Queen Elizabeth School

Transcription

NEWSletter
Queen Elizabeth School
Summer 2009
1
SCHOLARSHIP AND CARE — SINCE 1591
HEADlines
CONTENTS
Headlines
Messages from Headteacher Chris Clarke
Noticeboard
Important notices, announcements and policies
On site
4
Reports from around the school 10
Off site
Educational trips, visits, excursions and expeditions 12
Performing Arts
Coverage of the school’s dance, drama and music activities 19
Focus on
In-depth articles about the life of the school 23
Learning matters
Immersion days, careers advice and educational opportunities 27
QESA news
News from the parent/teacher association 33
Sports desk
A round-up of sports and games 34
DIARYdates
Results days
AS and A2 Level exam results
GCSE exam results
Thur 20th August
Thur 27th August
Autumn term 2009
Term starts for Yr 7 and Y12
Term starts for Yr 8, 9, 10 and 11
Term starts for Yr 13
Half term holiday
End of term
Wed 2 Sept
Thur 3 Sept
Fri 4 Sept
Mon 26 – Fri 30 Oct
Fri 18th Dec
Spring term 2010
Term starts
Half term holiday
End of term
Tue 5 Jan
Mon 15 – Fri 19 Feb
Fri 26 March
Summer term 2010
Term starts
Training day - school closed
Bank Holiday
Half term holiday
End of term
2
QUEEN ELIZABETH SCHOOL
values are such an important
part of the School’s life and are
reflected throughout in both
staff and pupils.”
1
Mon 12 Apr
Fri 30 Apr
Mon 3 May
Mon 31 May – Fri 4 Jun
Fri 16 July
WHAT’Son
Find out how QES works to
support a wide range of local community arts activities
and events. Ask for the Kirkby
Lonsdale Arts Scene booklet.
Contact Helen Baines
on 015242 71275 or email
[email protected]
THANKS to
Thanks to all contributors. Apologies to anyone omitted:
M. Abraham, H. Baines, Oliver Barker, A. Beck, A. Blackburn , M. Brooks, J.
Brown, M. Brummitt, Hannah Burch, C. Clarke, R. Davies, S. Dent, S. Dixon,
A. Donnelly, A. Douglas , Jess Douglas , F. Dowding, Molly Evans, S. Evison, C. Falcus, Kiva Fishwick, Alastair Fleming, L. Fleming, Ellen Gibson, A.
Hall, Gina Harrison , C. Harrison, James Hart, J. Hartley, Owain Houghton,
Fraser Jackson , J. Jackson, S. Johnston, K. Cox, D. Lancaster , D. Leedham,
D. Lequitte, S. Lomax, J. Marriott, H. Martin, S. Matthews, R. Mayhew,
Lydia McMeeking, M. McNulty, Hannah Neale, Marcus Nicholson, C.
O’Neill, H. Pakeman, Matthew Percy, A. Rawson, P. Reid, Jess Ronan, P.
Rushton, S. Rushton, D. Sargeant, S. Gabrysch, D. Sharratt, F. Sheldon, J.
Sherry, Charlotte Tomlin, Sophie Webster, P. Weston, David Whitehead,
Joe Wilkin-Oxley, A. Wilkinson, D. Williams
Dear Parents
It’s a tough time in many ways
to be a teenager. Uncertainties
abound: economic meltdown
and financial crisis; recession;
the Government grinding almost to a halt in a welter of
sleaze; far-right activists elected to power by angry voters.
On another level, there’s that
corrosive tabloid world which
stalks the growing teenager:
‘SuBo’ of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’
fame cynically exploited to
the point of breakdown in the
name of entertainment; cavorting, self-obsessed wannabes
offering hours of tantrum to
the voyeur on ‘Big Brother’.
With so little apparent moral
core at the centre of the world
which spins us around, it’s not
easy for any of us, let alone
impressionable young people
to get our bearings, our direction, our sense of right and
wrong. It doesn’t surprise me
that so many parents I speak
to consider the most compelling aspect of a QES education
to be its foundation upon a set
of ten core values. And we certainly consider the quality of
the education at QES to be as
it is because it is based on work
that’s done continuously to
reinforce those values. As one
of our recent trainee teachers
observed in an end of placement report, “The QES core
In a world in which so much
surrounding young people is
fleeting and insubstantial, it is
so important that they understand their connection with the
past especially the notion that
what they enjoy today is as a
result of contributions made
by generations before them.
One of our reasons for taking
Year 11 and Year 13 students to
St Mary’s Church in Kirkby on
their last official day in school
is so that they can reflect in
the very special atmosphere
of that evocative building on
their place in the continuum
which is QES; they sit quietly
and think that for well over
400 years young people just
like them have entertained the
same hopes and aspirations for
their lives. It is part of the process of respecting the past
and its traditions.
Working hard and doing your
best is possibly the least appealing of our QES values but
it is the way we acknowledge
that, irrespective of varying
levels of talent and ability, everyone can try to do their best.
Obviously we reinforce this
message endlessly but it has
certainly been evidenced recently in the way people have
worked over the exam season.
Once ‘study leave’ saw pupils
go, only to reappear for exams.
New developments recently
have seen copious scheduled
revision classes scaled to cater
for all levels of need. Year 11s in
particular have been very evident in school, working hard
in the 6th Form Library (a rare
privilege!) or helping friends
with revision in Café Q or finding a quiet corner in one of our
gardens or courtyards. Staff
have shown their willingness
to ‘go the extra mile’ (Ofsted Report!) by laying on extra classes
and being there to help, cajole,
reassure, feed and generally be
supportive. The atmosphere
has been brilliant, proving that
hard work and good humour
can co-exist.
It’s difficult to convey just how
fundamental being decent to
others is to everyday life at
QES. You get a strong sense of
it on Sports Day, for example,
when athletes with a genuine chance of Olympic glory
in 2012 rub shoulders with
more plodding talents. The applause for everyone’s efforts is
the same; no one is made to
feel foolish; encouragement
seems the natural and ‘decent’
response to those a lap behind!
You see it in conversations with
erring individuals who say with
conviction, “I do know how I
should behave; I am trying to
get better at….” And it’s there
in the very palpable respect
which exists between staff and
pupils which visitors to school
often remark upon.
People also let us know how
polite, friendly and considerate
QES pupils are when on school
trips at home and abroad or
when representing the school
in competitions or at events.
One teacher in charge of a
visiting cricket team wrote, ”I
just wanted to say what a pleasure it was to play your boys at
cricket yesterday, they were a
great bunch of lads and played
the game with a fantastic spirit
(we still won incidentally!)…my
1
boys commented on just how
sporting your boys were…”
This sort of response is really quite common. The regard
which QES pupils enjoy stems,
of course, from the wonderful
job which parents do. But we
do really work to reinforce this
message through the expectations which we have, the standards we set and the way staff
try to model this behaviour.
There really is a characteristic
(and rather nice!) QES type of
person which the Ofsted Inspector certainly spotted!
Often our assemblies and PD
sessions deal overtly with issues to do with our values
and their reinforcement and
a recent series undertaken by
Richard Mayhew, our Director
of Sport, were inspirational in
encouraging students to get
involved in sport, citing many
examples of the ways that is
possible at QES and challenging students to make the most
of the full range of opportunities other than sport which
are on offer. Another series of
assemblies by Steve Bell, Head
of Physics invited students to
reflect that life is about more
than money and the material, which is possibly the most
profound of our values. Steve
invited students to reflect on
the connections and conflicts
between Science and Religion,
to think about our origins as
a species and to remember to
see the inherent beauty of our
‘wonderful world’.
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The QES site is, of course, a particularly appealing part of that
world and assemblies regularly
exhort students to avoid leaving litter, not to chew gum and
generally to show that they are
respecting the environment
and our staff who care for it.
Sometimes, students show a
particular commitment to our
environment and one of the
joys of this summer has been
the emerging new vegetable
garden alongside the lovely
herb garden right in the very
heart of the School, inspired
by the vision of some of the
younger members of our students’ Landscape Committee.
And on the penultimate day
of the term, the whole school
will join together to celebrate
the wonderful landscape hereabouts when we set off on the
Sponsored Walk, now an established QES tradition.
Looking out for others might
seem commonplace but in
some ways it our most ambitious value through which we
encourage students to trust
us to look after them when
they come to us with their
worries and anxieties about
friends and their behaviours.
They know that we promise to
treat information sensitively, to
make subtle interventions to
help prevent people succumb
to dangers. Parents often
find it unbelievable that little
groups will come forward to
say that they are worried about
a friend showing a lot of interest (say) in drugs or embarking
on an unwise relationship. In
truth though they know we
mean business when it comes
to helping individuals because
they see so much support being given by the QES teams
committed to helping keep
individuals safe and well not
just in school but also beyond
school hours. In more general
terms our value of thinking of
others less fortunate helps us
deal with the issue of growing
up in a relatively comfortable
and prosperous part of the
world which for many students
keeps them protected from
the harsher realities of life in
the 21st century. This year, the
£15,000 raised by our Charity
Team demonstrates our commitment to acknowledge the
sufferings of others.
Finally, our newest value of encouraging global citizenship
is about to take us into ambitious territory when a group of
D of E students head off to Malawi not only to complete their
expeditions but also to visit
Sekwe House, the Open Arms
Orphanage accommodation,
housing four young children
which QES has undertaken
to sponsor over the next five
years. There’s a lot of interest
here in this exciting project
and I’m sure you’ll be hearing
lots about it in the coming
years.
The tragic death of Paul Percy
back in January did, of course,
have a profound effect upon
our community. However, I’ve
been so impressed this year
with how people have rallied,
pulled together, concentrated
on honouring his memory by
working tirelessly, as he did, to
make QES better still in many
ways. I think students and staff
alike have done that because
they believe in QES; believe in
the fundamental integrity and
importance of an education
for the whole person founded
on shared and timeless values
adaptable to the wider world
and the future.
Farewell to departing colleagues
Having about 170 staff in total,
it’s some measure of the stability that contributes to the success of the school that we are
saying ‘goodbye’ only to four
colleagues at the end of this
academic year.
Crossley whom many of you
will know as the first QES Community Arts Manager. Mandy
Rob Sanders
Rob Sanders came to us late in
his career after a long and illustrious spell at Millom School.
Oddly, having been Pete Rushhad varied roles at QES before
exploring new territory which
involved the twin pressures of
organising a multiplicity of arts
events and working for Peter
Hooper, the Director of Arts!
ton’s original Head of Department, he came to take a place
in Pete’s QES RE department,
a reversal of roles which has
worked brilliantly.
Rob brought to us: a fine, philosopher’s mind; an absolute
conviction that our valuesbased education was of fundamental importance; a lively
and engaging style of teaching
much respected by students;
and an undiminished joy in the
job which he communicated to
staff and students alike. Rob is
‘retiring’ for family reasons and
to pursue an active lifestyle
which would put to shame
many people of half his age.
Steve Bell
The departure of Steve Bell,
Head of Physics is, in truth, a
blow. Steve is much respected
Made of resilient stuff, Mandy
has worked determinedly to
develop the arts programme
and has made a major contribution to an area of staggering
diversity. She’ll be making a
lot of us jealous fulfilling plans
to travel to all corners of the
globe.
Christine Burgess
Christine Burgess has taught
English at QES for over ten
years and represents a group
of professionals – the part-tim-
Mandy Crossley
Also ‘retiring’ but at an unconscionably young age (the
beauty of being married to a
former police officer!) is Mandy
is full-time commitment for
part-time pay and Christine
absolutely typifies this. She
is not only the most reliable
and conscientious of teachers
with an absolute commitment
to meeting the needs of the
young people in her classes
but she is also immensely kind,
generous and thoughtful. English department colleagues
will miss her good humour and
caring nature along with her
unrivalled flapjacks…
ers – whose contribution to
QES is absolutely essential. In
truth, what we get from them
and very well liked, a man of
intelligence and probity. He
is a passionate scientist and
positively evangelical when it
comes to the torch he carries
for a subject which many see
as downright ‘hard’ and unfathomable. At QES we have
been lucky to attract Physics
teachers who are actually ‘human’ (rarer than you might
think!) and Steve manages to
combine a deep compassion
with a great sense of humour.
Steve leaves Science thriving
at QES with outstanding exam
success and buoyant numbers
in A-level groups.
C.Clarke
3
NOTICEboard
Uniform matters
are removed. We are continuing to give uniform strikes to
pupils who won’t wear their
uniform properly and a small
number of pupils have found
themselves being kept behind
school for 1 or 2 hours as a result.
You should all have had a letter
by now, letting you know that
all uniform items, including
PE kit, can be purchased from
Daleswear in Ingleton, either
by visiting the shop, which
has easy parking facilities and
a dedicated QES area so that
pupils can be properly fitted,
or by ordering online and either collecting from the store
or having items delivered.
We are grateful for the continuing support of parents who are
helping us to keep standards
of presentation high. It really
does make a huge difference
to the way pupils behave and
learn in school when the pressures to conform to fashion
and negative peer influences
Please keep insisting on tidy
ties and collars and on modestly worn skirts, and ban the
“bling” and the make-up so
that girls in particular don’t
have to grow up too quickly
and can come to school without feeling awkward.
Please also remember that our
determination to keep fashion
out of school extends to school
bags. All our good work is undermined if your child looks
more like Posh Spice with a giant handbag! Our on-line bag
shop is a great starting point
for finding suitable bags that
keep books in good condition and can be worn without
causing back injuries. We don’t
make any profit at all from this
facility: it’s there just to be
helpful.
Thanks again- we couldn’t do it
without you!
