The school has again been successful at national level receiving reaccreditation of its ‘Healthy School’ award follow- ing a recent inspection by the LEA Coordinator for Healthy Schools, Mike Hillary. Mr Hillary was very compli- mentary about the work of the school saying that “Discussion with members of the senior management team indicates the school’s commitment to developing the PSHE and citizenship curriculum and the pastoral systems in the school. Several of the new progress groups, which are being set up in the school, will support the development of the healthy school programme and pro- vide the evidence to meet the new national healthy school status criteria… Highcliffe is a healthy school. It provides students with the knowledge, understanding and skills to make informed decisions about their lives.” We passed with fly- ing colours and are well on the way to fulfilling several of the criteria in the new framework which was issued in September 2005. This will concentrate on four areas - PSHE, healthy eat- ing, physical activity and emo- tional health and well-being. The aims of the Healthy Schools programme are: To support young people in developing healthy behaviours To help to raise student achievement To help to reduce health inequalities To help promote social inclusion A Healthy School promotes the health and well-being of its students and staff through a wellplanned, taught curriculum in a physical and emotional environment that promotes learning and healthy lifestyle choices. The Government wants every school to be working towards achieving Healthy Schools status by 2009. Mrs Stone is Highcliffe’s Healthy Schools Coordinator and she is keen to work with parents so if you would like to find out more, please contact her at school. She is also pictured as one of the Dorset teachers who were recently awarded a certificate of competency in the teaching of PSHE, representing some of the first teachers in the country to complete the course. The CPD programme developed by the Department for Health and the DFES ran for a year and involved training, lesson observations and completion of a portfolio of evidence of work. Mrs Stone was commended on her work with her portfolio being used as an example for others. ...healthy, healthier, Highcliffe ...bringing Highcliffe to you... [email protected]Highcliffe School, Parkside, Highcliffe, Christchurch, BH23 Page 1 H2U,Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Inside this issue In the Community Page 3 Faculty News Pages 4-8 Activities Week Pages 9-10 The International Dimension Pages 11-15 ...high, higher, Highcliffe... Pages 16-18 Editor: Mr Coughlan Reporters: Jessica Wilcox, Mrs McGrath, Mr Trevorrow, Mr Dennis, Mrs Barclay, Miss Court, Mr Doyle, Mrs Karanja, Mr Yapp, Miss Lord, Mr Maurice, Mr Campbell, Miss Doughty, Mrs Pearson, Samantyha Taylor, Roxanne Carr, Lucy Brooks, Mr O’Connor
Transcript
The school has again been successful at national level receiving reaccreditation of its ‘Healthy School’ award follow-ing a recent inspection by the LEA Coordinator for Healthy Schools, Mike Hillary.
Mr Hillary was very compli-mentary about the work of the school saying that “Discussion with members of the senior management team indicates the school’s commitment to developing the PSHE and citizenship curriculum and the pastoral systems in the school. Several of the new progress groups, which are being set up in the school, will support the development of the healthy school programme and pro-vide the evidence to meet the new national healthy school status criteria… Highcliffe is a healthy school. It provides students with the knowledge, understanding and skills to make informed decisions about their lives.” We passed with fly-ing colours and are well on the way to fulfilling several of the criteria in the new framework which was issued in September 2005. This will concentrate on four areas - PSHE, healthy eat-ing, physical activity and emo-tional health and well-being. The aims of the Healthy Schools programme are:
To support young people in developing healthy behaviours
To help to raise student achievement
To help to reduce health inequalities
To help promote social inclusion
A Healthy School promotes the health and well-being of its students and staff through a wellplanned, taught curriculum in a physical and emotional environment that promotes
learning and healthy lifestyle choices. The Government wants every school to be working towards achieving Healthy Schools status by 2009. Mrs Stone is Highcliffe’s Healthy Schools Coordinator and she is keen to work with parents so if you would like to find out more, please contact her at school. She is also pictured as one of the Dorset teachers who were recently awarded a certificate of competency in the teaching of PSHE, representing some of the first teachers in the country to complete the course. The CPD programme developed by the Department for Health and the DFES ran for a year and involved training, lesson observations and completion of a portfolio of evidence of work. Mrs Stone was commended on her work with her portfolio being used as an example for others.
In the Community Page 3Faculty News Pages 4-8Activities Week Pages 9-10The International Dimension Pages 11-15...high, higher, Highcliffe... Pages 16-18
May I remind parents of the continued need for care and consideration to-wards our local residents at the start and end of the school day. Please do not park on the pavements, in the school car park or on the chevron area outside the school gates when dropping off and picking up students in the locality. Residents have brought to
my attention that their drives are frequently ‘blocked’ by inconsiderate parking at certain times of the day. I would be grate-ful if parents could bear this in mind when in the vicinity of the school. Your further co-operation in re-ducing ‘noise’ levels when picking students from late night activities would also be appreciated.
Forms are available from the Student Support Of-fice. I wish to remind you however, that before a de-cision is made regarding the approval / non ap-proval of holidays in term time that an assessment is made of the level of atten-dance of individual stu-dents. In some cases therefore, permission may be declined if students have significant rates of unauthorised absence and / or the planned ab-sence coincides with a pe-riod of examination as-sessments such as GCSE modules etc. Please note that under the new regulations regarding attendance at school par-ents should take the ‘Permission Slip’ with them on holiday to show as evi-dence if stopped by police officers carrying out tru-ancy sweeps. At present fixed penalty notices are being issued to parents who take their children out of school without the rele-vant documentation.
