NEWSLETTER - Kirkby Stephen Grammar School

Kirkby Stephen Grammar School
A co-operative Academy
NEWSLETTER
www.ksgs.cumbria.sch.uk
Issue 105, April 2014
INTER SCHOOLS SHOW JUMPING
It was a wild, wintery Sunday, just before Christmas day
when Kirkby Stephen Grammar School Show Jumping
Team made their way to the termly Inter School Show
Jumping competition at Blackdyke Farm, Carlisle.
The team consisted of Lucy Branthwaite riding Mr Fantastic, Elloise Stephenson riding Cheeky Charlie, Emma
Simpson riding Aries and Marianna Stephenson riding
Archie.
Christmas trees had been cleverly incorporated within
the course to help give the competition a Christmassy
feel. Ten teams from all over Cumbria and South West
Scotland battled it out over two rounds. Kirkby Stephen
Grammar School were in a strong position after the first
round as they were only one of four teams carrying forward 0 faults into the second round. The second round
was against the clock, so it was all about going clear
again, but as fast as possible. All competitors literally
had the bit between their teeth and their sights set on
winning. Team trainer Harold Birkbeck (Lucy’s Grandad)
gave them all tips and advice as to where they could try
to make up time but still go clear. Lots of tight turns
and galloping had the crowd on the edge of their seats.
Four very impressive clear rounds with fantastically fast
times secured the team first place! They were an impressive 8 seconds faster than their nearest rivals William Howard.
Kirkby Stephen Grammar School Team
(left to right) Lucy Branthwaite on Mr Fantastic,
Emma Simpson on Aries, Marianna Stephenson
on Archie & Elloise Stephenson on Cheeky Charlie
A TALENT FOR INVESTMENT
The national investment competition run by ifs
University College (university for financial education) and supported by Bloomberg provides teams
with £100,000 of virtual money to buy and sell
shares in FTSE 100 companies. The competition
gives teams of four students aged between 1419 the opportunity to
experience the dynamic
world of share dealing
and investing in the
stock market.
‘Yolo Ltd’ who were competing against more than
30,000 other students
across the UK made
nearly £1,500 trading in
virtual shares in just
three months of trading,
Jack Oakley, team
outperforming the FTSE 100 manager of Yolo Ltd
share index in the process.
Jack Oakley, team manager and share trader extraordinare, was joined by a support team of Jack
Chester, Simon Cooper, Lewis Boyes and Nicole
Nicholson at the regional finals in Leeds.
The competition is now in its 20th year and is the
largest of its kind in the UK. Alison Pask, Vice
Principal of ifs University College said, “This competition gives students the opportunity to gain
first-hand experience of making investment decisions, which will benefit them throughout their
lives when making financial choices. It also introduces them to core concepts such as risk, reward
and diversification. This is a real achievement
and many congratulations go to the team from
Kirkby Stephen Grammar School.”
2
Head’s Update
Dear Parents, Carers & Local Community Members
I hope you enjoy reading about this term’s exciting
activities as much as we have enjoyed being a part
of them.
A particular highlight for me was our
whole school celebration of World Book Day where
many students (and staff) came dressed as their
favourite literary character, and the whole school
was involved in a “Drop Everything & Read”.
We have also enjoyed our first successful PTFA
event; thank you to everyone who supported our
Race Night, especially all the local businesses who
sponsored us. Please do put 19th April in your diary
and come along to the Easter Fair. If you would
like to have a table at the Easter Fair, or can provide baking for us, please phone school.
The Spring term has been busy with many activities
including our Spanish Day where year 7 students
prepared some wonderfully authentic Spanish food,
and the year 9 residential which enjoyed some glorious spring weather for a week of activities at the
Ullswater Outward Bound Centre.
After a combined 72 years of service to Kirkby Stephen Grammar School, Mrs Lynn Alderson, Mrs Pat
Alderson, Mr John Martindale and Mr Gary Payton
are leaving KSGS at Easter; we want to thank them
for their huge contribution to KSGS and the education of many hundreds (possibly thousands) of students. Mrs Andrea Thompson, our School Business
Manager, also moved to a new job in February. We
wish them all well with their future plans.
This will be the last newsletter before the summer
external exam period commences, and many of our
students are working hard in preparing for external
exams; we wish them luck and look forward to seeing many of them back in our sixth form in September. May I remind you that school closes for the
Easter holidays at 3.35pm on Wednesday 9th April
and reopens on Wednesday 23rd April.