New planners for 2009-10
We have overhauled the Planners quite radically for next
year by removing quite a lot of
the information that had built
up in them over the years and
refocusing them on the business of planning for learning.
4
We have included holidays so
that pupils can write in when
they are going to do revision/coursework/larger scale
projects and we have reorganised the diary pages to allow
for both the recording of tasks
set and completed as well as
the planning of learning activities in advance.
Do have a good look at the
planner when it comes home
in September as it’s a new
opportunity for you to get involved in your child’s learning.
Learning
Families
We are embarking on an exciting new phase next year by
creating Learning Families.
These are vertically-structured
groups of approximately 14
pupils ( i.e. 2 from each school
year) who will meet once every
half term with their “Learning
Parent”. At each session at least
3 pupils will have one-to-one
coaching with their learning
parent whilst the rest of the
family is engaged in activities to help them to reflect on
their learning and raise their
levels of self awareness. The
idea is that each pupil will have
someone in school who gets to
know them as a learner really
well and who stays with them
for the whole time they are in
school.
We know that all pupils benefit
from one-to-one time and we
are sure that this new venture
will prove popular with staff,
parents and pupils alike.
Learning
forum for
parents
We are hoping to hold a very
special KS4 Learning Forum
evening in September for
new Year 10 pupils and their
parents. We will be giving
you all sorts of useful information about GCSE courses
and how best to study and
learn. We have yet to finalise
our calendar for next year
but as soon as we have the
date we’ll advertise it. Look
out and don’t miss it!
Safeguarding pupils
You will be aware, we’re sure,
of the school’s determination
to safeguard pupils beyond
the school day and beyond the
school gates.
A key principle that we have
been trying to get across is
the idea that children up to
the age of 16 should be closely
monitored by their parents
when they are out and about
and we have been encouraging parents to ALWAYS check
that their children’s safety is in
the care of a responsible trusted adult.
It’s great to get lots of positive
feedback from parents who say
that this whole fraught business of “How much freedom?
How much trust?” is being
made much more manageable
because they feel able to pick
up the phone and speak to
the parents of their children’s
friends to discuss supervision
issues and be sure that their
children will be safe when they
are socialising.
Please keep going with this
one. We are still dealing with
dire consequences for young
people whose parents don’t
safeguard them, and it is really
sad to see the damage done to
health, life chances and reputation when unsupervised teenagers have access to drugs,
alcohol and sexually predatory
individuals.
Teenagers will be very grumpy
when they’re told they can’t
have early freedoms, but they
are complex creatures and
know that their parents really
care about them when they put
in the safe boundaries. The unhappiest children we deal with
are those whose parents give
them lots of adult freedoms:
they are simply not equipped
to deal with them.
As always, whenever you’re
having difficulties imposing
safe boundaries for your child,
let us know. Contact your
child’s year head in the first
instance. We DO understand.
Most of us have actually been
there as parents. None of us
got it perfect and we don’t
judge. We do care about all of
our children though and know
that these are tough times for
parents….so use us! You’d be
surprised how much we can
do to help.
The Pastoral Team
Price Freeze!
Café Q is delighted to announce that it will be freezing
its prices for the next school
year! Yes!
So you’ll be able to continue
afford your favourite dishes as
cooked by Dave and his
fantastic team!
Plus!
Opening in September
Café 6
Located in the 6th Form Common Room, open 10am - 3pm.
Paninis, jacket potatoes, salads, toasties and tasty treats...
Did you know…?
All herbs used in Café Q are
grown on the school grounds!
Remember…
Get your 5-a-day the easy way!
Fruit, jelly and healthy choices
always available in café Q!
The most up-to-date NOTICEboard is our website
www.queenelizabeth.cumbria.sch.uk
Updated daily, the website contains the very latest news and information about the school, including details of letters sent out
to parents, the daily bulletin, photographs and videos of trips and
events, a link to report pupil absence, and even a music library.
Keep up to speed with life at QES - check our website daily.
5
ONsite
Charity Team raise £15,000+
May 2009. The Year
13 Charity Team are
near to leaving and in
the mixture of excitement for the summer,
and exam nerves, we
are starting to reflect on all
the hard work and successful events we have put on
throughout the year. We have
raised a tremendous amount
of money for charity and had
loads of fun along the way, but
it is now time to hand in our
official badges to the new Year
13s who will, I’m sure, take on
the challenge to smash our total by the end of next year.
This is our final update in the
QES newsletter and we would
like to remind you about all the
great things we’ve done, starting with our very first event
of the year, Stars in your Eyes
which was held in October
2008. We saw many high-quality acts like the Spice Girls, Sugababes and Christina Aguilera
and raised a total of £1252.
This was closely followed by
Pink Week, which is always a hit
in Kirkby, with everyone in the
community getting involved.
We held a special and moving
church service, decorated our
memory tree and turned the
school pink, serving pink food,
wearing pink ties and buying
pink ribbons. This raised a total
of £1285 which all went toward
breast cancer research and raising awareness.
6
November 2008 brought Man
O Man, weeks of practice for
the boys, and a massive hit
with the girls. This is definitely
one of the biggest events the
Charity Team runs, with hours
of
choreographing
dances, singing lessons and perfecting
talents. It’s all worth
it though, as this
event raised us over
£1400, and crowed John Whittaker ‘Man O Man’ 2008. The
Christmas Fair, Unplugged and
Valentine’s Day followed at the
beginning of 2009, and all ran
smoothly. We had our very own
Charity Santa, amazing live
acoustic music at Unplugged
and QES cupid delivering roses
just before half term. The Talent
Show was our last event of the
year at the end of April, where
we saw acoustic vocal performances, our very own human
beatbox and much more talent
from all years.
Other bits and bobs like the
Sponsored Walk, Year 7 disco
and mufti days, also helped
boost our total. So that’s the
year in a nutshell and all the
Charity team want to thank
everyone who has helped and
supported us.
We have raised over £15,000
and I think we all feel that although it’s been hard work,
late nights and lots of organising, it has been a pleasure to
be part of the team alongside
Miss Falcus, and challenge ourselves to do the best we can
for charity. If anyone wants to
check out in more detail what
the QES Charity Team has done
this year, there is a link to G-Nations on the QES website that
soon will be filled with all the
events, pictures and comments
of the year.
Kiva Fishwick
for the QES Charity Team
Year 8 achieve
Maths awards
The following pupils from Year
8 achieved certificates in the
United Kingdom Junior Maths
Challenge which took place in
April this year.
Congratulations go to:
Gold and Best Result in
School: Olivia Gates
Silver: David McGregor, David
Kirkpatrick, Josh Norman, Niall
Barker, Charles Lawson, Lois
Parker, Ben Wilson, Adam Robinson, Emily Wheildon,
Bronze: Arthur BridgemanQuinn, John Dundon, Rachel
Todner, Dean Ward, Elsa McDonald, Nye Goodall, David
Cope, Grace Cowperthwaite,
Michael Usher, Harry Furniss,
Jake Nicholson, Matin Khadem , Rhiannon Neale, Edward
Clarke, Gabriel Rollinson, Jack
Parkinson-Sheen.
Film Club continues to be a
success, with one hundredplus KS3 members and a
popular KS4/5 club. The films
seen so far include: Pan’s
Labyrinth, Juno, The Shawshank Redemption, Psycho,
Brick, Jaws, Casino Royale,
My Girl, Angus, Thongs and
Perfect Snogging. In the new
term, films will be shown in
genres which will include:
classic movies of the 80s (I
am not being ironic!), pageto-screen, British Film, foreign language film etc. Any
suggestions for other genres
would be gratefully received
from all Film Club members.
M.Abraham
School Councils support Mountain Rescue teams
have to be raised to meet this
tax burden alone.
The QES School Councils have
been busy working on behalf of students in school in a
number of areas. They have
been trying to secure funding
for more outside shelters, surveying school toilets and arranging for improvements, and
everything else from transport
to tomatoes in sandwiches!
Each year, however, we also
try to focus on a project that
will benefit the wider community and many students had
expressed an interest in helping the local Mountain Rescue
Teams. With perfect timing
there was a report in the local
press about the unfair distribution of funding which spurred
us into action.
Many people are under the
impression that the Mountain
Rescue is funded in the same
way as other emergency services. Unfortunately it receives
NO public funding from the
Government and as such is
faced with the task of raising
vast sums of money. Some of
the costs outlined below give
some insight into how much a
team costs to run:
1 x vehicle
£32,000
1 x helmet
£40
1 x full rescue harness £70
1 x rope
£80
1 x set of waterproofs £170
1 X rescue hardware £250
1 x large First Aid Kit £300
1 x protective equipt £500
1 x stretcher
£2,500
These are just the initial purchase costs - many of these
items also have to be maintained! A typical team is made
up of 30 people, so all the costs
get multiplied up! The result
is a massive figure which due
to the recession will only get
harder to find – indeed they
have seen donations drop by
as much as 60%.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the
Mountain Rescue Teams are
not subject to the same tax
exemptions, on vehicles and
Mountain Rescue
teams save the
Government
£6,000,000 a year
equipment, as organisations
such as the Lifeboat Service.
This obviously hits the Mountain Rescue Teams unfairly but
they suffer particularly from
the higher vehicle excise duty
applied to rough terrain 4X4
vehicles. As the Mountain Rescue relies on such vehicles it
will mean an extra £40,000 will
Inspired, we contacted Tim
Farron MP who has been campaigning for fairer funding and
he was delighted we wanted to
be involved. He estimated that
“Mountain Rescue Teams save
the Government in excess of
£6 million per year” and invited
us to write personal letters to
the Exchequer Secretary to the
Treasury, Angela Eagle MP.
We would be very grateful if
anyone associated with the
school could lend their support
to this campaign by writing a
letter. You can use some of the
information from this article or
find out more at www.mountain.rescue.org.uk. Please send
your letters in to school, either
in a clearly marked envelope
c/o Mrs Johnston (Student
Voice Coordinator) or email
[email protected] – the
Student Council will then forward them on your behalf.
Thank you on behalf of QES
Student Voice!
S.Johnston
In Science Club this term
we visited the greenhouse
to see the rabbits, Jaffa and
Gloria. We learnt lots of facts
about rabbits and got to
feed them lettuce and carrots. We all enjoyed visiting
the rabbits and loved feeding them.
Molly Evans
7
Year 8 pupils investigate global warming
Mr Douglas’ Wednesday Year 8
Geography class has been researching and learning about
global warming and its effects.
We were part of a scheme
called Make the Change, organised by Plan-Ed. It connected
us to young people in eleven
other countries around the
world: Brazil, Senegal, Ecuador,
Sierra Leone, Haiti, Bangladesh, Kenya, Philippines, El Salvador, Indonesia and Malawi.
We were given a map of the
world and labelled where the
countries involved are located.
On another sheet we had to
label which country belongs to
which flag.
We learned about the impacts
of climate change in the UK,
like freak storms and wetter
summers. We also learnt how
the other countries that are
involved in the scheme are
affected. In places like Bangladesh they are only 1m above
sea level. If they get flooded
out they can’t grow crops and
the fish in their ponds get
washed out.
Furthermore, we found out
not just how we are affected
but how we contribute to
global warming ourselves. We
do this by eating foods from
around the world that have to
be imported by planes or other
types of transport. We also do
this by turning up the heating
or having it on when it is not
needed.
We looked into how school
contributes to global warming. We did a survey which included things like; how many
corridors are over heated and
how many lights are on unnecessarily. The aim of our survey
was to find out how efficient
school is. As a class we split
into ten groups of three. Each
group was assigned different
parts of school to survey. My
group was assigned the music
and art blocks.
The good points my group
found were: all windows are
double glazed; no doors were
left open; most taps were off.
The bad points we found were:
many corridors were over heated; over a hundred lights were
on unnecessarily; all but one of
the computer monitors were
either on unnecessarily or on
standby.
Improvements we think would
be appropriate: turn off computer monitors; turn off lights
when you leave a room; use
energy efficient light bulbs;
turn the heating down.
We learnt a lot of things during this project and if you are
wanting to know more about
what we did ask Mr Douglas or
his Year 8 Geography class.
Gina Harrison 8K
Warhammer Club report
Warhammer Club continues to
flourish, with a solid membership meeting regularly. Here
one of the group describes the
process of painting the models
ready for use.
The games of Warhammer and
Warhammer 40,000 are based
primarily around miniatures,
and much of a collector’s time
is dedicated to building and
painting miniatures.
There are many different techniques at the disposal of a miniature painter. The most basic
one and usually the first technique that the painter learns is
layering. This is simply the application of a coat of any given
colour over a part of a miniature. More advanced levels of
layering include highlighting
and selective layering, all designed to give a more realistic
or appealing effect. Another
basic technique is drybrushing, and as the name suggests,
involves wiping all but a little
paint off the bristles of a brush.
Once the brush leaves almost
no mark, it can be drawn across
a miniature, and in particular
across textured surfaces, in order to catch the raised detail.
The final basic technique is
washing. This is a simple way
of adding shade and depth to
a model, and involves watering
down paint to an ink-like consistency and then “washing” it
over a part of the model. Once
again, more advanced levels of
this technique can also be used
to add colour to blank surfaces,
such as metallics. There are
other more advanced techniques such as blending, but
these are much more complex.
Another aspect worthy of note
is basing. This involves texturing and/or painting a model’s
base so that it appears more
realistic. You can add as much
or as little detail as is appropriate, and as such a good base
can really finish off a model.
The club runs monthly painting sessions in the art block
where members can bring
their models and paints, and
spend a relaxing hour-and-ahalf painting and talking.