Litter
Attendance
Holidays in Term-time
Travel Plan— Cycling to School
In order to keep our local environment clean and tidy and with particular refer-ence to health and safety issues, I wish to remind students that it the re-sponsibility of all members of our school community to ensure that litter is placed in the bins. These are widely available around school, students should also act responsibly whilst
Highcliffe has benefited as a result of the introduction of electronic registration that means student atten-dance can be monitored. I wish to remind you how-ever that if your son / daughter is absent it would be greatly appreciated if you would contact the
travelling to and from school with regard to the correct disposal of litter. As part of our drive to cre-ate a sustainable commu-nity, recycling bins are shortly to be introduced, which students are encour-aged to use. In addition, students will also benefit from the addition of more outdoor picnic tables for use at break and lunch-time.
school to notify us of the absence by telephone and confirm by letter when they return to school. This will help reduce the cost of sending reminder letters. Parents may wish to check the attendance details of their children by logging onto the parents’ area of ‘MyHighcliffe’ for up-to-date information.
As part of our school travel plan we are actively en-couraging more students to cycle to school. Stu-
dents must wear their cy-cle helmet for safety and be in possession of a valid cycle permit. They are also reminded that at all times they should be aware of traffic conditions and should ride their bikes with care and consideration towards other road users.
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 4
Myths, Magic and Mayhem An amazing performance event took place on a balmy July evening at Highcliffe School. The Christchurch Arts Project for this year involved over 100 students from Mude-ford, Somerford, Burton and Highcliffe Junior Schools as well as Year 7 students from Highcliffe. The theme for the pro-ject was derived from myths and leg-ends around the world. After a fabu-lous picnic on the field, the evening performance got off to an awesome start with the per-formance by Highcliffe Junior School entitled ‘Georgina’. This took its inspiration from the leg-end of St. George. The musical, written by Mr Gould, was performed brilliantly and set the standard for the evening. Next up were the Mude-ford School team with their imaginative piece based on North American Indians which included stunning art work, drama and dances around a totem pole! The audience was then led on a journey into Africa where they experienced several ‘trickster’s tales’ that had been devised by students from Burton School. These performances incorporated innovative storytelling devices and were enhanced by a col-ourful display of masks and artwork. Returning to the courtyard the audience were then treated to a lively rendition of songs based on the story of Robin Hood. These were per-formed by the students of Somerford School against an
astounding backdrop of artwork created in conjunction with the Grange School. The evening culminated in a powerful performance of ‘Cuchulain – The Hound of Ul-ster’ by Year 7 students from Highcliffe School successfully integrating drama, music and movement. The range and
quality of the work from all the schools was excep-tional and we are looking forward to another ex-citing Christ-church Arts Project next
year. Report by Mrs McGrath
Arts Festival Success Congratulations to year 11 stu-dents who were successful in the recent heat of the Christ-church and Dis-trict Arts Festi-val. Lucy Brooks, Lucy Skillicorn, Dan-ielle Trudgeon,
Ria Trudgeon, Maria Seton- Smith, Samantha Taylor and Roxanne Carr choreographed and performed an original and complex dance routine which has won them the privilege of performing at the Regent Cen-tre, Christ-church. Apart from planning the choreogra-phy, the stu-dents also produced their own music and designed their own costumes. Well done on a great achievement! Report by Mrs McGrath Year 10 Global Rock
As we arrived at Southampton Guildhall there was already loud music playing and many students from different schools were at the front of the stage dancing, having fun and in many cases meeting new friends. Once all seven schools had arrived along with the backstage staff, the pre-senter for the day came out to explain the format and rules for the day. This was followed by a workout which was more of an ice-breaker than for exercise – the people on the stage seemed to really enjoy making fools of them-selves. At about 10.30am we were shown to our dressing rooms and all the schools began to rehearse their pieces. This was quite unnerving for us as some of them were very good and we felt a bit unsure if ours would get anywhere. However, by the time it came to our rehearsal we forgot all our negative thoughts and fo-cused on performing to our best standard. After lunch the draw was made to see the order in which we would perform. Past bad luck made us wary but this time we were drawn to perform 5th rather than in the dreaded 1st position. At around 4pm we grouped in the dressing room for hair
and make-up and other final preparations. Prior to the day we had not really finalized designs for hair and make-up so there was much discussion and decision-making
on the spot so it was lucky that once we were ready it looked really effective. When we were walking around backstage the response from the competing teams gave us a lot of confidence. When the
Faculty News
Expressive Arts
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 5
time came to perform I do not think any of us were really nervous – we were more ex-cited about getting on stage and doing our very best. Overall the performance went very well with everyone in-volved doing their bit, the lighting and smoke combined with our costumes and move-ment gave a really great ef-fect. If anything, the nerves came when we were waiting for the results. Early on it did not look good – a few awards had been given out and we had not received a mention. Just when we thought we were going to go home empty handed it all turned around and we received three awards in succession (‘Best Hair and Make-up’, ‘Best Media Man-
agement’, ‘Best Choreogra-phy’). After we won ‘Best Choreography’ there was a positive vibe going round the whole group that we might get a placing in the overall category. When this turned out to be 1st place we were really shocked! To re-ceive the award made us feel really proud, all the hard work that had been put in by us and our teachers was really worth it and we had not let Highcliffe School
down. Report by Lucy Brooks
Year 11 Expressive Arts Evening Towards the end of last term the Year 11 Expressive Arts students performed their final examination pieces to an in-vited audience. This was the culmination of 15 hours of plan-ning and preparation time in which the students had to re-spond to a choice of stimuli and devise a piece incorporating 2 of the arts areas of drama, dance or music. The themes of the work ranged from ‘Bullying in the workplace, at home and in care homes for the elderly’ to ‘The impact of war on families – both in historical and contem-porary contexts’. The standard
of the pieces produced was superb with several members of the audience reduced to tears; such was the emotional intensity of the students’ work. Well done to all of the Year 11 students who worked with such focus and commitment during the preparation time. The hard work certainly paid off!
