduation Trips & Visits Sports

Photograph: Learning how to create fire at Bushcraft Camp

Headteacher’s Letter

“Opportunities for all”

Dear Parents and Carers, Our students are very special and have shown this term that they are committed to attending school every day, being kind, considerate and confident, trying their best in tests and exams, and taking advantage of the many Caludon experiences that have been on offer. Consequently, nearly all of our students successfully earned the right to take part in our graduation events. The joy of seeing Year 7 so competitive and excited during the tug of war heats on their sports day, hearing the sound of karaoke

from Year 8 and the squeals from Year 10 on the rides at Drayton Manor, and seeing the bubbles and cakes with the marquee at the Year 9 graduation celebration, uplifted all of us at the end of this busy term. Year 12 dressed to impress for their afternoon tea graduation and their messages, indicating their best moments, signpost great things for next year.

Holding subject evenings for every year group has meant that we have had the opportunity to see more parents than ever before, and feedback has shown that you and teachers value these events. You have also attended a record number of information evenings, Music events, Art and Technology exhibitions, and Drama performances which have showcased the many talents of your children.

As a truly comprehensive school, we strive to ensure that there are opportunities for all. Last week,

we invited students to our first ‘Excellence Conference’ and over 100 students took part in activities designed to challenge their thinking, and listened to soundbites from high performing employers.

We wish Year 11 and 13 good luck when they receive their exam results in August and know that they deserve to achieve well.

You will see in this Caludon Update the many activities that are provided by our staff and the high take up from students. Can we thank you for supporting your children and wish you a fabulous holiday.

Term starts for Year 8, 9,10 and 11 on Wednesday 6 September.

Best wishes,

Mrs M Marr

Ms A Dudgeon

Y7 Graduation Events: Benchball Tournament and Sports Day

Year 7 News Almost as soon as it began, the 2016-17 academic year is over.

Our Y7 students are a year older and are now definitely settled as a part of the Caludon Castle family. They’ve seen, done and

learnt a lot this year, and most of the events in this edition of the Caludon Update were experienced by many members of the year group. As we reach the end of the school year, Mr

Holland, Ms Rayns, Mr Frankish and Ms McDougall hand the students over to Ms Edwards, Ms Hutchinson and Ms Miller who look forward to taking them into Y8 and beyond.

Graduation We have completed our first year of the graduation scheme. It has been very successful as we have seen the vast majority of our students graduating!

Y7 had a fantastic benchball tournament and sports day Y8 also had a fun packed day with sports and a graduation assembly ... they even had a visit from Yes Lads and the Coventry Blaze.

Y9 had their KS3 graduation evening in the Caludon Castle marquee where they were given their new KS4 ties.

This went over 3 nights with some amazing music from our talented Y9 students.

Y10 had fun in the sun at Drayton Manor.

Y12 had their graduation afternoon tea awards assembly where they dressed to impress.

We said good bye to our Y11 and Y13 students at their graduation proms. All the students looked amazing and compliments were flowing from the two hotels.

We look forward to new graduation awards next year and to all students graduating by succeeding against the set criteria.

Ms Gallagher

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Graduation Y8 and 9 Graduation Events: Yes Lads and the Marquee

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Celebrations Y10 and 12 Graduation Events: Drayton Manor and Afternoon Tea

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Graduation Y11 Graduation Event:

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Celebrations Prom at Coombe Abbey

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Trips and

Drama: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Fifty-two students from Drama GCSE went to see the National Theatre’s internationally acclaimed production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, at the Birmingham Hippodrome.

Winner of seven Olivier Awards and five Tony Awards including ‘Best Play’, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

brings Mark Haddon’s bestselling novel to thrilling life on stage, adapted by two-time Olivier Award-winning playwright Simon Stephens and directed

by Olivier and Tony Awardwinning director Marianne Elliott.

Christopher, fifteen years old, has an extraordinary brain –

exceptional at maths while illequipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. When he falls under the suspicion of killing Mrs Shears’ dog, it takes him on a journey that upturns his world.

