CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL ITS MAGAZINE - September 2016

IN THE

CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL MAGAZINE AUTUMN 2016

ALSO INSIDE COOPERATIVE CONFERENCE JUNIOR DIGITAL CHAMPIONS WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ CHORLTON ARTS FESTIVAL ELE DAY

HELLO... ... and welcome to the latest issue of In the Spotlight, celebrating the achievements and success of the Summer Term.

Our Year 11 students worked extremely hard over the Summer Term sitting their GCSE exams. A year of hard work, commitment and effort secured them some fantastic achievements in GCSE examinations. We are very proud of our students and all that they have achieved this year.

During May, we hosted another successful Chorlton Arts Festival week with staff and students working hard to deliver a week-long programme of events for the Chorlton Arts Festival. This included two fantastic performances of Julius Caesar by 351 Year 5 students from seven local primary schools, and the final of the Chorlton Young Musician of Year Award.

The Summer Term saw some impressive sporting achievements at Chorlton High School.

All of our boy’s rugby teams played fantastically finishing amongst the top school teams in Manchester, and the Year 8 boy’s football team were crowned South Manchester champions.

Over the Easter holidays, students from Year 10 went on our annual ski trip to Saalbach in Austria. This was our biggest ski trip to date with 44 students and seven members of staff attending.

I hope you enjoy reading about the huge range of exciting opportunities that our students have taken part in over the Summer Term. We now look ahead to a new successful, creative and happy school year.

CHRISTINE TAGGART COMMUNITY AND MARKETING OFFICER AND IN THE SPOTLIGHT EDITOR

INSIDE THIS ISSUE...

SUMMER ELE 8-9 & MARINE BIOLOGY

OUTSTANDING EXAM SUCCESS

1

WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ

4

COOPERATIVE CONFERENCE

2

CHS IN THE COMMUNITY

5

JUNIOR DIGITAL CHAMPIONS

3

CHORLTON ARTS FESTIVAL

6-7

LIBRARY NEWS

10-11

SKI TRIP & SPORT

12-13

OUTSTANDING EXAM SUCCESS FOR CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS! Chorlton High School wishes to congratulate all of the students who have contributed to the school’s excellent GCSE results this year. At a time when examinations are becoming more challenging it is fantastic to see the students from Chorlton High School achieve one of the highest set of GCSE results in the school’s history!

This year 65% of our students have achieved the new ‘Basics’ measure of A*-Cs in Maths and English GCSEs, securing for themselves brilliant springboards into further education, despite instability in examinations and attainment across the country.

In addition to this, as schools are being asked to enable more students to enter for the English Baccalaureate, our school is really happy to announce 116 students have achieved this measure; including phenomenal results again this year in Single Sciences, French and History, with over 80% of students gaining excellent results in these subjects. We are also proud to say that the school maintains its strong Arts reputation with outstanding results for all students in Art, Drama, Dance and Photography.

In an impressive year for the school and its students, 31 Year 11s achieved strings of 8 or more grade As/A*s and 170 students achieved at least 1 A/A*.

Indeed, there are some extraordinary examples of students whose hard work and effort has manifested amazing results. These include: • HARPREET KAUR with 10A*s, 3A grades, 1B grade and an A’ level • SCOTT WARRANDER with 9A*s and 5A grades • CATRIN PILKINGTON with 8A*, 3A grades, 2B grades and an A’ level • ANNA SEIFU with 7A*s, 5A grades and an A’ level A special mention must go to HARRIS TARIQ who was new to the country just two years ago, however he leaves us with 5A*s, 6A grades, 1B and 2C grades.

Headteacher Zoe Morris paid tribute to the great dedication and commitment of students, staff and parents, “We have strived to ensure that all students at every level have an excellent foundation for future success. The results highlight the determination and hard work of the students, their parents and all staff in the school.

The school’s commitment to ensuring students achieve at the highest level is highlighted by the consistent climbing of exam results year upon year. We feel very proud to see our students achieve academic excellence whilst flourishing through the richness of cultural and social experience that thrives in the community of Chorlton.

We wish them all the very best for their future success!”

CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT

COOPERATIVE CONFERENCE

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The students were an absolute credit to the school – so enthusiastic and engaging!

On Friday 22nd April 2016, Chorlton High School were invited to attend the Cooperative Education Conference held at Manchester Metropolitan University, and give a presentation exploring the relaunch of our School Council and the changes that took place as a result.

Matthew Mantel (Year 10), Maddie Anderson (Year 10), Tyrel Facey (Year 10), Isabel Butterworth (Year 8) and Luis Martinez (Year 8) delivered their presentation to a room of academics, teachers, and people involved in cooperative education. They talked about the importance of democracy at our school, particularly within the School Council system, and the changes that they have been able to make as a result.

They demonstrated, in role play form, how students are democratically elected onto the School Council and the different stages this involves. They then went on to talk about what they have learnt from engaging in a democratic process, as well as what they have taught staff. They rounded off the presentation discussing how student voice has developed at Chorlton High School and took questions from the audience.

The students conducted themselves in an outstanding manner and demonstrated maturity and confidence throughout their presentation, engaging the audience in discussions and answering some tough questions.

Debbie Ralls-Glynn, who has been working with the students over the last year as part of her PhD research on student engagement in cooperative schools, said: “It was fantastic to work with Matthew, Maddie, Luis, Tyrel and Isabel at the Cooperative Education Conference and throughout my research on ‘doing with’ not ‘doing to’. The students delivered an amazing presentation on learning through democratic participation in the School Council. Everyone there was so positive, saying the session taught them so much about the capabilities of young people as

INSPIRING STUDENTS On Monday 25th April 2016, Chief Crown Prosecutor Nazir Afzal OBE came into school to speak to 50 of our Year 9 students. Our students were fascinated to find out about the ins and outs of the criminal justice system, as well as finding out about some of the high profile cases (and people) who Nazir has successfully prosecuted.

Nazir spent the time telling the lucky group all about his background, and how

he had ended up being given an OBE by the Queen for his service to our country.

It was amazing to find out some of the various roles that Nazir has fulfilled over the years – including advising EastEnders about how they deal with crimes and court cases on the show!

The talk was truly inspirational and left the students feeling inspired to work hard to achieve their own dreams.

school leaders, and how young people can work alongside staff to make schools a better place”.

We were blown away by all the positive feedback and comments on our school twitter feed from people who had attended our presentation. The students were delighted to hear they had made such a great impression on the audience and taught people such a lot.

We would like to thank the Cooperative College for giving us the opportunity to present at the conference and share our cooperative experiences and achievements. The students thoroughly enjoyed presenting and having the chance to speak to a wide range of people involved in cooperative education.

OUTSTANDING WRITERS

In March, the English Department ran a competition in conjunction with the Portico Library’s ‘Sadie Massey Awards for Young Readers and Writers’. The award aims to encourage reading and writing and celebrate talented writers in the North West.

Students in Years 7 & 8 were asked to write a book review to enter for the award.

As a school, we chose 16 finalists who attended a special celebration event at the Portico Library. We then entered five of the entries to be judged by published authors. Our five finalists were Thomas Devenish (Year 7), Jai-Marie Bah (Year 7), Matthew Curry (Year 7), Katy Robinson (Year 7) and Roshan Vyas (Year 7).

The students attended a special awards ceremony at the Portico Library in April.

The quality of the work produced was amazing and we were so proud when the judges chose BOTH Thomas and Roshan as winners.

“The entrance to the library was small. A long, winding staircase to go up and finally we reached a domed roof with a clock. There were shelves full of old books… very old books! There were lots of parents, teachers and children from high school age to Year 4. All of the winners got a mention by the presenter as they talked us through the history of the library and the competition. Roshan and I were shown the oldest book they had; a natural history book which was about 420 years old! I really enjoyed the experience of going to the portico Library and celebrating a win alongside a friend.”

THOMAS DEVENISH, YEAR 7 “A glass dome covered our heads as we walked through the door. Old books were stacked up on shelves. We sat down as the judges called out names for people to collect prizes. Overall, the experience was amazing and I loved every single bit.”

