Spotlighter | 11 May 15

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11 May 2015 | Summer term

The fortnightly newsletter for Stoke Newington School & Sixth Form

SNS is More Than brilliant

SNS KS3 students took part in a celebration of words written, spoken and sung in an award ceremony organised by Ms Van Praagh.

The ‘More Than! The

person behind the label’ evening of awards, readings, music and food was the result of weeks of hard work put in by students as they flexed and developed their creative writing muscles.

Students had been working with creative professionals to come up with exciting prose, poetry, journalism pieces and drama scripts.

Read Joel Cooper’s report on the project on page three

Dear parents & carers, We have been tackling issues to do with health and wellbeing in assemblies over the past two weeks. This includes physical health and also discussion of mental health issues. You may know that increasingly “screen time” for teenagers is part of health assessments and can be included in discussion of health and wellbeing. I have sent home to you in the post some information about use of the Internet, social media and screen time generally; I hope these are useful.

We also discussed mental health issues and the importance of being open about these.

The students will be able to give you further information. They watched videos discussing mental health from the Time To Change website (www.time-to-change.org.uk).

We look forward to seeing you at the parents’ forum on Tuesday 12 May at 7pm.

Best wishes, Annie Gammon Headteacher

News and activities

Diane Abbott triumphant in SNS mock election!

Diane Abbott claimed a landslide victory for the Labour Party in the SNS mock election this week.

Abbott received an enormous 63% of total votes, with Heather Finlay’s Green Party achieving 19% of votes.

Simon de Deney of the Lib Dems and Amy Gray of the Conservatives ended up with 8% and 6% respectively.

A special mention must go to the Year 9 students, 94% of whom voted in this election. It’s really fantastic that so many of our students want to have a say in how our country is run.

Diane Abbott’s popularity will not have come as a surprise to those who attended our SNS Hackney Young People’s Question Time event in April. A

Abbott at the Hackney Young People’s Question Time event

Hackney stalwart, Abbott second) with most of her received the biggest applause views met with agreement.

Our students’ views were shared by the rest of Hackney North & Stoke Newington in the real election, as Abbott retained her role as our Edward’s image MP - interestingly with the posted on Twitter same percentage of votes of the evening (with Rick with which she won our SNS Edwards’ a very close election.

SNS success at the Hackney Athletic Championships

The annual Hackney Athletics Championships was held last week at Mile End Athletics Track and Stoke Newington School did brilliantly, achieving plenty of gold, silver and bronze medal places.

In Year 7, TJ Daniels won gold in the 100m, Luca Griffith did likewise in the 1500m and Edward Smith came second in the triple jump.

For the boys in Year 8, Rocky Dickinson did amazingly well, winning the 200m race and then placing second in the javelin. David Oyedepo came second in the 100m.

The Year 8 girls were very well represented in the podium places with seven medals spread between our five representatives.

Azreal George-Smith won gold in the 300m and bronze in the high jump. Willow Newman came second and third in the javelin and 1500m, respectively. Page Bailey-Gayle came second in the 100m, Kate Saiz was second in

the 800m and Felix Waters came first in the 1500m.

For Year 9, Timmi Ajeigbe placed second in the 200m, Ridwan Euba won his 300m event and Louis Ortron came third in the 1500m. Kai Bishop came second in the long jump.

The Year 9 girls swept the competition away in their events. Lily McKay won gold in the 1500m with Celia Hobbs and Meg Naylor and Lauren George doing the same in the triple jump, high jump and javelin, respectively.

In Year 10, Rabbi Silvabanza and James Barrow did very well to place second in the 100m and 800m, respectively. Loic Gaudin showed his strength to place second in the shot putt.

A huge well done to all our athletes, you did so well and everyone at SNS is very proud of you!

Creative writing at the fore with More Than!

Joel Cooper The More Than project workshop was great fun.

We spent the day getting to improve and merge our ideas to a professional standard while having loads of fun at the same time.

We were given the opportunity to work with professional artists from the creative industry which was very exciting. The day started off with a challenge about the depth and meaning of words, we were given words like ‘hope’ and ‘pride’ and had to make them into a unique representation of how we interpret the words.

Then we moved on to the idea of opposites and rhyme.

We had to find opposites and

rhymes to words as simple as ‘dog’, to as complex as ‘pyromaniac’, and went into the deeper meaning of why

the opposite of a dog was a cat.