“Throughout the play, a varied atmosphere of tension, amazement and isolation was created, just like inside Christopher’s mind. At the very end of the play, the fourth wall was broken as Christopher spoke directly to the audience; this concluded his journey to happiness, which made me feel like he had finally solved the mystery.”

GCSE Drama student

Art: Birmingham Art Gallery

On Monday 26 June, thirty seven Y8 students were taken to visit the Birmingham Art Gallery & Museum, where they saw original artworks by famous artists such as Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon and John Constable.

Behind them in this photograph is a statue called Iron:Man by Antony Gormley, famously known for his Angel of the North statue.

Mr English

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Visits

Computing: Coventry City College Eleven students from Y10 went to an exclusive day of interactive workshops provided by the international charity Devoxx4kids, on 10th July. The day consisted of multiple and varied activities: Minecraft moddling, Java programming, advanced Scratch and Leap, Sonic Pi programming to create music, Python programming on Raspberry Pi, Nao robotics programming, Lego Mindstorms, robotic

construction, programming an electronic calculator, embedded programming, Touch developing, XBox game design, micro-electronics circuit building and soldering.

Students chose 4 workshops throughout the day to attend.

They all created some amazing end products.

Mrs Richmond and Mrs Spelman

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Student Successes Headteacher’s tea parties The following students were invited to the Headteacher’s tea parties this term, to recognise their achievements: Year 7 Aimee Kelly Ben Adams Caden Hadley Cerys Winterbottom Dior Graham Elana Ha Erin Curtlin Kacie Troth Kaziyah Naylor Mahad Mumtaz Mahsa Haider Mia Horton Millie Wilson Nathan Pearce Ria Sharma Year 8 Alex Garroway Dylan Payne Eleanor Ashfield Eleanor Thompson Ellie Brown Eraje Bamyane

Eve Sharman Gabriella Tamne-Cox Grace Horgan Hannah Green Kieran Tomlinson Maslynn Djoukang Oliver Stevens Rachel Payne Shelli King Year 9 Callum Collinson-Rogers Cara Starkey Ellie Lawrence Gurveer Gurm Hollie Fraser Isaac Parkhill Jack Archer Jaz Randall Jessica Howe Josh Gough Karam Heer Kyle Foster Lewis McKay Logan Cunningham Molly Bayliss Natasha Sharma Olivia Hillage Ryan Smith

Rotary D&T Awards Well done to all of our Rotary Design and Technology Award nominees: Beth Taylor, Jamie Williams, Nathan Roper, Michael Prentice, Annie Collins, Sam Ralph, Harry Fairburn, Dan Nugent,

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Sam Millward, Luke Sedgebear, Domonkos Marek, Georgia Hanna.

The standard of work was, as always, very high.

Congratulations are definitely due to our Caludon winners, Andrew Tiff and Alex Eaves.

Ms Ruddy

Sarah Milbourne William Single Year 10 Aleena Sheikh Ann Marie Brown Britney Caka Charlotte Nicklin Elizabeth Nyaruai Evan McDonald Hannah Harvey Isobel Edmundson Jodie-May Johns Jessica Hunter Luke Sullivan Maariyah Ahmed Maisie Ashby Mia Hughes-Morris Mia Sharp Mica Simms Ramandev Marva Sophie Boon Tommy Mannion Congratulations to all the invited students!

BAFTA Young Game Designers On May 3rd, the competition for the ‘BAFTA Young Game Designers’ came to an end.

There were four categories: the ‘Game Concept’ awards and the ‘Game Making’ awards, both decided in the age groups 10-14 and 15-18. I entered the competition for the Game Concept award after finding out about it at school and I’ve managed to be accepted into the ten finalists out of presumably thousands of other entries from all around the UK – which I am extremely honoured about, as

this could strongly affect my career route. It truly does mean a lot to me to have been accepted into the finals out of all the entries.

Bros, Ubisoft and SEGA), and to have their games be developed into a prototype by a team of professional developers.

