Inspire: Issue 7

Winter 2016 Issue 7

Success, nothing less!

Around The Academy....

Duke Of Edinburgh Success Aspire is delighted to announce the first successful candidates to complete the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award. It all began in January where students attended training sessions to develop skills for two summer expeditions. Whilst the training was taking place, in their spare time the students completed other sections of the award: skills, physical, and volunteering. Some helped out with activities in Highfurlong School and in the local community. Others developed physical skills and hobbies as part of the award.

In the summer, the group completed two expeditions in the Bowland forest region, which involved camping, cooking, and completing navigated routes using a map and compass.

The group leaders, Mr Tock and Mr Ryder, were very impressed with their determination and they are a credit to the academy; some students are continuing to pursue their Silver Award with other organisations in Blackpool. It is hoped that the award will continue in the academy with Year 9 next year.

The successful Bronze Award winners so far are: Year 11: Sinead Boyle; Year 10: Julia Stegienta, Madgalena Stroj, Hannah Stott, Joshua Atkinson, Natalie Taylor, Amber Hale.

#BeTheMiracle On Tuesday 8th November Miss Mackay visited Blackpool Sixth Form with six Year 11 Music students to take part in a very prestigious event.

Music staff at the Sixth Form had written “A Christmas Miracle” which was to be recorded to raise money for the Children’s Society.

This heartwarming song was recorded, in a day,

by Blackpool Sixth students alongside choirs from local primary and secondary schools, including Blackpool Aspire Academy and community groups, with all profits going to the Children’s Society.

On the day of recording all the musical parts were

Principal’s Perspective This term has passed by so quickly, it seems only a minute since I first started.

The focus of the Academy has been to accelerate student progress during every one hour of lessons, we call them ‘Golden Hours’. Staff are working hard to ensure that all five of these ‘Golden Hours’ every day deliver excellent results for all our students, ‘Success, nothing less!’. It has been a very busy end to the term with the usual practices for Christmas events whilst continuing our drive on progress as well as a visit from OFSTED and the Department for Education, as the regional Schools Commissioner is interested in our journey.

We have opened our doors wide this term and welcomed in younger students and staff from local primary schools (Layton, Boundary and Claremont) to take part in various Science and Technology events. I am thrilled that the links between our Academy and the local primary schools are really strong and are supporting the improved progress across the transition between year 6 and 7.

I am sure many of you are aware that Mr Simkins is retiring (for the second time!) at the end of this term. It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to him and I am sure you join me in thanking him for all his amazing work getting Aspire to this point. None of us can forget where we came from two years ago and how much hard work and personal effort Mr Simkins has given to make sure I have a stable, respectful and tolerant Academy to take over. His words, assemblies and character are evident all over the Academy and will stay that way, certainly as long as I am Principal. He has been an inspiration to us all in his relentless drive to make things the best they can be for all our youngsters and we wish him a very happy retirement.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all our parents and carers a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year. I look forward to seeing you at all the exciting activities we have planned over the next half term.

Mrs L Shuttleworth-Brown Academy Principal

put together and the sound was breathtaking.

After the vocal recording, instrumental tracks were added and the song was professionally edited.

All the students involved really enjoyed themselves - not only did they raise money for a charity but they got a lot of performance and recording experience out of it.

The song is available for download from most music download sites, including iTunes, with all proceeds going to the Children’s Society and at only 79p it’s the perfect Christmas gift!

English Faculty Tree Of Life

Poetry Workshop

To mark Anti-Bullying Week, students from across all year groups have been designing Anti - Bullying leaves for our tree in the library.

Our tree symbolizes the growth of our school and has PAUSE as the roots that symbolise our foundations.

The English Faculty would like to thank Mr Iddon for all his help with bringing our tree to life!

New Phonic Course The English Faculty have been testing a package called ‘Fresh Start Phonics’ for the last six weeks, Twenty Year 11 students were privileged enough to be invited along to a Poetry Workshop with the in some Year 7 classes.