Report by Mrs McGrath Hot Mikado Rehearsals are well under way for this year’s exciting school musical “Hot Mikado”. Mr Trevorrow, Mr Gutteridge and Miss McMillan are direct-ing a cast of 120 students in this sizzling fusion of jazz, swing and soul! The show will be the biggest production the school has put on for many years and includes students from all year groups. It will be performed in the school hall with a professional Lon-don set and full costumes. Performances will be on the 2nd – 4th March 2006. Tickets will be available after Christ-mas. Look out for the post-ers!
Report by Mr Trevorrow
What Happened to the King’s Gold? One of the school’s science technicians, Mr Dennis, has recently had an article pub-lished in the ASE (Association of Science Educators) journal, School Science Review. The article – ‘Archimedes, The first Forensic Scientist?’ – is an examination of the science behind a famous legend of how Archimedes helped his king to assess the purity of the gold in his crown. The il-lustration shows the first page of the article in the magazine; feel free to contact us if you would like access to a full ver-sion of the article. Mr Dennis’s report from the
School Science Review was used by Mrs Barclay to write a mys-tery for her Year 7 science class. The students had been looking at forces and were due to begin studying density. The lesson was de-signed with the Leading in Learning Strategy of the Key Stage 3 curriculum in mind. Leading in Learning is a whole-school pro-gramme for teaching thinking skills. The programme takes a cross-curricular approach in or-der to maximise the transfer of
learning and so help students to develop and use their thinking skills in all subjects and all aspects of their lives. In the science mystery lesson the students had to use writ-
Science
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 6
they had learned it. This was reinforcing the thinking skills lessons that some of the group had already In the sci-ence mystery lesson the stu-dents had to use written in-formation and data obtained from practical tasks to deter-mine if the King’s goldsmith had kept some of the gold for himself and instead mixed in some silver to make up the same total mass. The stu-dents then had to focus on what thinking skills they had
Modern Foreign Languages
Visit to Cherbourg During activities week, a large number of Sixth Formers took part in a French trip to Cher-bourg. It was a very pleasant, relaxing day in which students shopped, ate and eased themselves off of the hard work-ing year they had just en-dured. We all met at Poole Ferry Board at 6.00am where everyone seemed surprisingly refreshed considering how early it was! I think everyone would agree that the ferry ride was an ex-perience they do not want to carry out again, but luckily, no one (from our group) was ill from it! "I sat outside the whole ride to Cherbourg as I felt really sick, so I was really cold most of the way there. But I'd rather be cold than listen to people being sick inside!" said Dean Prodomo. We got in to Cher-bourg around 9.00am and walked to the main town which took us about half an hour, despite only getting lost once! We then all split up into small groups and wandered around the beautiful, scenic town of Cherbourg. Many of us ate at reasonably priced
restaurants, enjoying the tradi-tional French cuisine whilst oth-ers shopped in the unique, in-teresting shops in different parts of the town - spending all their euros!
By the end of the day everyone was rather tired therefore the ferry ride home was very quiet! I think all students would agree in saying it was a very pleas-ant day which helped students
unwind, "Cherbourg is a really cool place to visit, even if you are coming here for a day, there is loads to see and do!" commented Sam Terry. Overall it was a memorable, enjoying day, which I would recommend all the new Sixth Form-ers to go on next sum-mer!
Report by Jess Wilcox
Exchange trip to Lake Como, Italy At the start of October, twenty-three students from Years 8, 9 and 11 travelled to Lake Como to participate in the Italian ex-
change trip. This was the sec-ond time that the exchange programme had been ar-ranged and the overall suc-cess of the trip is evidence of the strong link that has been established between Highcliffe School and the Istituto Dedalo Orsoline di San Carlo. The strength of this partnership is largely a result of the efforts of Prof. Lezzeni, our main contact in Italy, who is re-sponsible for coordinating the Italian side of the exchange. On their arrival in Italy, the English students were warmly received by their partners and host families, who subse-quently made every effort to ensure that they enjoyed their experience to the full. Equally, the English participants were eager to immerse themselves in the Italian culture and ar-rived at our meeting point
each day with numerous de-scriptions of the new sights, food and habits that they had encountered. In addition to this, they each recorded all of the new expressions
that they had learned on a daily basis and produced a diary in Italian as a record of their experience. Highlights of the trip included visits to Milan, the hilltop
ten information and data ob-tained from practical tasks to determine if the King’s gold-smith had kept some of the gold for himself and instead mixed in some silver to make up the same total mass. The students then had to focus on what thinking skills they had used to solve the task. By do-ing so the students were devel-oping the ability to think and talk about learning so that they were not only aware of what they had learned but also how
used to solve the task. By do-ing so the students were de-veloping the ability to think and talk about learning so that they were not only aware of what they had learned but also how they had learned it. This was reinforcing the think-ing skills lessons that some of the group had alreadyexperi-enced in English with Miss Reeves and in R.E with Mr Yapp.
Report by Mr Dennis and Mrs Barclay
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 7
town of Bergamo and to Bel-lagio, another of Lake Como’s famous tourist centres. Stu-dents also enjoyed a visit to a nearby theme park and the chance to view villas belong-ing to famous celebrities such as George Cluney and the Versace family during a boat trip on Lake Como. Towards the end of the visit, we took advantage of Como’s prox-imity to Switzerland and vis-ited a Swiss chocolate factory, where the free samples proved to be extremely popular! On the last evening our partner school treated all participants to a meal in a pizzeria. It was clear on our de-parture, from the reac-tion of all involved, that the trip had been a success and that the participants were looking for-ward to the return visit in March.
