Newsletter 22

Ashton Highlights Newsletter 22

Friday 20th March 2015

Dear Readers As a true community school we have always believed that education plays a large part in shaping the world around us, not just of our school community but the wider areas of Ashton and Preston as a whole. In 2010 we changed our status from an 11-16 to an 11-18 school and set about growing our brand new Post 16 provision. We are pleased with our performance to date. Indeed a recent newspaper article ranked us as one of the best providers of post 16 vocational courses in Preston. This change in status is one of the biggest changes the school has undergone in recent years and we believe it has allowed us to serve our community more fully.

As times continue to change, technology evolves and communication advances we find ourselves in the position of having to adapt to meet the new challenges we face. One of these is the rapid development of social media. You are aware that we have a number of school linked Twitter accounts and regularly tweet news items. I can’t tell you how excited we get when we see our news re-tweeted!

Well, time does not stand still and nor do we. On the 6th of March we launched our very own Facebook page to showcase our students’ successes, raise awareness of events throughout the year and share with our local community what is actually going on at Ashton Community Science College. It has already proved to be very popular and is a great source of school information. It is updated frequently with exciting and interesting news as well as features on items such as the Duke of Edinburgh's Award or school shows like our upcoming Mamma Mia production.

If you would like to find the page and ‘like’ it please search for www.facebook.com/ ashtoncommunitysciencecollege. I hope you enjoy reading the page as much as we enjoy creating it!

As always, if you have any items you would like to contribute, please do not hesitate to get in touch Best Wishes Sharon Asquith

Follow us on twitter @ashtoncsc

Year 11 Countdown to Exams In preparation for the GCSE exams which begin in May, all subject areas are offering a series of revision sessions for students. Here is the timetable of sessions.

19 School days till the May Exams

WEEKLY LITERACY AND NUMERACY CHALLENGES Congratulations to last week’s Literacy winners:

Dalpreet Kaur 10H Sasha Singh 7T

Congratulations to last week’s Numeracy winners:

Preston Jayde Vickers 7H Rebecca Crawley 9O Numeracy Puzzle 24

Write out the sentences below and underline the subordinate clause in each one.

• Sitting in the school hall, Sally waited for the assembly to begin.

• Although he scored for the team, he didn’t win ‘Man of the Match’.

• The children cheered for their school team despite the fact they were losing.

• Sam, a year 8 pupil, earned himself a place in the ‘National Artist of the Year’ final in London.

2

1

3

4

5

One of these problems can’t be solved.

Which one is it?

COMMUNITY GATEWAY HERITAGE PROJECT Community Gateway are running a lottery funded project with Preston Schools about the history, culture and heritage of Winkley Square in town. A small group of Year 7 students have been selected to take part in the project and have taken part in two sessions last week and this week. The first session last Monday was an introduction to the site and they started to do some historical research into Prestonians who lived on Winkley Square. This Tuesday the group did some fieldwork at Harris museum and the Square itself. Their findings have been quite exciting. Edith Rigby, a fairly extreme suffragette and Thomas Miller, a cotton manufacturer once lived on the Winkley Square and the group have taken pictures of their former residence and compared them to pictures of the time. Students have also looked at old census reports and maps to create independent lines of research about these fascinating characters. The group finished their day at Preston Vocational Centre to learn about the way the site has changed over time.

The students were a credit to the History Department and the school and tackled every challenge and task with enthusiasm.

Last Friday the 6th Form committee ran a ‘Carnival’ in the sports hall for Red Nose Day. Students and staff were invited to join in a variety of activities and stalls such as Hook a Duck, Coconut Shy and Penalty Shoot-Out. The cake stall, tuck shop and coffee shop all went down a treat and cakes were kindly donated by 6th formers and staff. The 6th formers planned and managed the event in just 6 weeks to raise as much money as they could for Red Nose Day. The henna stall proved very popular, with queues of students wanting their names designed in Arabic. The penalty shoot-out was also a big hit with our very own Mr Mathers taking a shot at trying to beat the 6th formers. Students and staff had a go at lucky dip and tombola as well as trying to hook a winning duck and knock over all the tin cans. A fun day was had by all and many students and staff commented on how much they had enjoyed the event. A year seven spoke to one of the 6th formers to say: “This was amazing, I have had so much fun, thank you for organising it”.

The 6th formers had a lot of fun planning and

managing the event and are delighted to announce that they made £400 for Red Nose Day.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

When will I ever need science?

A partial solar eclipse will be visible from the UK from 0830 to 1030 on Friday 20 March 2015 - a school day! It will be at maximum at 0930.

More than 80% of the Sun will be covered by the Moon. A total solar eclipse will be visible from The Faroe Islands and Svalbard.

The next time a decent partial eclipse will be visible from the UK of this magnitude will be 12 Aug 2026. After that the next total solar eclipse for the UK will be 23 Sept 2090. The previous one was the very cloudy day of 11 Aug 1999.

It is the last total solar eclipse visible in Europe until the eclipse of August 12 2026. The eclipse occurs as the Sun rises at the north pole for the first time in six months.

26th March

Year 9 Parents’ evening

27th March

INSET day school closed Ski Trip leaves and returns 5th April

13th April 16th April 20-24 April

Return from Easter Break Year 7 Parents’ Evening Year 10 “Next steps” evening Year 10 mock exam week

28th & 29th Mama Mia Production April

FILM CLUB

Film Club is in Room 2 (auditorium) on Mondays - 3.00 to 4.30 pm (approx.) and Thursdays - 3.00 to 4.00 pm prompt . ALL year groups are invited to come along.

If anyone is interested, particularly Year 7. You will be given a letter, which will be a parental consent form for every new member. This needs to be signed and returned.

There is a wide range of film genre to be watched.