Mancunian poet Mike Garry on National Poetry Day It is a 30 week course that is designed to help on 6th October. Mike has worked in collaboration our lower ability students boost their reading and with such famous icons as Manchester United and spelling; it has been designed specifically for high the pop group New Order, to name but a few. school aged children.

Students were treated to performances of his poems in his own inimitable style and he also gave Aspire Attendance Stakes them insight into his philosophy on life, poetry, and In an effort to raise the importance of regular the importance of reading. attendance Mr Westhead has implemented an Our students all thought he was an inspiration and Attendance Horse Race. we may now have a few budding writers of the All registration groups are represented as a horse on our virtual race course. In order to progress forms will gain points depending on how good their attendance at Blackpool Aspire Academy is.

Mr Westhead will study the attendance data and convert it into points every Friday evening, sending out an updated race spreadsheet ready g p on Mondayy morning. g to show form groups

future amongst them!

Open to all students, FilmClub takes place every Tuesday at 3pm in the Library.

Mr Smith runs Filmclub, and if you attend f four screenings you can claim your Filmclub badge, wristband, and lanyard.

Library L

NOTICES

Library opening times: 8.15am until 4.30pm.

The library is open access for all students before and after school and at break and lunchtimes.

Th ill be b prizes i f att the th end d off each h half h lf There will for term to the form groups who attend the best. ...and they’re off!

Careers advice: please contact Mr Smith in the library and he will organise an appointment for you LOST PROPERTY: PLEASE SPEAK TO MR SMITH IN THE LIBRARY

Maths Faculty Problem Solvers…

As a department this last term the Maths staff have really incorporated a lot of pair, group, and team activities in their lessons. The teachers are all working collaboratively to ensure that as a year group, the Year 7s are using their mathematical problem solving skills every lesson.

7x1 with Mr. Thompson learning through ‘Graffiti’.

One of Mr. Thompson’s favourite lessons…we’re sure 7x1 had fun too!

Working in pairs, teams, and small groups, the Year 7s combined their talents on a wide range of different styled activities and problems, tackling tricky conundrums such as ‘The Vault’, ‘Floor is Lava’, ‘Rally Coach’ and ‘Why?’ to name but a few. This Year 7 have responded extremely well and are really enjoying the wide range of learning activities that are now going on in their classrooms.

PiXl App Launch The maths department are proud to announce the launch of a new online learning platform for our Year 7 and 11 students - the PiXl app.

This fantastic teaching and revision tool is available for students to download onto their own smart phone or tablet. It gives users instant access at home and school to

Boss Of The North Team Aspire threw down the gauntlet and challenged other schools to become ‘Boss of the North’ in an online competition hosted by maths website www. mangahigh.com.

The free, online maths competition for KS1-KS4, is for schools across the North of England to compete with each other on Mangahigh’s games-based learning platform.

Aspire finished in the top ten out of 5,200 schools.

Our students put in a great effort and gained almost 11,000 points

Caldarelli. r trainee Maths teacher Mr. 7x2 ‘Floor is Lava’ with ou work together pular and made the class This activity was very po blem. as a team to solve the pro y song for it… ch cat her Also this lesson has a rat

a wide range of maths resources and allows teachers to set individual tasks and also track student, class, and year group progress.

It is a great app which both teachers and students are very excited to try out!

The PiXl App is available from both the Apple App Store for iPhones and iPads and the Google Play store for Android smart phones and tablets.

(3 points = gold, 2 points = silver, 1 point = bronze) by answering increasingly difficult questions, and it was a great opportunity to see the impact digital gamesbased learning had on our students whilst also increasing the profile of maths across our academy.

The following students were g awarded medals for amassing

a personal score above 150 points: Robert (Year 8), Charlie (Year 9), Joshua (Year 10), Zoe (Year 8), Hannah (Year 10), Leah (Year 9), Steven (Year 9), Chloe (Year 11), Payden (Year 11), and Nicola (Year 9).

