FEATURING ARTICLES FROM: ARAV, NILA, ALEX, HEENAL, EMILY & MANY MORE!

When the new 9-1 grading system was introduced for GCSEs this year, exam boards predicted that only “a few hundred” students across the country would receive a clean sweep of grade nines. They were wrong: more than 2,000 pupils defied the odds and achieved three grade nines in maths, English language, and English literature. Amisha from Northwood School was one of these 2,000 students. Amisha, who

achieved a stunning 3 Grade 9s and 8 A*s, said, “I am delighted with my results and I can’t thank the teachers enough for all the support they’ve given me. Northwood is a fantastic school. They really care about every student and, with these grades, I feel I can do anything!”

It wasn’t just Amisha who was overjoyed with her GCSE results this year; the class of 2017

celebrated another set of outstanding results with 73% of students achieving Grade 4 and above in both English and maths. Mark Anderson, Headteacher, commented, “None of this would have happened without the hard work and dedication of the students themselves, combined with the unstinting support they’ve had from their teachers and parents. I am proud of each and every student. Though the changes to this year’s GCSEs in English and maths means results cannot be compared with those of previous years, we are proud to say that over a quarter of all grades

awarded to our students were at A*/A.”

Finally, it wasn’t just Year 11 who were celebrating an excellent set of results. For the fourth year running, students in our Sixth Form achieved a 100% pass rate in both their A level and vocational courses. It was especially pleasing to see 71% of students gaining the highest grades. Ibrahim, who will now be studying Law at Nottingham University, said, “It’s always been my ambition to study Law and I’d like to thank all my teachers for helping me to realise it!”

SEPTEMBER 2017

Headteacher Mr Anderson, commented, “Students at Northwood make exceptional progress. Last year, we were placed in the top 6% of schools nationally for the progress that our students made. In fact, as a result of our achievements, the Mayor of London has asked Northwood to join a select group of 32 London secondary schools to share our good practice in his Schools for Success programme.”

OUTSTANDING RESULTSAT NORTHWOOD SCHOOL

VOLUNTEERS AWARDOn 26th May I was delighted to be awarded the Brunel Staff Volunteer of the Year award, for my work with Northwood School. Brunel generously allows each staff member 36 hours per year to volunteer in the local community and, for the past three years, I have been fortunate enough to help out with Northwood’s production for the Shakespeare Schools Festival and I have recently become a Governor. I have a background in theatre and acting, and a passion for Shakespeare. It has been enormously rewarding for me to watch Northwood’s students grow in confidence as they’ve rehearsed, learned and performed ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, ‘Twelfth Night’ and ‘The Taming of the Shrew’. Their hard work and energy have made it a real pleasure for me to spend time with them, and the final performances have always been fantastic. Lay on Macduff… we’re tackling the Scottish Play next year!

Ms J Lakey Governor of Northwood School (pictured right)

OXYGEN FREE JUMPING TRIP

YEAR 10 DYSON TRIP

CHESS TOURNAMENT 2017

YOUTH TRAVEL AMBASSADORS MAKE A SHORT FILM

BRUNEL UNIVERSITY KS3 CODING LESSONS

ROCK WRANGLE TOUR 2017

by Nila - Year 8 On Friday 12th May, YTA members made a short film to help raise awareness of anti-social behaviour on public transport. It took almost three hours and we filmed outside Northwood Hills Station. We all did an excellent job even though it was quite exhausting at times. Jack was a brilliant bus driver. Millie, Maja and Dominika

were great at being the ‘Drama Queen’ characters and I did a decent impression of an elderly woman.

Thanks are due to Michael who was a tremendous help in guiding us through the script and to Mr Tippen who was in charge of the project.

We hope you will enjoy the film which you can watch on YouTube: https://vimeo.com /219695201/c545c7c15b

by Alex- Year 10 Last term, I was part of a group of Year 10 students who went to the OXO Tower in central London to take part in the Dyson Design Challenge.

The challenge was to design and build something that solves a problem at home. The design had to use air in some way, for example it could be powered by air or have air moving through it.

The groups were allowed to use cardboard, tape

and Dyson parts to make a prototype. Firstly, they ‘mind-mapped’ in order to come up with an idea, then sketched it and finally they built their product. Once all this was done, the students had to explain their idea and how it would overcome existing problems or frustration in the home.

We were split into two groups. The first created a paint applicator for large areas and the second group invented a device for drying clothes. I must congratulate both groups, particularly the second group who were recognised for achieving the most environmentally friendly design.