May I wish you all a very Happy Easter and I hope
to see you at the Easter Fair!
Ruth Houston, Headteacher
From Left to Right:
Mrs Pat Alderson; Mrs Lynn
Alderson and Mr John Martindale with cupcakes made
by Year 10 and beautifully
decorated by Year 11 students. They were arranged
into 56—the total combined
number of years service the
three of them have been at
the school! They will all be
missed by staff and students.
STUDENT
OFFER FREE MICROSOFT
OFFICE 365!
The school is pleased to be
able to make available to all students a free copy of
Microsoft Office 365 as part of our licence agreement. This allows installation on up to 5 devices,
including limited products being made available on
iPod/iPhone and Android devices. The copy of Office includes all products as part of the suite and will
remain active until the student leaves school at
which point it will automatically deactivate. For details of how to download and install this, please visit
the school website using the following link:
http://www.ksgs.cumbria.sch.uk/content/
microsoft-student-advantage
Online Payments
Many thanks to everyone who has already taken advantage of our new on-line payment system, making it
easier and more secure to send your contributions to
school. Initially this is only available for Educational Visits, but we hope to widen it to include other payments,
before too long. Details on how to use the system have
already been sent out, but just to re-cap:
You need to register with School Gateway. The simplest
way to do this is to visit the school website
www.ksgs.cumbria.sch.uk and select the on-line payment
tab on the left-hand side of our home page. This will
guide you through the process. You will be sent a PIN to
your mobile phone, which you will use to log into the
School Gateway to view/make payments.
When there is money due from you, you will be sent an
email advising you that there is a payment request waiting
on the School Gateway. You then simply log on using
your email address and PIN, select the payment request
you wish to fulfil and follow through to conveniently make
your payment.
You can also give consent for trips on-line, removing the
need to send permission slips into school, in addition to
being able to check other communications about the visit.
For the process to work, the mobile number and email
address you register with School Gateway must match
the main contact we hold in school for you. In addition
you must be recorded as having parental responsibility. If
you are unable to register or make a payment, it will simply be that one of these does not match. A quick phone
call, or email to school, to confirm we hold current up
-to-date details, will rectify this. Please make sure you
inform us if any of your details change.
Remember this system is safe and secure (all card information is processed by Barclaycard) and removes the
need to send money into school. We look forward to welcoming you on board, with this new system, very soon!
If you do not wish to use the system, payments will continue to be accepted in the usual way.
3
Ben Cottrell takes to the track
Ben has been racing in the Cadet class (8-13 year olds) up 'til
now, but as he has grown he has been at a disadvantage so
we've moved up to Juniors (11-16 year olds). He came third
in the Cadet championship this year (which finished in November) and this race was an
end of season nonchampionship one so an
ideal first race in the Junior class.
It's a big jump as the Cadet class has 6.5 bhp
(about 50mph) engines
and Juniors more than
double at 15 bhp (about 70 mph). The karts are much bigger
and the tyres have a lot more grip, so it's more physical. It
was wet and he had a few
spins, but came 6th, 11th and
9th in the three races out of
12 entries, so not bad at all
especially as he's the youngest out there, racing against
some much bigger lads and
lasses.
By Adrian Cottrell (Ben’s Dad)
They’re Under STarTerS OrderS…..
and They’re Off!
KSGS PTFA got off to a flying start on 25th January with a
family race night, complete with prizes, top hats, fascinators
and a tour around the UK’s best racing venues. Eighty racegoers braved wind and rain to secure the opportunity of owning and naming racehorses,
placing bets (good value at
50p a stake) and the ultimate prize was £100 in the
6th race. There was a real
sense of excitement as the
horses assembled at the
start and plenty of cheering
as they came down the final straight—the night got
noisier and noisier. The
PTFA would like to thank
all those who took part or
contributed in any way and
we plan to hold another race night next year, maybe with a
dance afterwards. We made around £900 for school funds on
our ‘maiden run’ and 10:1, the next one will be an even greater success.