Pictured is a very proud Mr Thompson with some of the medal winners.

ICT and Technology Faculty Christmas Card Inspiration During Aspirational Day all Year 7 students took part D in in designing their very own Christmas card. The Principal then had the tough decision of choosing P the tth h very best to be made into cards that will be sent to the local primary schools and associates s of o Blackpool Aspire Academy. All students had the opportunity to order their own professionally printed o cards to send to friends and family, lots of students c took up this opportunity and are awaiting the arrival t of o their designs.

Food Bank Appeal 11P and Miss Isherwood have been busy organising a charity collection in the form of a reverse advent calendar. The chosen charity was Blackpool food bank. Each form is taking part and every student has been asked to bring in one item of food such as tea bags or tinned goods over the month of December.

The boxes are filling fast and will be collected on 16th December ready to be packaged up and distributed amongst the families in need in the Blackpool area.

Paper Pets Textiles Art has had a very ver ery successful succ su ucces cccces essf ssf sful u start ul start tarrtt tto ta o th the he ne new ew ac academic ca ademic year with Year 7 students focusing on the artist Heather Galler and her use of pattern and colour, with our students successfully making repeat patterns of pet portraits.

Years 8 and 9 have both been researching the artist Jennifer Collier and her paper sculptures, recreating their very own teacups and birdhouses.

The success has followed on into lunch time activities which run every Tuesday and Thursday in A6.

Students from any year can join and have fun making textile products. All through December the focus has naturally been on Christmas decorations!

Expressive Arts Faculty Bronze Award For Year 10s

All the students Al worked w extremely hard ex to achieve this th nationally recognised re qualifi cation, so q well done to all w of them! o

Eight of our Year 10 students received their bronze art award from the Trinity College London this week. The students completed the course last year after taking part in a two-day workshop with the professional dance company Chameleon, and then taking part in a performance on the Comedy Carpet in Blackpool.

Ghostly Goings On In Blackpool!

On Wednesday 5th October the Year 11 Btec Performing Arts group watched a performance of ‘Ghost The Musical’ at the Blackpool Opera House. The Btec group will be staging their own ghost themed show; therefore, to visit a professional show, with the same theme, was a great learning experience. The group watched how a professional show operates and really enjoyed the performance.

They are currently rehearsing their show ‘Stage Fright’ written by Richard Moore, which will have its premiere in Spring 2017.

Miss Mackay, subject lead of Music and Drama, is pictured here with the group and said, “The Year 11s have a mammoth task ahead of them. Not only do they have to get to know the show and attend rehearsals, but they also have to produce it and perform it!

This is like the real world in the Performing Arts industry.”

Year Ye ear 7 Boys Boyys Football Foo otb ball

Year Ye ear 11 Girls Futsal

This winter term has seen some fantastic new talent come out of Aspire Academy in Year 7 with the boys football team flourishing. Trials in September gave Mr Errington a huge headache as he had to select a team from the vast amount of talent on display.

The Year 11 girls football team finished the winter term in style by winning the Blackpool Football Club Year 10/11 Girl’s Futsal Cup 2016.

The newly selected Year 7 football team have played in two tournaments so far against Unity, St Mary’s and South Shore in which the lads managed to accumulate a massive 59 points by winning 19 games and drawing 1. This puts Aspire at the top of the table for Blackpool Schools; they will now compete against schools all across the Fylde Coast.

Playing against other Blackpool schools including Montgomery, Baines, and St Mary’s at Stanley Park on the 8th December, they finished top by winning every game!

Five of the squad featured in the Blackpool and Fylde town team trials in October, having a fantastic experience being watched by very experienced football coaches.

Year 8 Boys Football It has been a successful term for the Year 8 football team in their tournaments against Unity and South Shore; a close encounter, our boys managed to win enough games to see them top of their group a great start which will hopefully continue into the New Year.