Alastair Fleming
(Examples of club members’
model-painting skills can be
seen in the colour section of this
newsletter)
New vegetable garden constructed
Hello all you gardeners out
there. This year we created a
vegetable garden. We developed a design that I actually
drew up myself, though with
the help of Mr Dent, Mrs Cross
and Mr Holmes and other people too many to mention. In
the new garden we are growing lettuce, red and white
cabbage, radish, carrots, shallots, spinach, leeks and beans.
Our main project is growing a
pumpkin to set a world record.
The greenhouse played a big
part in starting most of all our
plants, protecting them from
nasties like slugs outside and
getting them big enough to go
in the garden. Thank you to Mrs
Sampy, who helped me grow
and care for all the plants in
their early stages. The garden,
when it was being built, was
carefully thought about. We
used the leaves collected from
the trees to make the compost
and used the slate waste from
a quarry nearby for the paths
and we also used timber to
make the raised beds.
We are well set up now for the
next season, and so if you have
any spare vegetable seedlings
please just bring them in and
they will be greatly appreciated and we will grow them in
the garden.
If any of you green-fingered
pupils fancy joining the Landscape Committee then come
along on a Friday lunch time at
1.30 p.m. See you there.
8
Fraser Jackson, 7E
9
OFFsite
The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award
Bronze Award
Whilst the highlight of the
Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is
always the overnight camping and walking expedition, it
should not be forgotten that
that only makes up a quarter
of what is required to gain the
award. The other three sections are 3 months of each of
the following: a skill, a physical
recreation of some sort, and a
voluntary community service.
Here Alice, Helen, Lorna and
Hannah talk about their experience of doing the award:
“We all enjoyed completing
the three sections of our D of
E, especially the opportunity
this gave us all to take up exciting activities, develop our
skills and learn new things. In
total we had to complete three
sections; Physical Recreation,
Service, and Skills.
Physical Recreation was fun
and appealed to even the
not-so-sporty among us as we
chose anything from dance to
horse-riding to suit ourselves.
For our service all of us volunteered as Young Leaders at
Guides or Scouts and this was
a good opportunity which allowed us to learn to take responsibility.
10
Our skills also ranged widely to
suit our different tastes, for example instrument playing and
art projects. We enjoyed the
experience of learning something new and different. D of
E is well worth doing whoever
you are because there is such
a wide range of activities to
choose from. We all loved it!”
Helen, Hannah, Alice and Lorna
The expedition is something
which requires participants to
draw on possibly previouslyunknown mental and physical
resources; they are self-sufficient for 24 hours (carrying
all their own food and equipment on their backs, relying
on their own ability to read a
map and navigate a route they
have planned themselves and
even 24 hours without phone
contact with friends and family). We asked all the Bronze
level participants what they
had most enjoyed and what
they felt they had learnt (good
and bad!) about themselves
from their expedition. Here are
some snippets:
What I enjoyed most: spending time with a great team;
spending time with such lovely
people; the singing (whilst walking); being at the campsite;
socialising with a group I don’t
usually socialise with; the navigation; having fun.
What my group did well:
faced challenging conditions
but we worked through any
problems and stayed as a team;
carried on when I felt like giving up; didn’t give up when I
got tired and cold; encouraging
each other; I tried my best to
keep everyone’s spirits up; map
reading; organising kit lists and
dividing up weight.
On a positive note, I learnt
that I was: decisive; fit enough
to carry a heavy rucksack; I am a
decent cook; my level of stamina
was good; I am an encouraging person; determined; my
feet can take a lot more abuse
than I thought; I find walking
really fun; with determination I
can overcome challenges; I love
working with a team; when I am
positive it is easier to carry on.
And something to improve
on for next time: I get grumpy
when I don’t have enough sleep;
I moan a bit too much; I got very
cold; I could be a bit bossy; I need
to learn to trust others; I am very
negative when tired; I have mild
OCD; I am not a morning person;
I am disorganised; I am a tiny bit
laid back; I forgot my pyjamas!
S. Lomax
Current Year 9 pupils: the
Bronze Duke of Edinburgh
Award is open to you early
next term!
Bronze group on their assessed
expedition in the Yorkshire Dales
Silver and Gold Awards
Once again this has been a
very successful year for the
Silver and Gold groups in the
Duke of Edinburgh’s Award at
QES, with three former pupils
successfully completing their
Gold Award. Steph Ackerly,
Keira Pharoah and Tom Pickthall have recently attended
awards ceremonies at St James
Palace and have been awarded
their Gold badge by Prince
Philip. There are another three
pupils who will also very soon
be receiving an invitation to
the Palace. At Silver level we
have had ten pupils who have
completed their Silver Award
since September.
Bronze group on their assessed
expedition in the Yorkshire Dales
Well done to all those QES pupils who have tried new activities, learnt new skills, given up
hours of their time supporting
various community activities
and completed arduous expeditions on land and water.
Over the past few months
we have had several exciting
expeditions taking place. At
the end of June, eight Year 11
pupils headed up to Scotland
for a four day canoe expedition on the River Spey. In July
a group of twelve pupils will be
heading further afield to complete their expeditions in the
Mulanje Mountains of Malawi,
central Africa. In September we
have a group of pupils who will
embark on three day traverse
of the Lake District, taking in
some of the major peaks of the
Central Fells.
In Sept 2009 Year 11 and Year
12 pupils will be able to sign
up to join the Award scheme at
Silver or Gold level.
P. Weston
Approaching Boat of Garten
on the River Spey
Final day: first set of rapids
on the River Spey
11
Cycle challenge in aid of Paul Percy Memorial Fund
In memory of friend and colleague Paul Percy, Kate Cox,
Sue Konczynski and Sarah Matthews cycled the Sustrans Sea2Sea cycle route from Workington to Sunderland to raise
money for the Langdale and
Ambleside Mountain Rescue
Team with a donation to start
the Paul Percy Memorial Fund.
Day 1 - Mon 25th May
Wall to Wall Sunshine
After setting off from Workington and visiting the town
twice, the three of us eventually sorted out our map reading skills and cycled off in the
brilliant sunshine on Bank Holiday Monday to Great Salkeld
(5 miles north of Penrith) on
an undulating route which
passed through Cockermouth,
Keswick and the magnificent
countryside of the Northern
Lake District. The Highland
Drove Inn at Great Salkeld
was a very welcome sight after 50 miles in the saddle and
the quality of the food was an
added bonus. The comfortable
beds and long day meant we
were all asleep by 9.30pm.
12
Day 2 – Tues 26th May
Hail, Hills and More Hills
With the church bells and the
local cockerels crowing at
5.00am the start to day two
was early, and after a hearty
breakfast and a fond farewell
to the Highland Drove Inn we
set off on what we knew was
going to be an arduous day
– Hartside loomed! We soon
began mile after mile of uphill
which we had conquered by
lunch time – we thought the
worst was over. If only! The
café at the top was a welcome
retreat and we spent a happy
but misguided hour eating
cake and sandwiches and reflecting on the magnificent
view. “Look!” Kate said. “The
weather seems a little rough
over there.” We all donned
another thin layer of protective gear and set off. Within
minutes we were immersed in
horrendous hail stones which
halted our progress and forced
even more additional clothing
to be sought before miserably
setting off again. Nenthead,
Allenheads, and Rookhope are
all separated by equally large
hills. On our final assent of the
day to Rookhope our mood
lifted as we smugly cycled past
a youthful organised cycling
trip all pushing their cycles up
one of our hills. We retreated to
the local pub for a much needed repast. Here we were kept
awake until 11.00pm by the locals serenading us with songs
about the C2C and buying us
drinks. Our footwear came in
for particular comment - not
surprising when you consider
three glamorous girls eating
our dinner in our flip flops
(in reality they were the only
shoes we could carry. Lots of
laughs but we didn’t care - just
one more day to go).
Day 3 - Wed 27th May
All Down Hill from Here
Still with the memorable
evening in our thoughts and
yet another large breakfast inside us, we set off on our trusty
steeds for the final push/ cycle.
We thought all the hills were
over, but no – the C2C has one
last obstacle to surmount. With
gritted teeth and by this time
weak knees we completed
the seven miles through Stanhope and onto the moors. The
hills were now behind us and
it was all down hill from here.
Across the moorland we cycled
past Consett, Beamish and on
to Sunderland, the sea, and finally the light house to finish
at 2.00pm.
We all agreed that it was a
wonderful experience instigated by a sad event which
enabled us to raise money for
a great cause.
Workshops for G&T pupils
As part of the Gifted & Talented
English programme, some pupils in Year 10 were given the
opportunity to be involved in
a whole day of coursework-focused workshops at Lancaster
University. This trip was organised in conjunction with the
South Lakes Federation and
Lancaster University, with the
aim of stretching able students
and equipping them with the
high level study skills needed
for further education.
The focus for the English Gifted
& Talented programme is independent study skills. These
are skills that can be lost with
a fast-paced exam- and course-
Young
manufacturers
A QES team of eight Year 10 students (Kimberley Day, Alastair
Fleming, Madeleine Kelly, Harry Oates, James Onions, Joanna Rycroft, Helen Stacey, Jacob
Phillips) had a good day at the
regional final of the Manufacturing Institute’s Make It Enterprising Challenge, designed to
attract the best young talent
to work in industry and to train
for highly skilled job opportunities in manufacturing and
engineering. They performed
very well, had some really
good ideas and worked brilliantly as a team, but unfortunately didn’t come home with
any ‘silverware’. However, they
all received a certificate and
‘goody bag’ for participating in
the challenge.
S. Evison
work-driven course. Equipping
students with the means and
ability to question, research
and organise can only help to
further their progression and
give them a sense of ownership and responsibility toward
their own learning.
As part of their English and
English Literature GCSE, pupils
have to submit five coursework
pieces. Both workshops were
based on specific coursework
units: creative writing and the
pre-1914 novel Pride and Prejudice. Each skills and context
based workshop was led by a
Lancaster University lecturer.
In these workshops students
were given the chance to formulate their own coursework
questions by marrying the
GCSE coursework assessment
objectives with the text and
their chosen focus area.
Students were given full use of
the University library and were
thus able to use secondary
sources to develop their own
ideas and understanding.
This day was both informative
and fun and really gave the
students a taste of university
life: if only by visiting some of
the many catering facilities on
campus!
M.Abraham
Geographers at Grasmere
On 10 June, soon-to-be GCSE
Geographers spent an enjoyable day roaming the fells
around Grasmere, investigating the impact of footpath erosion with Ruth Suddaby from
the Lake District National Park
Authority. The students photographed and measured the differing stages of erosion found
along a stretch of footpath. The
rest of the day was spent walking the shores of Grasmere and
exploring Loughrigg Terrace.
The group studied the landscape, looking for clues as to
how the Lakeland environment
has changed over time. We
managed to stay dry, despite
the forecast for heavy rain, and
a good time was had by all.
A.Douglas
13
Mountaineering in Scotland
As the May Bank Holiday arrived, Mr Brooks and his intrepid mountaineers set off for
the far North West Highlands
of Scotland – to the legendary Torridon, land of eagles
and soaring mountain peaks.
A 20-strong group of staff and
students made the long journey from school on the Friday
evening, some having to endure Mr Gerrard’s extensive
collection of in-car brain-teasing entertainment. Fortunately
Gerrard Junior’s eclectic music
selection was great compensation.
On our first day we set off to
walk in two groups over Beinn Alligin (the jewelled peak).
There was some easy scrambling and Mr Brooks’ group
went over the famous Horns
of Alligin. It was wildly windy
but completely exhilarating.
On the Saturday night Mr Ger-
Meandering around Malham
bright sunshine alternated and
a great day was had by all.
The third day was a tad wet, so
Mr Brooks organised a nature
walk over some lower hills before we all crowded into the
minibus for the long journey
home.
rard, clearly a serial quizaholic,
organized a Scottish-themed
challenge which was great fun
with mixed teams of students
and staff competing.
On the second day we all enjoyed magnificent fresh snow
on our various routes over the
huge Beinn Eighe. Matthew
Percy and Miss Garne did some
agile posing for extreme reads,
there was a snowman made at
3,000 feet above sea level as
well as some cracking snowball fights. Minor blizzards and
It was a poignant trip for many
of us without Mr Percy’s presence and humour but I think
we all feel he would have approved. Thanks ever so much,
once again, to Mr Brooks for
organising such a memorable
trip and also to Mr Rogers for
surely the best spaghetti carbonara this side of Milan! Finally, thanks to all the students
who came along – we hope we
have set them off on a lifetime
of walking and climbing in the
Scottish hills. They were, and
are, brilliant company.
D.Leedham
On Friday 8 May, twenty-five
Year 8s set off to Malham Tarn
Field Centre to study climate
change and the impact it is having on our local area. We were
accompanied by Mr Douglas,
Dr Whiteley, Miss Staten and a
graphic artist called Adam. The
excitement mounted while we
travelled up an impossible hill
to get to our destination in
the valley beyond. Eventually
we found ourselves in front of
the Georgian-style field centre
where we would be spending
our weekend.
After an introduction by Gill,
our guide, we were allowed to
settle in and explore the centres’ grounds. The sun set on
a hive of activity with giggles
and whispers going long into
the night.
14
Saturday brought a walk, taking us up a hill, where we discovered an interest in soil layers and in particular peat! The
walk took us along limestone
pavement where we found
out that Malham used to be located close to where the Bahamas are found today! We then
stopped for a well deserved
lunch and rest. Before setting
off back down into the Peat
Bog Reserve, we stopped at a
cave and Gill explained how
Stone-Age people used to live
there. The Reserve is where we
found out more environmental problems, where climate
change is causing excessive
Common Reed growth which
endangers rare plants and
flowers. We then walked to the
Field Centre’s own weather station to see how climate change
is affecting weather patterns.
