Weydonian Autumn-Winter 2015

Weydonian Autumn - Winter 2015

Medici

Christmas Concert

A world class building for our art exhibitions, concerts and shows!

A celebration of Christmas and talented students.

Worldwide Weydon

X Factor

First Ghana, now Sri Lanka, our international links are expanding.

Weydon hosts a successful X Factor to a packed out audience.

Weydonian | Autumn/Winter 2015 1

Contents Meet the Team

3

Mr Winter’s Welcome

4

Presentation Evening

5

Building for the Future

6

The Creativity of Science

7

Technology and Textbooks

7

Year 8 Art Exhibition

8

Art Hub

8

The Eyes of a Winner

8

Holocaust Memorial Day 2016

9

Lest We Forget

10

Inspiring Theatre

11

Totally Legit

12

Uncovering Design Technology

12

iLearn with iPads

13

Weydon Patronage Scheme

14

Dragon Invests in Entrepreneurs

14

English Excels in Creative Teach-

15

Charity Fun Day

15

Worldwide Weydon

16

Christmas Concert

17

A Unique Concert

17

X Factor 2015

18

In this issue: We are pleased to be able to publish some of the photographs taken at Weydon by the Department for Education for their new national teacher training campaign. Do look out for more photographs as they appear in the local and national press over the coming months. Also check the i2i Partnership web pages for further pictures featured there. Our very own Mrs. Churms, Ms Donia and Mr Sharman feature in several national adverts already!

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Meet the Team Behind the Magazine!

We’re delighted to bring this terms edition of the Weydonian. This year is particularly special because the Weydonian has been produced and designed by only year nine students. We have been set the task, as a chance to gain new skills and opportunities with the help of Mr Duncalfe and Mr Phillips.

The Weydonian team consists of: Katie Denham, Hatty Alden, Sophie Hyland, Frankie Hobbs, Callum Jepson, Louisa Yapp, Indigo Milliner, Lily Buchanan, James Casemore, James Taylor, Tommy Snelson, Johnny Redford, Laura McCoubrey, Zoe Hemsley, Maddie McCubbine and Emma Wilkins.

The last term has flown by, and we hope that the Weydonian will give a taste of all the amazing activities and creativity that goes on within the school.

Weydon School Weydon Lane, Farnham, Surrey GU9 8UG 01252 725052 www.weydonschool.surrey.sch.uk

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Mr Winter’s Welcome So, today is the first day of spring and it is a splendid opportunity to look back on the wide range of activities and events that have taken place over the last six months. I am constantly amazed by the positive mind-set of our students and staff ensuring that the school continues to thrive.

In the summer I made an appeal to parents who are involved in companies both local and national to become patrons of the school. I am delighted that this initiative has really taken off with so many excellent assemblies taking place as well as support for learning in the classrooms.

You can read more about the initiative in this edition of The Weydonian.

This bridge building between school and the world of work is vital if we are to demonstrate to our students the relevance of learning and knowledge. Furthermore, it was hugely gratifying to see over 30 organisations represented at the Careers Evening. With both Year 8 and Year 9 choosing options for their GCSE’s, I am delighted that we are able to offer this level of support and guidance.

equipment all go a long way in creating a calm and well balanced learner. It has always been the case that some students need more help with these matters than others, even from within the same families.

At Weydon we provide a ‘catch net’ of care through our pastoral team and school counsellors along with the wider staff, all of whom are here to ensure your child is involved in school life, happy and well organised. It cannot guarantee a healthy mind-set but it will certainly help.

The next three years will see a period of unprecedented change in Education with every GCSE qualification changing specification, degree of difficulty and the assessment criterion. There is much talk of the removal of coursework and controlled assessments and greater emphasis on final examinations and the number of papers to be sat will almost certainly be increasing.

“Within the Weydon School community our young people are able to join others in activities that inspire them ...”

Like me, you will have noticed that the media has recently given a considerable amount of airtime and space to the important issue of mental health and the role that schools might play in promoting a healthy lifestyle. It is a complex area, but it is right that it is highlighted and that as a school we should be considering what part we can play.

As I reflect on this, I feel sure that student involvement in the many activities highlighted in this publication must be a positive. Within the Weydon School community our young people are able to join others in activities that inspire them and to benefit from the fun, laughter and friendships and that can develop as a result of these shared experiences. We hope that in doing so the academic side of school and striving for success is put into perspective.