All the finalists will be gathered for the ceremony in London on July 8th at the BAFTA headquarters where the winners will be announced; awards for the winners will include having a personal mentor to help develop their game-creating skills further, tours of many leading media studios (examples from previous years being the UK Google HQ, Warner

The BAFTA YGD awards are just an amazing experience to have and I’d highly recommend it to those who have an interest in anything involving gaming, for the years of the competition to come – covering many options such as coding, concept art, animation and more.

Yue Qi, Y9

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Drama

Y11 Drama When 60 students, who’ve worked for two years to develop their acting skills, have to perform for a visiting examiner, it’s always going to be messy! Thankfully, as they always do, Caludon Drama students drew upon all of their resilience, talent and ‘oomph’

Y12 Drama

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The Y12 group performance exam took place in the Drama Studio and, using a new and different group of actors, the department recreated a previous production of Bertolt Brecht’s warning from history, ‘Fear and Misery of the Third Reich’. Brecht is a key theatre practitioner (studied at A Level) as well as being a playwright. His ideas about theatre were often about surprising the audience, to keep them thinking about what they were seeing. In keeping with this, the students acted out dark and realistic scenes

to deliver an exceptional two days of theatre. In our view, the examiner was lucky! There were times ‘blood’ was nearly shed but wasn’t. ‘Sweat’, however, was in abundance – the students had really worked hard to polish their performances. The ‘tears’ of anxiety and stress were far

outnumbered by the tears of emotion from the audience, as so many moving stories, characters and situation were skilfully played out. By the end of the two days, everybody was very, very smiley and proud, knowing the students had truly given their all.

of ‘normal people’ in pre-war Germany, under the Nazis, in an often funny, always raucous style.

They played ‘bouffon’, a kind of clown dredged from the swamps of humanity, acting out the stories.

It was a highly challenging piece that will be performed again next year for an examiner. That will be a performance not to be missed by lovers of thought-provoking and disturbing theatre.

Events

Highly Sprung On the Friday of Creativity Culture and Charity week our seemingly annual event, the arrival of Highly Sprung Theatre Company, occurred. Working with 3 classes of our Y10 GCSE Drama students and some of our A-level Drama students, Mark Worth, one of the company’s directors, pushed and challenged the students in many, many ways!

Hopefully their muscles have now stopped aching.

As with last year, our expectations about what students were capable of, and how they might respond, have been raised.

Seeing how they will adapt and use the techniques, to create their examination performances next academic year, is an exciting prospect indeed.

The Crucible Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ is one of the classic plays of American literature and is the set text for the new specification in GCSE Drama, currently being followed for the first time by Y10. The play is set in 1600s Salem, Massachusetts and is based on the true story of witch-hunts that led to the deaths of many innocent people. Miller wrote it in the 1950s as a reaction to the communist witch hunts of senator Joe McCarthy.

The Y10s need to plan their own imagined production, including set designs and the ways they would direct actors, for the final written exam in Y11. To help them visualise this, we all visited the New Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham to see an eerily creepy production featuring Charlie Condou from Coronation Street. With its old-fashioned

and heightened language, and challenging complex themes, this was never going to be an easy watch.

The Y10s, though, worked hard to bring the world of the play into focus. Some have created outstanding model sets for their own productions which will be invaluable help for their written exam.

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On Thursday 6 July, 186 students and 17 intrepid staff boarded coaches to Cholmondeley Castle in Cheshire, ready to tackle two days of bushcraft skills and wild camping. Once there, the students were divided into four camps and within each camp there were five tent groups and three activity groups known as tribes.

The students proceeded to live in a forest for the duration of the trip. They built shelters that they could sleep under at night, erected traps to catch food in, built fires to cook food on, whittled tent pegs, learned the art of camouflage, acquired some chanting skills and played numerous wide games, which all appeared to involve running around and making lots of noise!

We were very lucky with the weather as the forecast rain and thunderstorms never materialised. However, the students still managed to get suitably muddy, dusty and smokey from the fires. We returned very weary but having had a good time.

