Head of School’s Blog – 29 April 2022
29 April 2022
We have had a very good start to the term. Students have arrived dressed smartly and settled back into routines well. I have enjoyed leading the assemblies this week on Respect. As you know, our core values are built around ASPIRE which are Ambition, Success, Progress, Inspiration, Respect and Equality.
During the Easter break some of our students went on a Ski trip to Alpendorf, Austria. It was great to receive positive feedback from the staff on their excellent attitude and behaviour. A huge thank you to the staff – Miss Caddick, Mr Rock, Mrs Mackett and Mr Jones for giving up their time – trips like this broaden our students’ horizons and help them to gain confidence and independence, amongst many other skills. The students made new friendships and memories which will last them a lifetime.
I would like to congratulate Grace in year 10 on her achievement so far in the Duke of Edinburgh award. Mr Bridle is quoted saying “her evidence portfolio is one of the best submissions I have ever seen”. He feels she has the potential to be one of the youngest participants from our centre to reach Gold. She has signed up to the ‘Introduction to DofE Young Leaders Programme Session’. Well done Grace.
We had the moderator in for the sports BTEC. The examiner was very complimentary about our students. He provided feedback to Mr Phillips on how impressed he was with the exceptional behaviour of our students as they moved around the school. He thought the school felt very calm, welcoming and he found our students to be very polite.
Well done to our year 11’s who have completed their Chinese speaking and listening exams this week. It does not seem possible that the first actual written exam is 13 days away – 9 school days and the first exam that affects all of year 11 is on Tuesday 17 May – 20 days away – 13 school days
Next Wednesday is Year 10 Parents’ Evening. If you have not already booked appointments then please do so. This is an important time for this year group as they will be sitting trial exams at the end of June. Knowing how your child is doing at this point in their GCSE journey is vital to making sure they address any challenges now, rather than delay these conversations until Year 11.
Next Tuesday evening is the Dance Live final at Portsmouth Guildhall. All of the students have worked so hard, and whatever the result, they should all be immensely proud of themselves. I would also like to extend my thanks to all of the staff who have worked tirelessly to support this entry. This is an example of The Isle of Wight Education Federation working as one team, at its best.
Congratulations to our top achievement point winners for the last week of the Spring term – Year 7 William, Year 8 Louis, Year 9 Isabella, Year 10 Ben and Year 11 Isabelle (for the second week in a row!).
I hope you have a lovely bank holiday weekend and we look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday.
Head of School’s Blog – 8 April 2022
8 April 2022
It has been another busy week at Carisbrooke. I have very much enjoyed attending the end of term celebration assemblies. It is lovely to hear about individual success in the year groups. A large number of students have received their Diamond and Platinum awards. A huge well done to our year 7’s Tali and Layla for being the first to achieve the Federation Award for achieving over 500 reward points.
Year 7 had their disco on Wednesday afternoon. It was great to see them all enjoying themselves. There were some very good moves on the dance floor! A huge thank you to the tutors and other staff who supported the event.
The raffle organised by year 11 to help support their Prom was drawn on Wednesday lunchtime. Well done to all involved, especially Mrs Hookey who worked tirelessly selling tickets and getting prizes. Thank you to everyone who supported by either purchasing tickets or donating prizes.
Thank you so much for supporting the student council initiative in raising money for some of the humanitarian causes set up for the Ukrainians on the Isle of Wight. Payments can still be made via the school gateway.
There are a number of revision sessions available during the Easter break for year 11. The students need to use their time wisely. A list of all the exams can be found on the website or via this Link. It is important that year 11 get some down time during the Easter break but they do need to make sure that they have a revision timetable in place. It will help them to focus and revise for the appropriate exams at the right time.
Student council has asked if the lunch breaks can be reversed so Year 9, 10 and 11 can be the first half of lunch with Year 7 and 8 in the second sitting. We are going to trial this after the Easter break as it feels fair to rotate them. It is unfortunate that the canteen is not big enough to cater for all year groups at one time. Whilst talking about the canteen I would like to share some positive comments I have received from the staff. They reintroduced plates and metal cutlery for main meals. They are really impressed with how students have responded in returning plates and cutlery to the station and clearing their plates. The students are very polite and always say please and thank you!
Congratulations to our top achievement point winners for last week – Year 7 Tali (third week running!) and Layla, Year 8 Izzy, Year 9 Riley, Year 10 Freddie and Year 11 Isabelle and Teyha.
Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to welcoming students back on Monday 25 April. Hope you all have a lovely break.
Year 7 Literacy Week – The Tempest
Year 7 Literacy Week – The Tempest
An important part of our Literacy Strategy is to ensure that Key Stage 3 students are equipped with the key literacy skills required and the belief that they can succeed at GCSE level. In order to achieve this we aim to remove as many taboos about Literacy as early as possible and make it seem less scary to year 7 students as well as building their confidence with regards to school and their own abilities.
Last week we took a small group of year 7 students and immersed them into the Shakespeare text, The Tempest. Initially, students were worried about not being able to understand the words and the writing but by approaching the text through The Arts, the students soon became comfortable with the ideas and themes within the plot.
These year 7 students worked with local artist and forest school practitioner, Steph Brittain, and English teacher, Mrs Smith to access this tricky text. Through drama, music and art the students were plunged into the Elizabethan text and encouraged to think about the characters and how they felt.
By visiting 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 to act out sections of the text. When visiting the forest they were able to feel nature and talked about the language that could be used to describe the environment. They worked with clay to recreate characters using woodland materials to help add detail and texture to their work.
Back at school, students used their beach experience to compose a musical response with Mrs Peckham.
Later in the week, students performed Act 1 Scene 1 with Mr Lyle to gain further appreciation of the text.
All of these project activities allowed students to break down any preconceived notions they may have had relating to Shakespeare. Students ended the week by producing an exhibition for parents last Friday afternoon.
Thanks to Miss Begley for driving the minibus and Ms Ryan for supporting throughout the week. A big thank you to the Creative Arts Faculty for their assistance and unending positivity.
Annual Basketball Tournament Successes for The Cougars
Annual Basketball Tournament Successes for the Carisbrooke Cougars
Carisbrooke Cougars have recently been competing in the annual basketball tournaments at Medina Leisure Centre. Over 50 students represented the Cougars over the five tournaments with some excellent individual and team performances. Shai was the teams Most Valuable Player (MVP) for the U12’s outfit who just came up short losing in the final game against The Bay to claim runners up spot overall. An outstanding achievement for their first competitive outing together.
The U13’s again represented themselves with pride and, despite finishing with a losing record overall, Matthew captained his team and produced some stunning performances to also claim Carisbrooke’s MVP.
The U14 tournament was a strange one as some teams who were expected to win comfortably slipped up against perceived easier opposition, but then beat teams they probably did not expect to before the tournament started. The Cougars were not exempt from this. After losing two of their first three games, they then went on to win their final four with superb team play throughout. This allowed them to eventually come joint runners up after previously losing on a shootout to The Bay and eventual champions Medina by two points. MVP for the Cougars went to Charlie but Matthew playing up an age was a close contender.
In the U15s competition, the Cougars struggled with consistency but, despite losing all their games, they did so by fighting hard within every game and did themselves proud. Alfie, for his composure, was awarded MVP for Carisbrooke.
In the final tournament, our U16’s started with one of the more exciting games of the season in which they were down 2-6 with 30 seconds left. With Matthew again playing up and showing no fear, he came on and attacked the basket straight away scoring a superb jump shot. Shortly after Carisbrooke were able to steal the ball and quickly level the score at 6-6 which meant, as the final whistle went, the Cougars had the opportunity to get one over The Bay who previously beat Carisbrooke in a shoot out in a previous tournament. After both schools missed their first shots, Oakley (MVP for Carisbrooke) stepped up and scored the winning bucket to give the Cougars a surprising win over a very dominant side. Despite this being the only win for the side, this did not stop them from enjoying the rest of the tournament and, with others such as Charlie, Ashton and Alfie playing up to support a depleted team, the Cougars have a bright future in front of them.
Biosphere Trip to Yaverland and Dinosaur Isle
Biosphere Trip to Yaverland and Dinosaur Isle
Hopefully many of you were able to join us on our recent trip as we completed a student takeover of our social media platforms! However, for those of you who were not able to see these posts, please read on to hear a little more about it.
This week a group of Key Stage Three students bravely battled the wind and rain to capture some amazing viewpoints in our diverse Biosphere.
