Chestnut NewsDate: 18 Nov 2016 Issue No: 43

MESSAGE FROM THE HEADTEACHER

Friends of Chestnut Grove

Thank you to everyone who attended the Friends of Chestnut Grove (FOCG) Annual General Meeting (AGM) last week. As well as reflecting on the previous year’s work, we were able to look forward to upcoming events and hear from a number of guest speakers about the work of the Academy and the contribution FOCG can make to the Academy’s long-term aims. We were delighted to welcome the following speakers:

• Mr Wallis (School Business Manager) provided the FOCG with an update on the building works which are taking place under the auspices of the Priority Schools Building Programme (PSBP).

• Ms Noble (Development Officer) provided a detailed account of her fundraising priorities over the coming year and her success in securing additional funds through a variety of trusts and sponsors.

• Ms Hollinshead (Parent governor) gave an insightful talk about what it means to be a school governor and how the governing body and the senior leadership team work together to set the strategic direction of the school.

Dawn Thomas (Chair of FOCG) reported on the considerable successes of the FOCG over the past year, in particular the recent social event at Bodeans and the quiz night at the end of last half term. I am extremely grateful for the work of FOCG who continue to offer support to the school through a variety of channels. It is not just about the amazing fundraising that they undertake, but also about the relationships they forge between home and school. The FOCG are looking for new parents to join in with their fundraising efforts, so please do consider getting involved. The next FOCG event is the Christmas Carol Service at St.Mary’s Church on Thursday 1st December. It would be wonderful to see as many of your there as possible.

Presentation evening

I am looking forward to welcoming many of you next week to the annual presentation evening where we will celebrate the achievements of our students. If you have not yet informed the office that you will be attending please do so as soon as possible. We are delighted to be welcoming Elly Barnes OBE as our guest speaker. Please arrive by 6.15pm.

Christian KingsleyHeadteacher

ART DEPARTMENT

The art department would like to congratulate Sam Cunningham in Year 13 for making an absolutely fantastic start to Year 13! He is a dream to mentor; he is pushing himself to try different approaches to drawing, being brave and risk-taking and it is resulting in a great range of unexpected results! Well done Sam.

ART SPECIALISTS

Year 8 and 9 art specialists have been having fun with ink and clay recently. With Miss Harrison they have been exploring the potential and limitations of using quink ink and bleach. They referenced the sky at night and Mr Kingsley will be choosing his favourite design for the Chestnut Grove Christmas Card 2016!

Miss Kench’s class have been making clay pots inspired by the artist Danielle Smith to make their own characterful clay pots; glazing and painting to follow. We will be selling them at the Christmas concert so save some of your Christmas shopping for then!

ART DEPARTMENT

Art Specialist students were involved in deciding which design team they wished to work with in order to create the Battersea Park art pavilion project. The students listened to four teams of designers who gave a 20-minute presentation to the students, informing them of the projects the design teams have previously completed and also providing the students with a variety of design ideas for the pavilion. The art specialists voted for design team NEON and students will begin working with the designers and architects in December.

Art Specialists have begun creating Christmas crafts to be sold at the art stall at Chestnut Grove’s winter concert. Students have started to create beautiful Christmas tree decorations, tea light holders and necklaces. Packs of the Chestnut Grove Christmas Card will also be sold on the evening. More details on how to order packs of the card will be in the next newsletter.

ARTS AND CRAFTS CLUB

Miss Kench and Caroley in Year 11 textiles have been running an arts and craft club every Wednesday lunch time. They have been impressed by the pupils’ enthusiasm and by their wonderful knitted necklaces and bracelets! Well done!

ARTICULATION PRIZE

ARTiculation is a public speaking competition designed to promote the appreciation and discussion of art. Students who enter are interested in talking about art and it is an opportunity to develop their confidence and ability in expressing their opinions. There are several internal and national heats with the ARTiculation Finals taking place Clare College, Cambridge.In preparation for the ARTiculation prize, Miss Kench and an interested group of Year 12 students went to the National Gallery to attend a workshop which developed their research and investigation skills. They explored the exhibition ‘Beyond Caravaggio’, listened to a talk by the curator Letizia Trevese and visited the research centre and archives.This month the students will be developing their speeches and we look forward to hosting an internal heat at Chestnut Grove.