Other elements that can help ensure students mental wellbeing is to help them to be prepared and well organised for the school day. Help to plan revision, manage time and the simple business of having the right Weydonian | Autumn/Winter 2015

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These will be challenging times for all and given my previous thoughts round mental health I am concerned that the staff at Weydon have workloads that are kept manageable and enjoyable for them so that they can continue to inspire our students.

With this in mind I am going to end lessons for students on Friday 15th July in line with many other schools. We will provide a school service for those who wish their children to remain in school until Wednesday 21st July.

The staff will be required to attend the school during this period to plan and ensure the new specifications are in place in readiness for the new term in September. This will enable the use of the summer period to continue individual preparation for the new school year and complete any marking as they would do normally.

So, it leaves me with my final task of thanking all of the Staff Editorial Team for this edition of the Weydonian and to all staff, students and parents for your ongoing support enabling us to have such an inspiring school.

Enjoy the spring and take time to notice the beautiful sight of our changing seasons.

John Winter

Presentation Evening Students who completed their GCSEs and other qualifications this year returned to Weydon for the last time as a year group. They were celebrated at Weydon School’s Annual Presentation Evening held on Thursday 26th November 2015. They attended with their parents, members of staff and governors to celebrate their success.

Mr Chris Brinsden, Progress & Achievement Leader for this year group, spoke of his pride in leading them through their journey at Weydon culminating in their recent exam success.

This year’s VIP guest was Dr Dan Plant from Imperial College London. He is the creator of Armourgel—a revolutionary material that has been used in a variety of products from space ships to bike helmets. He is currently undertaking his PhD at Imperial College as part of an entrepreneurial scheme. Dr Plant congratulated the ex-Year 11 students as they received their certificates and awards for their success. In addition to their GCSE certificates, a group of ex-students were awarded prizes for achievement in subjects and school awards.

Izzy Edwards and Reuben Gubb, head boy and girl for Castle College, hosted the evening

The event was hosted by Reuben Gubb and Izzy Edwards, Head Boy and Head Girl for Castle College.

Proud Ex-year 11s with their awards Weydonian | Autumn/Winter 2015 5

Building for the Future The new Medici building is host to three brand new art studios which are used for lessons as well as extracurricular clubs.

The classrooms are spacious which makes it is easy to prepare artwork on any scale. Glass windows give a great perspective and allow lots of sunlight to enter the art rooms giving a sense of ‘openness’ which is also shown by the storage solutions of neat cupboards which allow good worktop space and easy access to all tools and materials. The tables are neatly arranged in a way that allows space for each individual pupil and room to produce a magnificent piece of work. The area is safe, with little clutter and space to move between

tables. With a new modern design, the building embraces all new technology which is expressed by the new Carson Suite with new computer aided art such as photography and editing. The area also has a brand new theatre with enough seating for school performances as well as year group assemblies.

A new building is also currently being built next to the Medici block. The humanities block is due to be completed in the summer of 2016 and is the largest new development as part of the new plans. The building will home geography, English and history and a new Learning Resource Centre (LRC) .

James Casemore

Classes now get to enjoy their Art lessons in the world class Medici building.

The Creativity of Science As we all know, there are only a few subjects that are labelled as creative. However, what we don't always tend to see, is how much creativity is needed for science. Vivid imagination is such a crucial trait you have to take advantage of in order to succeed. For example, when Charles Darwin developed the Natural Selection theory, he had to interpret other theories into his own, and come up with a completely new idea that is now strongly believed to be accurate.

One of the Year 9 classes using technology in science.

With amazing access to incredible resources, such as the iPads, students are given an ever-widening possibility to achieve.

Online tools like Socrative provide a relaxed environment for students to answer questions and have immediate feedback on their progress. Whilst being immensely helpful to the student, it also informs the teacher which in the long term helps the use of scientific models, it can convey subjects in a clearer students excel. The creative use of technology also makes way, therefore ensure a more secure outcome." science seem so much more appealing to students!

We have so much to support our learning, and the way we Mrs Thornton was asked if believed science can involve think, so we really have to take advantages of the creative creativity: "Scientists are massively creative because they look benefits we are given in this school. Science is one of the for things and investigate, and to look for theories and ideas, subjects that makes you step out of your comfort zone a little they have to think outside of the box. I think when trying to and think outside of the box!