The day started with us making our way to Dinosaur Isle where we met our Artist in Residence, Trudie Wilson. We are lucky to be working with an artist who is so knowledgeable about our local environment; we were fortunate to hear stories of dinosaur excavations that she has been a part of! We spent time in the museum, drawing, sketching and taking photographs. We were then able to see some fossils up close, creating watercolour studies within our new sketchbooks!
Our studies completed on today’s trip will help to inform the legacy work that is being completed towards the end of this project.
As the rain started to ease, we walked along the coast to explore the beach at Yaverland. It was here that we were able to appreciate the incredible sea views and geographical beauty that our Island has to offer.
A big thank you to Trudie and all the team at Independent Arts for supporting us with this project.
Stay tuned for more Biosphere news soon!
Easter Raffle
Easter Raffle
Well done to Year 11 for raising over £900 for their Prom this week!
The Prom Committee have been working hard this half term to gather some amazing prize donations and sell tickets to help reduce the costs of the Prom and provide some exciting extras which will make the event even more special. They put in a great effort! Well done to everyone who won a prize.
Special thank you to Mrs Hookey, Head of Year 11, and parent, Mrs Edkins-Wherry, for all of their hard work and support throughout the organisation of the raffle and on the day of the draw.
Year 7 Disco
Year 7 Disco
Wednesday 6 April saw the Year 7 Disco go ahead and what a great event this was! All of the students who attended had non-stop fun for the whole two hours.
We had a fantastic DJ for the event who did so much more than just play tunes. From magic tricks to games, dance-offs to blasting everyone with a foam machine, he kept all of the students fully engaged throughout! He even made balloon prizes and gifts for the students.
Head of Year 7, Mrs Lythgoe, said “It was such a joy to see all of the students dancing and enjoying themselves without a care in the world! They all got involved and just had the best time”
Thank you to the staff who gave up their time to support the Disco and show the students how to bust a few moves!
Head of School’s Blog – 1 April 2022
1 April 2022
Welcome to my fifth blog post for the second half of the Spring term.
Last Friday our dressage team of Freya, Jessica and Amelia had a successful day at the Inter School Team Dressage competition. They, as a team, finished a creditable 2nd which was excellent as they did not have a discard score. Freya won her test, Amelia was 6th and Jessica 8th overall. They all did incredibly well. The Jumping competition is 20 May. Anyone interested in taking part needs to see Mrs Peake or Mr Phillips.
I was so pleased that we were finally able to hold our Federation pantomime – Treasure Island. I had the privilege of attending both performances. The casts in both were fantastic! The production was witty and very entertaining and the lighting and sound effects added to the performances we amazing. A huge congratulations to the cast and staff (Mr Lyle, Ms Elkin, Mrs Peckham and Mrs Shorrock) and the production crew for making it such enjoyable evenings. There are some pictures later on in the newsletter.
The Pathways form was sent home with year 9 students on Thursday. A link to the information on the website is here. We have used the straw poll feedback to create the four blocks in the timetable for the option subjects. We are anticipating that most students will be able to complete it with their straw poll preferences. If you need further conversations, please contact your child’s tutor in the first instance.
Attendance to the Year 9 parents/carers evening was good and feedback from staff has been very positive about the evening.
Next Friday will be a mufti day for all students. The student council wants to support some of the humanitarian initiatives set up for the Ukrainians. Please can we ask that you support us by encouraging your child to dress appropriately for the school environment.
Year 11 has 6 weeks until their first written exam. Information will be coming out next week about revision opportunities available over the Easter holidays. They need to make sure that they use their time wisely – the hard work they put in now will be reflected in their final grades.
Congratulations to our top achievement point winners for last week – Year 7 Tali (second week running!), Year 8 Nathan, Year 9 Isabella, Year 10 Alfie and Year 11 Jenson.
Have a lovely (hopefully not too cold) weekend.
Empowered Poetry Competition
Empowered Poetry Competition
Students were challenged to put pen to paper and write a poem for the Young Writers Competition on the theme of “Empowered”. We are delighted to announce that a number of our students have been selected for publication and are through to the next round of the competition. Thank you to all who took the time to write a poem. It is always a bit disappointing not to be chosen but, don’t lose heart, there will be more opportunities. Well done and good luck to those who were chosen for publication.
Well done to: Amelia, Annelise, Ash, Eli, Isabella, Jack, Lissy, Maisie, Molly-Nora, Raven and Tilly.