Report by Miss Court Future Visions of Europe Fifty-three Year 11 students joined staff at Southampton
University’s Open Day as part of the European Day of Lan-guages on September 26th and took a peek at a future vision of Europe. The students, who have already passed or will shortly sit GCSEs in French, German, Spanish or Italian, were invited to consider the role of languages in a Europe of the future. Students saw that in only a few
years’ time they will likely work alongside business leaders who increasingly value employees’ language skills. And as the European Union continues to seek to expand, our students increasingly compete with mul-tilingual ‘new europeans’ for
key jobs and vital opportuni-ties. Undaunted by the pros-pect of picking up a new lan-guage, the Year 11s jumped at the chance of attending a taster lesson in a new lan-guage and grasped the oppor-tunity to take a university student’s perspective on lan-guage learning. Accompanied by students from other local schools, the Year 11 students participated in workshops and seminars ranging from Early Language Acquisition to Sociolinguistics to European Politics. Our cur-rent Yr12 and Yr13 linguists would recognise the focus on learning a language through careful study of important is-sues facing the French, Span-ish, Germans and Italians to-day. Year 11s are already looking ahead to a closer insight to Europe next year as they watch the Sixth Form linguists departing for language study trips abroad this term. We will report on these in the next issue!
Report by Mr Doyle
14-19 Update
We would like to share with you part of a letter we re-cently received in relation to work experience placements. The student involved is Lucy Emmett, now in Year 13 and is applying to attend medical school. The letter was signed on behalf of the Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust by Professor David Bar-rett BSc FRCS (Consultant Or-thopaedic & Trauma Surgeon, Professor in Orthopaedic Engi-neering) and went as follows; ‘ It has been a pleasure to have your student Lucy at-tached to my knee surgical firm. She spent a week in Southampton during which she had the opportunity to gain a wide and varied view of hospital clinical practice. She was able to spend a day in
the operating theatres and a day in an outpatient clinic as well as time on a ward shadow-ing the nursing staff and an af-ternoon with an anaesthetist. Lucy has a very mature, posi-tive and sympathetic attitude and was at ease with both pa-tients and medical staff. She has excellent communication skills and her previous exam achievements suggest that she will have no problems academi-cally. Lucy will clearly make an excellent doctor and I wish her every success in her medical career.’ We thank the hospital trust and Professor Barrett (who, by the way, is a past head boy of Highcliffe School –1975 Mrs Gower believes) for their sup-
port of Lucy. Lucy herself has made her private thanks but has asked that we make her thanks public through this fo-rum. We print this not just to show our pride in Lucy and her achievements but also as a reminder to students and parents of the importance we attach to relevant work ex-perience in the Sixth Form. With our students entering the competitive world of Uni-versity and employment ap-plications it is important to present a fully rounded his-tory of achievement to those institutions you are applying to. We will support students in any way that we can in their efforts to gain such work experience. Talk to us here in the Sixth Form office.
Report by Mrs Karanja
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 8
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H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 9
ACTIVITIES
The last week of the Summer Term saw another very suc-cessful Activities Week take place. All year groups had a packed and varied of activities on of-fer, ranging from outward bounds activities at Brenksome Ropes Course and Hengistbury Head, through to social and
health education from all the Emergency Ser-
vices and the local Health Trust, to subject specific ac-tivities days, in which all the departments in the school
played their part in oragising opportuni-ties for students
through the extended cur-riculum.
Year 7 Emergency Services Day
Year 8 Technology workshops
Year 9 Healthy Eating
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 10
WEEK 2005
Year 8 Crime Day
Year 10 Army exercises
Year 7 & 8 Maths, Humanities, and Science activities
Year 9 Pottery
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 11
The International
Dimension
The school sees its responsibilities as a Language College as going beyond the teaching of languages. It is about giving our young people a true sense of the world at large as well as their responsibilities and their opportunities within it. A vital component of this is the development of links with our partner schools whether via electronic technology or by the use of personal experience.
Joubert Ludidi—A Momentous Summer in Tsilitwa
In July four Highcliffe teachers visited our global partner school the Joubert Ludidi Comprehensive High School in Qumbu, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The four of us: Miss Lord, Mrs Karanja, Mr Maurice and Mr Coughlan spent two weeks working with the staff , students and community at a momentous time for Joubert Ludidi School. It was a very memorable and enriching ex-perience. We received a really warm welcome from the
whole com-munity. We enjoyed the opportu-nity of ob-serving teaching practice in the school and ex-periencing an education system which has in recent years over-come the shadow of apartheid, under funding and issues such as HIV and yet manages to produce independent, moti-vated pupils who will walk for
miles to get to school and beg to be let in when the gates are locked. The visit allowed us to share some of the good prac-tice in place at Highcliffe School as well as to ex-periment with new ideas in an almost ideal learning environ-ment. Both stu-dents and teach-ers embraced everything with enthusiasm, the ‘wow’ factor was abundant and refreshing. The school embraced every lesson from French to Citizenship with an intense en-thusiasm. We also extended a community pro-ject that had taken place at Highcliffe to our
link school. The students pro-duced a community tree with leaves of three different col-ours. On the green leaves the students wrote what they liked about their community, red leaves expressed what they disliked about their com-munity and orange leaves were used to convey their as-pirations and what they would like to change about their community. The tree aroused a lot of interest and attracted many visitors, including the Headteacher and school gov-ernors. For the students of Joubert a particular highlight of the week was the ‘Staff v Stu-dents’ football match that took place towards the end of our stay. They were particu-larly impressed with Mrs Karanja’s tough tackling, Mr Maurice’s energy levels and Mr Coughlan’s ability to stand still for long periods of time in an attempt to catch his breath. The conditions under which we played were rather alarming! We were playing at high altitude and the pitch, which sloped steeply, was full of termite mounds and pot-holes. The crowd were in great spirits and even learnt a few British football chants. I’m very pleased to report that we (the staff) won the game on a penalty shoot out. Mr Coughlan scored the win-
Mrs Karanja The highlights for me were team teaching with local teachers, playing football against the school team and hilarious attempts at learning Xhosa, the local language. The language in-cludes a variety of clicks, which are very difficult for a beginner to imitate. The students and teachers appreciated my efforts, but I realise I will have to work at it a bit more! Mr Maurice and I had a lot of fun teaching French to various classes – they were very keen and motivated and made excellent progress. Some of the classes we worked with had over 70 students in. It was amazing to see the high levels of behaviour, motivation and concentration in such a large class. We worked with groups of teachers in a variety of subjects to try incorporating more interac-tive teaching methods into lessons. The teachers were keen to explore new ideas and we experi-mented successfully with bingo, card games, group work and targeted questioning using a ball. We worked with some highly skilled teachers and were able to share ideas and learn from each other. I was really pleased to have the opportunity to work with our colleagues at Joubert Ludidi. I would like to see the link between the two schools strengthened and we hope to work on some collaborative projects. Mr Maurice will be helping me introduce an interna-tional citizenship programme into the Sixth Form this year, using video footage taken during our stay, in-cluding interviews with teachers and students. We have also organised a postcard exchange between Sixth Form students at each school and hope ulti-mately to set up Sixth Form exchange visits.