Tilly, Ethan and Tivoli Wallington
Dates for your Diary
Wed 9 April
Break up for Easter
normal time of 3.35pm
Wed 23 April
Mon 05 May
Thurs 15 May
Summer Term Starts
May Bank Holiday
Year 10 Parents’
Evening—4pm-7pm
Summer Half Term
Mon 26 to
Fri 30 May
Wed 04 June
Tues 10 June
Fri 20 June
Wed 25 June
Fri 27 June
Thurs 3 July
Fri 11 and Sat
12 July
Mon 14 July
Mon 14 to Wed
16 July
Thurs 17 to Thurs
24 July
Fri 18 July
Year 8 Parents’
Evening—4pm-7pm
Year 6 Students &
Parents’ Evening—
Hall 6pm-9pm
Summer Concert—
Music and Art
Year 6 Transition Day
Year 12/13 Prom—
North Lakes Hotel
Year 11 Prom—Morritt
Arms, Barnard Castle
Bloody Bones
Production
Winning House Trip
Year 10 Residential to
London
Hebridean Cycle
Adventure Group
Summer Term
Finishes—2.30pm
PTFA Forthcoming Events
“Surviving the
Teenage Years”
A free workshop
for
parents and carers
More details to
follow
Coming up…..
Year 7 Spanish Day (page 7) made possible
by the kind
donations
from Kendal Tile
and Stone and also B&Q
4
Zwei Bayern in Cumbria!
(Or—Two Bavarians in Cumbria!)
You will probably remember that there were two weird people straying around the school during the Autumn Term – that was us. We’re Paula and Clara from Germany and we were part of the KSGS Sixth Form
for 3 months. We did this exchange from an organisation in Bavaria and came to Cumbria to improve our
English and to get to know new people – successful! It was a really great and unforgettable time, even if it
was very different
to our life in Germany. In Germany the school system is different, for example we
will
not
start Sixth Form until next year. Also Sixth Form is very different in Germany as we
have to take a lot more subjects than in England and some of these are different,
e.g. we don’t have Sociology. At KSGS Paula did Art, Maths, Biology and BTEC
Media and Clara chose Maths, Sociology, History and Geography. We particularly enjoyed Art and Sociology, because it was a very different and interesting
experience for both of us. Art, for example, is completely different here to in
Germany as we normally don’t have that variety of things to do; we do a lot more
History and Theory of Art. We were also really impressed by the different relationship between teachers and pupils; at KSGS it seemed to be much more friendly and closer than at our
school in Germany. When we came to England we found it really hard to understand
everybody and
the lessons in particular were hard. But we did the same work/homework as everyone else
and so it got better quickly. We soon managed to understand nearly everything and
were
even able to write good essays. We did find many great new friends and it already
felt like home here after the first few days. Everybody was really kind and helped
us get along with everything new – thank you very much! We had a really wonderful time at KSGS with some amazing experiences. These included a trip to
Northumbria University in Newcastle (we now know where we want to study), a
Geography Field Trip to Grasmere, a Drama Trip to London, the Sixth Form Christmas
Meal and the Christmas Concert where we enjoyed singing in the choir (we now have a new
favourite song: “Run”). We have had so much fun and so many awesome experiences outside
t h e
school too, thanks to our friends and the best host family ever! For example we enjoyed a fantastic hiking
weekend as honorary scouts. Our English has improved so much and at the end of our time here we managed to think and even dream in English - which made us really proud, even if it felt totally weird.
So finally we would like to thank you all for making us feel so welcome and making our time in England
wonderful and unforgettable! We will miss you all and we will come back as soon as we can! We are looking forward to you coming to Germany – maybe instead of the Iceland Trip? 
Paula Eberle & Clara Rumstadt
HELPING TO MakE a change
On 7th February 2014, the students came in non-school uniform to help change
children’s lives. We joined thousands of schools across the country by taking
part in UNICEF’s ‘Day for Change’ to raise funds for UNICEF’s work—helping millions of vulnerable children
around the world.
Year 12 student, Martha Warren, had the idea and organised the day. She
explained “This year, Day for Change is all about education. Going to
school gives children the chance of a brighter future. But about 68 million
children around the world still don’t have access to education. UNICEF is
working to change this and want every child to have the opportunity to go
to school”.
Students managed to raise an impressive £390.60 which has been enough
to buy a water pump to provide clean, safe water, as well as materials to
help build new schools, repair existing ones, train teachers and provide
books and other essential materials for classrooms. Mrs Butterworth said “The students say that their Citizenship lessons have taught them the importance of having a voice and standing up and taking action on
issues that they think are important. I am tremendously proud of the Sixth Formers for putting these lessons into practice to help raise awareness and money for UNICEF”.