Ms McDougall

Year 7 Bush

Bushcraft is a once-in-alifetime experience which every student should try and take part in. From bonding with friends, to sleeping in the wild, Bushcraft opens up and offers many exciting, new experiences for all students who go. It is a Year 7 exclusive trip which no other year group can go on, making this one of the many advantages of going on the trip.

As well as this, you can learn lots of important life and survival skills from it - maybe your life will end up depending on it.

Tom – “My favourite part was definitely sleeping out in the wild under the stars. My group built a shelter, using a canvas plus anything else we could find out in the woods, for us to sleep in that night. Our shelter contained walls made out of logs, a bench and table inside, plus our own garden area, filled with ferns and pinecones. It took us roughly half an hour to build, but it was highly worth it for a thrilling night with my friends.”

Grace – “My favourite part was the ‘Bushcraft Challenge’ at the end of our stay because it was incredible fun to put the skills we’d learnt over the past few days into action. We had no

help for the activities and had to do everything ourselves, which turned out to be a challenge!

Some of the activities we had to complete, in order to win a prize, included making a fire to burn through a thick piece of rope and building a whole model of the camp we were staying at, just using natural resources.

This turned out to be really challenging.”

Harry - “My favourite part was when I learned how to use a knife, because I learnt a new skill which could potentially help me later on in life. With the knives we whittled away a stick to form a peg that would support and hold up our shelter, which we ended up sleeping in later that night. It also helped me learn some new terms such as ‘blood bubble’ and ‘blood triangle’.”

This is a unique experience which will only come to you once in your lifetime, which is why we so strongly recommend you participate in this trip. We have made so many long-lasting memories for the years to come and have made so many new friends. We hope everyone has a chance to have this opportunity, as we think it will be very beneficial for students to learn these valuable life skills.

Tom Male, Grace Masters and Harry Hiskins, Year 7

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hcraft Camp

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Performing Arts

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Dance Club has been busy this term creating dances for our end of year Performing Arts Showcase, where we performed with Drama Club and Y9 and Y10 Music students. All the Dance Club members choreographed their own dances. These included a ‘Grease’ medley, a tap solo, a duet from ‘Hamilton’ that was sung live onstage whilst dancing, and many more.

twice a week after school as well as during break and lunch times.

Students had been rehearsing

Ms Lester

On Tuesday 4th July the Performing Arts Showcase took place. It was an amazing experience and the combination of music, dancing and acting was incredible.

The performance ran really smoothly and everyone worked extremely hard. The support from the staff was incredible and the effort that the students put in was lovely to watch.

Once again, all monies raised were split between the three Performing Arts charities, for this year: the Sophia group, Myton Hospice and the Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

The running order of the show was great. It was really professional and the variety of acts was phenomenal. Everyone had clearly worked very hard over the past few months, including the Y10 BTEC Music

The showcase was extremely well received and the dancers’ hard work definitely paid off, leading to such positive feedback from the audience. The talent that these students have, even in Y7, is incredible and we are all looking forward to seeing what they can do next year!

bands, Dance Club and Drama Club. We witnessed everything from solo dances to a hilarious sketch from two boys pretending to be fish in a bowl.

Any students wishing to get involved with future performances should look out for further details on the enrichment timetable in September.

Sophie Reyes

Tomorrow’s Engineers A group of 60 Y9 students took part in a Tomorrow’s Engineers event on Tuesday 25th April, right back at the start of this term.

Students were required to design and make the most efficient wind turbine they could, and to find solutions to potential energy problems in the future.

The students were able to use specialist equipment and to work in groups, which helped enhance their team building skills and immersed them in a real life scenario.

The teams competed against each other to investigate the best number of blades and the best angle of blade for their turbine.

The challenge was to create a turbine that would produce the highest voltage output.

The winning team were Teona Anderson, Ella McKenzie and Kayleigh Johnson - well done for leading the way for girls in engineering!