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 12
ning penalty, after Mr Maurice had unfortunately missed (apparently the goalkeeper moved before the whistle). During the two weeks each of us took very different roles in working within the school en-vironment but there was a very exciting common de-nominator. This was the move of the entire school into brand new purpose-built school buildings. The new school was a dream come true for the community of Tsilitwa and is testament to the hard work and perserverence of Mr Mbuku (Principal) and the School Governing Body (led by the ‘coolest man in Tsilitwa’ - Mr Caba.). The new school buildings have been built by the government and the entire community had a hand in the design process. The buildings consist of 18 classrooms, a fully plumbed science laboratory, a fully wired computer room and an administration block arranged in in a rectangle around a central area for assemblies, school performances and community meetings. The real excitement for the staff and students was that all classes were wired with mains elec-tricity (the Highcliffe staff helped here in that Mr Mbuku was able to use our visit as leverage with the con-tractors to get the mains electricity officially turned on so that we could use the admin block and computer room as bases for our work.) As previ-ously men-tioned, each Highcliffe teacher had a different focus for their work in the school. Mrs Karanja, ably supported by Mr Maurice, was mainly occupied in work with teachers in the development of active teaching and learn-
ing styles within the context of the rural class-room. She also managed to spend much time in discussion with the older students trying to get a feel for their hopes for their progression after school. In addition to his work in the classroom Mr Maurice also took responsibil-ity for working to gather material for PSE work back at High-cliffe – he very quickly became an expert as a one-man video interviewing unit. Miss Lord set up the school’s com-puter and worked with the Principal, some members of staff and a number of students to a crash course in basic computer skills. The stu-dents under her direction were able to quickly produce impres-sive wall displays of computer
generated work celebrating the link between the two schools. Mr Coughlan was mainly occu-pied in attempting to stay out of the way of the other three so
as to allow them to have their own experience of Joubert Ludidi School and Tsilitwa. As this was his third visit to the school the staff and students
were bored with him and much more interested in the ‘newies’. Therefore his time was mainly spent in discussions with the Headteacher, Mr Mbuku, and the
School Govern-ing Body to see how they saw the future devel-
opment of the school and to help them with the usage of the new buildings, as well as start to put together plans for a reciprocal visit by Joubert
Miss Lord I think I speak for all four of us when I say that the trip was ex-tremely successful not just because we met our intended aims but be-cause we were lucky enough to be received by everyone we met with such excitement and enthusiasm and to be shown the warmest hospitality everywhere we went. This includes the staff of the Link office in Umtata, staff we met in the local education office, teachers, governors, parents, and students both at Joubert and Fairfield Primary School but from absolutely everyone we met. As an ICT teacher I had almost forgotten the wonder of being able to take a photograph, insert it into a personal-ised document and instantly print it out to hold in your hand. All within 30 minutes so it was a joy to see students hold in their hands work they had created containing a colour photo of themselves. I know that Anna, John and I would like to thank Phil Coughlan who depicted a picture of the Eastern Cape that both petrified and energized us simultaneously. It was this forward thinking and marvellous organisation that meant whenever we went somewhere with doors, never mind electricity or water we were full of awe and wonder!!! The truth is that we were never less than comfortable. He did an excellent job in organising a programme to match our objectives and so much more. A special thanks to our hostesses ‘The Mrs Makinana’ who welcomed us into their home and extended to us the most wonderful hospitality. Hopefully we will be able to return this when a group of teachers from Joubert come on a reciprocal visit.