5
Dance Leaders Excel in U-Dance Festival
As part of the Year 11’s Level 2 Dance Leader’s qualification, we choreographed a dance to perform at U-Dance; a dance festival that takes
part throughout the country. We opened the opportunity up to Years 8
to 11. The U-Dance Festival we took part in was at The Sands Centre,
Carlisle. We left school at 1.15pm and went on a bus along with some
primary school students who were also performing. We did a dress
rehearsal before the final performance. Our dance was titled ’Drawn’
and our music was a mix of ‘Addicted to You’ by Avicii and ‘Tsunami’ by
DVBBS & Borgeous. It reflected the catalyst of a tsunami and the disaster within it. Our movements show the journey of water and the silence that the tsunami leaves behind. The final performance went really well and was the best performance we’ve done.
We also ran 12 dance sessions after school for children aged 3-8 years
old. We did warm-ups that were suitable for the age group and also
choreographed dance
routines for them. The
sessions were very successful with lots of the
children wanting them to
carry on!
By Finola Harvey and
Francine Glanville
KSGS students “Bite
the Ballot”
February was National Voter Registration
Day and this year had a special focus on
encouraging young people to register to
vote. To encourage students to engage in
politics our Personal Development teachers had signed up to “Bite the Ballot”. This
is a ‘not for profit organization’ that empowers young people to speak up and act,
to make their votes and opinions count.
To publicise the National Voter Registration Day students from the
school were interviewed for Border TVs Lookaround programme about
their work on political literacy. Subject Leader for Personal Development Cath Butterworth said: “I am passionate about good quality Citizenship education so was keen to have the chance to share what we do
at Kirkby Stephen with a wider audience. It was a good opportunity for
the students to explain what they have learnt and perhaps even inspire
older people to stand up and have their voices counted.”
As part of the Sixth Form Enrichment Programme students have had the
chance to question speakers from the three main political parties. Tom
Bennett said: “I wasn’t really sure about how to register to vote before.
I definitely will be registering to vote now.” Bethany Handley said: “I
think that if we vote there is more chance to get policies that are for
young people.” Josh McHugh added: “I will be voting. I want to have a
say on things that happen in society that impact me as a person.”
Year 9 Citizenship students have been creating their own political parties and designing policies to attract young voters. Kayleigh Barnes
said: “The project made me realise how specific you need to be to target your ideas to your audience.” Emma Little said: “It is all about the
future and making sure that we get a good life.” Georgia Walls said:
“Our aim was to tackle youth unemployment.” Duncan Wiseman said:
“All our decisions should be made to support the environment.”
A link to the programme can be found on the school’s website :
www.ksgs.cumbria.sch.uk
National Business,
Accounting and Skills
Education Competition—
or ‘BASE 2014’
This year the Business Studies department
entered two teams into BASE 2014,
ICAEW’s National Business, Accounting and
Skills Education competition which this
year took place in February at Carlisle College.
We travelled by train from Kirkby Stephen
to Carlisle, catching the 7.18am train—a
shockingly early start, but gave us 2 hours
free shopping time before the event started—only to find they were running late!!!
The Year 12 students taking part were:
Lauren Chester; Sally Cockburn; Joely Ewbank; Roslyn Law; Jack Oakley, Anthony
Procter; Julie Procter and Ben Walsh. In
teams of four, the students were presented with information about a business scenario which presents a range of challenges. Skills developed included assess, analyse, debate and present recommendations
to a panel of respected judges.
The students took on the role of an ICAEW
Chartered Accountant and applied their
knowledge, skills and experience to resolve
a business situation. Supported by a professional mentor—a young accountant
from a local firm—the students put their
classroom learning into practice by working
through the business game and developing
practical recommendations.
The teams were observed on how well
they worked as a team, communication
and working to deadlines. In addition, the
teams need to demonstrate to the judges
that they are organised, pro-active in their
approach to tasks and can think outside of
the box. Finally the teams need to use
their best presentation and communication
skills when pitching to the panel of judges.
This annual event is an exciting day of
business education, team work and an opportunity for students to meet other 6th
Formers who are aspiring to a business
career by looking at the opportunities that
accountancy has to offer young people.
Eight other teams from Cumbria took part
and after presenting to the directors of the
judging panel on a business plan, they
made their final choices. Congratulations
to Lime House School for winning the 2014
BASE Competition, closely followed by one
of the KSGS teams—congratulations to all
who took part.