Mr Errington and the team

They will now go on to represent Blackpool Football Club in the Lancashire Futsal Cup in 2017.

Year 7/8 Badminton The Year 7 and 8 mixed team came out top in the Blackpool Inter-school Badminton competition.

This is even more of an achievement as the Year 7 students had never played Badminton before!

Science Faculty Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)

This half term has found some exciting opportunities for our students, especially those who have a keen interest in the STEM subjects.

The members of the STEM club with Mr Bradley have begun to construct robots and produce profiles in which they will be representing Blackpool Aspire Academy at the competitions in March. We have had da vast amount of ideas eas suggested from our students and these se are providing an impact on the build d and design of the e robots. Next halff term, we will begin to programme and undertake challenges with our robots, such as the various rescue missions on our gigantic Marss terrain. We are also looking forward to welcoming Nicci Pace, a project manager from BAE, to help guide and enhance our project and guide us to the EEP Robotics Engineering Challenge national finals. Unfortunately, we have not decided upon a suitable name for our robots, so we are actively thinking and accepting suggestions, feel free to tweet us your ideas to @aspire_science.

Earlier this half term, eleven E students adventured on an s immersive experience within im the th STEM subjects at Blackpool and the Fylde College. The a experience involved a live surgery e simulation, where pupils had to s perform a tracheostomy, in order p to help their patient to survive; this th was followed by ensuring that th air was being supplied to the th lungs successfully. Just to confi rm - all of our pupils were c very confident and were able to v save their patients! The session s evolved from simple surgery, to e dissections of the brain and the d digestive system; a fantastic opportunity to divulge into the life of a surgeon.

The day was then continued with a virtual reality experience, with a twist of mastering mind control which was incorporated into a simple game. Students were able to control the game actions and responses in a

mind-set clearly evidenced by mind-set, our students.

The students were then introduced to the Bloodhound project, the ultimate jet and rocket powered car, weighing 7.5 tonnes and working at a crazy 135,000 brake horse power.

The Bloodhound project is a global engineering adventure, competing against a 1000mph world land speed record attempt to inspire young people to explore STEM dierently.

Students were excited to participate in a competition in which they had a set time to build a K-NEX race car. This practice of excellent tteamwork found our coming sstudents second and third with s their designs.

The th competitive nature of our co students was portrayed stu with some excellent wit leaders encouraging and lea ensuring that everybody ens was involved.

There The are always exciting things thing going on in STEM Club and ALL students are encouraged to come along enco and join jo in the fun!

world of their own, whilst everyone watched their accomplishments and fatalities.

Although our students were not very successful in n surviving in the virtuall reality world, the e depth and immersive e experience did nott phase the resilientt

Humanities Faculty The Explorers Club On Saturday 15th October, a group of Year 11 students visited Beacon Fell Country Park in the Forest of Bowland as part of the first trip for Aspire’s Explorers Club. Organised by the Geography Department, Miss Stevenson, Mr Tock and Mr Oldham took the group for a walk around the country park to admire the views and sculptures.

The group enjoyed their visit, even though the weather was rather autumnal!

More trips are planned in the Lancashire area and the Lake District later in the year to enable pupils to experience the fantastic geography and natural areas in the North West of England.

In Flanders Fields In October Mrs MartinRodgers and two Year 9 students, Kai and Nicola, travelled to Belgium for a three-day visit of the WW1 battlefield on the Western Front.

many experts on hand to m give detailed accounts of g the th events that happened during the war and also d had h three serving soldiers accompany them during a the th whole tour helping them understand how the th men m would have felt and the th conditions they faced compared to modern day c serving soldiers. s

The tour took in a variety of different historic sites including battlefields, memorials, cemeteries, and museums, and participating The Last Post ceremony The whole experience in remembrance ceremonies Lijssenthoek Cemetery was extremely thought representing Blackpool Aspire Academy.