room) and hav-ing the students move rooms at the end of each lesson. This meant a great deal of work for Mr Coughlan with Mr Mbuku as they toiled to-gether for long hours to get the timetable to-gether before the move to the new building. It was worth it to see the faces of the teachers as they were given the keys to their rooms - the Principal had kept the whole idea a secret from them until the last moment. The discussions continually showed the drive, determina-tion and forward-thinking of the entire commu-nity. The school buildings were already in use for extra sessions for the examination classes and ar-rangements were being made to
teach evening school for stu-dents, adult education and Eng-lish support for their feeder schools. To that end plans were
well advanced for the next phase of building – to be com-pleted within a year – including a Home Economics room, School Library a hostel for stu-dents and a house for staff to use overnight on days when
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 13
Mr Maurice Before writing this article I thought I would very quickly look at the video I made of South Af-rica to recall some events I might have forgotten and I ended up watching the entire video (3 hours) for the sixth time. This embodies the fact that it has been for me the most enriching professional and human experience. Never had I received such a warm welcome and the friendliness of the people often affected directly or indirectly by disease or death was extraordinary. Professionally the experience was fascinating and I had, for exam-ple, to work alongside South African teachers to de-velop interactive teaching techniques in the class-room (it sometimes happened to be more challeng-ing than I thought as for my first demonstration I was asked to teach a poem of Wilfred Owen interac-tively!). One of our objectives in visiting South Africa was to give Highcliffe students an insight of what we had experienced so I gathered a lot of resources (video footage including interviews with teachers and stu-dents) to be used for PSE lessons and to develop the international citizenship programme into the Sixth Form this year. It is when I started doing inter-views with the students that I realised how important those resources will be when we will be talking about Africa. To nearly all the questions I asked South Afri-cans students I was struck by their answers; when I asked simple questions like for example “What time do you wake up?” I was surprised to hear that stu-dents in most of the cases had to wake up at 4h30 because they had to walk three hours to get to school. Similarly when I asked them what was the first thing they did when they arrived at home from school all of them told me that they would go to the river to wash their shirt for the next day of school. The experience was inspiring and although my task was to teach, I remembered in South Africa how im-portant it is to be a learner and how much you can
staff to Highcliffe. One practi-cal upshot of this was the drafting of a completely new timetable that became neces-
sary after the persuasion of the School Management Team to introduce the radical change (never heard of in the Eastern Cape before) of giving each teacher a teaching base (and complete control of this
they work late. The greatest excitement of all was reserved for the final day of our stay at the school which was designated as the day for the official move by the whole school into the new buildings. Students and staff spent the morning moving furniture and setting up the new rooms. One thing Mr Coughlan managed to hide from the other Highcliffe staff was the nature of the farewell ceremony on that day. He is not going to say anything about it here (as he is plan-ning to get more staff out to the school in the future and does not want to spoil it for them) but is sure that it proved a stunning and emo-tional experience for his three colleagues. We also were lucky enough to spend a night at the begin-ning and end of the trip in the nearest big town, Umtata, and were able to soak up the atmosphere in the town. Mrs Karanja and Mr Maurice were very surprised to find them-selves spending their first af-ternoon in South Africa play-ing a round of golf for £2 on a course that they had all to themselves as they watched the sun set. We would all also like to extend a warm thanks to Kathy and the staff at Ekhaya for their hospitality. We would all especially like to thank Steve Blunden and all at the Umtata office of Link
for their invaluable support during the two weeks. Most of all we would like to thank the
people of Tsilitwa for sharing with us and enriching our lives. We hope to do the same for you one day.
Report by Mr Coughlan, Miss Lord, Mrs Karanja
& Mr Maurice
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 14
This summer I was fortunate enough, along with Mr Gould and Mr Hallam, to visit Cape Town, South Africa with 15 arts practitioners from Dorset as part of the Teachers' Inter-national Professional Develop-ment programme. At present, the school curriculum in South Africa is undergoing a radical overhaul especially in the field of the arts and this was our opportunity to work with educators and stu-dents and observe practice in a range of schools. After a whirlwind tour of the local area, the real work be-gan with a visit to my first school which was in a town-ship area of Cape Town. The school building looked austere
and there were absolutely no frills in terms of equipment and facilities. The drama room was a basic brick build-ing, cold and stark but with the arrival of the stu-dents, the atmosphere changed immediately. They were warm and friendly and joined in enthusiastically with the drama lesson I had planned. This response con-
tinued throughout the day with all my classes and the room was filled with laugh-ter and fun. The highlight of my day was watching a re-hearsal of a dance/drama piece which the students were preparing for a per-formance at the main thea-tre in Cape Town. I have never seen
such an inspirational rehearsal in my life. The students were fo-cused, totally commit-ted, disciplined and gave their all.They even involved me in a spontaneous improvi-sation! Perhaps it is because they have so little that they are so appreciative and make the most of what their school can offer. The following day, my experi-ence could not have been more different when I visited a pri-vate girls' school in an affluent area of Cape Town. The facili-ties at the school were second to none: squash courts, swim-ming pool, theatre, menage, to
name but a few. Most of the girls were from wealthy families and would have access to uni-versity when they left school and many were looking to eventually work abroad. My final teaching experi-ence took place in another township school which again was poorly funded and badly resourced. The
Head of Music had £50 a year to run her depart-ment and it really showed in the lack of instruments some of which were 50 years old. However, loads of students crowded into the music room at every break and lunchtime to practise their musical skills and were desperate to learn. For most of the stu-
dents I met, education is their only escape from the social deprivation they experience in their daily lives and they value it highly. That evening we were invited to an Arts Festival at the theatre in Cape Town where many local schools performed dance and musical items. The standard of the performances was amazing and we saw an incredible range of styles
from contemporary dance to ballet to Indian dance to cho-ral work. I have only been able to share a small part of my week with you and the inspiration and the enthusiasm I gained was tempered somewhat when I realised that many of the stu-dents I had worked with dur-ing the week would not live beyond the age of 25 due to AIDS, drug addiction and gun related crimes. However, working with these students and teachers was something I will never forget and their positivity in the face of adversity will live with me forever.