This was followed by a night in
the classroom, with a break for
the popular cake o’clock and of
course tea. In the classroom we
then thought up some ideas
for films we could create to
make people aware of climate
change. Luckily the second
night was much calmer, so
most of us got some sleep. Our
last day brought more creative
fun as we progressed with our
film making, helped along by
Adam and his fantastic Apple
Mac! All too soon it was time to
end our fun-filled weekend. We
would like to take this opportunity to thank all the teachers who came with us, Adam
and the very helpful Gill! We
couldn’t have had such a great
time without them.
Jess Ronan and Ellen Gibson
Plans continue for the New
York trip. 25 students (and 4
staff!) are excitedly awaiting
the October half term where
they will take part in a stage
combat workshop led by
Broadway actors; visit the
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Ellis Island and the Statue of
Liberty; climb (well, take the
lift) to the top of the Rockefeller Centre; shop till they drop
at Macy’s and much more. A
parents’ evening about the
trip will be held at the beginning of the autumn term.
M.Abraham
Year 7
residential
Ghyll scrambling was just
one highlight from the recent residential trip for a
group of Year 7 students,
who also enjoyed canoeing
and hill walking - not to mention some Jenga and the odd
BBQ! Thanks to all the staff
and students who made the
trip such a success!
15
WASHINGTON 2009 - The Winter’s Tale
The 2009 Washington Trip was
the sixteenth such visit that
QES students have made to the
American capital, to participate
in the annual Student Shakespeare Festival at the Folger
Shakespeare Library, since
the trip’s inception in 1991 as
part of the quatercentenary
celebrations. This year’s trip
was as successful as any of its
predecessors. The rules of the
Festival limit us to a group size
of 24 and this means that over
the years around 380 students
have benefited from the trip.
Our play this year was The
Winter’s Tale, one of the most
demanding extracts we have
tackled. Yet the cast rose magnificently to the challenge and
did themselves and the school
proud. Emily Watts, Oliver Harris and Jamie Thrippleton won
individual distinction in acting
awards and the whole group
won the best ensemble award
for a most controlled and impressive performance. A very
happy group went out to celebrate that night.
Washington has so much to offer. The city sets out to give its
visitors a clear insight into the
culture and history that has
fashioned the making of the
Union. Hence along the mile
and a half length of the National Mall there are some of the
finest museums and art galleries in the world. Mr Clarke
had drawn up an itinerary that
covered all the memorials and
monuments and a wide spectrum of museums.
16
This year our busy schedule included visits to the Museum of
American History, the Natural
History Museum, the Museum
of the American Indian, the Air
and Space Museum, the Holocaust Museum and the newest
museum, the Newseum, which
is dedicated to the world’s free
press. This proved an amazing
museum. Our visit started with
a thirteen-minute film in the
4D Imax theatre. We sat in seats
that moved with the action
and wore special glasses that
made the film images wonderfully three- dimensional. But it
was the fourth dimension that
was so amazing. When there
was a speedboat race, we felt
the spray, when a rat crawling
on a bed was flung off, I felt it
hit my leg, and when Marilyn
Monroe floated out from the
screen puckering her lips invitingly, someone must have had
a real thrill.
We also visited the Hirshorn
Museum of Modem Art, the
National Gallery of Art and its
sculpture garden, and had an
educational tour of the NGA’s
East Building entitled Breaking
the Rules; an Understanding
of Modern Art. We visited the
FDR, Korean, Vietnam, Lincoln,
Jefferson, World War Two and
the Iwo Jima memorials and
also Arlington and the Kennedy
gravesites. We were also fortunate in being given a private
tour of the Capitol, something
not normally offered to foreign
visitors, and even got to sit on
the floor of the House, in seats
reserved for the most senior
Democrats, a very special privilege indeed.
As we have done for several
years now we spent a weekend in Annapolis, Maryland,
our students staying as guests
of students of Broadneck High
School’s Key Club. Annapolis is
old colonial America and offers
a totally different experience
to Washington. Our students
got to live with an American
family, experienced a weekend with American teenagers
and on the Monday attended
lessons with their hosts. The
weekend seems to have been
a great success and it was difficult to get them to part from
their new friends when we collected them at Broadneck on
Monday.
Three more days of sightseeing in Washington, a great
last-night party and then it was
an overnight flight home after
what all agreed had been a
fantastic trip.
Diana Sharratt
Supporting Malawi’s AIDS orphans
On 9 July twelve QES Duke of
Edinburgh Award students
accompanied by Mr Weston,
Mr Douglas and Miss Jackson are heading to Malawi, a
sub-Saharan country known
as ‘The Warm Heart of Africa’,
to explore the landscape and
learn about life in a developing country. The group have
a fascinating and adventurepacked itinerary. A central
part of the expedition will
be our visit to the Open
Arms Orphanage and Sekwe
House. The group will be
taking gifts and a donation
to the orphanage that the
group has raised over the last
year. This has supported the
charity aspect of the Duke of
Edinburgh Scheme.
The first challenge the group
will face will be several
days hiking in the Mulanje
Mountains that border Malawi and Mozambique. We
will be climbing a number
of peaks including Sapitwa,
which at 3,002 m (9,855 ft)
is one of the highest mountains in sub-Saharan Africa.
After spending several days
on the Mulange Massif the
group will then return to a
lower altitude to go on safari
along the Shire River where
we hope to find crocodile, elephant and hippopotamus.
To finish the expedition the
group will spend a couple of
days exploring the beautiful
Lake Malawi by canoe.
A.Douglas
The Malawi Expedition 2009 is
the beginning of a long-lasting
relationship between the QES
community and Malawi. QES
has pledged to support the
running costs of Sekwe House,
a foster home in Blantyre, Malawi.
Maternal mortality is a serious
problem in Malawi, as is the
incidence of HIV/AIDS. These
factors combine to create a
chronic number of orphans. It
is estimated that there are over
850,000 orphans in Malawi.
The QES Malawi Expedition
will be visiting the Open Arms
Orphanage during the expedition. The orphanage is a British-based charitable organisation that provides a home and
cares for very young orphaned
children with a view to returning the children to extended
family members. As many children don’t have extended family to return to, the Open Arms
Charity has set up a network of
satellite foster homes to give
such children a safe and loving home. The QES community
has taken responsibility for the
raising of money to fund one
of these foster homes, Sekwe
House. Many students have
sought to get involved. Indeed,
in July 65, students will be
completing the QES sponsored
walk with the aim of raising
money for Sekwe House. At
the same time children in the
orphanage will be conducting
their own sponsored walk to
coincide with the QES walk as
a fundraiser! You can find more
details about the Open Arms
Orphanage, Sekwe House and
the Open Arms Sponsored
Walk at http://www.openarmsmalawi.org/content/home and
http://www.justgiving.com/
openarmswalk.
If you would like to get involved in the QES Friends of
Sekwe House group or have
any fundraising ideas, please
get in touch. We are looking for
interested parents and members of the wider community
to get involved in the project.
The link with Malawi will provide a fantastic opportunity for
departments in school to work
with an international dimension. Also, students working
towards achieving the Duke of
Edinburgh Award will be able
to complete the Service element through getting involved
in the project. In addition, there
is the possibility that some students would be able to volunteer at Open Arms as a part of a
gap year trip to Malawi.
A.Douglas
Ephraim, Agnes, Sam and Eric live in
Sekwe House in Blantyre, Malawi
17
PERFORMINGarts
thing for everyone. A group of
forty Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 pupils
attended a dance and movement workshop with a member of the STOMP cast at QES,
and created an outstanding,
energetic piece of work that
they performed to their peers
all week. Meanwhile, all of Year
8 attended a Helen O’Grady
drama workshop.
The first ever Kirkby Lonsdale
Arts Festival was a great success! With street entertainment from our very own Mr
Marriott and Astral Circus,
a craft exhibition, an Indigo
106.6fm roadshow, a visit from
the Why-Not-Alpacas, face
painting, performances by QES
BTEC and A-Level bands, and
Year 6 pupils, Market Square
was buzzing with arts activities
from 13th to 21st of June.
We also enjoyed outstanding
performances by Lava Music,
High Society Jazz Band, Classic
Ensembles and the Choral Society in venues all over Kirkby.
A Painting Workshop and a
Felt Making session were great
successes, and the Paul Pfeuti
Piano Competition saw an exceptionally high standard of
entrants. Performances of Zoo
Story and Summer with Monica
meant that there was some-
Locals were invited into the QES
final Art & Design Exhibition all
during the week to admire the
A-Level work of the school’s
Year 13 pupils, and displays
of Year 10’s work were much
admired in St Mary’s Church.
Shop windows became home
to scores of travelling socks as
Year 7 created their colourful
Socks On Holiday exhibit- they
popped up everywhere! The
week came to a spectacular
close with the Annual Brass
Band Competition. The organisers breathed a sigh of relief,
and started planning next
year!
Kirkby Lonsdale Arts Scene
is a not-for-profit voluntary
organisation that brings together people with a passion
for the promotion of the arts
in Kirkby Lonsdale. If you are
interested in being part of this
group please contact Helen
Baines, Arts Scene Secretary,
on 015242 79190.
Music galore!
Lower Strings and
Harp Festival, March
This concert featured all of the
school’s cellists and harpists, as
well as one very accomplished
double-bassist who only started learning in September. And
already playing Mahler… It was
the last solo for Year 13 student
Fay Lockett, who has been the
leading light in the world of
QES cello since she arrived at
the school in 2002. Some exceptional harp playing from
beginners and experienced
older pupils complemented
the sound of the cello and double bass, and made for a very
tasty programme indeed. More
of the same next year, please!
jolly difficult instruments (Mr
Foster will be quick to tell you).
Rewards are great, however,
when a concert programme
of just those two instruments
is presented by students from
QES and neighbouring schools
who have toiled at their instruments to produce some
quality performances. Getting
over the disappointment of
not hearing our favourite “In
the Hall of the Mountain King”,
the audience settled into some
great renditions of classics for
the two instruments, including a “surprise” performance
by Miss Pelling herself. If you’re
wondering what instrument to
play, choose one of these!
Flute Festival, March
Inspired by Ruskin’s view
18
Year 8 English groups sought
poetic inspiration at Ruskin’s
view with Mr Reid and Mrs
Clarke this term. After close
observation of the landscape
they made notes and sketches
for crafting a poem that will
form a class anthology.
P. Reid
Year 13 Recitals, March
Double Reeds
Festival, February
Not many people play the oboe
and the bassoon, as they are
ing at QES. The Year 13 A
level candidates presented
their exam recitals with some
nerves (so they tell me) but
extraordinary stage presence.
I would certainly have paid
to hear some of those pieces:
Harrison Wood on bass guitar
and double bass, playing one
of the most difficult pieces
available for the instrument
(well, we will all be paying to
hear him not very many years
from now), Hayley Parsons and
Zoe Whitfield with a wonderful
collection of vocal solos between them, from Carl Orff to
Vivaldi, and Emily Metcalfe in
her element on the drum kit:
could you wish for more in an
evening concert? Let’s hope
their exams went even better!
What an evening! Always one
of the most special concerts
of the year, with the highest
standard of playing, this one
was introduced and rounded
off by two Year 12 BTEC band
performances which captured
the enjoyment of music-mak-
I say this every year, but the
flute playing at this school is
second to no other instrument
in terms of the quality of tone
and tuning that the players
produce. Even the youngest
and most nervous newcomers
to the concert platform at QES
were so well prepared by Mrs
Milner and Mrs Morwood that,
despite their protests that they
didn’t know whether to faint or
be sick (well, only one person
said this, but I’m sure she spoke
for several), every one of them
played as if they loved being
listened to. Well done, flautists,
and well done, flute teachers!
19
Easter Concert, April
Spider Pig, Spider Pig… and
that was only the finale. Mr
Foster claimed we’d only rehearsed it the day before, but
in fact it has been in the repertoire since last summer, and
we’ve just been itching to find
a platform for it.
This concert didn’t just include
Simpsons greatest hits, of
course; a great range of music,
from the Vicar of Dibley theme
tune through symphonic
statements, well-loved Muppets music, jazz favourites to
Coldplay (those fabulous flutes
again), was included in this ripping programme. Presented by
a giant bunny and a humansized chicken (both in Year 13),
what a night this was! How to
top Spider Pig next year is the
only problem facing us now…
Paul Pfeuti
Piano Festival, April
This postponed event was a
stunning tribute to Paul Pfeuti’s teaching over the years,
and a great showcase of what
Mr Glanville has done with his
ever-increasing bunch of players since coming to QES. Well
done to Mr Kubilius and Ms
Howarth-Smith for their work
with Mr Pfeuti’s pupils since
January. Mr Hunter and Hayley Parsons – one of Mr Pfeuti’s
long-standing pupils – made
speeches, and Mrs Pfeuti was
20
there to say a few words and
receive some flowers on behalf
of all of Paul’s pupils who were
playing that evening. It was
a dignified celebration of the
life’s work of a great and badly
missed piano teacher.
lyrics were “Miaow”, and two
hysterically amoral Tom Lehrer
songs from the Year 13 boys,
who had nothing to lose by
singing about Poisoning Pigeons in the Park and dancing
the Masochism Tango.
Guitar Festival, March
Tim Kliphuis workshop
and concert, May
As usual, this was a varied
programme of solos, duos,
trios and full rock bands, with a
great programme ranging from
Classical to the latest hits from
budding rock legends. This has
to be the most complicated
festival of the series, with more
equipment than you could
fit into one of our cupboards,
but everything is so smoothly
handled by M Lheureux and Mr
Kellett that you hardly notice
the pains they take to set up
every player with the perfect
sound. A well-trained bunch of
talented and dedicated budding stars; well done, everyone
who played.