The Science Faculty

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SENSED On Thursday 29th June, the ground floor of the school was transformed into an Art and Technology gallery for the third annual SENSED exhibition.

The standard of the work and the variety of exhibition styles was outstanding. There were tables that students had made, along with installations, videos, sculptures, photographs,

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paintings and delicious food provided by the catering students.

All the subjects from Design and Technology and the Visual Arts were represented and awards were given to students who had excelled in these areas, as well as to students who had shown great resilience in order to achieve.

Each year the numbers of parents and students attending have

increased and the hope is that this will continue.

The date for your diary next year is Wednesday 27th June. All are invited to come and see how creative and talented Caludon students are.

Ms McDougall

Exhibition

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Trips and Visits

Y9 & Y10: Duke of Edinburgh In July, an intrepid group of Year 9 and 10 students completed their practice expedition for the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award. The students did extremely well, demonstrating their practical skills, perseverance, team work and grit - and coped well with some very wet weather!

All should be very proud of their achievements so far and feel confident for the second expedition, which will take place in September.

Mr Handy

Other Visits Fourteen brave Y7 Caludon Explorers stepped out at the end of June to help create a map of Coventry. Led by Ms Mallett, the members of 7.3, 7.4, 7.7 and 7.8 used their newly gained mapping skills to create a map of their local area.

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On the 4th July, Y10 students went with Ms Crickmore to Birmingham to collect data to use

in their Geography pre-release exam. They had to complete numerous worksheets, including talking to the locals, which they did with great success.

Ms DeGroot took a group of Y9 Drama students to Richard Lee School on the last Monday of term to perform Theatre for Small Children to Y2.

Science Fair Throughout July students in Y9 have taken part in Caludon Castle’s very own Science Fair. The students were given the opportunity to use their imagination and creativity to practically apply the knowledge they have gained in their Science lessons.

Students were set the challenge to come up with a science-based problem that they wanted to solve or a science-themed question that they wanted to answer. All of the students spent time researching, planning, designing and carrying out experiments in order to collect data which was then analysed and evaluated.

The students then displayed their findings to the whole year group in the Caludon Castle Year 9 Science Fair event on Friday 7th July in the sports hall. Projects ranged from CSI and testing makeup, to which fruit makes the best battery and which ball bounces the highest.

Y9 students were really engaged and enthusiastic and it was a great celebration event in culmination of their hard work.

Votes are currently being counted and the winner will be announced in September.

Science Faculty

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Dol-y-Moch 2nd-6th July saw fifteen Media and Photography students visiting Coventry’s outdoor centre in Wales. The Y12 students were making short films and the Y10 were either making music videos or taking photographs for their GCSE project.

cliffs, suspended on the end of a rope to ensure the death scenes looked suitably effective.

Ropework was as important for the camera operators as it was for the actors.

We also managed to fit into the hectic schedule a trip to the icecream parlour, for filming purposes of course, and a stint The weather was remarkably kind to us as it only rained on one in a kayak on the sea looking morning and was fine for the rest at jellyfish floating beneath us filming had finished for the day of the time. and the opportunity was too good The students select the locations to miss. for filming before we travel, The students were all very and this year we had requests organised and all achieved the for a castle, a beach, a mine filming goals they had set before and a forest, all of which Wales leaving. Hopefully the resulting has in abundance. Some of films will be as good as the initial the locations and storylines footage suggests. required a variety of health and safety considerations, as students needed to be hung off Ms McDougall

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Music The year 10 charity concert was a fantastic success with all proceeds from tickets going to Zoe’s Place baby hospice.

Congratulations to Ebenezer Chattaway (Y10 music student) for organising the concert, rehearsals and performers.

The year group raised just over £200 for Zoe’s Place.

Mr Stokes The teachers’ charity concert took place on Friday 7th July 2017. It was an incredible experience and we all had a fun time listening to different teacher’s talents that we didn’t know about. We could all sing along to the songs and students were welcome to perform for their year group. There

In the Spring Update we revealed the three Y13 bands who had written and recorded singles to raise money for local charities. These projects are now complete and the totals raised are listed on the right.