Mr Sunderland
6
Local Organisations Benefit from Year 8
Community Action Project
Three local organisations received a financial boost recently thanks to the efforts of Year 8 students from
Kirkby Stephen Grammar School. A combined total of £560 was raised by the students collectively during a
practical ‘Community Action Project’ as part of their Issues, Values and Beliefs (IVB) lessons. After looking at
different community groups, clubs and organisations within the Kirkby Stephen area, students were set a
practical challenge of doing something to raise money for a charity or group which benefits the local community in some way.
In response to this challenge, on Wednesday 4th December 2013, students from teaching group Year 8Y decided to get sponsored to come into school wearing wacky dress and sporting ‘bad hair’. A brave few also
put themselves up for auction to staff and sixth form students
to raise a bit of extra money. This group successfully raised a
total of £443 and decided to split the amount equally between
the ‘Pride of Cumbria’ Air Ambulance and the Upper Eden
Community First Responders, who also do important and
sometimes life-saving work in the local area.
On the same day, students from teaching group Year 8Z
worked together to plan and run a range of activities including a café, cake stall, chocolate fountain, tombola and lucky
dip. Here they took responsibility to organise all of the activities themselves, sorting out resources, equipment and prizes,
which hopefully also helped them to utilise and develop skills
in collaborative working. This group made the democratic
decision to donate all of the £117 raised to Eden Animal Rescue.
Now in its second year, the Community Action Project once again proved to be a successful and very practical challenge in which all Year 8 students were able to participate. In 2012 Year 8 students raised over
£730 and this enabled the school to purchase a defibrillator, which is now housed in the school reception in
case of a medical emergency.
Reflecting on the project, teacher of personal development at the school Joanne McGarr said:
“I have once again been incredibly proud of my Year 8 students throughout this project. They have really
come together and demonstrated some of their skills in organisation and communication, working respectfully as part of a team to achieve a shared objective. I do hope that students themselves have also got a
sense of pride and achievement from doing something that is of real benefit to the wider community.”
Photograph: Year 8 students Martin Ewin (left) and Craig Braithwaite (right) present a cheque for £221.50 to Rob Ewin,
Team Leader of the Upper Eden Community First Responders. Martin Ewin, who is Rob’s younger brother, raised the
most money individually during the project, collecting £85 in sponsorship to come to school wearing wacky clothes.
Summer Concert 2014
This year’s Summer Concert will have a different feel as
the Music and Art departments are joining forces for an
evening of celebrating student achievement. On Friday
20th June we will be inviting parents/carers in to tour
various spaces in the school to look at GCSE and A level
Art work. They will be treated to musical performances in each space from
our choir, band, ukulele group and a range of soloists. Refreshments will be
served and the evening will culminate in a final celebration in the hall. This is
a great opportunity to share success between the departments and will allow
parents/carers the opportunity to listen to some fantastic music whilst enjoying the excellent artwork. Further details will be released nearer the time.
Mrs Crow
7
Viva Espana!
On 17th January, Year 7 students participated in different Spanish activities ranging
from art to dance! In art, they made a mosaic of prominent landmarks around Kirkby Stephen and a
special thanks goes to Kendal Tile and Stone who supplied
the tiles and adhesive free of charge. All of the activities
were supported by the Year 9 Language Leaders. Some of
the students described the activities:
Food—For this activity we were put into pairs. Then we
were given our recipes. Kurt made paella, Rob made a
Spanish salad, Lucy made pasta, Rachel made tortillas, Jane
also made paella with a spicy Mexican chicken salad, Shauna
made black eyed beans and meatballs and Hollie made a
Spanish tomato salad. We then gave the food and drinks to
the teachers for their lunch—apparently it was very nice!
Music—This activity was run by Mrs Crow. We sang a number of songs including the Macarena and La Bamba! After 2
hours of practising we performed the songs in front of the
rest of the year group.
Dance—For Dance we were extremely lucky to be able to
get a proper choreographer to help us learn 2 different
dances. We learnt the Flamenco and a Bull fighting based
dance. Once we were ready we performed them in the Hall
in front of the whole year group.
Art—In this activity we did some tiling with Mrs Modlin. We
made some pictures of Franks Bridge, the school and a parrot. It was very hard! It was like making a gigantic jigsaw!
The art work was based on the work of Gaudi. We looked at
his mosaic work and decided to do a Kirkby Stephen themed
mosaic in the same style as Gaudi.