Vocal Festival, May
What a night! It seems to me
to take more nerve to sing in
front of a crowd than to play
an instrument, and the bravery of some of these first-timers left me in awe. There were
hits from musicals, marvels of
close-harmony singing from
the octet, Otto Regazze, a fantastic finale from Jenni Lamb
and Robyn Lewes whose only
SNAPshots
Lots more colour photographs on our website: www.queenelizabeth.cumbria.sch.uk
Above: examples of finely detailed model painting by members of the QES Warhammer Club - see article on page 9 of the black-and-white section.
Below: departing Year 11 pupils celebrated with a prom at Whoop Hall. Their last day in school featured a morning of entertainment (bottom left) and a
farewell address from animated versions of Mr Clarke and Mr Gaskell (top right), created by Ben Mason.
This famous jazz violinist and
his guitarist, Jon Moore, ran
two hour-long workshops with
some of our keen young violinists on Friday 1st May, and went
on to give a fantastic concert
at QES that evening, featuring
our very own violinists.
If you remember similar events
featuring our saxophonists and
trumpeters, or a whole range
of percussionists, but you are
wondering what on earth jazz
violin could sound like, visit his
website; it’s awesome!
Performances around
Kirkby Lonsdale
Congratulations and thanks to
those who performed at the
Kirkby Lonsdale Choral Society
concert on Sunday 17th May
– Alex Hilton, Izzy Pearson,
Holly Chalcraft, Rachel Todner
and Rhiannon Neale – and the
group who performed in town
to mark the opening of the
new Boots pharmacy on Thursday June 4th.
J.Hartley
21
EXHIBITIONshots - the editor’s personal choice from the Art & Product Design exhibition
Left to right from top left:
Innovative signage for the exhibition;
Levi Preston, textiles project;
Charlotte Baldwin, photography; the
textiles exhibition area, with (inset)
Emily Byle’s textiles project;
22
Emily Quinn, photography; Mary
Furniss, fine art; Jennifer Farrell, fine
art; Amy Whitehead’s jewellery box;
Emily Read, fine art; Lynda Terrill’s
graphic products work; Clare Hymer’s
fine art project.
23
SNAPshots
Theatre Arts are flourishing
Aurora Dance Theatre
Aurora Dance Theatre performed at the Dukes, Lancaster
as part of the North West Dance
Theatre Festival. The work,
called The Language of Ice, is
a fifteen-minute contemporary
dance work that explores the
relationship between people
and frozen landscape.
The company created the piece
over the past year, and the final assembly of the work took
place on a weekend residential
at Grizedale Forest, using the
“Yan” building as a rehearsal
space.
Every aspect of the work was
created in-house, with choreography by J.Marriott, text
by J.Brown, music by J.Hartley
with additional music by student Hector Barnicoat-Hood.
The piece, along with a selection of other outstanding
dance material, was performed
at the Summer Dance Showcase on the 8th and 9th of July.
J.Brown
24
As part of the QES work-related learning programme, some Year 10 pupils enjoyed an early work experience with the Army at Warcop
written musical, A Time of Revolution, in the Harlequin Theatre
as part of the Kirkby Lonsdale
Arts Festival week.
The musical is about the
changing relationship of the
daughters of the last Russian
Tsar and their people and
country in 1917.
J.Brown
New Musical A Time of Revolution
Dance on Camera
Students from the Year 11
BTEC Young Apprentice group,
along with an orchestra and
choir, performed a specially-
The BTEC Young Apprentice
Year 11 group spent a day with
Mr Marriott devising and filming a dance piece. The theme
was technology and with the
aid of some props kindly lent
from the IT department and
some creative editing they
have created a unique and
intriguing dance for camera
piece that will be premiered at
the summer dance showcase.
Explosion in QES
Dance Companies
This year there has been an
explosion of dance companies,
giving any pupil with an interest in dance an opportunity to
take part in high quality dance
performance.
There is the South Lakes
Dance Company (SLYD) with
pieces choreographed by Ellen
Turner and Lucy Nicolson; the
Junior Dance Company (QED)
with pieces choreographed by
Ellen Turner and Lily Turner;
the Aurora Dance Theatre
run by J.Brown and J.Marriott;
and our new boys’ dance com-
21
FOCUSon...
pany that has grown out of the
former Year 7 dance group run
by J.Marriott.
J.Marriott
Summer Dance
Celebration
The Summer Dance Celebration in early July was the accumulation of a year’s work both
in Dance lessons and extra-curricular clubs and companies.
Some truly outstanding and
exquisite work was performed
this year - a special evening of
Dance.
J.Marriott
STOMP Workshop
In early June students from
Year 7, 8, 9 and 10 choreographed a dynamic piece of
STOMP-style rhythmical dance
theatre with ex-STOMP cast
member Peter Francis. Mr
Fleming and Mr Marriott also
assisted the students as they
spent two days creating movement and rhythm using a variety of garden tools and kitchen
utensils! It was an extremely
22
creative (and loud!) two days
in which the students from all
year groups had a great time
whilst learning many new performance skills.
The resulting 20-minute piece
of theatre was shown to all students during Kirkby Lonsdale
Arts Week and again during
the Summer Dance Celebration in July.
L.Fleming
KS3 Drama Clubs
There has been a quite remarkable uptake in extra-curricular
Drama this year with clubs being offered at lunchtimes for
Years 7, 8 and 9 by Mr Fleming
and Miss Abraham.
Numbers in all year groups
have been fantastic, with nearly 100 students over the three
year groups attending weekly.
Visits to
professional theatre
Alongside this students in the
undermentioned year groups
have had the following opportunities to visit the theatre
once again this term:
Year 12
Haunted
at the Manchester Royal
Exchange in May
Years 8, 9 and 10
Blood Brothers
at the Blackpool Opera
House in June
This takes our theatre visit total for the year to six, with two
performances (Dorian Gray
and The Sound of Music) already booked for our return in
September!
We would like thank all the parents and staff for supporting
these wonderful experiences
for the students.
All of this work has clearly had
an impact on the students as
Drama GCSE uptake has more
than doubled from last year.
L.Fleming
Working in the school libraries - 1
With over a dozen desktop
PCs equipped with the latest
programmes and software,
hundreds of resources ranging
from blood-curdling Darren
Shan novels to tear-rendering Laura Abbot’s works and
shelves of the best blockbusters, the Sixth Form Library is
the learning and studying focal
point for school life.
With the constantly changing
displays, students are never
short of ideas for a good book.
The displays exhibit a variety
of genres, ranging in difficulty,
Some of the displays include
Crime, Humour, Classics, alongside the popular new genres
known as Chick Flicks and Boys
Toys, aimed at getting teenage
boys to read more.
As a devoted and recurring
face in the libraries I am enjoying working on the computers
and using the resources more
than ever. With changing and
improving services such as the
introduction of SearchStar, the
library catalogue system, it is
“the Sixth Form
library is a learning
and studying
focal point”
becoming ever easier to access
all the fantastic material.
I am currently working towards
a National Vocational Qualification, Level 2, in Information
& Library Studies. This entails
studying how libraries operate
and develop. The work is based
around the QES libraries and I
know how lucky I am to have
these services to write about.
It makes a seemingly lacklustre
subject a great deal more interesting than one imagines!
Along with my fellow student
Charlie Parker, I have recently
been awarded the role of Library Official. With this comes
the responsibility and pleasure
of making sure the library is
open, accessible and appealing to 6th Form students.
I am very pleased to be part of
the QES Sixth Form and proud
to have a role in the continuation of a great aspect of the
school!
Joe Wilkin-Oxley 12Q
Working in the school libraries - 2
In my first year at QES I have
thoroughly enjoyed being a
student librarian. I have learnt
many things which will help
me along the way. When I
started in September I went
to the library in the morning
till the start of school. It really
helped me to make friends as I
came from primary school not
knowing anyone at all.
If you become a librarian there
are a few jobs you have to do
including:
shelving (where you put all
the returned books back on
the shelves)
resensitizing (after the
books have been returned
you scan the spine to enable the alarms)
loans and returns (lending
or taking back books which
are/have been borrowed)
As a librarian you have one
shift a week (which fits into all
the other activities you might
do). For example my shift is
on a Monday 1:45pm -2:15pm,
but you could have them at
break or the earlier shift at
“you are rewarded
with an invitation
to an exclusive
librarian party”
lunch. Because of your work
you are rewarded with an invitation to an exclusive librarian
party with food provided by
Café Q for free! It is really good
fun and everybody has a really
good laugh.
Finally our two librarians, Miss
Sosnowsky & Miss Dowding,
are really cheerful and are al-
ways there to help if you need
them. I find it really pleasant to
work for them as if there is a
problem they will help you to
get round it. They are always
encouraging us to go that extra mile. They also give you opportunities to do extra shifts if
someone can’t do it or give you
a chance to write in the newsletter. They’re really nice to all
the librarians no matter where
they come from and are always
expecting your best.
Overall the library is a really
good opportunity to experience different things & thank
you to Miss Sosnowsky & Miss
Dowding for looking after the
library for the school as it just
wouldn’t be the same school
without it.
Owain Houghton 7S
Student Librarian
23
Meet the new Sixth Form officials
Around the grounds: favourite days
Most people here at QES,
whether students or staff, will
have their favourite days in the
school calendar, and we on the
Grounds are no exception. For
Tom Wynne and I the two days
which we particularly enjoy
are Sports Day and Sponsored
Walk Day. These are days when
we are involved even more
than normal with teaching
staff and pupils, and give us a
break from our routine.
At the start of my first Summer term here in 1997 I quickly
became aware from Head
Groundsman John Shepherd
that much of our work during
that term would be in preparation for the showpiece of the
Summer - the Sports Day. He
also revealed to me that he had
another important role to play
towards the end of the term,
and that was to drive the Minibus on Sponsored Walk Day.
24
In April 97 I helped Mr Shepherd to mark out the first running track that I’d ever been
involved with. That was an
education in itself! The problem was that we didn’t have
enough field for a standard
400m track. The best we could
do was say 279m one year and
maybe 281m the next year because of the undulations in the
surface of the ground which
seemed to vary from year to
year. In order to establish the
inside line on the running
track John had a complicated
set of measurements involving the centre lines on both
hockey pitches and a pivotal
point from which an arc could
be scribed for each end of the
track. When I questioned him
about where the measurements were kept for marking
the arcs, he looked at me as
only John could and, pointing
to his head said: “Measurements? They’re in theere, lad!”
When it came to marking
the straights to join the arcs
together they were to be so
many metres and centimetres from the pavilion steps
and the long jump sand pit,
and on the school side so far
from a big stone in the garden
wall. I didn’t have to ask him
where he kept those measurements! Needless to say with my
memory, “ in theere” wasn’t sufficient for me and I decided to
write them down.
When it came to measuring for
the 400m, for example if the inside track was 270m we would
simply measure back from the
finish line 130m and the athlete would run to the finish and
then one lap. A similar principle
applies for the 200m,800m and
1500m events.
One question which people
may ask is why are we so particular about getting the measurements just right. Does it really matter? Yes it does matter.
Firstly from the point of view
of our own integrity, but secondly from the athlete’s viewpoint. Records go back many
years and most athletes take
pride in their own performance. If the track or field events
are not marked out accurately
then it makes a nonsense of
performances, and records
count for nothing. My biggest
regret on Sports Day is always
the unevenness of the ground
surface, giving some athletes a
distinct advantage over others.
Hopefully we can soon start to
level off our athletics field.
It meant a lot to John Shepherd to drive the Minibus on
Sponsored Walk Day. A few
years ago when John was no
longer able to drive the bus
I was very pleased to accept
Mr Longley’s invitation to take
over. I did hope one day to do
the walk but I never expected
my involvement in the day
would come quite as it has.
Hannah Neale
Hello! It’s lovely to be given the
position of Head Girl and I hope
that I can live up to the huge
expectations and achievement
that Jess has left from last year.
I am really looking forward
to working with ‘The Seven’. I
think we make a great team
as our different (and slightly
crazy) personalities reflect the
different aspects of the school,
and we girls are very lucky to
have FOUR lovely boys to work
with! I am sure that together
we can make this wonderful
school an even better place to
be. Watch this space!
As each year passes I am more
aware of what a massive logistical operation it is to organize
the event. I understand that it
takes months of planning by
Mr Longley, Mr Gaskell and
their team of workers. I think
the Sponsored Walk is a fitting
way to end the school year,
with most of the school enjoying a day out together.
For Tom Wynne and myself
and, I suspect, Mr Shepherd,
Sports Day and Sponsored
Walk Day remain our favourite
days in the school year. Maybe
the fact that we always finish
with a good tea is a contributory factor too!
S.Dent
with the rest of The Seven. I
think our group is made up of
some really strong leaders and
also believe that our contrasting styles and personalities
are going to make us a really
strong team to lead the school;
it is going to be a pleasure to
work with everyone. I’m also
really looking forward to having the opportunity to give
something back to the school.
Oliver Barker
I joined the 6th Form in 2008
from Central Lancaster High
School. Being given the role of
Deputy Head Boy after being
at QES for just a few months
has made me appreciate how
welcoming the school actually
is. I study Acting, Geography,
Photography and Media Studies and intend to incorporate
all my skills from these subjects
in the work I do for the school
over the next year as Deputy
Head Boy. I am extremely happy with the way things have
turned out for me here at QES, I
wouldn’t want to be anywhere
else, and being given such a
key role in the school just tops
it off!