NETBALL NEWS

KS3

Year 7 participated in their first netball tournament at Burntwood on Monday 7th November.The girls developed their confidence and produced excellent teamwork. A great start to representing the school in the netball team!

SCIENCE

Alisha Patel has WOWED the science department with her half term home work! She produced a phenomenal model digestive system. Inspired by the Burntwood “un-homework” table at our professional learning last year, I set a choice task where students could present their work in their own way: Alisha’s way is very creative!

KS3 TEST WEEK

FINAL REMINDER: Key Stage 3 EBacc Test Week: November 28th-December 2nd

Revision Guides: www.chestnutgrove.wandsworth.sch.uk/KS3-Revision

Autumn Term Curriculum Guides (with revision checklists): www.chestnutgrove.wandsworth.sch.uk/Curriculum-guides

KS4

Huge congratulations to the girls for WINNING the Wandsworth Netball Tournament on Monday 14th November.

The team beat all the schools they played against, which were: Graveney, Bollingbroke, two Southfields teams and

Burntwood. Not only did they win, but they managed to dominate in all their games and win by a considerable margin

in each. They should be very PROUD and I’m sure they will continue to perform to a high level and with success in their

remaining league fixtures.

FRIENDS OF CHESTNUT GROVEChestnut Grove Family Christmas Carol Concert – 1st December 2016:The Friends of Chestnut Grove Academy are proud to present a family Christmas carol concert to be held at St Mary & St John the Divine Church on Balham High Road, SW12 9BS, on Thursday 1st December 7pm to 8.30pm (doors open 6.30pm). The carol concert will feature Ben Haenow, 2014 winner of the X-Factor, performance of Chestnut Grove’s community choir ‘Voice of the Grove’, the school’s jazz band and chamber choir, Henry Cavendish School Choir and Balham Ukuleles. Compere for the night is Lucy Frederick, comedian, actor and writer.

The event is ticketed and all proceeds will go towards new equipment and resources for our new school building. Tickets are £10 per adult (including mulled wine and a mince pie donated by CG parents) and £5 per child 16 and under (including squash and biscuits donated by Waitrose), and are available now on ParentPay. It was sold out last year so please be quick to secure your tickets.

LANGUAGES

On Tuesday 8th November, our Year 10 French students had a wonderful opportunity to meet a group of French students from our link school Collège Robert Roger near Toulouse in France. The 25 French students came into our lesson and the students spent an hour chatting in French (and a bit of English!) about school, their hobbies and their local area. The students really enjoyed the experience and many of them chose to stay chatting with their new found friends well after the bell had gone for the end of the school day.

The 100 Club There are still numbers available to purchase on Parentpay. If you would like more information on how to win cash prizes and how to join, please email thomasp4@sky.com

Annual General Meeting This was held on the 8th November. The newly-elected committee is:Dawn Thomas (Chair), Loné Olsen (Vice Chair), Kathy Walker (Treasurer), Glenis Paintsil (Secretary) and Kate Nicolson, Maud Gambier-Ellis, Deborah Brodie, Damien Austin-Walker, Emma Wheeler as Committee Members.

General emails to: friendsofchestnutgrove@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter (@FriendsofCGA) or join us on our Facebook page Friends of Chestnut Grove.

THEATRE TRIP

On Thursday 10th November, Ms Verber and Ms Durban accompanied Year 11 GCSE drama students to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End to watch The Curious Incident of The Dog In the Night-time. The Year 11 students will be writing a review of the performance as part of their GCSE course.

FOOTBALL NEWS

Chestnut Grove’s Year 9 football team had a tournament on Monday 14th November involving about 7 different schools. Our team came third! The team consisted of Adam Ben Sadok, Matthew Ortiz Gonzalez, Joao Rafael, Kian Nash-Hill, Azriel Annon–Nicolson, Charlie Grainger, Ayman Bouzerai, Dionte Wright. Man of the match was: Charlie Grainger. All students behaved incredibly well and were a credit to the school.