It was a brilliant day - we all enjoyed every minute of it.

by Arav - Year 7 Ryan and Daniel and I, were selected for the Rock Wrangle competition because of our incredible speed and accuracy in recalling our times tables. We were really excited because the winning team were to have a helicopter ride over London and, thinking our chances were good, we set off for the Bolingbroke Academy with Mr Fields.

The three of us first played maths games like ‘times tables snap’ which Ryan won. Then we had this amazing picture taken with rock star wigs and inflatable guitars to get us ready for the competition. After this, feeling very tense, we began our heats which were 11 rounds of times tables, starting with the two times table finishing with the twelve times table. I am

pleased to say that we all reached the quarter finals. Daniel did really well and advanced to the semi-finals with a score of 126 correct answers in a minute! He

eventually finished 6th. I was slightly disappointed not to win the helicopter ride, but at least our school reached the semi-finals thanks to Daniel. Overall, we felt it was a great

performance and I am proud to say that we came 3rd out of 50 schools and all three of us were in the top 16 out of more than 150 students.

by Rebeca - Year 9

On Thursday July 6th, I was part of a group of students who, as a reward for our efforts in the pedometer challenge, were offered a trip to Oxygenfree Jumping in Acton.

When we arrived we were excited to see a whole range of activities including an area to play dodgeball, a small area to play basketball, a foam pit and, most important of all, loads of trampolines to jump on.

I am pleased to say that we made it through the next few hours without any injuries until the very last minute when I landed on my arm. As a result, we had to wait an extra five minutes just to check that nothing was broken. I was lucky and all was well.

The Oxygenfree Jumping session was really fun and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys trampolining.

Mrs Bamrah - Librarian

During the summer term, the School Library hosted the annual Chess Tournament arranging matches for the 32 students who took part over two months. There was a good mix of talented students from Years 7 to 11 and some matches were really exciting to watch.

The grand final took place after half-term when James (9C) beat Taylor (9U) in two

straight matches. James was congratulated and ‘crowned’ as Northwood’s Chess Champion 2017. The other semi-finalists were Anushan (9U) and Lucas (9M).

It certainly was a fantastic success story for Year 9 who took the top four places. Well done to all the participants!

Mr Lilley - Head of Computer Science

Last May, a group of students and their team leader from Brunel University delivered several unplugged coding sessions to Northwood students. The Brunel team brought along some mini-robots, called Ozobots, and explained the challenges to our students.

In teams of two, the students from Years 7 and 8 were required to get their Ozobots to travel around a maze, using a combination of movement stickers. It was harder than it looked, as the robot was unable to go back

down the same path again. Our students had an amazing time. Each team was very competitive and the winning teams, the first to complete the course and the quickest, were excited to receive a prize for their efforts.

A big thank you to Brunel for organising the event which really inspired the students. We hope that they will come back soon to deliver some more exciting and engaging sessions at Northwood School.

Mr Tippen - Head of Year 9 & 10

Well done to Dylan (8M) and Charlie (8N) who each won a brand new Arden Trail mountain bike from Cycle King in Rayners Lane. The boys were very excited when they won the bikes and couldn’t wait to ride them home.

As part of Northwood’s ‘Active Travel Month’ the cycling competition involved

BIKE IT CYCLE TO SCHOOL COMPETITION

NEW AUTHOR COMES TO NORTHWOOD SCHOOL

students giving up cars, trains or buses and either cycling or scooting to school every day. Many students participated and all those who had used active travel everyday went into a prize draw to win the bikes.

We look forward to see who might win the BIKE IT competition this time next year. Well done to the YTA group who monitored the event.

Mr Lilley - Head of Computer Science

Earlier this year Arav, who won the Jack Petchey Award. offered the prize money to pay for a trip to Thorpe Park. As a result, our Digital Leaders went on a trip to Thorpe Park on a hot sunny day in July.

We arrived just as Thorpe Park opened and, as we had some time until our educational session, we

by Emily - Year 9 On July 17th the Interact Group held a Mental Health Awareness Day at Northwood. The day was to educate our students, whatever their age, on some of the ways to achieve a healthy mindset.