Indigo Milliner communicate scientific ideas, the more creative you can be, like Weydonian | Autumn/Winter 2015

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Technology and Textbooks Maths at Weydon is taught in a variety of different ways, with teachers making innovative and creative ways to inspire students to learn maths. The combination of new technology and games with the traditional teaching methods creates a wide range of opportunities helps show that you learn best when enjoying the subject.

As of September, the maths department has been using the year 9's iPads to develop understanding using Pearson's Active Learn (a subscription based website offering teachers a chance to set online assignments as well as an opportunity for students to access their textbooks by the Internet on their iPads) which allows the year group a fantastic opportunity in using virtual tools to develop their understanding and skill in topics.

This learning resource enables students to access all their textbooks whenever they are needed, allowing a large array of opportunities to increase their understanding of this subject without the hassle of multiple textbooks. Not only are they using the iPads for Active Learn, they are also using it for revision to consolidate the learning and expand on their knowledge.

Year 9 students using iPads in class

But for the other years, creative ways to learn maths takes many other forms. Treasure hunts, bingo, and many other games form an important balance between traditional and modern methods of teaching. These forms of learning help the students learn in new ways to keep them interested in the subject. Maths bingo involves teachers choosing numbers that are answers to questions that they have already made, the children pick numbers and put them in a grid and when the teacher asks a question the student must work out the answer and see if the have it. This inspires the students to want to improve and continue to learn to give themselves a chance at winning by making sure they know how they must work out the answers. This also allows teachers to see how different students work and how fast they are able to apply the maths they have been taught.

‘Creativity in maths takes many forms...’

We believe that the iPads are an efficient way of learning, with teachers being able to access the information about how their students are doing simply by the click of a button. Even though not every student in every year has their own iPads, students are excited by the prospect of their lessons including this technology.

We can see that throughout the years at Weydon, different year groups have been using different methods of creative learning to increase their knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of the subject. Maths at Weydon continues to develop with students and teachers sharing a passion for learning.

Frankie Hobbs and Madeleine McCubbine

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Year 8 Art Exhibition The Art Curriculum Area were proud to host the very first Year 8 Art exhibition in the new Medici gallery and studios on Thursday 10th December. The students had been working on a choice based sculpture project themed 'The Beach'.

What better way to end the first term in our wonderful new space than with a joyous and sunny exhibition full of ice creams, beach huts, surf boards and sharks, to name a few exhibits.

The energy and buzz from parents and students was infectious, and being able to

Work by Alice O’Hara

share the students’ creativity has been the highlight of the year.

Particular favourites from the exhibition were Lexi Boyd's giant octopus, Tian Pan's glittering beach hut, Megan Edwards' poisoned mermaid, Lauren Outridge Needs' bottle scene and Mark Meyer's beach hut and palm tree. Ms Harrison and Mr Phillips were proud of all the students’ creativity and attitude to work.

Work by Celo Grassi

Arts Hub The Art teachers at Weydon School have been fortunate enough to forge strong links with some of the local art establishments in Farnham. For the first time ever, students will be given the opportunity to have real practitioners including Sculptors, Painters, Animators and Photographers coming into the school to carry out specialist workshops on their craft.

Mr Phillips (Art teacher) said ‘It is fantastic that the students will be able to sample the broad range of artistic practices taking place in the real world.

Many of them have no idea just how many creative disciplines there are, and to have the chance to speak to practicing artists will be a valuable experience’.

In addition to this, the schools Art department has now made links with the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, and will be promoting young artists and graduates to showcase their work in the Medici gallery space. This will again be extremely valuable to our students who can enjoy and marvel at some of the amazing artwork that goes on at University level.

Work by Lexi Boyd

James Casemore Work by Elysia Rushworth

The Eyes of a Winner Throughout the course of 2015, the whole of Year 8 (now year 9) have been participating in a Textiles competition together. Having completed a previous competition to draw dragon eyes, each tutor group chose one eye to re-create together. The method used to create the sections of the eyes is a simple yet intricate one—small shapes of different coloured fabrics, pre-cut and ready to use, are hot-pressed onto a rectangle of white fabric in a mosaic-like pattern. Stitching is then applied over the top to ‘secure it all in place’.

This winning quilt was entered into the European Festival of quilts and came third. Well done to Alice Mcauley, Maddy McCubbine, Katie Denham, Beth Payne, Sophie Hyland, Nidhi Shah, Aimee Drake, Poppy Gritt, Tee Letts and Isabelle Richards.