Hannah Burch
Matthew Percy
I’m Matthew Percy and I’ve
been at QES since Year 7. I
am currently studying Maths,
Physics, Chemistry and Economics at AS Level. I am really
looking forward to being Head
Boy next year because I am relishing the opportunity to work
Hi, my name’s Hannah Burch,
and I’m one of the deputy head
girls. I’m so happy to be given
this role and I can’t wait to get
started. I’m really looking forward to all the tasks we will
have to do together this year
and next, as I’m sure they will
be challenging as well as great
fun. Q.E.S has done a lot for me
over the years, and went to a
lot of trouble to keep me here,
so I feel privileged to be able
to give something back.
Sophie Webster
The stressful process of applying all paid off when Miss
O’Neill announced that I had
been successful in making the
team. Not only will this give
25
LEARNINGmatters
me a huge opportunity to express ideas from myself and
other pupils in Sixth Form but
it will allow me to give back to
the school knowing that they
have given me a variety of opportunities from first joining
QES back in 2003. I am looking forward to working with
everyone as a team and filling
the shoes of the previous officials to help and improve life at
QES further. Although the role
is a big one I’m definitely up for
the challenge.
Immersing pupils in learning
James Hart
David Whitehead
My name is James Hart and I’m
currently studying Business
Studies, Economics, History
and ICT and I’ve been at QES
since I joined late in Year 7. I’m
hoping in the future that I can
get the grades to do Business
and Economics at Manchester
University and then become
the winner of The Apprentice!
I’m really excited about becoming Deputy Head Boy because
it gives me a chance to give
something back to the school.
Hi, I’m David. I was lucky
enough to get a place at QES
in Year 7 and I’m currently
studying Maths, Further Maths,
Physics and a practical music
course. As part of the team of
officials I will be a dedicated
member, even if at the end of
the day my efforts just result in
me being the comic relief during long meetings. I hope I can
contribute a constructive part
to what is already a very high
achieving and well run school.
A former Head Girl reflects....
After seven years it is hard to
leave somewhere, most of all
somewhere that has come to
mean so much, to hold so many
memories and that has shaped
you into the person you are today, but alas, by the time this
newsletter is published, that
is what Year 13 will have done.
We are leaving a school that
has given so much to us and on
behalf of Year 13 (2009) I would
like to say thank you.
26
I remember my first day at QES
and just being overwhelmed
by the sheer size of the school.
I remember looking at older,
louder and much more confident students laughing and
chatting through the corridors
and never believing that would
be me. Well it was. QES has
guided me through so many
A school should be a place
that guides and encourages
students and that is what QES
does and will continue to do
for many years to come. It has
certainly given me the confidence in my own abilities and
that is one of the most valuable
gifts I have ever received.
things and offered a support I
doubt I would have found elsewhere. My best memories are
the ones founded at QES, which
is unsurprising considering the
opportunities available for all
students. I have a respect and
admiration for all the teachers
at QES who always have given,
and always will give that extra
effort to help a student achieve
what they really want to.
So my reflections on QES are
of a school that cares, tries and
actually does make a difference
in children’s lives. So thank you
QES for giving me the best
seven years I could ask for and
to those of you who have more
time at QES to enjoy, my advice
is make the most of it and grab
every opportunity because it
goes faster than you could ever
have imagined.
Jess Douglas, Head Girl 2008-9
This year we have introduced
“Immersion Days” for Year 7, on
which normal timetabled lessons are suspended for the day
and Year 7 pupils have a full day
of activities revolving around a
theme. The themes are based
on the six new Key Stage 3
cross-curricular dimensions,
and we had an extra “Virtual
Paris” Day where children were
immersed in French culture.
The year started in September
with “Identify & Culture” where
pupils explored how emigrants
took aspects of their culture
with them and formed strong
communities in new countries,
becoming famous for their
“normal timetabled
lessons are
suspended for the
day and pupils
have a full day of
activities revolving
around a theme”
music, their beliefs, their art,
food, dress, and so on. The day
culminated in a fantastic showpiece in the Harlequin Theatre,
and some amazing cultural
sculptures!
Also in September was the
“Virtual Paris” Day when Year
7 pupils spent a day in Paris….
without leaving QES! Café Q
served a French breakfast and
delicious lunch menu, and
pupils experienced a day of
French culture, playing boules,
learning about the sites of
Paris, playing French games in
PE and ordering ice cream in a
Virtual Paris
café, with pupils barred from
speaking English for the day!
By the end of the day pupils
were keen to experience Paris
for real, equipped with the
knowledge and skills to do so.
In November, pupils experienced a day of “Enterprise and
Entrepreneurship”; designing,
making and selling Christmas
cards as a company might. Pupils developed their enterprise
skills, learned to work together
as a team with people they do
not know, and began to understand how to produce a commercially viable product. At the
end of the day, pupils’ “companies” presented their product
in a Dragon’s Den scenario to a
panel of judges.
In February, pupils were immersed in “Community Participation”. They learned about the
many different communities
that they each belong to, from
their own relatives, through
the school community, to
Identity & Culture Day
27
Artwork from the Sustainability day
what it means to be part of a
global family. Different groups
worked on actively helping out
and contributing to those communities, and the day included
trips into Kirkby Lonsdale, and
designing a playground for the
local park.
In March, Year 7 learnt about
“Sustainable Futures and the
Global Dimension”. The focus
was on developing pupils’
understanding of contrasting continents (Europe, Africa,
and Asia) and of sustainable
technologies. This included the
concept of food miles, awareness of different cultures, being able to explain and apply
understanding of different
communities, and what it
means to be sustainable. As a
result of the day, we now have
some new features around
school, including a coppiced
hazel chair and some willowweaved fencing!
In May, pupils looked at “Technology and the Media”. Each
form group was given a decade
from the twentieth century to
prepare a multi-media production in the style of an “End of
the Decade” news presentation, summarising key events
on a range of topics. Content
produced by the pupils included podcasts, web pages, video
clips and newspaper pages, all
of which should appear on the
QES website over the next few
weeks.
At the time of writing, there’s
just one more Immersion Day
to go this year: “Creativity and
Critical Thinking” in late June.
The general overview is based
around the concept “The
Bridge”. Pupils will think about
the different interpretations of
this theme while producing an
exhibit to display in the afternoon. A trip to Devil’s Bridge,
building their own bridge
whether it be a physical, musical or metaphorical one, are
all options on offer. The day
should encourage them to
think creatively and to have
the confidence to undertake
tasks they would not normally
participate in. Look out for
photos and a summary of the
day on the website.
All in all, the Immersion Days
have been a terrific success. Pupils have really enjoyed them,
“next year we plan
to have more
sophisticated
systems for
identifying the
learning that has
taken place”
and have learnt much along
the way. Next year, we plan to
have more sophisticated systems in place for identifying
the learning that has taken
place, and we’re also spreading the six themed days across
Years 7, 8 and 9, so that pupils
don’t have them all within the
same academic year.
None of this could have happened, however, without the
sheer hard work, determination, and commitment of all
the staff involved, so I would
like to take this opportunity to
formally thank everyone who
took part in any way.
28
Podcasting on Technology & Media day
A. Hall, Assistant Head
Impartial Careers Advice & Guidance at QES
Impartial Careers Advice and
Guidance (ICAG) is delivered
in partnership with QES and
Connexions Cumbria. Over the
course of the summer term our
focus has been on:
Year 7 WRL Day
Going to work with my
parents July 2009
The purpose of this is to enable students to have a real life
experience of a working day.
Here are a few comments from
our current Year 8 students
who went to work with their
parents last year:
Overall I think it was a great experience and really shows what
life is like in a work place.
Emma Wilson 8K, who visited
ProBikekit
I learnt how to use a CAD system
and what a designer does.
Shannon Stanley who visited
Atlantis Kitchens Ltd
Year 9 Enterprise Day
On the Soapbox
July 2009
Innovative Enterprise will run
an action-packed workshop
covering positive thinking, careers awareness, confidence
building, personal presentation skills and tools that students can apply to all areas
of their lives. All through the
making of soap!
Year 10 Work
Experience
Year 10 have been involved
in several activities associated with Work Experience
throughout the term (ie Mock
Interview, Health and Safety
Seminar, Work Ready Day).
Work Experience took place
between Monday 29th June
and 13 have had a careers interview but they can request
another if they wish. Careers
interviews are now open to
Year 10 students as well.
and Friday 3rd July. Here are a
few comments from our current Year 11 students on their
placements last year:
An ongoing insight into
working life
Steph Brown (Primary school
teaching assistant)
A great experience, I loved it.
Cass Eatherden (Festival Republic London - Events Organiser)
Thoroughly enjoyable. It gave
me a clear image of what I want
to do in life.
Adam Caton (ASKAM: Civil Engineering)
A great experience and good to
see from the other side of the
business.
Alex Barnes (PC World - Sales
and Stock Assistant)
Awesome!
Tom Barton (Levens Hall - Assistant Gardener)
Years 10, 11, 12, 13
Careers Interviews
Many students in Years 11, 12
Parents/guardians and QES
staff can request an interview
on behalf of a student. For an
appointment please contact
Sue Dixon (ICAG Coordinator)
at
s.dixon@queenelizabeth.
cumbria.sch.uk
GCSE and AS/A2
Results Day and ICAG
Pete Armitage our Connexions Personal Advisor will be
present on the results day for
impartial careers advice and
guidance.
A Level Results Day
Thursday 20th August
GCSE Results Day
Thursday 27th August
Connexions over the
Summer Holidays
If you require additional impartial careers advice and guidance over the summer holidays
the Connexions office in Kendal is open, Monday to Friday
from 10am to 5pm (apart from
Tuesday where they are open
1pm to 5pm).
C. Harrison, Director of ICAG
Useful Websites
www.ucas.com
www.connexions-direct.com/jobs4you
Gives information on all types of jobs: skills and qualifications required, salary etc.
www.connexionscumbria.org.uk
www.futures4me.com/cumbria
Online prospectus for schools in the Cumbria area including QES
The Higher Ideas software can also be accessed through
Moodle Careers Information on the QES website
29
The work of QES as a Training School
Running Masters-level programmes for South Lakes
Federation teachers, in partnership with the University
of Cumbria.
As a specialist training school,
we have excellent training and
induction programmes for all
staff, both highly-experienced
and newly-qualified. We also
try to provide some “additionality”, and work with partner
schools wherever possible.
Our main achievements during
2008-09 included:
Running a Governmentfunded Early Professional
Development project for
teachers in their second
year
Two members of staff working towards a Teacher Learning Academy Award
Developing a Continuing
Professional Development
“menu”, incorporating personalised learning pathways for teachers, and beginning to design a similar
scheme for support staff for
September 2009
Training three staff to deliver Outstanding Teacher
rogrammes within school
and the South Lakes Federation.
A.Hall, Assistant Headteacher
What’s it like to be a trainee teacher at QES?
Starting placement B, I felt just
like I did on my first day of Year
7; scared, nervous and apprehensive surrounded by a sea of
unfamiliar faces. These feelings
were only human, but now
looking back, I had no need to
worry. I could not have asked
for a better experience than I
have received at QES. The support of both my mentors and
the whole cohort of staff has
been endless.
The Maths department, in particular, have made my journey
through the last 12 weeks a
memorable one. They are incredibly busy, as are all teachers, but answering my questions was never a problem.
Every single person connected
to QES can be proud to know
they are a part of this community and I will be extremely sad
to leave.
Beth Dyer, Maths
30
Upon arriving at QES in February, the first thing that I
couldn’t fail to notice was the
friendliness of the staff and the
politeness and smart appear-
ance of the pupils. In the many
weeks that have passed since,
things have only got better and
better. It has been a pleasure to
get to know the various classes
that I have had on my timetable, particularly my form (but
then they are the best form in
Year 8!). Pupils at QES seem far
more willing to get stuck in,
and participate than any other
school in which I have taught
before, and this was reflected
in the impressive performance
that was put in by Years 7, 8
and 9 at the inter-form cross
country in April. My only regret
as I move to other places is that
there wasn’t a space for me to
stay for good! Many thanks to
you all.
Gregor Smith, PE
My time at QES was fantastic
and I couldn’t have asked for
a better school for my teacher
training. From the initial induction day, right through to the
last few days, I felt comfortable
and at ease, both within my department and the wider school
community. Throughout my
placement, my mentors were
fantastic, being supportive
and always having time for me
– they really made me feel valued as a teacher, and a person.
I thoroughly enjoyed embracing the chance to get involved
in school life in many frequent
and varied ways. I helped with
clubs, sporting events, interform competitions and much
more. This really enhanced my
experience and made me feel
a full part of the QES community.
The pupils were (mostly!) a
pleasure to teach; polite, respectful, and understanding
of any mistakes I might have
made as a trainee. I know I will
miss many of them and definitely remember others! I made
some amazing friends on the
staff, and will certainly be staying in touch with some of them
for many years to come.
Overall, despite the obvious
workload, I have to say I never
felt being at QES was like being
at work. I enjoyed every day
of it, and am sad the time has
come to an end – if I could, I
would do it all again!
Alison Grant, RE
I have had a great experience
at QES; I have enjoyed the challenge and grown as a teacher
because of it. The pupils have
been fantastic and have been a
pleasure to work with. The QES
core values are such an important part of the school life and
it has been reflected in both
the staff and pupils throughout.
There are so many opportunities for the pupils to get involved in; it is nice to see so
many pupils taking advantage
of this. I have enjoyed particularly working with the music
staff alike were both welcoming and reassuring.
department staff and the wind
band and jazz band, a highlight
of which was the joint concert
with the Doncaster Symphony
Schools’ Orchestra.