ROSHAN VYAS, YEAR 7

JUNIOR DIGITAL CHAMPIONS

Over the Summer Term, a group of students from Years 7-10 have been taking part in an intergenerational ‘Junior Digital Champion’ project in collaboration with Southway Housing. The students have been running sessions which aim to help older people develop their understanding and confidence with digital technology.

On Thursday 5th May 2016, the students ran their second digital drop in session with Southway Housing residents. Running in the same format as their first session in March, the students welcomed visitors to the library and ‘buddied up’ with a resident. They then worked with the residents on a variety of different digital skills from how to copy and paste, to organising and deleting photos on tablets and learning how to send emails. The residents thoroughly enjoyed the session and it was lovely to see so many of the residents who attended the session in March come back for another visit.

On Wednesday 13th July, the students delivered their third and final session with Southway Housing residents at

Buckthorn Community Centre. After a delicious lunch provided by Southway Housing, the students paired off with the residents to help them with their digital questions. The visit rounded off a very successful partnership project with Southway Housing which we hope to run again next year!

“I enjoyed meeting someone new and teaching her how to use her tablet.”

YEAR 10 STUDENT “I enjoyed helping people with things they don’t know and watching them get happy when they discover something new.”

YEAR 7 STUDENT

‘‘

I have thoroughly enjoyed today.

The information really helped.

The young lady was very patient explaining everything to me.

I look forward to my next experience.

SOUTHWAY HOUSING RESIDENT

’’

CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ On Monday 11th July 2016, Ms Quinn’s Year 9 Drama students performed a shortened version of The Wizard of Oz for their TIE (Theatre In Education) coursework. The class used Year 7 Gifted and Talented Drama students as the munchkins and as a group they had a fun filled morning.

The class invited 15 excited Year 7 students to come and watch their show who were treated to a bright, colourful, dramatic set; smoke machines and face paints galore! The performance was a huge success and was enjoyed by all involved.

EMERALD CITY

Students who have been spending time in the Green Room this half term have been working hard to start turning the old bowling green in Chorlton Park into our very own Emerald City! They have been tidying up the space, upcycling the old benches in CHS colours, adding new flower beds and planting the first plants.

Watch this space for the next updates on our new community outdoor space!

CHS IN THE COMMUNITY On Wednesday 6th July, members of the Year 7 School Council visited Chorlton Central Church to support a Community Friends and Fun event. The event, organised by the Chorlton and Whalley Range Dementia Action Group, aimed to raise awareness of dementia and provide a fun afternoon of activities for people living with dementia.

The students soon got stuck in helping to serve refreshments, running the cake stall, making knitted twiddle muffs and chatting to people attending the event.

They were even given the all-important job of drawing the raffle at the end of the event!

“It was a pleasure to sit back and watch them getting involved from the minute we arrived. They all demonstrated excellent leadership, maturity and confidence throughout” (Miss Taggart, Community & Marketing Officer) The students did a fantastic job supporting the event and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to get out into their wider school community and support a local initiative. Their presence was well received at the event, with a number of local residents commenting on how nice it was to see our students getting involved.

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It was lovely to see the Chorlton High School students at the event – we were all really glad they came!

COMMUNITY MEMBER

“Thank you to the wonderful students from Chorlton High School who helped to make our Community Event such a success - they made a wonderful refreshments team showing great organisational skills and interacted brilliantly with the visitors to the event.

They also helped to run the indoor games showing excellent initiative in marketing the activity to those attendees who hadn’t yet discovered the games. We are so grateful for their support.” (Alison Broadhurst, Director of Home Instead)

CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT

CHS AT CHORLTON ART The Chorlton Arts Festival showcases local talent in the performing arts, working with over 30 venues across Chorlton.

We have been working with the Chorlton Arts Festival for several years now, and continue to offer our Blue Box Theatre as a venue for a programme of events during the festival. This year, we showcased exceptional talent with Dance, Drama and Music performances as well as exciting workshops taking place in school during the day. Here’s a round-up of how we got involved this year.