Then we were separated into groups where the leaders were specialised to the genre of writing we had created. They had actors, journalists, theatre owners, publishers, directors, playwrights, inspirational speakers, and many more

to help us to develop, edit and improve our work.

There were groups who turned descriptive work into imagery, a story into a speech, and even just some events and facts into an amazing song! The final show that evening was great fun to watch as it gave us a chance to show our work to everyone else, yet also see what the other groups in the different rooms had created.

There were incredible ideas showcased that evening. I was so glad to be part of it. It was great fun to do and be able to see the incredible talent of all the people in our school. We really are all unique yet a part of one special community.

Year 13 economics visit to the Department for Work and Pensions

Mr Rumsby Our Year 13 economics students visited the government department with responsibility for welfare benefits, pensions and schemes to get people into employment.

The day began with a talk from the chief economist at the department who spoke of his experiences within

people to save pensions. The students had some wonderful ideas and presented them to the department with confidence and enthusiasm.

In small groups they then toured the department and saw first-hand the tasks the department’s employees were working on. The students were amazed at the the civil service, from taking amount of information they his degree in the subject, held, and the vast amount through different government of analysis that has to be departments, to lead roles in processed. projects.

Mr Rumsby, Mr Lafferty Then university students and the students would like on placement at the to thank Jane Rushton for department joined us to organising a very informative help our students plan a and memorable day, and all presentation on a policy the help and support she has exercise on helping people provided by volunteering into work or persuading throughout the year.

Calendar Tuesday 12 May - Parents Forum - 7pm Saturday 16 May - Full governing body meeting Monday 25 May - Summer half term begins

Contacts

Headteacher Annie Gammon annie.gammon@sns.hackney.sch.uk

Chair of governors Crispin Truman chairofgovernors@sns.hackney.sch.uk

INSTRUMENTS

WA N T E D!

Parent Teacher Association (PTA) parents@sns.hackney.sch.uk Reception 020 7241 9600 admin@sns.hackney.sch.uk

Editor Nathan Holmes nathan.holmes@sns.hackney.sch.uk

Reporter Mr Rumsby Reporter Joel Cooper

MR BOURNE WANTS YOUR UNWANTED INSTRUMENTS! IF YOU HAVE ANY LYING AROUND PLEASE BRING THEM IN!

School policy General Uniform Black leather, business like shoes and a suitable outdoor coat, which must be removed in lessons and assemblies.

Religious clothing e.g. headscarves and salwar kameez must be plain black. A small discreet stud earing may be worn at KS3, with a small hoop allowed at KS4. All pupils must also wear a lanyard with identification card. The following items are strictly forbidden: • Jeans, including black jeans, cords, chinos or combat trousers.

• Training shoes with a sports sole (e.g. Vans), hooded tops, and hats.

• Make up is not to be worn by pupils.

Boys Plain black smart trousers, KS3 students a standard white shirt with collar or school polo shirt and in KS4 a standard blue shirt with collar or school polo shirt, a school V-necked sweater or school sweatshirt.

Girls Plain black trousers with the school

logo or plain black knee-length skirt with the school logo; pupil premium/ free school meal pupils can claim £10 subsidy on these items. KS3 students a standard white shirt with collar or school polo shirt and in KS4 a standard blue shirt with collar or school polo shirt, a school V-necked sweater or school sweatshirt.

Holiday leave

Please remember that holidays are not permitted during term time. If your child has to be absent during term time, you must get written permission from Year 11 Curriculum Co-ordinator Jo Byrne before the travel arrangements are made and this will only be authorised for exceptional circumstances.

Contraband Items • • • • •

Mobile phones Headphones Hooded sweatshirts Jewelry outside of the school uniform policy Any other item deemed inappropriate by school staff

Clissold Road, London N16 9EX. Tel: 020 7241 9600

We would like to remind you that students are not allowed these items in school. We want to make sure students are concentrating on their learning. If students’ mobile phones or headphones are used, seen or heard in school they will be confiscated, with the SIM card. Only parents and carers will be able to collect confiscated phones from reception on the following Friday from 3.10pm. That also means if they are confiscated on Friday it can only be collected the following Friday. Phones will not be given back to the student, only directly to the parent/carer.

There may be occasions after attending an extra class or after school event when students wish to use their phone. They either need explicit permission from a member of staff who is with them or they need to leave school premises to do so. In all cases, a pupil who needs to contact parents/ carers will be allowed to use the phone in reception at a suitable time. admin@sns.hackney.sch.uk www.sns.hackney.sch.uk