The Myton Hospice project will have raised more than this shows, as this band’s concert was prepared for them by the charity, hence no ticket sales came through the school.

were singers, a band and the audience. It was an amazing finish to our arts and graduation week which was amazing too. It was a great way to get the year together and spend time with

everyone. I personally would love to do it again in future years but maybe for longer as it was so enjoyable.

We are very proud of these totals, and we know the students involved are as well. £2742 between them is an impressive amount to raise.

The Breeze - Fight Together for Myton Hospice, raised £564.

We would like to congratulate the students on their achievement, and thank them on behalf of all of the charities concerned.

Eiren O’Sullivan

The Reason - Always Mine for the Sophia group, raised £1114.

Supernova - Paint The Grey for the Birmingham Children’s Hospital, raised £1064.

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Food Technology

Attain

The Attain group, based in the Phoenix suite, have learnt to make and serve an amazing range of dishes over the year. Students have said: “My favourite part was the bake off, my scones won!”

Ethan Cooper “I didn’t have a favourite food this year, I just enjoyed all the experiences. I loved making the food for the Indian Meal Event.”

Ms Ruddy

Bake the Waste A massive thank you to all who have been a part of Bake the Waste this year. This club has taken place on Fridays after school, using up whatever is left over from the week’s Food practical lessons.

Some great products have been made, waste has been turned into food and fun has been had by all.

Ms Coe

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Technology

Successes Product Design Students throughout the year groups have made some fabulous product design work this year.

Mosaics Every year the mosaic products made by Y7 for the Y7 Design and Technology project get better and better.

Here is a selection of a few of the best, it was hard to choose as there were so many!

Tables This year’s brief for Y11 Resistant Materials was to design and make a contemporary table. They rose to the challenge and produced fabulous outcomes that have been on display in reception. Well done Year 11!

More Also on this page: Y7 mobile phone holder Y8 laminated desk top product Y9 solar lightsiss Knight

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History

Caludon History goes to the Castles!

Why were castles so popular?

Because of the knight life!

On a couple of days in early July two groups of Y7 students experienced life in medieval castles. Starting at Kenilworth Castle, the students explored the ruins of the twelfth-century fort and discovered its development over 500 years.

The students became fascinated with medieval methods of castle defence and the arrangement of murder holes along the castle walls. They sauntered in, examining the ruined walls in search of the oldest dates inscribed in the crumbling stone.

Using their imagination, students envisioned the castle in its glory days, without the pigeons! The students strolled through the royal gardens, relished in the kitchens and explored the ruins of the old great hall.

The students’ knowledge was enriched by visiting the residential areas of Queen Elizabeth I. The dual fireplaces filling the room, with views over the surrounding fields, provided a dramatic insight into royal life.

The students put on their war faces and climbed to the top of the towers, picturing invading armies and the castle defences.

What do you call a mosquito in a tin suit?

A bite in shining armour!

The stark differences between the castles were immediately apparent.

Students entered through the looming gates and were greeted by the birds of prey show.

After experiencing the show the pupils spread their own wings and visited the towers.

After a bite to eat and a spell aboard the bus, the students arrived refreshed at Warwick Castle.

The Kingmaker developed the group’s understanding of warfare and will provide valuable insight when the students study the Civil

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War next year.

Everyone had a wonderful visit, that heightened their understanding of castles.

The students were a credit to themselves, with one member of the public taking the time to notify a member of staff about how well dressed and well behaved they were.

The History department

Election News

Student Council Elections

In March 2017, students found out that a student council election would take place.

Candidates started to plan their election strategy and campaign straight away. Strategies included getting a team together in order to support their election campaigns.

The next step was to prepare flyers for distribution amongst peers. Designing and preparing flyers was a critical part of the campaign. Students also had to devise a key message in order to influence and persuade their peers to vote for them.

In addition to that, students had to design a PowerPoint presentation in which they explained what they would do if elected and how they could help students to experience a better life at Caludon. These PowerPoints were showcased

in tutor times across the year groups.