We invited several speakers who gave talks on different

DIGITAL LEADERS THORPE PARK REWARD TRIP

GCSE ART, FOOD TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCT DESIGN EXHIBITION

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS DAY

managed to get on several rides. These rides were followed by our educational session where James, from Thorpe Park, talked about advances in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality - e.g. Pokémon Go. We then used our fast track tickets to the Derren Brown Ghost Train - definitely the highlight of the day!

A great day out was had by all thanks to Arav’s generosity.

aspects of Mental Health; the first described the five ways to wellbeing. This was followed by another speaker who discussed the best ways to avoid stress. Finally, we heard a volunteer who works for the Samaritans who talked about his experiences with the charity.

There were also several stalls, all linked in some way to wellbeing for students to browse around. They included a smoothie bike, henna painting, ‘fooducation’, a basketball shootout and an appreciation wall.

Although the Interact Group were aiming to raise awareness of Mental Health issues and not to make a profit, I am pleased to say that we made £200, which we donated to the charity Mind.

We would like to thank David Thorpe from the Rotary Club of Elthorne-Hillingdon for all his support. Overall, everyone had a great day and we all profited from learning how to have a healthy mind.

Mrs Underwood -Senior Librarian

The event, at the Civic Centre in Uxbridge, was attended by students from across the Borough who gave their reviews of some specially selected books. It was a fantastic chance for Northwood’s students to meet some of the nominated authors and to work with them to produce a presentation on their choice for Book of the Year.

Author, Robin Jarvis, talked about how he loves monster stories and how he steals character traits from people who he meets.

HILLINGDON SCHOOLS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS

Comedian, Mark Jones, who compered the whole event, was very humorous and ensured plenty of audience participation.

The Mayoress, Carol Melvin, announced the winning title which was, “Barefoot on the Wind” by Zoe Marriott. This was Zoe’s first award for her book, which our group agreed is a stunning read.

Our Year 7 Bookworms were fantastic: they spoke clearly during their presentations and worked very hard on this project. Above all, it was great to see so many students enjoying their reading.

DIARY OF OUR SPORTS TRIP TO BARCELONA - APRIL 2017

THE BRILLIANT CLUB’S TRIP TO SUCCESS

DUKE OF EDINBURGH TRAINING REPORT

by Holli - Year 7 In June, the author, Oluyomi O’Tuminu, came to Northwood School to talk about her new book called “Sacrifice”.

Oluyomi O’Tuminu was born in Sierra Leone. After escaping the civil war, she settled in England. She is also a lawyer and has helped establish an NGO to educate women about their legal rights.

Her presentation included tips and tricks on how to become an author and write creative, exhilarating stories. Oluyomi also talked about some of the things that had inspired to write her book, including the story of a friend who had published her first book at the age of 18, and how Oluyomi had chosen the storyline of her book, “Sacrifice”.

The students were interested to learn how to write a book from the perspective of an author - she was inspirational and so much fun.

At the end of the talk, all of the students were asked to write a 100-word creative story. The first prize was awarded to Catarina (8C) with Joshua (8N) and Tilly (8C) as runners up.

by Georgina - Year 9 Planning for the training expedition has been one of the most stressful and exciting things I’ve ever done. However, despite all this, it was great. The moment we got the kit list, we were off buying everything needed. My group had to plan how to get there and to organise and bring the food. So, carrying a rucksack roughly half my weight and size and somehow already exhausted, I met my group and we trundled off to ‘meet our doom’, I mean, to start the expedition.

We reached the starting point at Hemel Hempstead Station and once everyone had arrived, we received a safety briefing from one of the DofE staff, who also helped us plan the first part of our route. Once we all had our rucksacks strapped on and were as comfortable as possible, groups of both four

by Heenal - Year 10 Earlier this year, 12 students embarked on a life-changing journey when, on a busy Wednesday, we spent the day at King’s College London and joined the ‘Brilliant Club’.

Following the launch trip, we spent six weeks learning Philosophy, a completely new subject, with an expert, Georgios Kordonoulis a PhD student at Kings. Mr Kordonoulis, our tutor, came to Northwood School once a week for six weeks. He both taught and mentored us and, by doing so, ensured that we completed our homework and did the research needed to write a 2000-word essay on “The Moral Justification of Punishment”.

Once complete, we handed our essays in. Many of us found it very difficult to wait for our final grade as we were impatient to hear how we had done. However, the

or five moved off together down the planned route. Except, I am sorry to say, we all immediately went the wrong way so, having realised our mistake, we doubled back to the station and started again.