JULIUS CAESAR

2016 marked the fourteenth year of this challenging collaborative project between the Primary Arts Outreach team at Chorlton High School, and Year 5 children at seven South Manchester primary schools. This year, through dance, drama, choir and film, the 351 children involved tackled Shakespeare’s great study in power, patriotism, honour and friendship – Julius Caesar. Both evening performances were exceptional and introduced many children to the bright lights of the Blue Box Theatre.

CHORLTON YOUNG MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR AWARD As the competition reached its eleventh year, the number of applicants and standard continued to reach higher levels. There were two sections to the competition: Chorlton Primary Young Musician (Under 11’s) and Chorlton Young Musician (Under 18’s). The senior winner of Chorlton Young Musician of the Year 2016 went to Orla Felcey from Loreto High School and the primary winner went to Cleo Bentall from Oswald Road Primary.

Miles Pillinger (Year 10) received the runner-up prize and the promising new comer award went to Beatrice Derrick (Year 7).

Congratulations to all involved on this fantastic night!

COMPOSERS AND CHOREOGRAPHERS

A week-long programme of events for the Chorlton Arts Festival was closed in style with ’Composers and Choreographers.’ The project showcased the incredible talent of our musicians and dancers following a week-long intensive extra-curricular programme with students composing original music and choreographing their own dance work, culminating in a spectacular fusion of the two art forms. The results were truly breath-taking! Despite the rainy Manchester evening the audience toasted the culmination of the festival with strawberries and wine.

HALLÉ ORCHESTRA WORKSHOPS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS Chorlton C of E and Barlow Hall Primary schools braved the cold, wet weather and visited the Blue Box Theatre for the Hallé workshop. The students worked incredibly hard and let their creative juices flow working on the very famous Bossa Nova.

The final performances were professional and a joy to listen to.

TS FESTIVAL CHAT:SS PRESENTS ‘CHAOS’ During the Chorlton Arts Festival, CHAT:SS (Chorlton High Arts Team: Site Specific) celebrated their eighth year of doing live Dance and Drama performances around the city and in our Blue Box Theatre.

This year’s theme was chaos and our students explored the refugee crisis.

Students took a stunned audience on the journey of refugees through the use of film and powerful dance and drama performances.

“Congratulations to all the students who performed ‘Chaos’ during our Chorlton Arts Festival week. We are so proud to have had the opportunity to work with such incredibly talented and mature young people. Their ability to effectively explore issues such as the refugee crisis was moving, thought provoking and full of impact. This performance was a true example of how Arts in schools help young people in our community develop their understanding of the world we live in. Students responded to the topic with maturity, sensitivity and empathy and the piece reduced grown men to tears” (Ms Quinn, Drama Teacher).

All money from the performance ticket sales was donated to MRSN (Manchester Refugee Support Network).

The students were invited to re-perform the piece at Manchester Art Gallery as part of Refugee Week. The students once again blew away their audience with this powerful piece of theatre in the hustle and bustle of Manchester City Centre. The day finished with a giant cheque being handed over by the students to the charity, who were grateful for this generous donation.

This truly was the most inspirational and powerful performance ever to be performed at Chorlton High School!

CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT

SUMMER ELE ELE week aims to create memorable and creative learning experiences for pupils, and this summer we certainly achieved that! Subject teams worked collaboratively to plan an exciting ELE through cross-curricular challenges. Both staff and students thoroughly enjoyed their week working collaboratively to produce interesting and exciting work.

YEAR 7: Year 7 pupils were able to opt for their ELE day this year and chose ‘Challenge’, ‘Creative’ or ‘Support’ activities to complete over the two days.

‘Challenge’ pupils studied the Law, tested their orienteering skills outside in the wet weather and ended the day in a large scale Zumbathon. ‘Creative’ pupils studied the art of comedy and aimed to transform their world by looking at inspirational figures in history. ‘Support’ pupils created welcome packs for the new Year 7 pupils and also tested their Dragon’s Den skills by creating new products. Year 7 were fantastic and really enjoyed choosing their ELE experience!

YEAR 8: Year 8 worked within Arts and Technology to plan, coordinate and enjoy their ‘Graduation Festival’ as they said

goodbye to Key Stage 3. Drama and Dance pupils planned the opening ceremony; Music pupils created entertainment - including live music throughout and Media pupils created opening VT’s for all of the acts using stop motion animation and video editing.

