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Month: July 2022

Sports Days

Carisbrooke College Sports Days

This week we held sports days for years 7-9.

All tutor groups performed well with a fun, competitive spirit and simply a nice positive atmosphere where students were seen encouraging each other throughout.

The year 7 trophy went to Mr Gloyn who gained a total of 185 points.

The year 8 trophy went to Mr Briscoe who gained a total of 178 points beating Mr Bennett’s class by one point.

The year 9 trophy went to Mrs Harvey who gained a total of 188 points just out running Mrs Randall’s class towards the end.

Thank you to our PE department who were out all day organising, setting up and running events along with some amazing young leaders.  

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Work Experience

Year 10 Work Experience

Year 10 students took part in work experience last week.  This was an opportunity to spend a day in a workplace to see what it is like.

As you can see, Jimmy and Micheal went to White Windows where they had the opportunity to do some quotes for windows, doors and conservatories – loading and unloading work vans. They went to customers’ houses where they measured windows and provided the customer with a quote by using a CAD drawing computer programme. 

The Director of White Windows, John Drakeford said ” Both Jimmy and Michael were extremely hard working – I was really impressed with them both” 

Isha went to work at Capital Jewellers where she learnt how to serving customers and change a watch battery and general shop work.  Isha is now interested in looking at a career in retail as she really enjoyed interacting with customers. 

Well done to all year 10 students who took part in the scheme.

  • WE1

  • WE2

  • WE4

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Earthquake!

Volcano!

In geography this week, some of our year 8 students have been designing, making and testing earthquake proof buildings.
Spaghetti (dry!) and marshmallows were used to create strong structures that could withstand the earthquake test bed (a bed of jelly!). All students worked incredibly hard and this was a fantastic and very fun way to end our unit of work looking at tectonic hazards.
Well done Year 8!




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Year 9 Mental Health Peer Education Project

Year 9 Mental Health Peer Education Project

On Thursday 14 July 40 year 9 students from Carisbrooke and Medina colleges came together at the Island VI Form Centre for a day’s training in mental health peer education. The students started the day with ice-breaking activities designed to bring them together and then took part in a number of different activities and sessions covering ground rules, safeguarding, common mental health issues, 5 ways to wellbeing and the skills required to deliver lessons. After an impressive lunch provided by the VI Form kitchen, the students worked in groups to plan and practise the delivery of mental health lessons. 

In January 2023, as part of a scheme designed by the Mental Health Foundation, the students will be delivering five sessions, during PSHE lessons, to the year 7s in both colleges. The programme is built around the principles that young people may feel more comfortable asking questions of peer educators than of adults and may find peer educators more credible and relevant than adult educators. In addition, peer educators can become role models of the topics they teach within the school environment, with the hope that the social relationships developed through peer education can keep the conversation going beyond the end of the project. 

The students involved were a credit to both schools approaching the topics with maturity and sensitivity. The skills demonstrated, when practising for lessons, convinced us there’s definitely some future teachers in the group! Students were also keen to develop some more peer mental health services, using the tools of the ‘5 ways to wellbeing’ which we will be exploring over the next year; so watch this space!


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IWEF Summer Music Concert

IWEF Summer Music Concert

This Wednesday we held our first live IWEF concert since 2019, and our first ever federated concert at Carisbrooke College!

The sun shone as audience members gathered outside in our canopied area to enjoy ice creams from Plaza Ices and refreshments served by our School Pastors. The concert began at 7.00pm and featured a variety of musical performances from over 40 of our students from across the Federation.

Students from Carisbrooke College’s School of Rock club joined together to perform alongside Key Stage 4 Music students from Medina College and A level students from Island VI Form. There were also appearances from Carisbrooke College’s choir ‘Sing’ and our Staff & VI Form choir.

Olivia (Medina College Year 11) delivered the first ever live performance of her song ‘Take Me Dancing’, a piece she wrote as part of her GCSE Music coursework; clearly inspiring our younger aspiring musicians. All of our performers then joined together to perform a concert finale of The Beatles’ ‘With a little help from my friends’ having learnt and workshopped the song earlier in the day.

The concert raised £138.50 for the Creative Arts Faculty and will be going towards some new microphones for future musical events.

Thank you to all the students, staff, parents and governors who came along to support this lovely evening, and to our Creative Arts Faculty for organising this fantastic event. We are thrilled to see our students performing at live music events again and look forward to all the exciting opportunities 2022/2023 will bring! All students are warmly encouraged to take part in our musical clubs and activities. Please see your music teacher for more details about how you can get involved next year.








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DofE – Brecons Bash 2022

DofE – Brecons Bash 2022

Two intrepid groups of VI Form students set off for Wales early Monday morning. For one group their aim was to revise and practice navigation skills in a wild country environment and then complete a 3 day final silver expedition. The other group embarked on their Gold practice expedition; a prerequisite for next year’s final test.

The weather was particularly kind to us during the day. We didn’t suffer too badly from intense heat, just the strong gusty winds on the exposed ridges could catch you out and awareness of intense UV levels was always a consideration. All groups were up early, some before the sun had risen, so that we avoided the heat of the day. Although during the night it was exceptionally cold in the valley and there was an assortment of thermals, wooly hats and rain jackets that were doubled up as pyjamas.



Day one exercise was to reach a high ridge accessed through a steep and windy waterfall gully. Then each team had to navigate to find a WW2 memorial site. The remains of a wellington bomber flown by a young Canadian crew are still scattered across the mountain here. The aircraft came down in July 1945, just before the end of the war. It was truly a poignant scene for us all at the memorial. The realisation that the aircrew who sadly perished were really not much older than our students. We paid our respects and moved on down the ridge.