Once we were on the move, we took it turns to navigate, and stopped regularly to eat and drink as well as get our bearings. I am pleased to say that we only went the wrong way twice during the first day.

wait was worthwhile. We all did really well and were very proud of ourselves, and what we had accomplished.

A few weeks later, the twelve students who had participated in The Brilliant Club set out with great excitement to receive their awards at a graduation ceremony. After an enjoyable day at the Royal Holloway University, which included a tour and a lovely lunch, we attended the ceremony where, one at a time, we were called up to receive our certificates.

The Brilliant Club provided us all with a great opportunity. We would like to thank our amazing tutor Georgios, Mrs Cable for joining us on the trip and also Mrs Chauhan for being there every step of the way.

Although it was a stressful experience, I would not only happily do it again but I would also recommend it to others.

We finally reached the campsite and, although we were very tired, we put the tents up and unpacked. We set up stoves and cooked our meal: pasta and tomato sauce with hot chocolate. It was great, though I suppose everything does taste wonderful when you’re tired and hungry. We then cleared up, and ‘crawled’, absolutely shattered, into our sleeping bags and soon fell asleep. I’m pleased to say that I woke up feeling well rested. After an excellent breakfast, we packed everything up and

set off again.

Although it was a little hard to get back into the ‘rhythm’ of the previous day, we did well and were pleased to reach the finishing point first at midday. We then rested before our return journey home.

Overall the expedition was great fun, incredibly tiring, but honestly the best. I would definitely recommend the Duke of Edinburgh training to others.

Miss Griffin - PE Department

Day 1: 2nd April 2017.

63 Northwood students and staff departed for Barcelona. Spirits were high and everyone was looking forward to their holiday. After a 22-hour coach journey through France, we finally arrived in Platja D’aro with enough time to check out the beach and start working on our tans. After dinner the students unleashed their inner ‘Diva’ at a karaoke night, ending with a “powerful” rendition of Titanium.

Day 2: 3rd April 2017. After an early breakfast, the Year 9 boys played their first game of football, only managing to draw 1-1 despite their dominance throughout. The girls enjoyed their first training session getting to know the coaches and playing some fun netball games. Students then had time to grab a quick shower before heading out for a

tour of the impressive Nou Camp Stadium and some shopping in Las Ramblas. This was followed by a trip to the local bowling alley where Ella put on a masterclass, out-striking all of the teachers.

Day 3: 4th April 2017.After another gruelling training session for both netball and football in the morning, the students were rewarded with some free time by the beach and pool, some even managing to squeeze in a nap! In the afternoon, the Year 8 boys put on a valiant display in their football match but could only stem the tide for a while against some very strong opponents. The boys left the pitch ‘battered and bruised’ but with their heads held high. All the students then visited the arcade and a great time was had by all, particularly on the ‘Bucking Bronco’ and the bumper cars, where the students raced round trying to crash into the teachers.

Day 4: 5th April 2017.The girls had their netball tournaments today. We had entered five teams in total and they all worked extremely hard during their matches, with one of the Year 9 teams coming 3rd overall! Next up were the Year 8s in their tournament, with some strong teams to play. They all worked hard until the final whistle and they also came third overall. The boys played the last of their football matches and played fantastically, even in the high heat. That night was the disco and, after a few hours spent getting ready, we were off. Sadly, it was soon over and, after a few enjoyable

hours of singing and dancing, it was time for some packing and then bed.

Day 5: 6th April 2017After a great week away, it was time to depart Platja D’aro. After a quick visit to the shops for presents and food for our journey, we were heading back home. With a few films and some stops along the way, we got back to Northwood on Saturday morning. It was a successful trip away with some truly fantastic students. We hope that they all enjoyed the trip and we hope to see them on the next PE trip: Skiing next Easter!

Mrs Sra - Head of Art & Design Technology

It was lovely to welcome so many parents and friends to the exhibition. We provided some fantastic snacks, made by our Year 10 Food Technology students, during the event which were enjoyed by all.

The quality and range of GCSE Art and DT work was very impressive this year - many prizes and certificates were awarded to students for their hard work. The GCSE exhibition winners

were Amisha (11C), Lauren (11C), Alisha (11C), Lauren (11I), Felicia (11C) and Maya (11C) - well done girls!

Northwood also exhibited its first entry to the Portrait Artist of the Year competition, sponsored by the local Rotary Club. The winning portraits will be displayed in Uxbridge Library over the next few weeks.

Well done Northwood students for producing such great work this year!