Our Technology pupils this year had lots of fun creating products for the festival including t-shirts, sunglasses, jewellery, fashion accessories and tasty flapjacks.

The pupils even made spare sunglasses for the rest of the year group! The pupils were treated to their very own photo booth where they could take home their photos from the day; they also braved the unpredictable Mancunian weather for ice cream and chill-out zone outside. Both staff and students enjoyed the day

celebrating the end of Key Stage 3 and all are looking forward to September and the start of Key Stage 4.

YEAR 9: Year 9 had a fantastic Careers and Enterprise experience. Pupils had a one day Enterprise Challenge supported

by Education Business Solutions, including industry professionals from across the North West. Pupils worked in differentiated business roles within teams to develop a range of products and trade with industry professionals. They developed enterprise, creativity, teamwork and communication skills throughout the day. Pupils were engaged all day long in this competitive challenge, and feedback from both pupils and staff was overwhelmingly positive.

Congratulations Year 9!

MARINE BIOLOGY TRIP On 20th May, 23 Year 8 and 9 students (me included) got up early and began our long journey to Pembrokeshire in Wales. This was somewhere I, and many others, had never been and were excited to go to! After our six-hour ride filled with sleeping, singing and snacking we arrived at Wales’ magnificent coastline.

As we approached, the sun shone down and lit up the glorious swathes of sand, rock and vast, blue ocean (instead of being overshadowed by rain, wind and mist). Seaweed grew in every shade of green, brown, black and red concealing the hundreds of rock pools that teemed with marine life. Huge shards of rock erupted from the sand and leant against the cliff face walls that enclosed and protected the area from Wales’ unpredictable weather. As we drove on towards the fort we were staying in, we passed a selection of building block shops, houses and cafes that resembled the childhood TV town Balamory.

After following a narrow road through the trees, we arrived at Dale Fort. Dale Fort is an area specifically used for students and tourists – like us – to discover and understand Marine Biology.

Within an hour of arriving, we were tugging on boots, wellies and waterproofs ready to head down to the beach.

The first day was all about exploring the life and habitats along the coast, and analysing why certain things lived in certain areas and why they thrived there. We collected trays of assorted crabs, tiny shrimp-like creatures, seaweeds, limpets, perrywinkles and other fascinating things like a possible shark or ray egg. After returning our findings, we placed quadrats along the beach (which represented a sample) and saw how rich the population was of each species. Next we had a quick classroom session and

discussed what we found, then created a bar chart to represent out results. Dinner was at six o’clock, followed by a short walk up the hill to set some small mammal (voles, mice and shrews) traps – humane of course!

Despite the disappointment of finding no mammals, day two allowed us to create more predictions and test them. For example we predicted that perrywinkles will grow larger in constant water than out of water. Within twenty-four hours of arriving, we were already packing our bags – but we still had an entire beach to explore. The second day’s afternoon was mostly about having fun and getting to know our fellow pupils.

Our last activity for the day was getting to grips with crabs; the suspense was unbearable as we reeled in our lines and bait.

Overall the group was quite successful with most people catching at least one.

One of the best parts about the trip was being able to meet and talk to people we perhaps had not met before. I think everyone at least made one new friend and learnt a lot whilst doing so.

This trip allowed me to visit a habitat that was not very accessible for a normal Mancunian, and broaden my understanding of science. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

BY ANYA EDWARDS (YEAR 8)

CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT

NEWS FROM THE LIBRARY

GIRLS STAR IN PREMIER LEAGUE READING STARS An all-girls squad stepped up to take the challenge of Premier League Reading Stars this year, for the first time. The rise of women’s football and the success of our own CHS girl’s football team meant that it was an obvious choice to choose the girls this year.

The National Literacy Trust’s project called Premier League Reading Stars uses football and footballers as a way of encouraging young people to get reading as well as playing the beautiful game.

The girls were involved in six fixtures in the library looking at and choosing different types of books, magazines and newspapers and the usual penalty shoot-out. New this year, were the player profiles, which were based on some of the top women players in the Women’s Super League.