Not Quite as far as Sochi!
The school had an excellent ski trip to Risoule in the
French Alps between 24th January and 1st of February.
All pupils had 5 hours of lessons a day and this was
then followed by evening activities including Bum
boarding, quiz night, treasure hunt and on the final
evening a Pizza night at a local restaurant. Nineteen
pupils from Kirkby went on the trip and fifteen pupils
from Appleby. All of the pupils achieved skiing awards
and many pupils took part in a Giant slalom race.
By Kurt; Rob; Joe; Josh; Hollie; Ryan; Matthew, Tom,
Rachel and Shauna
Above—some of the Year 7 students proudly showing of the
mosaic
Again grateful thanks
to Kendal Tile and
Stone for their generosity in providing tiles
and adhesive
Rugby
Well done to Thomas Burrell for being selected for the
Cumbria U15 squad who played against Northumbria
on Sunday 16th March. Mathew Bainbridge has been
selected for Cumbria U17 squad. The school entered
the U15 county 7’s tournament which became a
friendly tournament due to the weather and came 3 rd
in the competition, losing 17:15 to Austin Friars, the
eventual winner, but beating Cockermouth 17:7 and
Trinity 17:5 in the 4th/3rd playoff.
Hockey
The U13 Hockey team were unbeaten in the Cumbria
hockey championships drawing with Windermere and
beating Kirkby Kendal, Dallam and Windermere B.
They then went on to the North West finals where
they beat Rossal; Bains; Bolton and Milfield schools.
They lost in the semi-final to the eventual winners of
the competition—Manchester Grammar School.
8
Connecting Classrooms from KSGS to South Africa
During February Half Term teachers John O’Doherty and Kate Knight travelled to Durban to visit our link
school, PR Pather High School in the township of Wentworth. Funded by the British Council’s Connecting
Classrooms programme, this visit was the first part of a two-way teacher exchange. Two educators from
Durban will visit KSGS in May this year. Together we are working on a group project to investigate how
each school assesses, monitors and records the achievement of our students.
This February found us talking to the head teacher (Principal), teachers (educators) and students (learners)
at PR Pather High School. We also attended and taught lessons, working with classes of 45 learners, which
is an experience! During the week we also visited Hillcrest High School and
Queensburgh Girls’ High School, again to find out more about the South African
education system. It was interesting to note similarities and differences and we
both bought back with us ideas to share.
We also paid a visit to the Zulu village of Isithumba, following-up on the Activity
Day organised by our students last summer, and it
was good to see how everyone had really enjoyed that
day and how they want us to
come back! In the 21st century it is a privilege to have
the opportunity to develop a
deeper understanding of other cultures and global issues
and our educational links with schools and communities
in Durban help us to do just that.
Top Left Photo:
Mr O’D and Mrs Knight with the Principal of PR Pather,
Mrs Val Satyendra
Above Photo:
Geography Class, Queensburgh Girls’ High School
Photo to Left:
Grade 12 Class at PR Pather School
SUCCESSFUL SEASON FOR
TABLE TENNIS
The season has ended very well this year with some good results
in the Kendal & District monthly league from our 3 teams—Div 4
Aidan Wiseman, Bradley Chapman and Nathan Wolstenholme
laying 3rd and Ben Holmes and Douglas Sinclair 4th in Division 5
with newcomer Ben Capstick and Oliver Smith 4th in Div 6—all
improving their match play and experience. Parents have willingly supported this monthly event with transport to Kendal, for
which we thank all of you.
The Cumbria Schools Tournament in February was this year hosted at KSGS in the Sports Hall. A fantastic turnout of KSGS players with Imogen Wallington excelling in the ladies Under 13 event, taking the runners-up place in the tournament—
congratulations Imogen—a first for Kirkby Stephen. A grateful thanks to all the parents for running the refreshments
this year with a handsome profit going into junior coaching. Four students also entered the Kendal & District annual
tournament—Ben Holmes; Oliver Smith; Nathan Wolstenholme and Ben Capstick.
This season’s coaching sessions will finish at Easter and I would just like to give a personal thanks to Beverly Knowles
for her support with running and coaching the school club.
Mr Sunderland
9
Raspberry Pi Club
http://raspberrypi.org.
