25 students from Medina College attended their first University visit on the Learn with Us programme. The University of Southampton were super excited to have us!

We had a great day learning about University life, touring the campus and looking at the different courses available. Students created a poster and presented it to the rest of the group, followed by a game of ‘The Chase’ which was an interactive game, answering questions on what they had learnt throughout their visit.

The students had a fantastic day, making memories and starting to think about what their futures could look like.

Last week, we had the Speakers Trust in to complete a workshop with a group of Year 9 students. The workshop was an opportunity for students to learn and build on skills that they require to speak out in front of their peers. The aim of the workshop was to build confidence and give students the awareness of the skills required to speak out as well as preparing for future speaking and listening exams that they will complete.

I was immensely proud of how the students conducted themselves, pushed themselves out of their comfort zone but were always willing to attempt the challenges, even if they were unsure!

We learnt so much about each other and I witnessed those who may not have chosen to work together, build relationships, rapport and respect for one another.

Mrs Smy – Careers Leader

From September 2022, Medina College will be one of just three schools in the country to offer the Cambridge iGCSE in Agriculture. This presents our students with the most wonderful opportunity to study something a little different and get a head start on a future career within the agricultural industries. To launch the course and celebrate the opportunities within agriculture, a careers event was held at the school on Tuesday 8 February. 

The event introduced year 9 students to the many different pathways within the sector of agriculture and ensured that they all had the opportunity to ask questions and explore all of the opportunities available, particularly here on the Isle of Wight. 

Students were able to see how the new qualification that is available to them could lead to many different jobs and experiences and really brought to life how exciting this opportunity is. 

We are very grateful to the local businesses and exhibitors who kindly gave up their time to attend. Thank you to: 

• Hannah Kenway from Farm Vets
• Duxmore Farm
• Duxmore Botanics
• Briddlesford Farm
• Farmers Union
• NFU
• APS Produce
• Cheverton Farm 
• Skinners Farm 
• Idlecombe and Skinners Farm 
• Isle of Wight Agricultural Society 
• Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust 

Agriculture course leader, Victoria Lloyd said “Students had a great time finding out about all of the different careers they could choose from and asked lots of fabulous questions. We had so many fantastic people willing to give up their time to come in and meet our students. It was very informative for everyone involved.” 

Careers leader, Naomi Smy, said “It was great to promote the careers and associated further and higher educational opportunities within the agriculture sector. It planted a seed for many students who are now considering some of the options that were presented to them. Thank you to the exhibitors, who kindly gave up their valuable time to support our event. Many of whom regarded the morning as a way of investing in their future workforce.” 

Year 9 Boys’ Football League Final

After a fantastic unbeaten league season, the Year 9 boys went into the league cup final v The Bay full of confidence. The game was played at a fast tempo with both teams trying their best. Medina started off well with George H dictating play in the middle of the park and took the lead through a well taken Will B. The Bay’s sharp forward line were a thorn in the Medina defence all game long and equalised, before quickly taking lead just before half time.

Half time score: Medina 1 – The Bay 2

The game was very evenly poised with both teams giving their all. Medina gained parity when George B played a lovely through ball to Kai C who unselfishly passed to Will B to tap in. After getting level, Medina switched off at a set piece and a good finish from the Bay number 10 restored their lead. However, the Green Army hit back again through Kai C using his pace to take it round the goalie and slot in with his left foot. The game was anyone’s at 3-3 until the Bay number 10 found space on the left and produced a wonderful lobbed effort to score which was worthy of winning any game.

Unlucky lads, but you should be proud of the way you have represented Medina College this season.

Mr Dye

Yr 11 Badminton Match report v Ryde School away

Our year 11 Badminton players had an epic match away at Ryde School. The scores were level at 8 matches each with the deciding mixed doubles match ending 28-26 to give Ryde an enthralling win.

Representing Medina were Zach F, Louis G, Joe C, Georgie G, Jasmine A and Jeena M.

Mr Dye

Year 7 Netball Tournament

What a great afternoon of netball hosted by Ryde School on Tuesday.

Non-stop matches with Ryde Academy, Cowes Enterprise College and Ryde School saw some wonderful netball from all!

Superb team effort from the girls and the post match donuts were just the icing on the cake!

So proud of our netballers!
Mrs Tuck

Astronomy Club – Wednesday 2 February 2022

What a fantastic meeting we had yesterday! The astronomers (around 25 year 7-10 students) had their first remote observation session using the Faulkes Telescope Project, an exciting scheme to give school students a taste of professional astronomy using research grade equipment.

We had full control of the huge 2 metre Faulkes Telescope (North) situated at the top of Mount Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The online controls allowed students to input the catalogue name of an object, set the exposure time and take a photographic image (e.g. Messier 3, or M3, as pictured below). The half hour went very very quickly! But listening to the students’ reactions it was clearly very exciting watching the local webcam footage of the telescope moving to its new position, then waiting with baited breath for the image to appear in the preview window. You can see in the image ‘Using the telescope’ what we saw on the TV screen while using the robotic observatory.

There is a lot of data now to download and process so we can enjoy some pretty pictures, but a quick, low resolution example of what we captured is the image below of M3, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. This was the first target we chose – the star cluster is 33,920 light years from Earth!

We will have more remote observing sessions in future on this or one of the other telescopes available – it is such a huge, amazing opportunity to have the use of this facility, and access to it will certainly be useful to those students wanting to pursue physics and astronomy studies, as well as being a fantastic learning experience for anyone with an interest. Please speak to Mr J Gray (as opposed to Mr G Gray!) or Mrs Rowe if you’d like to know more.

Evie and M3

Latia and astro sotware

Using the telescope

M3

*Update* The images below have now been processed. This involves converting the FITS data from the telescope into individual red, green and blue images, which were then combined (stacked), stretched and post-processed in GIMP photo editor. Mr Gray is looking forward to teaching students how to do this process themselves. 

The first meeting of the Medina Fairtrade group was held on Friday 21 January, where students and staff discussed actions that can be taken to work towards the FairActive award. It was a great opportunity for students and staff to discuss individual motivations for wanting to be involved in a group, working for more equality to the developing world, and to try some different Fairtrade chocolate at the same time.

The group was started following the successful PSHE lesson at the end of last term on Fairtrade.  The group will be meeting next week Friday, 4th February with the aim of discussing activities and events to be involved in for the up-coming Fairtrade Fortnight. Please get in contact with Mr Donald if you are interested in joining.

As part of the Fairtrade work in PSHE, Tutor group 8D produced this fantastic Fairtrade tree to highlight the importance of the charity.