The week continued with early morning starts up onto the hills and resulted in breathtaking views of the Brecon Beacons. On day four, everyone reached the summit of Pen Y Fan via the back door route and some even bagged other notable peaks on the way round.

The students’ culinary skills improved as the week progressed, as did their navigation and fitness. Congratulations to everyone on the team and thanks to the staff; Mr Saunders and Miss Windsor for their brilliant support.

Mr Bridle



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VI Form Activity Day

VI Form Activity Day

By Nicole Mostyn

Monday 18 July was our Student Voice Activity day that was put together by our team of year 12 students, alongside some keen teachers who organised their own activities to run from breaktime up until lunchtime.

Free ice lollies were collected from the hall whilst teams signed up and there was music playing by our fabulous musicians Tilly, Rufus, Esther and Cleo. They had the opportunity to perform on the stage which sounded amazing and really added to the liveliness of the event and enticed more people to join in.

The activities in the science department included blindfolded surgery, Wii sports and the Die Hard challenge. The challenges sounded easier than they were and these activities were a great way to test your teamwork and communication skills in a chilled environment whilst also channelling competitive sides and problem-thinking skills.

In the courtyard there was tennis, football and netball shooting. Despite the very hot weather, several teams took part and looked like they were enjoying themselves which was great to see.

In film and media, banner painting took place to go on the walls which brought out the creativity of our students and was quite a relaxing activity for a hot Monday morning. There were also news reports being filmed based around silly statements for people to share their ideas on which was very interactive and got people thinking on their feet. In film, there was also the ‘Magnificent Seven’ challenge, run by Mr Cronin, where students had to think of seven films for each of the seven main film genres. Mr Cronin was very impressed with the wide range of film knowledge students had so well done to everyone who took part.

In English the challenge was to perform a dramatic presentation on the Bard in which there were various costumes to choose from as well as scripts to read out as theatrically as you could. This really challenged the ability to think outside of the box, try something new and a bit out of your comfort zone which is a great exercise to build confidence. I spoke to a student who took part in this activity and she said “the teacher running it was very enthusiastic and encouraging which created a comfortable atmosphere”.

Lastly, Humanities organised a QR code scavenger hunt which started in B5 and carried on throughout the building. The questions definitely required the knowledge of a team so it was very fitting and many people enjoyed hunting for each code.

Teams who participated were able to claim a free hotdog from Mr Mumford’s BBQ which was a rewarding way to finish the day. The winners of the activity day were team Ollie, Emily, Nate, Jake and Callum. Very well done to this team and a much deserved prize of an Amazon voucher will be given for your great efforts of completing all the activities!

Overall, it was a gratifying way to start our final week of year 12 after the exam period. It was great to see students having a good time with their teams as this was exactly our aim for this activity day – to get as many people involved as possible and having a good time. Thank you to all of the teachers who got involved and created challenges as there was such a variety of activities that made this day enjoyable and unique.

Student Voice is very satisfied with the turnout and will continue to plan more interactive activities for students and teachers to maintain our high community morale.






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Student Voice Update 15 July 2022

Student Voice Update 15 July 2022

By Nicole Mostyn

As a team, Student Voice works together to come up with new ideas and improvements for our VI Form to help make a collective difference for our federation. We meet every Friday breaktime with an agenda of what we’d like to discuss and work towards, in the short term as well as long term.

Anyone is welcome to join and have their voice heard whilst building upon leadership and communication skills that are vital towards your UCAS applications and personal statements. Student Voice has achieved many goals since Christmas including this years leavers’ prom which was made possible by fundraisers such as face-painting, raffles and car washing, which was organised by Student Voice. As a team, £300 was raised which went towards the prom as well as charity which is a huge achievement and wouldn’t have been possible without the co-operation of our students alongside Student Voice.

As a federation, Student Voice groups have been able to meet up and share ideas with one another to engage younger years to carry on with Student Voice when they join VI Form. At the moment, Student Voice is organising an Activity Day on Monday 18 July which is a free event for all VI form students and there will be free burgers available.

Just to reiterate, student Voice is open to anyone who is interested so don’t be afraid to give it a go and get a better insight into what the committee is about.

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Update from Cambodia

Update from Cambodia

After the first week of the Cambodia expedition, staff have sent us a short update on what they have been up to and the fantastic photos below. It looks like they are having the most wonderful experience and embracing every moment. 

“Students are doing well and engrossing themselves in the local culture. At the start, the students explored the capital visiting S21 and the killing fields which was an extremely sombre experience. The last few days they have been constructing a chicken coop for a local family, making tiles and planting 15 banana trees. They managed to find approximately 30 scorpions which the students enjoyed and one of the team held a tarantula!”

Mrs Shorrock and Mr Norman. 


















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Rythmtree Festival Performance

Rythmtree Festival Performance

48 students from across the IWEF performed an hour’s set of music in basking heat on the Friday afternoon of the Rhythmtree Festival.

Ensembles from Carisbrooke College’s ‘School of Rock’ club performed hits by Oasis, The White Stripes, Vance Joy and various others. Carisbrooke College’s KS3 choir ‘Sing’ performed ‘Don’t worry be happy’ by Bobby McFerrin. Students from Medina College’s Years 10 and 11 also performed hits by UB40, The Beatles and Bob Marley, supported by Tilly Grimshaw from the Island VI Form.

The performances took place on the colourful ‘Carnevale’ stage and formed part of the IOW Music Hub’s lineup of local schools.

Our musical students have had a very busy term with many events and we are extremely proud of them and the effort and enthusiasm they have shown in preparing for these. It has been wonderful to see their performance skills and confidence growing more and more with each performance.

Mrs Peckham

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