The election day arrived and all candidates clearly remember having butterflies and being nervous about the outcome.

Successful candidates were absolutely delighted to find out that they would be representing their year group.

The successful candidates include Jake Connor Chadwick, Ariyana Delai, Levi Reynolds, Alexia Mouzakitis, Jakub Strzelecki, Brandon Tierney, Ajay Singh and Madison Taylor.

Three months have passed since getting elected and students are thoroughly enjoying every minute of it. Councillors really value the sense of responsibility to represent others and work towards a common goal.

This is the beginning of a long journey and councillors look forward to future challenges.

Councillors feel that the experience has been amazing and certainly is something that they would all encourage others to do.

The Student Council

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STEM Go4SET: Big Bang Fair Fourteen students from Y8 and Y9 attended a celebration and assessment event run by Go4SET at the Ricoh Arena on 29th June. They were at the Big Bang Fair to present their eco-friendly designs for leisure facilities to the regional assessors.

Big Bang Fair

Over the duration of the last two half terms, the main focus of STEM club had been preparation for our entry into the Go4SET project sponsored by BP. Go4SET projects are all environmentally themed, including water and energy conservation, recycling and waste, and eco classroom design.

We then presented our work to a panel of harsh judges at the Big Bang Fair, at the Ricoh Arena, and waited to find out whether we would progress to Round 2. One team managed to progress to Round 2. However, they did not go further.

Sustainability is a key component of all Go4SET project solutions.

Students are able to apply STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) knowledge to a real life setting and demonstrate creativity and innovation. The project phase began with a launch event, included a company visit, and culminated in the celebration and assessment day.

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Those of us at STEM Club have been participating in a competition in which we had a time space of 10 weeks to complete a project. We had to pick a project title out of a list and create a model, a presentation and a report.

Subsequently, we were allowed to go around and look at all the superb stalls, with most giving free equipment and sweets (yay!). Some were stalls about Virtual Reality, some rugby tackles and passes, and one was even a CPR training course (which one student received a certificate for).

Students are extremely dedicated to STEM and come every week without fail after school.

After being allowed to roam free for a long time, and carrying loads of free merchandise in our hands and bags, we headed downstairs for the ending presentation where different prizes for different categories were awarded. There was also a scientist who performed a few funny experiments. I certainly think that the day had been a good way to celebrate all our efforts and hard work.

Ms Anderson-Shore

Ayomide Akinsinmide, Y8

Club

Coventry University visit On Tuesday 4th July, members of STEM Club were welcomed to Coventry University in the Engineering Technology faculty and given an insight in to STEM and the opportunities available at Coventry University which link to that.

The day started off with students from all the schools attending a gathering in a lecture room and receiving an opening talk; the timetable for the day was also explained briefly. Then, students were divided into teams and taken to do an activity. One of the activities available was concrete demolition and how to identify cracks. Obviously it wasn’t all fun and games as there was a technical side to each activity.

Then everyone was required to re-enter the lecture room for a talk explaining careers in STEM and particularly engineering.

Afterwards, student were given a tour of the campus and the private facilities which are only for students at the university. Some found these facilities very impressive, as they didn’t expect such quality.

At last, students were treated to lunch and then a final activity in which teams had to construct a wind turbine using given materials and one team from our school managed to win - well done!

Everyone received a goody bag and then it was time to sadly call it a day. After some boasting from the winning team, it was time to return to school. Personally, I LOVED it and it’s definitely made me consider studying at Coventry University in the future.

Ayomide Akinsinmide, Y8

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Excellence Conference During May, students who had worked in the Excellence Band in at least one subject this year were invited to apply for places at the Excellence Conference. The conference took place in July, and 140 students attended. The staff who had organised the conference had hoped for 120, so were knocked out by the response.

Those who applied were taking a leap of faith, as, when the conference was first announced, no firm details were available to students about the speakers and workshops. All was still to be revealed.