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Holocaust Memorial Day 2016 On Friday the 8th of January a group of Year 10 Weydon students went to Farnborough College to hear the story of John Dobai, an 82 year old survivor of the Holocaust. I was lucky enough to be one of the students to hear his story.

It was incredibly moving listening to him speak about the impact the Holocaust had on him. It is extremely hard to imagine 11 million people (the number of people killed by the Nazis) and it is even harder to imagine the many, many millions more who suffered great pain and loss as a First, we heard a short introduction from three Farnborconsequence of the Nazi regime. Hearing John Dobai’s ough College students who recently went on a trip to story enabled me to gain a far greater understanding of Auschwitz Concentration camp as part of the LFA Project the true horror of the Holocaust. We only heard one perby the Holocaust Education Trust. They described the exson’s story and to know there are millions more filled with perience as ‘harrowing’ and said they were ‘close to tears’ as much loss and suffering as his own is an awful thought. whilst visiting yet also said the trip was ‘eye opening’ and recommended that anyone who has the opportunity to However, I do not wish to end this on a sad note. Instead I visit do so because although it was a very emotionally har- wish to look forward with hope to the future. As the reason why John Dobai talks to students about his story is so rowing experience, the horrors of what went on in the that we may understand the atrocities which the Nazis camp cannot be ignored. committed, to ensure that our generation and all the genAfter the introduction John Dobai began his story. I shall erations which come after us will never let an event like not endeavour to try to explain all the tragedy John Dobai the Holocaust happen again. As although we might not experienced in his life time as I know I am not capable of have any control over the past we do have control over the future and in the end we are all just people regardless putting such pain into words. However, if you would like of: religion, race, gender, disability or sexual orientation. to read his story go to: http://www.raoul-wallenberg.eu/testimony/john-dobaistestimony/

Ellie Whiter (10RS)

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Lest We Forget You may never have thought of history as a subject involving a lot of creativity, however asking Miss Mezzullo (Curriculum Area Leader) and other history teachers, we realised just how creative it really is. You wouldn't believe how many exciting ideas they have on the horizon.

As one of the department’s new ideas, they have set up a history club every Friday lunchtime for those students who are interested in the world’s past. Each term they come up with a new theme to base their project on, for example in the autumn term they based it on remembrance due to the anniversary on November 11th.

Then each week they use different aspects, such as photography or poetry, that can be shown to each year group during an assembly or tutor time.

The history club’s first project was, alongside the art department, creating a collage of poppies for the remembrance of World War One. Each poppy was given to a tutor group in which they wrote anything they believed was important about the war, and once collected the history department created a huge collage that was displayed throughout the school. It was a clever way to publicise the enjoyment of history but also show how the school uses cross curricular learning in all aspects.

The collage of poppies created by the history club

they could dress up as specific historic figures and then have a dinner party with different historic foods. The idea was then developed by others into what could potentially be a charity event, where people willing to take part can pay a small donation and then the money collected can be given to the club’s chosen charity organisation.

It’s great to see that both the students and teachers have been using their passion for history, not only to enjoy the Aside from their up and coming projects, the history club subject and allow others to be inspired, but to raise is furthermore planning to have some creative fun and money to help others in need. learning within Friday lunchtimes. One student suggested Sophie Hyland and Johnny Redford

Student Leaders helped lead the 1 minute silence along with Ollie Trigg playing the last post.

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Inspiring Theatre

Weydon is renowned for its creativity and theatrical performances every year, headed by the Drama Curriculum Area. Although the gleaming success of the summer production is a highlight of the year for many, some are unaware of just how much is going on in the Curriculum Area every day.

Grace McGuigan and Mitch Rossiter (Head Girl and Head Boy) admire the new theatre in the new Medici building.

and The Forty Thieves, The Little Beggar and Abu Hassan’s Famous Fart. In Drama Club we get to perform in school shows and we felt that this particular opportunity gave us the chance to use different drama techniques. We’re all feeling more confident and passionate about drama!” During lunch break, at any time of the week, students are Eva, Lauren, Emily and Tilly (YR7). free to take part in the Drama Club. This takes place in the wonderful working space of the Medici. Different The inspiring ideas and independence of the students days are allocated to different years, however the Drama have been shown through their commitment and Student Leaders have worked tirelessly with all the years organisation towards many projects, for example groups, to help them with their performances and scheduling their own costume rehearsals. As well as this, preparation. On Wednesday the 9th of December, a a group of students from Year 7 River Drama have group of enthusiastic Year 7s took on the challenge of performed a piece of their own. performing at their Celebration Evening.