AGAINST ALL ODDS Alex Wheatle’s journey to becoming a writer is both extraordinary and inspirational. Talking to a group of Year 9 and 10 students in the library about his books, Liccle Bit and Crongton Knights, he recounted his journey from a childhood spent in a children’s home, prison and then to gaining an MBE for literature in 2008. Boring, it was not! In a very frank, funny and uplifting talk, about overcoming the odds, he inspired students to work hard to achieve their dreams.

An away fixture is one of the highlights of the project and this year was no exception with the squad visiting the Etihad for a tour of the stadium. No visit is complete without the “hit the bar” competition in the player’s fitness room. This year, the girls showed their skills with two of them managing the challenge and suitably inspired, Ms Hockey’s shot also hit the bar!

The Manchester City Women’s Team beckons…

Liccle Bit and Crongton Knights follow the young inhabitants of the fictional Crongton Estate and their struggles to stay out of trouble. Both books are available in the library for students in Year 9 and above.

“It was wonderful to welcome Alex to Chorlton High School.” said Ms Hockey. “Alex also writes poems and lyrics and some students stayed on for an extra session run by Wordsmith on writing Spoken Word Poetry.” Both events were organised as part of the Manchester Children’s Book Festival run by Manchester Metropolitan University.

CURTIS JOBLING COMES TO CHS

Students were treated to a wonderful session in the Blue Box Theatre with author, animator and screen writer, Curtis Jobling, who was promoting his new book Max Helsing: Monster Hunter.

Descended from a long line of monster hunters, Max Helsing does a pretty good job of being a school kid by day and keeping his town safe from demons, ghouls and the occasional mummy by night. That is, until he turns thirteen and discovers he’s been cursed by an ancient vampire who wants him dead - at any cost.

MINI COMIC CON

The Library was taken over by super heroes during the last week of the Summer Term when Chorlton High School Comic Club held their first mini Comic Con. Students and staff certainly got into the spirit of the event and some of the outfits were fabulous, including the fourth Doctor Who, BB8, Baymax and the Joker.

Activities included a Comic Smart Workshop run by Ben Parker, no not Peter Parker’s uncle in Spiderman, but a student ambassador from Manchester Metropolitan University. Ms Coates and Mr Richards ran a fiendishly hard quiz on all things comic related, whilst former comic club founder member and Year 11 pupil, Niamh Fenton, came along to facilitate an art workshop.

To bring the whole event to a successful close, students watched the Disney classic Big Hero 6. “Students really enjoyed the event” said Ms Coates. “It was great seeing everyone dressed up and a wonderful end to the year for Comic Club.”

Curtis is one of the patrons of the Manchester Children’s Book Festival and the event was organised for Year 6 and Year 7 students as a transition event. “We were delighted to have Year 6 classes join us from Chorlton C of E and Oswald Road Primary” said Ms Hockey. “Curtis does a fantastic event, showing animations and trailers from his work.” Max Helsing: Monster Hunter is available to borrow from the library.

BOOKS AREN’T JUST F0R STUDENTS Parents’ Book Club was set up this year, to introduce parents to some of the best books written for children and young adults. Six books have been read this year, including Carnegie winners, Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner and included such wide ranging topics as the Second World War, through to the story of a teenage Polish girl.

Parents meet up in the library on Friday mornings every half term to relax together and discuss the book they have

been reading. “It’s one of my favourite sessions” said Ms Hockey “the books have sparked some great discussions and I love the way some parents have encouraged their children to read the same books as well.” Parents have also enjoyed the club. One parent commented. “I have thoroughly enjoyed it, relaxed, informal and interesting.”

If you would like to get involved next year then please contact Ms Hockey at r.hockey@chorltonhigh. manchester.sch.uk

CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT

SKI TRIP

WINNERS OF THE SLALOM SKI RACES FOR EACH ABILITY GROUP BEGINNER 1: RUBY TAIT BEGINNER 2: LOIS BLAIR BEGINNER 3: JACK WILSON BEGINNER 4: LOUIS SIMMONS

Over the Easter holidays, students from Year 10 went on our annual ski trip to Saalbach in Austria. This was our biggest ski trip to date with 44 students and seven members of staff attending.