Poperinge, Belgium, burial Every night at 8 o’clock since 1928 the Last provoking, both students were ground for the dead of Post Ceremony has taken place at Menin Gate, overwhelmed by the sheer the First World War in a memorial to the 54,406 soldiers from Britain, scale of the war graves in the the Ypres Salient on the Australia, Canada, South Africa, and India, who lost memorials. They were able Western Front their lives and have no known graves in Belgium. to see with their own eyes Each and every one of the 54,406 soldiers’ names the number of men who died during the conflict and appreciate why it is so important that we do are engraved into the walls of the gate. not forget those who lost their lives and how that The three days were packed full with lots to see impacted on their loved ones and community. and take in and our trio were very lucky to have so

Quality Mark Award

RE Church Visit R

Blackpool Aspire Academy has been awarded the Secondary Geography Quality Mark and Centre of Excellence by the GA)).

GA Geographical Association (GA).

M Butt arranged a visit to Kings Mr C Church Blackpool on Friday, 2 2nd December. The experience w was to give students a greater u understanding of the features of the cchurch and will also help them to Pastor Ann Strickland understand some of the concepts studied in Religious Studies by meeting people from the Christian community.

Assessors were hugely impressed by the manner in which Aspire continues to embrace new and innovative approaches to teaching geography, and was one of only 16 schools to be awarded Centre of Excellence in September 2016.

The moderators were particularly impressed with the department’s approach to careers, ensuring Aspire students have an insight into how the study of geography can lead to jobs in the future. They also commended the clear evidence of innovation and passion that teachers have within the school.

Pastor Ann Strickland was the students’ host and led them in a question and answer session. Our Students asked various questions which Pastor Strickland answered by giving her life experiences and teachings from the Bible.

The students found the experience worthwhile, informative, and that worship and the Church can be very modern and entertaining.

Modern Foreign Languages Faculty What’s Happening In MFL...

It has been yet another busy term for staff and students in Modern Foreign Languages. With the new look GCSE examinations in 2018, students in all years are being stretched and challenged to ensure they make good progress and are on track for the demands of the new future examinations.

This means we have been doing more translations from English to French and vice versa, and have a renewed focus on phonics to ensure students

are confident speakers. Key Stage 3 students have regular vocabulary tests and are discussing grammar in a lot more detail. They are also responding extremely well to teacher feedback to improve the quality of their work.

In Key Stage 4, students are tackling exam style questions in reading, listening, and writing, and are developing their speaking skills to discuss photos and their own personal experiences, such as holidays at home and abroad.

Spotlight on Homework This term our homework award winners are…

KS4 Chloe Duffy (Yr10) KS3 Vilaxshi Srikantharasa (Yr7) Congratulations to 7xFr2 who have produced some fantastic homework projects on their topic of family, and especially Rachel Adams for producing this huge display pictured below:

Cong Congratulations! g attu at onss

Show My Homework

Well done to our autumn term award winners in MFL who collected certificates in assembly from the Deputy Principal for outstanding effort and achievement in French this half term:

Please check your child’s homework regularly on Show my Homework (the link is on our website).

Megan Sarjantson - Year 7 Ryan Nicholls - Year 7 Justin Harrison - Year 8 Charmaine Dodds - Year 10 Shannon Byrne - Year 11

All French and Spanish homework set in MFL is recorded each week by the teachers for you to support your child.

Links to vocabulary and websites for support are also listed.

HOLIDAY CLOSURES! We close for the Christmas break on Wednesday, 21st December, 2016 at 1.20pm and reopen on Monday, 9th January, 2017 at 8.35am.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

You can find us online at: www.blackpoolaspireacademy.co.uk - www.facebook.com/blackpoolaspireacademy - Twitter: @blackpoolaspire Or contact us by telephone: 01253 353155 or email: admin@aspire.blackpool.sch.uk Inspire newsletter designed and printed by Mr Sheldon