As part of the government’s push to raise awareness of technology and computer programming in secondary school KSGS recently invested in 5 Raspberry pi devices. This
has enabled the ICT Department to run an after school club for a small group of enthusiastic students who are keen to share and extend their programming skills. The aim of the club is
to raise awareness of computer programming and control using the latest technology, in a fun way.
Students have learnt to program a Raspberry Pi from scratch using Python programming language.
They have learnt to connect hardware and peripheral devices
whilst completing a number of projects, for example:
 Writing a program to operate an LED chaser, lighting it up to
display various messages.
 Programming and wiring a set of traffic lights.
 Programming their own games using Python or Scratch
 Programming a game using Python – Rock, Paper Scissors in
side a GUI
 Controlling a robotic arm
Mrs Bennett and the students are very grateful to local parent, Mr
Tom Higgs. He has taken a leading role in the sessions and has
given up his time each week to support the group and share his extensive expertise.
Mrs Bennett
Joint Head of ICT/Business
Above: Jack Boustead operating the robot arm
I m o g e n
Wa l l i n g t o n
and
her
Cumbria
S ch ool s
Tournament
trophy
for
being runner
-up in the
Ladies U13
category—
Well done
Imogen!
Above: James Metcalfe programming in Python
Netball Round-up—
Joint U15 Eden District Champions
The U15 netball team competed in a tournament with a
difference. Due to lack of schools from the Eden Valley
entering the tournament, KSGS and Appleby Grammar
Schools fielded two teams each. The difference was that
some male pupils made up teams. Mrs Paul was particularly pleased with the standard of play and the number
of players to participate.
The overall result ended in a 5-5 draw between the two
first team squads
from
bot h
schools. The decision was made to
share the title of
EDEN
DISTRICT
CHAMPIONS.
Well done girls !
(and boys)
Mrs Paul
10
World Book Day,
Thursday 6th March 2014
You may have been forgiven for thinking you’d
stepped through the wardrobe doors and entered a
Narnia-style world of fantasy and make-believe, had
you visited KSGS on Thursday 6th March.
Patrolling the corridors was Hermione Grainger chatting with Peter Pan; Willy Wonka advising Bob the
Builder; Miss Havisham chastising an Oompa
Loompa; and Kermit the Frog taking fashion tips from
Lady Gaga! No, we were not all suffering from heat
stroke after a couple of days of sun… we were celebrating World Book Day with ‘Come to school dressed
as a character from a book’.
Staff and students all got involved and there were
some fantastic costumes in all year groups. Mrs Houston and Ms Bargh had the difficult job of awarding
prizes for the best costumes, and the following students all received a £10 book token: Shauna Thwaite
(Where's Wally), Morgan Wolstenholme (Oompa
Loompa), Georgia Walls (Matilda), Bethany Capstick
(Hermione Grainger), Jessica Cottrell and Kayleigh
Purves (Katniss and Primrose Everdeen), Michael Sinclair-Smithson (Lady Gaga) and Martha Warren
(Alice).
The whole school also took part in ‘Drop Everything
and Read’ at 3.15pm, when all activity stopped and
the last 15 minutes of school was devoted to independent reading.
We raised over £250 from this event, and have been
able to purchase two Kindles and 12 months’ subscription for ‘Horse and Hound’ and ‘Mixmag’ for the
school library. We also donated over £70 to the
World Book Day nominated charity: Book Aid International.
Thanks to all who got involved in what turned out to
be a hugely successful and fun way to promote reading and books. And don’t forget to start planning
your costume for next year…
Ms Bargh, Subject Leader- English
Some of the Staff and
Students who dressed as
characters from books
Remembering the Holocaust
Holocaust= “destruction or slaughter on a mass scale.”
In our year 10 CoPE lessons we have been learning about
the holocaust which was a unique event in the 20th century. The events during the holocaust developed slowly between 1933 and 1945 after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor
of Germany. The holocaust was the mass murder of specific races, ethnic or religious groups, especially Jews, caused
by the Nazis.
Genocide= “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in
whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national
group”
The holocaust escalated from discrimination to the Jews
being separated from their families, homes and communities and finally they were treated as though they were less
than humans and murdered.
The Nazis’ aim was to kill the entire Jewish population of
Europe and to destroy its rich and diverse cultures; Hitler
wanted a ‘pure’ race. In 1941 there were about 11 million
Jews living in Europe; by May 1945 the Nazis had murdered six million of them. One-and-a-half million of these
were children.