It was obvious to see the school
mission statement of ‘scholarship and care’ in every aspect
of school life: echoed along
corridors, in classrooms and in
the staffroom. This is a school
that staff, pupils and parents
should be proud of and it has
been a privilege to be part of
the school community at QES.
I would like to thank all staff
and pupils for making me feel
so welcome at QES, especially
those directly involved in my
progress and personal development, classes I have taught
and staff I have worked with.
Danielle Moorhouse
Geography
Thank you to all the pupils and
staff who have made me feel
so welcome at QES.
Lauren Worthington, Music
Arriving at QES I felt nervous but excited. Butterflies in
my tummy, worried thoughts
about pupils not liking me
and getting lost in a big school
came flooding back like I was
in my slightly too big uniform
about to start school again!
Thinking back now I realise just
how quickly these nerves and
fears vanished as pupils and
Adult Education classes in Kirkby Lonsdale
Here are details of courses that
Sedbergh CDC is planning for
the autumn term in Kirkby
Lonsdale in partnership with
QES. From early August further
information will be available
on our website, and from our
brochure which you will find
in local shops, libraries etc. In
late August an Adult Education
special of the Cumbria County
Council Your Choice magazine
will be delivered to you by
Royal Mail. This will contain information on all Adult Education courses in the county. To
find out more, or go onto our
email distribution list, please
contact us at Sedbergh CDC,
tel: 015396 21031
email: [email protected]
Website: www.sedberghcdc.org.uk
Meet us in person at our Enrolment Evening on Tuesday 8th
September, 5pm – 8pm at QES
Code
Subject
Art & Craft
KBL9010 Lattice & Cobweb Felt Scarves
KBL9051 Introduction to Watercolour
KBL9065 You CAN Draw
KBL9049 Painting with Watercolour & Ink
KBL9109 Life Drawing
KBL9050 Sculpting with Clay
Tutor
Day Weeks Time
Angela Barrow
James Devaney
James Devaney
James Devaney
Judith Davies
Jane Timshle
Sat
Sat
Sat
Tue
Tue
Thu
1
1
1
12
12
10
All Day
All Day
All Day
Afternoon
Evening
Evening
Computing & Digital Photography
KBL9004 Computer Basics
Vic Brown
KBL9047 Beginner’s Internet & Email
Vic Brown
KBL9069 Buying & Selling on Ebay
Chris Wood
KBL9066 Developing Computer Skills
Vic Brown
KBL9098 Intro to Digital Cameras
Chris Wood
KBL9094 NOCN Level 1 Award in ICT
Vic Brown
Thu
2
Thu 10
Wed 1
Tue 10
Wed 5
Tue 22
Evening
Evening
Evening
Evening
Evening
Evening
Languages
KBL9024 French Conversation
KBL9095 Spanish Beginners
KBL9089 Italian Beginners Plus
KBL9001 Italian Continuing
L. Luckham
To be confirmed
Amanda Rose
George Handley
Tue
Mon
Thu
Thu
13
10
12
10
Evening
Evening
Evening
Evening
Various
KBL9079 Learning About Antiques
KBL9084 Yoga
KBL9099 Understanding Children
KBL9100 Help Your Child with Maths
Chris Lane
Sandra Tallon
David Walton
Rachel Storry
Tue 10
Mon 13
TBC
5
Mon 5
Morning
Evening
Morning
Evening
31
QESAnews
Languages roundup
Year 6 French
New
Cross-curricular
Culture Day
Qualification
MFL project
This term, we have been experimenting with CLIL in school.
CLIL stand for Content and
Language Integrated Learning
and basically means teaching a subject such as History
through the medium of another language.
It has been fascinating for me
to work with other subject
teachers, Mrs Motch and Mr
Stanley in History, Miss Peck in
Geography and Mr Rogers in
Science to look at Schemes of
Work and how they teach their
subject, and then to experi-
ment with this cutting edge
methodology. We have been
fortunate to host two trainee
teachers this term and work
with them to produce collaborative resources and trial
them at QES.
32
One Y7 class has been taught
History through French, two
Y8 classes Geography through
Spanish, and one Y10 German
group Biology through German.
H. Martin
Asst. Head/Director Languages
Miss Sargeant organised
our now annual Year 6 Culture Day which was hosted
at QES on June 19th.
Year 6 pupils from St
Mary’s,
Burton-in-Kendal and Leck enjoyed a
fascinating day looking
at, making and tasting
the food eaten in France
as well as in other French
speaking countries such
as Algeria, Guadeloupe
and Quebec, and learned
more about those countries and the language
they all share.
Foundation Certificate of
Secondary Education
Year 9s have just completed
their portfolios for the FCSE
in French and we will be
getting the first certificates
through this summer. Pupils
have completed a number
of units on various topics
- Education, Holidays, Food
& Drink and World of Work.
The qualification gives GCSE
points and can count up to a
grade D at GCSE, depending
on the total marks obtained.
Year 8 French are starting
their first unit this term and
will complete it in Year 9.
M.E.Brummitt
Other Language
College Events
On Thursday 18 June, French
Theatre group presented
a comedy, Les Trois Mousquetières, to Y7; Friday 19 June
was Y6 French Culture Day;
Sunday 30 June to Friday July 4
was the Y8 trip to Paris; and in
early July we saw Year 8 enjoy a
Chinese Day.
H. Martin
Report from the QES Association
Hello and welcome to the QESA
news. It’s been another busy
few months and one of the
highlights has been handing
over £12,000 to various projects and departments across
school. None of this would be
possible without the generosity of parents, carers, friends
and staff who have helped
and supported our events over
the past year, benefiting our
children throughout different stages of their education.
Thank you!
QESA Donations
to Departments
Chess Club: Chess equipment.
Landscape Committee: Resources to set up a vegetable
garden. Biology: Balances and
junior microscopes. Chemistry: Balances, oven and icemaker. Physics: Ripple strobe
tank, a laser and a cell model
car science kit. English: Video
cameras. MFL: IT software
programme. Art: Drying rack,
Nikon camera, 2 Berninas and
a Kopy Kat Kwik Draw. History: Digital camera. Music:
Electric guitar and ear phones.
Library: Freesat HD package.
PE: Camcorder. Food Technology: International cookery
books and ingredients fund.
Textiles: Craft books and materials for Textiles Club
Pub Quiz
We held our first pub quiz at
the Silverdale Hotel at the end
of February. The turn-out was
somewhat disappointing but it
was a good fun/social evening,
making a total of £178.00.
Thanks to the Silverdale Hotel
for organising the event and
to school support staff, QESA
members and the local support from Silverdale Village. We
are hoping to arrange three
pub quizzes a year in three different locations, allowing everyone a chance to participate
at a venue close to home. Keep
an eye out on the QESA news
page on the school website for
further events advertised in
the future.
Kendal College Dinner
The Association organised a
fund-raising dinner at Kendal
College in March. It was a wonderful evening with outstanding food and service, as well as
being a fun, social event. The
students at the college cooked
and served a delicious menu
which included salad of asparagus tips and roasted peppers
with walnuts and feta cheese,
and breast of guinea fowl filled
with spring onions and cream
cheese. The evening raised
£372.00. Thanks to everyone
who made the evening such
a success. Special thanks to
Kendal College Chefs Yannick
Lequitte and Richard Axford,
Restaurant Manager Graeme
Hedley and their team of talented young chefs and restaurant students.
to Kents Bank on Saturday
29th August. This is a separate
fund raiser for the PE Department, targeting sporty pupils
and their parents/carers to
help with transport costs etc.
As places are very limited, they
will be offered to these pupils
and their families in the first
instance. It promises to be an
unforgettable experience and
a perfect activity to round off
the summer holidays. We hope
to make this an annual event.
Promise Auction
We have an exciting event
planned for Friday 6th November. The Association will
be working together with
our Washington trip fundraisers to organise an auction of
promises. This could, be an extremely profitable event. The
Washington Trip group work
very hard with various fundraising events and this really is
a fantastic opportunity to work
together for the benefit our
school and all the pupils. We
will no doubt be in touch very
soon with requests for all your
valuable promises!
Finally, we would like to wish
you all a pleasant and relaxing summer and we look forward to sharing another busy,
fun-packed QESA calendar of
events with you during the
forthcoming school year.
Fiona Sheldon & Diane Lequitte
Cross-bay Walk
We are organising a Cross Bay
Sponsored Walk from Arnside
33
SPORTSdesk
Australia Sports Tour 2010
Fundraising for the Australia 2010 tour commenced in
March with a successful Quiz
night - so successful we arranged another for Friday 3rd
July. Thank you to everyone
who entered a team or helped
in any way at both evenings.
Over the May Day Bank Holiday
weekend at the Wray scarecrow
festival we ran a mega cake
stall and rifle range. Despite the
typical English weather we had
another successful day. Thank
you to everyone who baked
or helped man the stall on the
day. Well done and thank you
to Chloe Brown, Will Teal and
George Close, who ran a stall at
Sedbergh Gala, and Matt Percy,
Jack Dickinson and Robin Lowery who arranged and ran a
stall at Hutton Roof Fell Race.
Exams have seen work for the
tour brochure put on hold, but
thanks to Mr Close for working
with and helping the students
with initial preparations for
sourcing sponsorship. If you
are interested in placing an
advert in the tour brochure or
sponsoring a team, match or
We have secured some dates
for bag packing, so if you see
the students in the Lancaster,
Kendal or Carnforth supermarkets please support them.
At the Summer Fair on Sunday
12 July we set up various stalls
to help boost our fundraising efforts. If you would like
to support the students with
their fundraising or maybe you
have some fundraising ideas
you would like to share with
us please contact the Australia fundraising committee at
school.
H.Pakeman
Ski trip 2010 - Sansicario
Rugby League
Preparations for the 2010 ski trip are well under way although it
seems a long way off at the moment. All responses about daily instruction hours have unanimously been for 5 hours. This will mean
pupils can ski a lot more of the area.
The annual match between
6th form leavers and staff took
place on a wet afternoon in
April beginning with a minute’s
silence in memory of the late
Paul Percy who had been referee for all the previous fixtures.
Thanks go to the new referee
Mr Longley who allowed as
free-flowing a game as he
could in the conditions. Both
teams tried to move the ball
around, with the staff winning
a well-contested game by two
tries to nil.
It is also good to see most pupils have taken the option of wearing
a helmet for the week. If you have any questions concerning the
trip please do not hesitate contact me at school
A. Beck
Community sport at QES
34
individual student please contact Mr Higson at school.
2009 has seen QES host and
run several holiday camps for
students aged from Year 1 to
Year 13! In conjunction with
the RFU, a Rugby camp over
February half term gave the opportunity for pupils in Year 7 to
9 to develop their skills. During
Easter a Year 1 to 8 Multi-skills
camp took place, followed
by a Senior Hockey camp for
boys and girls. May half term
saw another Multi-skills camp
at QES, with two more due to
take place over the summer.
Within school, the usual wide
range of extra-curricular clubs
and fixtures has run at QES,
thanks to the hard work and effort of a significant number of
staff giving freely of their time.
To complement this, outside
coaches have been brought
in to widen the experience of
pupils, in activities such as Kick
Boxing, Trampolining, Gymnastics, Fencing, Basketball and
winter Cricket nets. This gives
QES students sporting opportunities comparable with any
school in the country.
R. Mayhew
For the first time we have been
able to run coaching sessions
for the lower school throughout the year and this will allow
pupils to progress through the
training structure in school
from Y8 right up to Y13. Thanks
to all the pupils and staff who
have been involved with
coaching this year.
S. Rushton
Cricket Report 2009
U13
Despite losing early fixtures to
the weather, the U13 Cricket
Team made a winning start to
their season away to Heysham
Sports College. Put into bat
first, by a side who the week
previously had beaten Morecambe HS by 120 runs, QES
lost an early wicket to a fine
Heysham bowling attack. The
ship was then steadied as the
next two QES batsmen put on
74 runs. This proved to be the
catalyst for some late heavy
scoring, which took QES to
138 off their 20 overs. In reply,
Heysham were always kept behind the run rate, ending on
118 for 9. With numbers high
at training, and remaining fixtures against QEGS, Penrith,
Ripley St Thomas, Giggleswick,
Queen Katherine and Kirkbie
Kendal, the boys can look forward to an exciting end to their
sporting season at QES. Owain
Houghton reports below in
more detail on some of the
matches.
R.Mayhew
Windermere
St Anne’s Bunbury Cup
After being rained off, our
second attempt to play the
fixture was successful. We lost
the toss and were put in to bat.
After the first over we were 3-2
and weren’t looking too great.
However, when Harry Ralston
met Owain Houghton at the
crease we managed to scramble a respectable target of 64
off 12 overs. Owain Houghton
19*, Harry Ralston 15.
As we went out to field, the
bowling attack was opened by
Joe Portman and Tom Halsey.
With help from more talented
bowlers we easily strangled
them to 18. So that was the
preliminary round over and
done with - now to the real
games.
Heysham High
School friendly
After coming off the end of
a good win we were all really confident. We won the toss
and decided to field. Our bowling was excellent, and star of
the show George Pickering got
4 wickets. They got 65 off their
20 overs.
In the batting department
there were some awesome
displays. Joe Portman got 15
before he tried to hit it over
midwicket and was bowled.
Richard Herron, our star wicketkeeper, held the innings together with 8*. Although quite
a few people got ducks, we
sailed to victory in 9 overs and
won the game.
QEGS Penrith 1st
Round Bunbury Cup
Again this was our second attempt to play the game. We
won the toss again and put
them in to bat again. After an
early breakthrough there were
a few more wickets and a bit of
a slog, combined with dodgy
fielding, meant they got 62 off
their 16 overs.