A group of Year 8 students, who were working with the “Year 7 River Drama Club meet every Monday lunchtime. Year 10 helpers Grace and Eve, took inspiration from In the last half term, we’ve been rehearsing and preparing poetry and created their very own piece on a fed up our version of Arabian Nights. With help from our Year 11 Christmas fairy! They prepared every lunchtime in Drama mentors and Mrs Legat, we were able to produce a well club with the help of Miss Chard. They enjoyed rounded and professional performance. Our production performing and had a great night. included the tales of Scheherazade, which were Ali Baba Johnny Redford

Pictures from the Summer production ‘Divorce Me Darling’ last July.

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Totally Legit As of this year, Weydon has introduced a new dance club: Legit Dance. This club is open to Weydon and South Farnham boys in years 6 to 11. It was set up by Rachel Palmer, the head of the Dance Movement company (c.

1999) who put it together and was designed to promote and encourage boys' dance. In our society, most people

have prejudice in the fact that they stick to the stereotype that dance is a girl's thing. Legit Dance intends to change that. And so, they practiced every Thursday and it was a hit amongst the students.

They were successful enough to be invited to perform outside of school. They performed at the Farnham Maltings in a dance based on the popular story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Legit Dance played wolves and were a crowd favourite. They have also performed with others at Christ College in Guildford.

The club is still running; the club ended for the Christmas holidays but restarted in the Spring Term. They are always looking for budding dancers that want to be part of a dance group and have fun at the same time.

Callum Jepson

Uncovering Design Technology Weydon DT is split into a variety of subject areas all covered in lessons and extracurricular clubs or activities.

These include working with foods, woods, metals, computer aided design, textiles, product design and electronics. Each one of these offers a wide range of opportunities to be creative. Design is incorporated into each and every field with the ability to create original and practical designs being a vital centre point to each.

This amount of variation adds a very wide range of The food tech rooms have fully equipped kitchens to give opportunities within lessons to meet the given brief as it the best cooking experience can now be easy to make a new, useful and very good looking work to a very high quality. used within lessons. The areas within DT have been recently improved to allow a higher quality of workplace I asked Ben Wright of 9RC whether he feels creativity is for the students and teachers respectively. The new environment includes very good technology to make the “The students look forward to adapting products created within lessons plush and finished to their project and getting hands on with the high standard deserved by the enthusiastic pupils.

The students look forward to adapting their project and the materials� getting hands on with the materials; there is always a very positive vibe within the rooms with fun, creative incorporated into DT and he replied, 'Yes, creativity is thoughts and possibilities blazing from many inspired definitely involved in DT as you need to create the most pupils. The design briefs that are laid are mainly quite unique and advanced technology you can whilst still broad allowing pupils to embrace their thoughts and trying to meet a brief. This is very good as it gives us an achieve what they initially think when given the brief. insight into design and manufacturing a product that is new, revolutionary and therefore profitable' James Casemore The subject has been given very good resources to be Weydonian | Autumn/Winter 2015

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iLearn with iPads Throughout the school, students and teachers are beginning to explore the potential of using iPads in and out of lessons. Nowhere is this more prominent than in Geography. The reason why iPads are so useful in this subject is that there are a lot of topics with a lot of illustrations that students need to visualize, and there is no better way of doing this than by having an app that you can refer to. For example, there may be a lesson where you need to know where a certain country is in the world in comparison to the tectonic plate boundaries. Google Earth has that sorted, with the whole world literally at your fingertips. Want to see when South America and Africa were joined together? Just open Earth Viewer and scroll back in time. Mrs. Sommerfelt explains that, "They are a useful visual tool for the students to get access to any area of the world. They have been particularly useful in our ’restless Earth’ topic as we have been using Earth Viewer and Google Earth to see the plates and the natural disaster locations and the links between them.”

This inventive use of the iPads has had a positive effect on the students' will to learn and delve deeper into Geography. The students get to use their iPads and enjoy doing so and they can get a better insight of what the teacher is explaining to them, like how tectonic plates move. The teachers also have benefits of using iPads as well. If they are trying to demonstrate something to the class, they can connect it up to the big screen and show them step by step through animations etc. They can also issue textbook apps to the class for them to read rather than having to whip out and switch textbooks every fifty minutes.