Anti-Semitism= “Prejudice, hatred of, or discrimination
against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage”
There was a set of anti-Semitic Nuremburg Laws in Nazi
Germany, some of the laws included: Jewish children not
being allowed to go to school, Jews not being allowed to
walk on the pavement, as well as Jews not being allowed
to leave their house at a certain time of day. There were
many of these petty as well as shocking laws, which all
added to the poor treatment of Jews.
By 21st September 1939, Jews had been ordered to be concentrated into separate areas within cities; these were
called ‘Ghettos’. Jews were only allowed to take with them
their possessions which they could carry and the living conditions were abysmal; often there were several families
living where before there had been only one. Initially Ghettos were open spaces, however very soon barbed wire,
fences and walls were built around them and they were
not allowed to leave or have any contact with the outside
world, they were literally treated like animals.
The Einsatzgruppen was a volunteer killing squad, who
followed the German army into battle. Their main job was
to kill all Jewish men, women and children in the areas
which were being occupied. During the last 5 months of
1941 they killed over 500,000 Soviet Jews.
The ‘Final Solution’ was a code name for murder of all the
Jews in Europe; it was the deadliest phase of the holocaust. On January 20th 1942, 15 leading officials of the
Nazi state had a conference to discuss how to make mass
murder happen in an organised and methodical way. They
decided to use poison gas so they could kill lots of people
at any one time.
Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on 27th January every
year; this is to remember all of the horrific things which
happened to the Jews, as well as all of the human beings
who lost their lives just because of their religion or race. It
is also to think about the more recent Genocides which
happen across the Globe, in our lifetime, such as in Bosnia,
Rwanda and Darfur.
By Tilly Thornborrow
Year 10
11
Forget the Snow Boots pack the Sun Block! Year 9 Residential
We were both in Team Hill. The team was named after Lynn Hill who is a famous American rock climber and she is
still alive today. There were twelve people in our group, which consisted of six boys and six girls.
The first activity we did was jog and dip. The lake was freezing when we ran in but it didn’t end there - we were told
to dunk our heads in underneath the water, which was even colder! Afterwards everyone was shivering, but we did
eventually warm up. That night we did a night scramble, where we went walking and scrambling up a fell.
The next day we had a 7.00am wake up and we were with our instructors Tom, Paul and Stuart who took us gill
scrambling all day. We did a dry scramble first which took the morning up, then we got to do a wet scramble. When
we got to a deep pool of water, we were allowed to dunk Oliver into it! Then Georgina tipped all the sweaty water
out of her wellies all over our instructor Stuart!
On Wednesday it was our expedition day and we started off by learning the basic skills of canoeing in a two man canoe. Then we canoed for 2km and after that we walked up to our bivi site where we slept under the stars. All night
we could smell sheep poo from the ground where we were camping and it was also very cold!
In the morning a few of us ran up a little hill to get us warm, just as the rest of the team were getting up. Then we
packed up all our things, headed back and got a ride on the Ullswater Steamer. When we got back to the centre we
unpacked all of our kit and then had a rest.
On Friday we played canoeing games in the morning and then came back to school after lunch. Overall we think it
was a good experience and we would recommend it to the next Year 9s – especially if they like walking!
By Jamie Carter and Harry Chappelhow
Being in team Arkless was really enjoyable. We did a variety of activities, including canoeing, raft building, jog and
dip, many water fights and soaking our instructor, Chris! Towards the end of the week we went on an expedition up
one of the nearby fells. Firstly, we rowed around 2km over Ullswater to reach a small bay. We then got everyone and
all our bags off and started walking. We reached camp and slept under the stars. It was a brilliant experience and
we were extremely lucky as the sun shone every day. We are all very grateful to Miss McGarr for organising the fantastic trip!
By Rachel Lambert
We were in group Muir, on the first day we found out who we were in a
group and room with, then we went to do the jog and dip, which was where
we walked into the lake and went for a swim if we were brave enough, it
was really cold.
On our expedition we had to canoe about 2 miles then walk to our destination up on the hill where we camped overnight. The next day we got up
had breakfast and started walking back down the hill to our rowing boat, we
then rowed back to the site which took us about two and a half hours.
On Thursday we went gorge walking, it was really fun and at the end our
leader set us a challenge to stand under the waterfall at the top of the
gorge, we got very wet but it was well worth it.
On the last day we climbed up a hill, when we got to the top it was really
windy and we nearly blew off the edge!
Carla Boustead and Kodi Elliott
12