CHESTNUT21

You will hopefully be aware of the fantastic work the PTA, Friends of Chestnut Grove, are doing to raise funds for our school. We wanted to take this opportunity to remind you about the match-funding scheme and how a little bit of your time could raise double the funds for the PTA.If you work for an organisation that has a match-funding policy, any money we raise could be matched by your employer. Companies may match the fundraising total for an event, or for a stall or portion of an event. Usually, the employee will need to supply them with a letter from the PTA detailing the date and nature of the event, together with the total raised.

We understand that the high street banks, building societies, supermarkets and large corporations are likely to do match funding, but these schemes are not exclusive to the major corporate giants. If you work for an independent company, they may be interested in charitable giving through match funding too.

We would be grateful if you could see if your employer has a match-funding scheme, or if they are willing

BOOK FESTIVAL

On 5th November, a group of students attended the STREAM Book Festival at Streatham and Clapham High School, now in its third year. We had the opportunity to meet amazing authors, such as Malorie Blackman, author of the Noughts and Crosses series, who spoke about Shakespeare, racism, bullying and the importance of reading for pleasure. We also got to listen to the world-famous Judith Kerr, known for her many picture books including The Tiger Who Came to Tea and the Mog series, as well as novels such as When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, inspired by her own story of fleeing Nazi Germany as a little girl. She told us many stories about her life, both happy and sad, and we could have listened to her for hours! We found these talks fascinating and inspirational. Other fantastic authors we saw, such as Natasha Farrant, Tony Bradman and Kiran Millwood Hargrave, were also amazing to listen to. We can’t wait for more authors and fantastic churros next year!

Stream 2016 students

to match fund any of our events. If you can’t help out this time, but you know the company you work for has a match-funding policy, please let us know. This could be a really large source of income for the PTA and help us raise money for the new facilities that will be needed in the new school!

Please do contact me for more information!

Many thanks, Ms Noble

snoble@chestnutgrove.wandsworth.sch.uk

As part of the London Youth Rowing, Row for Results programme, a rowing coach visited the school to offer some taster indoor rowing sessions to some Year 7 and 8 pupils. The sessions consisted of a basic introduction to perfect rowing technique and the opportunity to take part in some timed races on linked indoor rowing machines, with results displayed on the big screen.

The students competed in races four at time over two minutes, with the winner being decided on the distance covered, with some students covering a very respectable 500 metres in this time. Notable performers on the day included Year 8 students Jay Simmons, Charlie Howard, Elvis Farrah, Cheyenne Newby, Louise Le Brun Reid , Larry Smith , India Adams, Sam Muarry and Yusef Ahmed, and Year 7 students Thomas Amari, Maliyka Wilkinson, Kimani Williams, Abduar Raheem Sheikh, Stefan Bosnjak and Maia Rizzlo Blackman. As part of the programme, 12 students will have the opportunity to represent the school in the Row for Results London indoor rowing competition later in the year. The Row for Results programme includes a second training session from the coach and use of his equipment in the new year. The chosen team will have the opportunity to experience on-water rowing sessions later in the year. The coach also promised to make up the session that was missed due to maintenance of the pontoon at the Olympic park by last year’s squad once the weather improves.

As part of the programme, any student in the school who would like to compete in the national indoor rowing competition can receive discounted entry to this event. If you are interested then please speak to Mr Tobin in the PE Department.

This week marked the start of our lunchtime Year 7 Chinese Club run in conjunction with the Chinese School that runs classes on Saturday mornings at Chestnut Grove. Twelve enthusiastic pupils are learning Mandarin and finding out about Chinese culture in this exciting opportunity.

We look forward to hearing more from them over the coming months.

Ms GostlingAssistant Head

INDOOR ROWING

CHINESE CLUB

INDOOR ROWING YEAR TEAMSThe RSL team would like to extend their thanks to all students, parents and families for ensuring that correct school uniform is worn to school, in particular black coats, scarves and gloves. If for any reason there is an issue with uniform, please contact your RSL immediately. A gentle reminder that hoodies are not acceptable as a form of outdoor wear.