Along with standard Geography lessons, Geography club is run also by Mrs. Sommerfelt. It makes learning extra Geography fun, and presents different ways to learn and revise for tests. Students do activities like making 3D paper-mâché globes, making vintage maps, tracing natural disasters and participating in the Sky Rainforest Challenge, and much more. It makes a change from writing notes from a book or a screen and instead presents learning in a fun and interesting way.

As the year progresses, more and more uses for the iPads will be devised and more unforeseen potential for the use of technology will be revealed. And as the new GCSEs are being rolled in to service, the teachers have the opportunity to experiment, innovate and adapt to meet the school's outstanding reputation for having an amazing level of teaching.

Callum Jepson

Advertisement

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Weydon Patronage Scheme Following on from our request to form partnerships with local and national businesses as part of our Patronage Scheme, we are pleased to have received such a positive response. The businesses below are working closely with curriculum areas to offer students an insight into the skills and qualities they look for in young people and advise them on potential career paths.

A big thank you to all the following businesses for being

involved and supporting our students.



The Grassroots Trust Charity



Steadman Blower Architects



BP



Barlow Robbins Solicitors



Magimix



Sky Sports



SAP Software



Surrey Translation Bureau



The Goat Agency



Rowena Bristow Studio and Tracy Francis

A huge thank you to Jonathan Burrage who is our Patron Link from Magimix who kindly donated over £5000 worth of equipment to our Food and Nutrition curriculum area

If your business would be interested in supporting our students please contact Chris Brinsden at cbrinsden@weydonschool.surrey.sch.uk

Dragon Invests in Entrepreneurs Six groups of students have been competing in the Tycoon in Schools enterprise competition which aims encourage young entrepreneurs to create their own business and make a profit. We received a grant of over £2000 from Peter Jones (Dragons Den) which has been distributed amongst the groups based on their business plan. Students have been selling their products and they get to keep any profit they make.

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English Excels in Creative Teaching It is really important to spark interest and creativity when teaching any subject, but, thanks to the amazing teachers, English has stood out for its excellent and inspiring lessons. Just observing a few English classes has shown the writers just how good teachers of this subject alone, can be.

One way that English is being taught innovatively is through linking students’ own experiences to those described in the works of literature that they are studying. For example, one class of year 9 students was studying childhood. One of the many creative and interesting tasks that they were set was writing down the worst experiences from their childhood on post-it notes anonymously, which were then placed in a box and were drawn randomly. The students then had to guess who it was that wrote it. This got the students thinking about how others describe their childhoods, which led them on nicely to studying their first extract from a book.

There is also cross-curricular learning between History

Charity Fun Day On Friday 27th November, Weydon School students and staff raised more than £2000 for charity! Everybody had to bring in £2 to dress up as their hero, and there was a huge range of different costumes and heroes on display.

Other ways that the ingenious staff and students raised money for Make a Wish, Phyllis Tuckwell and Cancer Research were through cake sales and a huge flash-mob on the playground at lunchtime of the Macarena

Year 9 students create stories from just one image

and English. Students were tasked with reading a historical fiction every term and writing a book review about it. This helped them learn more about different historical periods as well as develop their skills in picking key points to summarise, an important skill in both English and History.

Emma Wilkins and Louisa Yapp Honor Mackintosh and the Hulk (right) enjoying the day.

followed by multiple other famous songs and dances, including YMCA and a long conga that stretched over the majority of the basketball courts.

Staff took the opportunity to get dressed up Weydonian | Autumn/Winter 2015 15

Worldwide Weydon It all started with a Land Rover- and a dream. In January 2009, Weydon School took upon itself an epic challenge to drive to Ghana overland via 11 countries. This was part of an 8 vehicle convoy in order to support the work of Sabre Charitable Trust. Sabre is a small UK based charity which aims to improve teaching and infrastructure of schools in the KEEA district of Southern Ghana.

The school that was chosen to support was Dwabor MA School, a school designed and built by the Sabre Trust Students trying on traditional Sri Lankan Dress with new sustainable techniques and materials. Since the first expedition, of just a few students, the trip has grown each other. to over 200 applicants, all wanting to reach out to their fellow students and break cultural barriers between With the unfortunate outbreak of Ebola in Western them.