Despite one workshop falling through at the last minute, students were able to select from two lists with 11 workshops between them. They also had 12 speakers, including experts from outside the school, students and staff, all talking for 10 to 15 minutes about an area of interest to them.

Between the speakers they covered: youth crime, innovation, the psychology of memory, being a GP, working in the civil service, British Sign Language, paleontology, circadian rhythms, working as a clay modeller for

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Jaguar Land Rover, being a vet, illustration and graphic design, and neuroscience. A very varied agenda!

Several of the speakers also ran workshops in their chosen areas. In addition, students selected from: print-making, molecular gastronomy, aspiration and MOOCs (massive open online courses), making drones, and abstract set design for the theatre.

The aim of the conference was to provide inspiration and new ideas, and all students who attended were asked three questions at the end. What do you most want to tell others about? What will you find out more about? What will you do or change as a result of the day?

For those who had attended the workshop on aspiration and MOOCs, the overwhelming response was that they would now enrol on a course. These are often run by universities and are free. If readers are interested, FutureLearn are one of the best providers in the UK, with short online courses listed from universities around the world, covering hundreds of subjects.

We are very grateful to all the Excellence Conference speakers and workshop leaders, who all gave their time for free. Particular thanks go to the student speakers who took a second leap of faith, preparing talks to engage and inspire their peers.

Ms Hutchinson

Other News Headteacher Ambassadors In a new initiative for the school, Mrs Marr put out an invitation for students to apply to be Headteacher’s Ambassadors. On the 17th July, eleven students were interviewed for the role, a nervewracking experience for some,

while others (at least on the surface) were taking it in their stride.

The students who had applied were from years 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Congratulations to all those who were successful.

IFAW Animal Action Art & Writing Contest A Caludon Castle student has won the top prize for her age group in the IFAW Animal Action Art and Writing Contest.

within her age category (11 – 14) and has now been invited to visit the Houses of Parliament for a special tour as part of her prize.

We would like to extend huge congratulations to Cerys Winterbottom in Y7 for her winning entry into this art and writing competition. She won

Students were given the opportunity to draw or write in this conservation contest using elephants as their theme. Cerys created an amazing piece of art

work which impressed Caludon staff as well as the IFAW judges.

This is an amazing achievement and we are all proud of what this talented student has achieved.

Well done Cerys!

Ms Marshall

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Sports News

I am pleased to announce that on the 12th July the Caludon Girls won the ‘Sky Blues In The Community’ U13 Major Cup 2017.

They have now officially taken over Mr Frankish’s Y9 boys team as Caludon’s most successful ever football team!

students went to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. We were accompanied by the following members of staff: Mr Moffatt, Miss James, Mr Frankish and Mr Cope. After a two hour coach journey we arrived at Wimbledon and took to our seats on Court 2.

We stayed at the championships I congratulate the girls on their for the whole of the day and were success, and of course pass on lucky to watch Heather Watson my commiserations to Mr Frankish and Henri Kontinen play, who and the boys. eventually progressed to play in the final of the mixed doubles.

PL: 30 games Some of us were even lucky W: 26 games enough to watch Centre Court, D: 4 games after being given tickets during L: 0 games the day.

Goals scored: 81 Goals conceded: 6 After a long day at the championships we boarded the Mr Holland coach before heading to the hotel.

Our Wimbledon Experience On the 12th and 13th of July a mixture of Y8, Y9 and Y10

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The following day we ate breakfast at the hotel before packing our bags and heading on to Wembley, where we had

a tour of the stadium. The tour included the changing rooms where we saw different players’ tops, warm up areas and we learned about the history of Wembley Stadium.

We also got to go on the pitch side and lift the FA Cup trophy in the stands.

Overall, we had a great trip and would love to go again next year if given the opportunity. Our highlights were watching Watson and Kontinen play doubles and going inside the changing rooms that are used by the England national team. We would like to thank all of the staff who gave up their time to give us this once in a lifetime opportunity.

David Okema, Harman Sanghera, Aditya Nair and Nashe Younge (8.7)