YEAR 7

Year 7 are well and truly settled into the swing of things now. They are loving lessons and are really engaged with the classrooms I visit. This week I have visited MFL and the noment I walked in the room I was greeted with “ Bonjour Mr Stokes! Ca va? or “Hola, Senor Stokes.”

In lessons, the year are being fantastic, but I feel we could improve with uniform when outside in the playground. I would like to give a gentle reminder that all students must be wearing black outdoor clothing (hats, gloves, scarves and coats), which have no large branding. Again a great week for Year 7s, with lots of great questions being asked in lessons

Mr StokesRaising Standards Leader Year 7

YEAR 8

YEAR 8 AND FOOTBALL BEYOND BORDERS

Last week, Asher Maliki and Jake Thompson were invited to take part in football trials with scouts from Norwich, Wimbledon, Crystal Palace and Fulham. To their credir, they performed exceptionally well and have been invited back to take part in the final set of trials in front of scounts from Crystal Palace, Norwich City FC, AFC Wimbledon, Reading FC and Chelsea FC!

This trip was a reward for their good behaviour in school and during Football Beyond Borders sessions. We wish the boys luck this Friday and we are sure they will perform fantastically well. Well done boys!

Mr Malik

Year 8 student council hustings

This week, Year 8 have been democratically electing their student representatives for the student council. There were 11 students who spoke very fluently, all displaying the PROUD ethos so central to the Chestnut Grove community. I am incredibly proud of all of them. In particular, well done to Madeleine McGuigan, India Adams and Larry Tugwel who are now the heads of Year 8. CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Mr McCarthyRaising Standards Leader Year 8

YEAR 9

On my regular walks around school over the past few weeks I have very impressed with the hard work and dedication shown by Year 9 students in their preparation for upcoming exams. In their non exam subjects students are still working hard learning new skills and enjoying their learning. In my music lessons I have gradually taught all of Year 9 how to play the ukulele, something they have all found a challenge, but fun! I’ve been very impressed by their perseverance and resilience, skills that I frequently talk about in our Year 9 assemblies.

Traditionally around this time of the academic year, students’ attendance can drop due to illness. As a parent myself, I know that it can be a difficult call as to whether to send a child in to school or not, but please can I ask that all students come into school even if unwell; some learning is better than none.

Many thanks for all your continued support.

Ms StriesowRaising Standards Leader Year 9

YEAR 10

Over the coming weeks, photos of Year 10 students working hard in all lessons will appear in the newsletter!

Short reminder - Academy uniform policy - BLACK coat only and NO HOODIES

Assessment week has commenced this week - good luck, show resilience and try your very best!

Ms Fletcher Raising Standards Leader Year 10

YEAR 11

Walking around the school, it has been lovely to see Year 11 students fully engaged and enjoying their learning - well done everyone! Here are some photos of students in a maths lesson earlier this week. Please remember that the mock exams will soon be upon us. Please make sure you are prepared and ready for all your exams. I would suggest reading through your timetable thoroughly so you know which exams are on which days.

Mr WildmanRaising Standards Leader Year 11

Year 12 Trip to High Ashurst(Surrey Outdoor Learning Centre)

On Monday 7th November Year 12 visited the Surrey Outdoor Learning Centre at High Ashurst, Box Hill.

The trip was to celebrate the successful completion of the Sixth Form probationary passport and to im-merse Year 12 students into a challenge course designed to test students’ skills of leadership, teamwork, communication and to build trust among their cohort. Development of such soft skills is vital to ensure that each student is equipped with the desired employability skills required for the rest of their lives, and the trip proved to be a huge success.

Students’ successfully navigated the high ropes, low ropes, the trapeze and the overhanging climbing wall, embracing the experience and learning exactly what they can achieve when pushed beyond their comfort zone in a supportive environment.

The sheer number of “thank you” comments the staff received from the students upon our return to school was a testament to their enjoyment, despite the bitterly cold weather, and to the ethos such a trip helps to engender and embed.

Well done Year 12. We were very PROUD of you!

Mr TaylorAssistant Head/Head of Sixth Form

SIXTH FORM