Report by Mrs McGrath
Learning from Cape Town
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 15
European Day of Languages 2005
Celebrating linguistic diversity, plurilingualism, lifelong language learning
On Monday 26th Septem-ber Highcliffe was keen to ensure that we marked the European Day of Langua-ges in an appropriate fas-hion. This year it was de-cided that every student in the school should wear a sticker with the words ‘Talk to Me’ in a European lan-guage. With every student and member of staff wea-ring a sticker it meant that
Celebrity Linguists David Beckham: 'I ha-ven't conquered Spanish yet. I'm learning and un-derstand what's said du-ring. I'm progressing lit-tle by little. Spanish is very difficult for me, al-though I am getting used to it. I am making an ef-fort. It's complicated. But if I can conquer Spanish, it will have been a great achievement.'
‘Languages make sense, it is only people who someti-mes don't.’
Anonymous
English French German Greek Italian Russian Spanish Welsh Total
Lance Armsrtong
2
Tony Blair 2
Orlando Bloom 2
Rory Bremner 4
Derren Brown 2
Fiona Bruce 3
Sandra Bullock 2
Sol Campbell 2
Huw Edwards 3
no-one in Highcliffe could forget that for that day languages were very much ‘in vogue’. Amongst the activities on the day some students were asked to have a go at the ‘Celebrity Linguists’ quiz, a section of which you will find below. Have a go at doing the quiz, you will find the ans-wers at the bottom of the page.
Can you guess
which languages each of these celeb-rities speaks? There is a clue in the end column which tells you how many lan-
As you know, we believe it is very important that we recognise the achievements made by all of the members of the school community. This applies whether those achievements are academic, sporting or social and also whether they are made in school or outside school. The more achievements are recognised, the greater the
incentive to achieve even more.
Holly Wetton (TG 7.7) re-cently swam the ‘Butlins Swi-mathon’ in aid of the NCH Childrens’ Charity. She com-pleted the 5000 metres (200 lengths) in 2 hours and 12 minutes at New Milton Health & Leisure Centre. In doing so she raised approximately £400 for the charity which was an excellent achieve-ment, with Holly showing ex-actly the sort of qualities that we aim to develop in all of our students at Highcliffe; to strive for personal excellence and to display this in a man-ner that supports the commu-nity as a whole. Well done Holly, we are proud of you. Holly is also a member of the New Milton Torpedoes Swim-ming Club and recently won the ‘Chairman’s Trophy’ at the club’s Presentation Evening as a reward for all her hard work and effort throughout the year.
We have just recently been in-formed that Tom Mepham (9.6) has been offered a place at the Dorset Cricket Academy. Well done to you, Tom. We look for-ward to hearing continued ex-citing news about your progress in future years.
Holly Wetton
Tennis Success
Abigail’s Dance
Cricket Success
We now have some very suc-cessful students in Years 7 and 8: Adam Horwich (8.4), Andy Case (7.6), Jordan Hay-ward (7.3), Lauren Hayward (7.8) and Bronya Hayward (7.1) took part in a national tournament as members of two teams that got to the last 8 clubs in Britain and were playing well above expecta-tion. The next round would have been the national club league playoffs. Well done to all of you, we hope to bring the readers even more re-ports on your future achieve-
Well done to Abigail Stocker (7.2) for her recent achieve-ment in her Grade 3 Ballet Ex-amination. Not content to merely pass, Abigail put in a great deal of hard work that paid off when she received a ‘Distinction’ – the highest grade possible.
Tutor Group 8.5
Phil Sparks, a member of 8.5, continues his successful sail-ing achievements. During the summer holidays Phil took part in an important event held in Brittany, France. Com-peting against the Belgians and French, Phil bravely bat-tled right up to the final day before finally seeing off the competition to take 1st place. Shortly after this event Phil once again took to the seas, but this time competing nearer to home at Phwelli, North Wales. This was to se-cure a place in the British Na-tional Championships. Aided by the beautiful weather Phil
Lee Black (7.5) attended Scout Camp at Wareham in September participating in: canoeing, hiking, swimming, adventure trailing and abseil-ing amongst a range of other activities during the weekend. Emma Gutsell (11.4) has re-cently achieved the NARS Sil-ver Cross Life-saving Award (QCA)
Just In
Girls’ Football
The girls’ U13 football team got through to the second round of the county cup and played St Edwards in the knock out stages of the second round. It looked to be an unsettled start and as St Edwards kept posses-sion this resulted in a goal from the opposition early in the leg. However, the Highcliffe girls knew that they were capable of rising to the challenge and re-sponded quickly with a stun-ning goal from the midfield player Demi Curtin in the 18th minute. Highcliffe managed to maintain pressure and with a great cross, the striker Jade Rhodes made it 2-1 in the 26th minute. With the team’s confi-dence building, play was get-ting better and midfield player Danielle Platt took on all the St Edwards defenders before scor-ing in the 35th minute. The pressure was obviously too much for the opponents’ de-fence as an own goal was scored a minute later. Finally, the game was sealed with a striking goal, scored by Danielle again, in the 43rd minute. The match ended with a 5-1 win putting Highcliffe though to the 3rd round. Well-done girls!
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 17
romped home securing 1st place by a massive forty-point lead! I’m impressed. Recently Phil took part in the Poole Youth Regatta. Phil very nearly made it a hat trick but was narrowly pipped to the post on the final day, still achieving a commendable 2nd place. Up to date events have seen Phil being approached by the P.R. team of the Royal Yacht-ing Association to represent Optimist sailing at the South-ampton Boat Show. As a re-sult of this Phil was asked to record a television interview by ITV Television. Phil’s inter-view was aired on Friday, 16th September on ‘Meridian To-night’. Phil shared his future ambi-tions, for participation in the 2012 Olympics, with Debbie
Thrower and a few million viewers. Phil has recently won the end of season event, which took place at Grafham Water and now holds 1st place in the rankings. Further news from 8.5 sees Jenny Dathan achieving suc-cess in show jumping. Jenny gained 1st place at Windsor Castle in the British Novice category. Alice Curtin played polo for the New Forest Certies under 16s. Alice played positions one and two. Alice’s team came 3rd in their division and qualified for Cowdray Pony Club Polo Championships. They came a commendable 3rd.
