Medina College has been awarded the Partnership for Education, Attainment and Children’s Health (PEACH) bronze award. The award is for the College’s commitment to improving the wellbeing, health and attainment  of students throughout the school.  The award is a self review of 34 criteria which is then assessed by an independent panel.   Carisbrooke and Medina College are the first secondary schools on the Isle of Wight to achieve this award.

The award focuses on four domains:

Personal, Social, Health and Economic education.  How the whole curriculum promotes students’ learning on emerging issues, relationships, diversity and health issues across a range of contexts.

Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health – How the school provides and raises awareness of students’ emotional health and mental wellbeing to build confidence, resilience and raise self esteem.

Physical Activity – The importance of physical activity in school during lessons, not just PE lessons, and also extra curricular provision.

Healthy Eating – The importance of nutrition through curriculum subjects, school lunch providers and general reinforcement of healthy eating.

This is a tremendous achievement for all of us at Medina and recognises the great work which we are undertaking to improve wellbeing for everyone in the Medina Community.  A huge thank you to all of the staff, students and governors who have helped us to achieve this award.

The school is now working towards the SILVER award – more details to follow.

Last week a group of year 7 students were involved in a Literacy Project based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The aim of the project was to immerse the students in the plot and themes of the text, to help remove taboos relating to studying Shakespeare and to help them grow in confidence with regards to school and Literacy.

Through a range of creative activities the year 7s explored The Tempest with local artist Glenn Martin, English teacher, Mrs Smith and Librarian, Ms Ryan. 

At the beach the students were able to experience the atmosphere of the sea and understand and appreciate its power. They were able to imagine that they too were castaways washed up on the sand and how frightening that might have been. The beach also allowed the students to create some fantastic art works and talk about the language we could use to describe our environment and emotions.

Throughout the week they worked with clay to recreate characters to help further develop their understanding of the text. They depicted key scenes from the text by creating boxes inspired by Joseph Cornell and used reclaimed items found on the beach to produce a sculpture based on the text.

Back at school, students used their beach experience to compose a musical response with Mrs Peckham and performed Act 1 Scene 1 with Mr Lyle to gain further appreciation of the play.

Students ended the week by producing a fantastic exhibition of their work for parents last Friday afternoon. On Thursday 6 October we travelled up to London in the sunshine to watch The Tempest be performed on the South Bank in the world Famous, Shakespeare’s Globe. The students experienced what it was like to watch a play during the Elizabethan Age. 

Thanks go to Ms Keogh and Ms Begley for driving the minibus and the Weather Wizard for being on our team.

On Tuesday, the Year 7 boys’ football team took their winning streak to four wins from four games. This week’s opponents were Christ the King College and they struggled to offer much resistance against what is quickly becoming a very successful team.

Despite having two new players joining the team this week, they played amazingly well, supporting each other and coming out with a 9-2 win. Blayze was excellent, scoring five of the nine goals! With only two games left in the schools league this term, next week, we look to play our biggest opposition, with a game against Cowes Enterprise College.

The year 9 and 10 cricket team travelled away to the Bay school in Sandown on a glorious evening last Thursday for their last match of the season. 

Captain Cain won the toss and made a positive decision to bat first. However, the Bay bowlers bowled really well picking up wickets regularly in the first six overs. Ben managed to stem the tide and occupy the crease allowing Medina to pick up a lot of extras. When Ben was caught out this brought Zak to the crease and then the fireworks started. Zak whacked 5 fours all round the ground and batted aggressively throughout scoring a quick fire 25 to the delight of his teammates. After the game Zak said his batting prowess has been helped by playing table tennis regularly which has improved his hand eye coordination.  

Zak and Ernie had a decent partnership and Medina finished with 90 from their 15 overs. 

Then it was the Bay’s turn to bat. Some hostile early bowling from Cain had the Bay’s opening batsmen on their toes and they did well to weather the storm. 

Some good bowling from Jamie and Corey on debut impressed coach Ryan and they both picked up a wicket. 

The game was really close with the Bay needing four off the last over. They managed to get the runs with one ball remaining despite the best efforts of Callum with a tremendous diving stop to save a certain boundary.   

Well played. 

Mr Dye   

The Yr 9 and 10 Cricket team had an entertaining game against CTK at Newport Victoria Rec. Medina won the toss and decided to bowl. Captain Cain opened the bowling and got a Wicket with the 1st ball of the match! Matt then picked up the second wicket with a good ball spooned into the air caught by Cain. All the other bowlers bowled some good balls and a few not so good but some great Wicket Keeping by Ernie helped limit the runs. CTK eventually finished on 120 off their 16 overs.

Medina Batted second and Coach Ryan gave some encouraging words at half time to our batters and they responded by getting off to a good start with Jamie scoring 13 and Cain 12 runs with some splendid boundaries being hit. Callum and Ben also batted well scoring a quick fire 9 and 10. However some tight bowling by CTK meant we came up 40 runs short scoring 80 off our 16 overs.

A lovely game played in great spirits. Well played all.

Team List

1. Cain C – Yr 10
2. Jamie R – Yr 10
3. Callum I – Yr 10
4. Matt M – Yr 10
5. Travis G – Yr 10
6. Ernie – Yr 10
7. Levi – Yr 10
8. Jacob G – Yr 10
9. Ryan S – Yr 10 – Coach
10.Ben J – Yr 9