Africa last year, the usual yearly trip to Ghana was replaced by a visit to Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka trip was just In 2012, funding grants from the British Council and ASCL as successful as the Ghana Trips and will be running (the head teachers union) were awarded to Weydon again in the future alongside the Ghana trip.

School, which allowed staff from both schools to visit the other country, and experience what life is really like for Students that wish to go on the trips have to firstly raise the money needed to fund it. Over two-thousand pounds must be raised by the students alone. Although this is a rather daunting thought for many, the students rose to the challenge and each year, their hard work and determination back at home and in school is paid off and puts smiles on the faces of other children.

One thing that we would like to mention is that the student teams for the next few years are planning to take a box of donated books and educational toys to the link schools to help the education of the students. There is a donations box for books and toys outside N7 if you wish to donate.

If you would like more information on the Weydon School International links then you can contact Mrs Warnock via the email address: cwarnock@weydonschool.surrey.sch.uk Emma Wilkins and Louisa Yapp

Left: A snapshot of school life in Ghana

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Christmas Concert On both the evenings of Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th December many students were involved in the Christmas Concert, having rehearsed religiously for almost 3 months. The concert was made up of students from all years, performing a variety of different musical styles. Some students got together in ensembles others were phenomenal solo performances, who have learnt their pieces outside of school. Everyone worked extremely hard and put in so much time and attention to create a fantastic evening for all to remember -and it certainly showed!

One of the group performances was from roXing, a choir made of year 7 and 8 students. They performed “When I Grow Up� from Matilda in 3 part harmony.

For many of these students it was their first time performing at a school concert and one of them told us that they really enjoyed the performances and can't wait for next year. It helped them to boost their confidence with performing, something they had little experience in until given the opportunity to take part in the fantastic evening of performances. There will be many more events to show of their fantastic skills later on in the academic year.

A Unique Concert One of the many wonderful performances fell to Lexi Boyd of year 8, who elegantly played 'Away in a Manger' on the unique instrument, the harp. If that isn't enough talent, Lexi marvelously worked out the tune by ear and successfully played the melody with no sheet music. It's fair to say it was an exceptional performance.

Alongside all of the group performances there were many solo and duets. Harriet Gill and Louisa Yapp (Year 9) played a very unique duet. Harriet played her part on the timpani drum with Louisa accompanying her on the piano. Many members of the audience were amazed by their performance and how different it was. It isn't often that people see timpani drums being played. They were impressed by how Harriet used the instrument to add impact to the duet.

This year there have been two groups formed from the old school band, wind band and string orchestra. These groups both performed two different pieces during the concert. String orchestra, accompanied by both Miss Gilbert and Mrs Vardy played Badinerie and The Reels, whilst the wind band played Winter Wonderland and Jingle Bells, getting the audience to clap along.

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X Factor 2015 Weydon School held an X Factor performance as the opening show of the new Medici theatre in November.

Students within the school auditioned and a select few got through to the finals and performed to an audience of over 300 people as well as 3 judges. Each act had a video made of their X Factor “journey”.

All of the performers were in the years 7 to 9. Songs included “Writings on the Wall” by Sam Smith, Paloma Faith’s “Upside Down” and Coldplay’s “Sky Full of Stars”.

One contestant named Libby Wickenden even composed her own song for the competition.

The array of talent was to a very high standard and the audience was astounded. The contestants were judged by three members of staff who charmed the crowd and the event was hosted by two year 11 students, Max Fulham and Molly Beere who introduced the acts and were great presenters.

was awarded to two year 9 students named Connie and Lily who performed Upside Down, 2nd place went to another year 9 student named Matt Lloyd Mostyn who moved the audience with “I can’t make you love me” by Bonnie Raitt Maddy Moran and Milly Painter were voted the audience’s first choice with their rendition of “7 Years”

by Lukas Graham. The girls are also in the process of recording their single to sell for charity.

Ms Sarah Gilbert, director of performing arts commented, “I was so impressed by the commitment of the competitors and with the new range of concerts and competition’s I have brought to the school we hope to see them again.”

This will be an annual event for Weydon School and we hope to see even more acts next year.

Maddy Moran and Milly Painter

The audience voted for their 3 favourite acts. 3rd place

Winners Milly Painter and Maddy Moran

Molly Beere and Max Fulham kept the audience entertained

The X Factor Contestants Weydonian | Autumn/Winter 2015

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