Report by Mrs H Pearson Tutor
take which made me nerv-ous but my mentor Dave said ‘it was only the re-hearsal’. The theme for the theatre part of the per-formance was ‘Lost and Found’. As preparation we were asked to think of something important to us that we had lost and to re-member our feelings at the time of the loss. During the week we had to record our story about this – only on the final day did we find out that these recordings were going to be used as voice-overs during the blackouts and scene changes. We chose one of the stories to develop into a play for the night. We chose Tammy’s story which was a deeply moving story about the loss of 3 children in a fire, 3 chil-dren that she used to babysit for. It was hard to do a play about something so important to her so we used symbolism in it. My part in the play was as a news reporter and as the show approached the nerves really started to kick in. As I walked on to the stage I kept thinking that I was going to go wrong, stutter or not speak loudly enough but thank-fully it all went well. The whole experience of summer school let me see what it would be like to be at university and gave me more confidence in myself. It helped that I was able to share the experience with two of my best friends. It was a week I will never forget – thank you Mrs McGrath for giving us the forms; I will definitely rec-ommend it to students for next year.’
Samantha Taylor
Summer School
During the summer break three Highcliffe students were given the great op-portunity to attend a ‘Summer School in Expres-sive Arts at Bournemouth University. Samantha Tay-lor chose to attend the workshops in theatre, with Roxanne Carr and Lucy Brooks choosing the dance option. We leave the story of the summer to the girls themselves, starting with Samantha. ‘When the second week of the summer holidays ap-proached I was buzzing with excitement. Two of my best friends and I had been lucky enough to be accepted into the summer school for the arts. It was based at Bournemouth University where we stayed on campus all week
in shared houses. I shared with Roxie, Lucy and two girls named Zoe and Sophie as well as our house mentor Jo. Each day we travelled to the Lighthouse Arts Centre in Poole to take part in ac-tivities in our groups. Teach-ing my theatre group were Gareth Brierley and Berna-dette Russell, actors from a theatre company called ‘The People Show’. In the eve-ning we had activities to en-tertain us. On the first night we saw a play called ’21 Tales’. Other evenings in-volved the beach, cinema, karaoke, barbecue and suchlike. As the week went on we were making up plays, shar-ing and developing ideas for the show. We rehearsed all day and it seemed to go well. I made the odd mis-
H2U, Vol 5 Issue 1 - November 2005 Page 18
‘When we first arrived we didn’t really know what to expect, there were 60 new faces around us, but we also knew that it was going to be a great week and we were anxious to get started. Our choreogra-phers were called Bawren Tavaziva and Rikarudo Manwere. They had just started their own dance company mainly dancing African/Modern dance styles. The warm-ups lasted about 2 hours and were very tough. The days lasted from 9 – 5 which was very tiring. Overall the days became progressively easier – except for the warm-ups which just got harder and left us all beg-ging for a break each morning! At the end of
each day the music and drama groups would come in and we would all show the others what we had been working on that day. The talent in the room really amazed us as we watched the other groups. On the last last night there was the performance. That day was very busy and buzzing with excitement, frustration and nervousness. We only had the day to put the whole show together as we had spent the week working on our own pieces. We noticed that there was not very much dance in the show so together with 2 other girls we got our dance group together in the foyer and put together another performance piece for the show. We were extremely
pleased and very proud when the director agreed to use it in the show. It was amazing to see the full house in the auditorium and it felt really good per-forming what we had spent so much time and effort on developing. The reaction from the audience was a lot more than we had ex-pected and we felt that the hard work and commit-ment had really paid off. Though it was sad to say goodbye to our friends by the end of the show we were all tired and ready to go home. Not only did we take away from the week the friendships gained but also new confidence and knowledge. It was a great experience and we are very lucky to have had it.’
Roxanne Carr & Lucy Brooks
An Engineering Future?
On a related matter to that of our report on Lucy Em-mett, here is the text from a press release of a na-tional charity that they kindly sent to us over the summer break. ‘Johnathan Glenister from Highcliffe School attended the Marine Technology Ex-perience at the University of Southampton from the 11th – 14th July. The course was organized by the Smallpiece Trust in part-nership with Lloyd’s Regis-ter of shipping and offered students a unique insight into a specific field of engi-neering in a very practical way. University staff and mem-
bers of the Royal Navy helped to run propulsion, transportation and rudder design and make project. The students were working to a specification and on the final morning they tested their designs at a local swimming pool against set criteria. The workshops were interspersed with com-pany presentations from the Royal Institute of Naval Ar-chitects, Royal Navy Lloyd’s Register. Students also took part in a harbour cruise of the port of Southampton to demonstrate the importance of marine transportation to the nation and to the pros-perity of the region. The ex-citing mix of theoretical and practical activities was en-joyed by all the students who showcased their de-signs and projects to senior industrialists from major companies in an exhibition
and formal dinner on the final night. The Marine Technology Ex-perience is run by the in-dependent charity, The Smallpiece Trust as part of an ongoing programme of residential courses de-signed to help young peo-ple learn and develop skills in engineering, design and management. For further information please visit our website www.smallpiecetrust.org.uk or telephone The Smallpiece Trust on 01926 333200’ Our thanks go to The Smallpiece Trust, South-ampton university and all those whose work and help gave Johnathan this won-derful opportunity.