INTERMEDIATE/ ADVANCED: GEORGIOS DOULGERIDIS (fastest time of all the students from all schools that race day)

TEACHER: MR GOSLING SKIER OF THE WEEK: LOIS BLAIR

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The ski trip is the best trip ever, it was even better than I thought it would be.

YEAR 10 STUDENT

Each year the trip involves a long coach journey which captures some beautiful scenery along the way. Spectacular views of the Austrian Alps and the Allianz Arena, the home of FC Bayern Munich and TSV 1860 to name only a few. This year we took a slightly different route and also got to take in the sights of the Olympic Village in London.

The weather was warm with clear sunny skies at the beginning of the trip.

Fortunately heavy snowfall prior to our arrival and towards the end of the week helped maintain good, but challenging, snow conditions. The last two days brought fresh snow and poor visibility, which tested the students skiing ability, balance and bravery.

We were extremely fortunate to have very highly experienced and qualified ski instructors for all five of our groups. Each student developed respect and a positive relationship with their ski instructors due

to their outgoing and friendly personalities, and even created their own chants.

With the ski instructor’s expertise and quality instruction, each student showed significant improvements in their skiing ability, including the impressive advanced ski group. All beginner ski groups progressed to Beginner III and Intermediate/Advanced ski abilities, with the advanced skiers demonstrating some of the best skiing witnessed on any previous ski trips over the past ten years.

One of the beginner groups progressed up the mountain on the very first morning after demonstrating good technique, which they developed during their Chillfactore ski lessons prior to the trip.

Four of the groups went up to the top of the mountain on the morning of day three, and by day four all five ski groups were skiing down blue and red runs from the top of the mountain. The ski

instructors are always surprised with how quickly our students progress and improve their skiing technique. This is partly down to the ski lessons at the Chillfactore, as well as the students’ effort, commitment and resiliency.

This year all ski instructors provided me with nothing but glowing feedback on the students’ attitude and commitment to practicing the exercises they set each morning.

Lead Ski Instructor Walter, who has been our ski instructor for the past two years, said “It is really impressive how the students’ progress so quickly having only had four ski lessons. I can always see the difference of students who have learnt on snow compared to dry slopes. It has been a perfect final week to a very good ski season. The students have listened and practiced the exercises we gave them and we have had no injuries. I couldn’t ask for more”.

SPORT IN THE SPOTLIGHT YEAR 8 FOOTBALL CHAMPIONS Congratulations to the Year 8 Football Team who were crowned South Manchester school champions following three wins and a draw against other South Manchester schools.

This meant that the team qualified for the Manchester Premier Division citywide final against Manchester Creative and Media Academy (MCMA).

This was a very close game and Chorlton High School ended the season as the second best team in Manchester after being narrowly beaten 4-3 by a very strong MCMA team. Well done to Niall Grant-Roue, Leo Brookfield Paul and Joseph Bentall for scoring goals during the match.

YEAR 8 & 9 ATHLETICS SUCCESS On Wednesday 11th May Year 8 & 9 students travelled to Sport City to take part in the Manchester Athletics city wide finals. The students performed with a great level of skill and effort and did themselves and Chorlton High School very proud. Cynog Williams (Year 9) showed complete dominance of the 800m event, using great tactics to outwit his opponents and finish in first place (although he cut it very fine). Leila Wiseman (Year 9) also impressed

and came second place in the 75m hurdles. Joe Bentall (Year 8) came a very respectable third place in the 1500m against a group of Year 9 runners. I’m sure the title will be his next year!

RUGBY CHAMPIONS All of our boy’s rugby teams have played fantastically this year and have all finished as top school teams in Manchester.

The Year 7 Boy’s Rugby Team are now the Manchester champions after being undefeated following games

against other schools.

The Year 8 & 9 team finished runners up after only losing one of their matches.

The Year 10 & 11 Rugby Union Team retained their Manchester champion title by winning all of their games.

Everyone who took part did extremely well in their respective events and they represented Chorlton High School excellently.

Their behaviour and attitude were impeccable, once again showing what Chorlton High School students are capable of!

CHORLTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE SPOTLIGHT

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