We started off well, with Joe
Portman getting quick runs.
We had then a bit of a slump as
we lost a few wickets, but David Voakes and Ryan Teasdale
hit a load of boundaries and
wrapped the game up with a
close but important win. Yet
again Richard Herron held the
innings together, before getting run out to a direct hit.
Owain Houghton
U14
The U14 Cricket Team had a
good start to the season. At
the time of writing they are in
the third round of the County
cup seeing off Kirby Stephen
Grammar and Queen Katherine School. They have a tough
fixture against Sedbergh in the
third round, but confidence is
high.
They unfortunately lost to Heysham, after having to chase a
massive 170 runs off 16 overs,
but put up a good fight scoring
103, which in any other match
would have been enough to
win. The side has rediscovered
some batting form, taking inspiration from Jake Taylor, who
is showing good discipline
with the bat.
The maturity shown by Joe Atkinson, who also captains the
side and is a county player, is
rubbing off on the players. He
is setting the field, and has a
big part to play in the selection, so a big congratulations
to Joe. Giggleswick and Ripley
St. Thomas fixtures happen too
late in the term to make it into
this newsletter, but let’s hope
they can pick themselves up
for those fixtures.
Competition for positions
has never been higher, with a
record numbers turning up for
training, so keep up the good
work!
D.Williams
35
Cricket cont’d
Year 10
In Year 10 cricket this summer,
so far we have played 3 games.
Our first game of the season
saw us play Windermere St.
Annes at home in the county
cup. Alex Taylor (captain) lost
the toss and we bowled first.
The bowlers were disciplined
and bowled tight lines while
we fielded well as a team, bowling them out cheaply for only
nineteen runs. We knocked off
the runs in just two overs, only
losing one wicket as Sam Whitfield scored the majority of the
runs to cap an excellent team
performance.
In the next round of the county
cup we played Ullswater away.
Again we lost the toss and
bowled first. Our bowling and
fielding was below par and the
opposition raced to 149 for 5
wickets off 20 overs.
With a big task ahead of us our
innings got off to a good start
but when one of our openers was removed it saw us fall
into a middle order collapse
that put us in a bad position.
Brendan Herron steadied the
ship with a knock of 45 runs
but it wasn’t enough to win the
game as we ended on 143 for
9 wickets, just 7 runs short of
our target. In our latest game
we played Ripley away in a
friendly. We batted first after
winning the toss. On a poor
batting pitch we only managed to make 81 for 6 wickets
off 20 overs. They got the runs
in 16 overs after a valiant effort
from us in the field.
36
Marcus Nicholson, 10S
Girls’
Junior Hockey
Girls’
Junior Tennis
This has been a hugely successful year for junior hockey
at school and our thanks go to
all those girls who turned out,
week after week, in all weathers to sharpen up their skills in
quest of excellence. Your practice certainly paid off girls!
The U13 tennis team has made
a great start to the summer,
even managing to get three
of our matches played in actual sunshine before the rot set
in, the heavens opened and
the deluge began! We have
won our league in the Aegon
Team Tennis School Competition and now go through to
the county semi-final where
we are due to play a team
from Silloth. Good luck to all
the girls involved and thanks
a bunch for your efforts this
year. Fingers crossed for the
semis.
A.Blackburn
This year our U12 and U13
teams remain undefeated and
have both finished the season
as South Cumbria Champions,
destroying the opposition
along the way. The future certainly looks bright!
Congratulations go to the following girls who were selected
for South Cumbria:
U12 A: Rachael Harkness (captain), Sasha Cotton, Lauren
Challis, Alice Clews Smith
U13 A: Esme Kilshaw, Amy
Cordukes, Beth Cordukes, Sarah Garnett (captain)
U13B: Katharine Lovell (captain), Mirte Boot, Amy Kerr
U14: Sally Scott
Special thanks to Miss Garne
and Debbie Harkness for all
their support in running the
Year 7 and 8 practices and
teams this year. When you are
faced with hundreds of eager
young hopefuls it is great to
have another pair of hands and
eyes to help out! Thanks, the
season would not have been
the same without you. I look
forward to next year when I am
sure we will build on the strong
foundations established this
year and go on from strength
to strength! Thanks girls and
well done to all of you.
A. Blackburn
Boys’ Tennis
The Year 8 and 10 boys have
had a very successful start
to the tennis season. Spearheaded by Patrick Rycroft for
the U13s and the return of
Tom Davies for the U15s, they
have won all their matches
so far, beating Dallam, Settlebeck, Windermere and the
Lakes School. They are both
now in the semi-finals of the
County Cup, to play Solway
Community School.
Due to the nature of the fixtures being a team result we
should not forget the performance of the other players,
so a massive well done to all
involved. A special thank you
is to be paid to John Griffen
who puts a lot of time into
coaching our keen tennis
players. The success of the
tennis squad is largely due to
his high quality and professional tennis sessions run at
QES, so thanks to John.
D.Williams
Rosslyn Park 7-a-side rugby tournament March 2009
bad luck hampered QES at this
point. Phil Lequeux had succumbed to blisters, and some
adverse refereeing decisions
allowed City of London back
into the game. With a try in the
last seconds they knocked QES
out of the tournament with the
final score standing at 24-19.
Back (LtoR): Tristan Burd, George Close, Grant Smille, Harry Neale, Will Teal, Richard Hart
Front (LtoR): Phil Lequeux, Adam Caton, Ben Cassar, Leo Mercer, Josh Pewsey, Liam Cleary
Durham were the final test
The Rosslyn Park 7s is the biggest rugby tournament in the in the group stages and, decountry and QES were invited spite the fact that they had an
for the first time ever. Need- England A winger, QES again
less to say, the challenge was started strongly. Josh Pewsey
daunting. With most of the and Leo Mercer were both
teams in the tournament com- in inspired form and another
convincing result (33-17) uning from private schools and
derlined the QES dominance
specialist sports colleges, expectations were understand- of group V.
ably modest.
City of London, Freeman were
It was some encouragement the team opposition in the
that QES won their first game first knockout round. For the
by the handsome margin of first time QES fell behind to an
early try which demonstrated
38-19 against Sherbourne
School. Tries from Josh Pewsey, the pace of the opposition.
Phil Lequeux, Liam Cleary and Tries from Leo Mercer and Josh
Leo Mercer rounded off an im- Pewsey however meant that
pressive debut match in the QES had the lead at half time.
Unfortunately, several pieces of
competition.
The London Oratory School
were also impressive in winning their first match and
QES played them next. Two
tries from George Close in the
opening minutes put QES in a
strong position. The result was
secured by the hard work and
support running of Will Teal,
who crossed to make sure of
another victory (27-19).
Upon reflection the QES under16s had still achieved a great
deal. They had convincingly
won their group against some
quality opposition and had actually been knocked out at the
same stage as Sedbergh.
I would like to take this opportunity to offer my congratulations and thanks to the whole
under-16s squad (including
those who weren’t involved in
the 7-a-side team). Over the
last five years of their school
lives they have grown, not only
into decent rugby players, but
also into genuinely decent
people. Their competitive yet
sportsman-like approach to
all that they do is a credit to
the school. I hope they have
learned half as much from me
as I have from them!
A. Rawson
LtoR: Danny Care (England international),
Leo Mercer, Adam Caton, Phil Lequeux,
Ugo Monye (England international)
37
The Ballad of the Rosslyn Park Sevens
Netball Tour 2009 - three reports
game. Our 1st IV played a visiting team from Repton who
were outstanding but we gave
them a good match. After a
cooked lunch we went bowling
and then to the cinema to see
New in Town. We bought takeaway meals in Uttoxeter from a
chippy, pizzeria, Chinese and
Indian. Yummy.
Gather round close and I’ll tell you the tale,
Of the Rosslyn Park Sevens, played out in a gale.
Twelve strapping lads with two coaches to guide,
We arrived just in time, the TomTom had lied!
Sherbourne were first, and they played in blue.
Phil got a try, and Pewsey got two.
More tries were scored, so we finished in style.
The best dressed team were the best by a mile.
Oratory next, the challenge was real,
But they weren’t really banking on a try from Will Teal!
George got a couple, another match won,
But in just 14 minutes we’d had wind, rain and sun.
A win against Durham would finish the rout.
With Leo on form, it was never in doubt.
We’d won the group, we had it made,
And we still had plenty of Gatorade.
In the next match however, our luck had all gone.
Ahead at half time but we couldn’t hold on.
A disallowed try and a feeding offence,
It was close but defeat was the consequence.
So that is the tale of the QES crowd,
They’d all played so well and done themselves proud.
No trophy for now but never you fear.
Keep it warm for us boys; we’ll be back for it next year!
On 27 February three netball
teams and four members of
staff all set off on the second
tour to Rosliston in Derbyshire.
After finally packing the minibuses so that we and our luggage could fit in, we set off.
We arrived at our lodges three
hours later and it wasn’t long
before our first matches against
Friary School in Lichfield.
It was great to catch up with
the same players we met two
years ago and we were overall
successful with two wins by
the sixth form and Year 11. We
were then invited for tea and
biscuits.
The highlight of the tour happened in the Fitness room
where we had a go with their
Dance mats and reaction wall.
We were awesome. We had a
great time. Supper in the lodges was delicious.
On Saturday we played a private school called Denstone
College. Our U14 were sadly
beaten by a very strong team
but the U16 played the 2nd IV
and beat them in a very close
On Sunday we had an early get
up for laser combat where we
fired laser guns at each other
out in the forest. Camouflage
makeup was everywhere. The
guns were really heavy. Then
some retail therapy in Burtonupon-Trent where everyone
spent a fortune.
Monday saw us travel to another private school in Rochester (near Alton Towers). Our
U14 and 1st VI won and the U
16 had no game so we went
crate stacking! By teatime we
were all ready for a sleep on
the minibus on the way home.
A very busy weekend but great
fun. Thanks to Miss Pakeman,
Mrs Blackburn, Mrs Winstanley
and Miss Jeffrey for organising
another great tour.
The U16 Netball team
Earlier this year in February
three netball teams from QES
set out for the Midlands for the
sole purpose of having some
fun (and if we had time, play a
few netball matches).
38
By Mr Rawson (Written in fifteen minutes in the hotel room before dinner!)
Success struck in the netball
matches with getting at least
four wins over the three teams.
However when we weren’t
working hard in matches or
training we had time for lots of
39
SUMMERideas
fun activities including a combo night of bowling, cinema
and takeaway, and a morning
of shopping.
However the highlight of the
trip must have been the night
spent sumo wrestling! Huge
padded suits, cameras and
laughs are all that’s needed for
an entertaining night! So the
triumphant teams returned
home fully exhausted and already looking forward to the
next time.
Charlotte Tomlin 12C
40
On 28 February the Year 9, 11
and 6th Form netball teams
went to Rosliston Forestry Centre. We stayed there for three
nights, playing a tournament
against three other netball
teams. Every team played well
and we all had an amazing
time. As well as playing netball
we managed a trip to the cinema, bowling, some shopping
and taking part in sumo wrestling and laser combat. Thank
you so much to Miss Pakeman,
Mrs Winstanley, Miss Jeffrey
and Mrs Blackburn for organising the trip. Hope to have another one soon!
Lydia McMeekin
South Lakes
Tag Rugby
Festival
South Lakes
District
Athletics
A fantastic day at the end of
May saw boys and girls from
twenty-four Primary Schools
across South Lakes come together at Kirkby Lonsdale
Rugby Club for a great day of
sport.
QES took a strong group
of athletes to Blackpool for
this annual event, where
individuals are chosen to
go forward to represent
South Lakes at the Cumbria
Schools County Championships in Carlisle. Following
the success of the students,
the following were selected
to represent South Lakes at
the championships.
This was a joint venture, run
and organised by the RFU and
6th Form Students from QES
who participate in the school’s
Performance and Coaching Excellence Programme (PACE).
The students, who have all
trained and qualified as RFU
Tag Rugby Coaches, were
taking their first steps on the
coaching ladder, and proved to
be a credit to both themselves
and the school. In no small
way a wonderful day, where
sport was the winner, thanks
to the time and effort put in by
these boys both on, and prior
to, the day. Hopefully the experience they gave to the next
generation of sporting boys
and girls will help Rugby in the
district prosper for many years
to come.
R.Mayhew
Sam Merckel & Chris Martin
both from 7L organised their
own sponsored (topless) bike
ride in aid of Comic Relief. They
cycled from Caton along the
cycle track to Glasson Dock,
where they posed topless for
a photoshoot, but then put
on more suitable attire for the
cold winds! Between them
they raised £100 - thanks to all
their friends and teachers who
sponsored them.
K. Merckel
Junior Boys:
Tom Crackles (TJ)
James Mason (200m)
Isaac Dennis (Discus)
Dan Farley (HJ)
Leo Mercer (100m)
Louis Morris (Shot Putt)
Inter Boys:
Patrick Vicary (800m &
1500m)
Leo Mercer (100m)
Josh Pewsey (100m Hurdles & 200m)
Oliver Blackburn (400m
Hurdles & TJ)
Joseph Whittle (LJ and
400m)
Senior Boys:
Jake Fawcett (HJ & LJ)
Adam Garnett (LJ)
Junior Girls:
Katherine Atkinson (100m)
Jazmyn Brocklebank (Shot
& Discus)
Inter Girls:
Alisha Casement (300m
Hurdles & 80m Hurdles)
Helena Casement (800m)
Charlotte Rickards (1500m
& TJ)
Senior Girls:
Lizzie Wignall (1500m &
3000m).
R.Mayhew
41
42

Queen Elizabeth School

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