A big well done to those of you who entered the Easter Bunny cupcake competition. There are house points for the winners and all participants.
Results below:
Last June we were incredibly saddened by the passing of Year 11 student Jamie Perkins. Jamie was a popular member of his year group which was no surprise given his fantastic ability to bring joy, happiness and laughter to any room and he is greatly missed.
In Jamie’s memory his family are looking to support vulnerable children in Uganda. One way in which this is being done is by collecting children’s football boots/trainers and shirts/shorts/socks that can be shipped over to the children. Many of the children do not own these and play sports without footwear. If you or your child has resources like these which you are willing to donate please can they bring these in and pass them to their Pastoral Learning Mentor or Head of Year.
There is also a fundraising page here and any donations will be gratefully received. Money received will go to the Cefovid charity and help these children in others areas to access education and basic amenities such as fresh water. The children they aim to support are from 6 to 13 years of age and many are orphans who have not been to school for some time.
Jamie was always selfless with his fundraising, such as his 24 hour YouTube (JP24GM) broadcast for NHS earlier in 2020.
Later in the year a group of students will also be developing fundraising events to further support this cause which we will share with you as soon as possible.
Many thanks,
The Priory Academy LSST
During partial closure Y7s and Y8s took part in the James Dyson Science Challenge organised by Mr Billings.
The students carried out a mini investigation and created a short report about it.
Class teachers have sent Mr Billings the top three reports from their Science groups for consideration as winners for the challenge.
The following have been picked as winners:
Year 7 winners:
1st Ana B
2nd Maadhav R
3rd Oskar N
Year 8 winners:
1st Daniel R
2nd Aidan C
3rd Libby B
Well done to those of you who entered the Valentine’s Day Cupcake and / or the Pancake competition. There are house points for the winners and all participants. Results are as below.
You may remember some great work Leo-Beck has done for charity over the last few months. As a result of some earlier work, he was able to send £70 to Macmillan from the sale of his Christmas candles. Thank you to those of you who supported Leo Beck with this.
Since then he has been making ‘heart’ candles for Valentine’s Day. It looks like he will be sending around £15 to the British Heart Foundation from the sale of these! Well done Leo Beck!
We are incredibly grateful to have received a delivery of laptops from Mr and Mrs Sherwood. Mr and Mrs Sherwood are parents of both a current student and a past student of the Academy. They contacted us a couple of weeks ago to see if additional laptops would be of use, as they wanted to help others during this difficult time. We will be giving these laptops to students in need of one, in order that they can access their remote learning and are in no doubt they will be much appreciated. Thank you Mr and Mrs Sherwood for your kindness and generosity
Design & Technology students in Y7 and 8 have been learning about the issues that arise when people with disabilities such as cerebral palsy, or other dexterity limiting diseases such as arthritis, use everyday products. These people often find that their hands shake or that they are unable to grip things. Students were set the task of redesigning an everyday product to make it easier to use. Isabel Nowell responded by making a full size and fully functional prototype of a device that makes typing on a keyboard easier. Isabel has realised a creative solution to the problem or ‘design brief’ set. Isabel has shown her potential to be a successful Product Designer or Engineer.
Despite the restrictions of COVID-19 some of our students past and present have managed to achieve their Gold DofE award. Congratulations to the following students who will now expect to be invited to Buckingham Palace for their royal presentation in approximately twelve months.
Alex Lowe
Jack Foot
Tim Ho
Katy Day
Husnaa Ahmed
Daniel Copsey
Daisy Savage (4 days before her 25th birthday cut off!)
The award requires the students to complete five sections of various lengths:
Skills: 6 or 12 months;
Physical: 6 or 12 months (one of each timescale between skills & physical;
Volunteering: 12 months (or as a direct entrant 18 months);
Expedition: Practice of 4 days & 3 nights in wild country followed by an assessment (where students will work alone) for another 4 days and 3 nights in wild country;
Residential: 5 days in a new environment with no more than two people previously known to the student.
Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme continues to provide students with the opportunity to challenge themselves through a variety of roles across the three award levels (Bronze, Silver & Gold). COVID-19 and the lockdown restrictions have caused some disruption, but for many it has given them opportunity to help vulnerable people in their local community with simple but essential tasks, or focus on their personal wellbeing with a fitness programmes such as couch to 5k or Joe Wicks' challenges, Many have also taken up the challenge of learning to cook, an essential life still, as well as a great help to their parents in these changing times. Well done to all.
If you are interested in understanding more about the Duke of Edinburgh Award at the Priory Academy LSST further information can be found on the Academy's website under extra-curricular – DofE.
Congratulations to all those who took part. As ever, the standards of cooking and presentation were extremely high, thus making the job of picking the winners such a tough decision to make. All participants will receive house points for their house. The Halloween Spooky Spider 2020 cook-a-long results are as follows:
Students placing - Cake Presentation
1st Madeline Enderby
2nd Jack Dick
3rd Michael Dick
Student Special effort award – Maya Frodsham
Teachers placing – Cake presentation
1st Mr Bradwell
2nd Mrs Cavill
Leo-Beck is being proudly supported by his family, having decided during lockdown, that he wanted to make candles. He also came up with the idea of donating some of his profits to charities.
He thought this was a great idea, especially with the current situation with COVID and with the thought that a lot of charity work was unfortunately not being able to go ahead.
Leo-Beck’s first idea was to make commemorative Poppy candles for Remembrance Sunday. He managed to produce 90 candles and donated £30 to the Royal British Legion.
His next project is his decorative Christmas candles, where a percentage will be donated to MacMillan.
I’m sure you’ll agree these are great causes and at the Academy too,we are also proud of his efforts. Well done Leo.
Unfortunately due to COVID-19 and a 90% loss of funding the International Bomber Command Centre in Bracebridge Heath (https://internationalbcc.co.uk ) is under threat of closure. Year 9 LSST student and CCF cadet Adrian R was distressed by the prospect of losing such an important memorial to those lost in World War II and so decided to raise some money to try and help.
Working with the CCF, Adrian came up with the idea of virtually climbing Mount Everest and calculated that it was 85238 steps/stairs to the top. With the help of his fellow cadets and some national media, Adrian and the team have split the stairs into individual targets of 897 per day for 5 days this week. It may not seem like many but the majority of us have only 12 or 13 stairs in our house so it requires each team member to climb those stairs at least 74 times a day!
The ambition of stair climbing is just the start. The funding is the more important element and therefore the team has set a target of £85 238 (equating to £1 raised for every stair climbed). We would love it if the wider Priory community, staff, students and parents could get involved, even if you just tried 75 flights of stairs and asked someone to donate in recognition of your achievements. All funding is directly linked to the IBCC through our Just Giving Page: Priory CCF Everest Climb, (https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ccf-everest-climb)
Keep an eye out for the latest updates. Any queries please email ccf@prioryacademies.co.uk
Applications for September are now open
This year’s applications for The DofE award are now open to the following year groups:
Bronze – current Year 8 (P218….)
Bronze – current Year 9 (P217…)
Silver – current Year 10 (P216…)
Gold – current Year 11 (if attending the 6th form)
Gold – new starters in September for the 6th form
Each year group has been emailed details of the application
Promotion PowerPoints are available on the academy website for each level
Parents are invited to an MS Teams virtual presentation evening at 1800hrs on 6th May 2020, further details available through an email request to:
Mrs C L Thompson
Priory LSST DofE Manager