Weekly Newsletters

After half term, Year 11 students must attend units 1-4, signing out at break 2. In addition if they have yet to sit an examination in their unit 5 subject, they must also attend this unit.

Year 11 are offered a complimentary breakfast from 7.30 am prior to a morning examination taking place, with water being offered in the exam hall. Students are also able to attend a pre-exam warm up session where they have a chance to ask a subject specialist any last minute questions they may have.

Next week, is just as busy. I will look forward to meeting Year 7 students at the Subject evening on Tuesday, which takes place from 4-7 pm.  If you are a parent of Year 8 then you can now begin to book appointments with your child’s subject teacher for Tuesday 5 June.

Best wishes

Bryan Erwin
Principal

As a school the ‘Community’ in our name is very important to us and, as a Performing Arts faculty, we are keen to develop further community links. That is why, twelve months ago, we started our Ken Stimpson Community Choir. This small group of adults and their families started with the words “I can’t sing”  but have gone from strength to strength and, this year, was awarded First Prize in the Community Choir class of the Peterborough Music Festival; a huge achievement.

This has now also been supplemented with a partnership with the Peterborough Youth Orchestra to form the "Peterborough Community Orchestra”, a brand new instrumental group for musicians of all standards and all ages (including adults) with many members coming back to playing and performing after many years. These groups are alongside the City of Peterborough Youth Ensembles (CPYE) that have called Ken Stimpson home since 2012.

If you’ve ever wanted to sing in a choir, but have been too nervous to try, or if you play (or have played) an instrument in a group why not get in touch and come along. All groups rehearse at Ken Stimpson weekly during term-time at the following times:-

KSCS Community Choir-: Wednesdays 5.45-6.45pm. E-mail Mr. Norman for more details (r.norman@kscs.org.uk)

Peterborough Community Orchestra : Wednesdays 7.15-9.15pm. E-mail the Orchestra for more details (peterboroughcommunityorchestra@gmail.com)

City of Peterborough Youth Ensembles : Thursdays 5.00-7.15pm. E-mail CPYE for more details (cpyemusicleader@gmail.com)

We are also keen to develop links with other community groups; recently sharing the stage with the Take Note Community Choir as well as other performances around the city. If you are involved in an arts organisation we would love to hear from you about possible future joint collaborations.

Both the Community Orchestra and Community Choir will be performing as part of our Community Evening at the school on Friday 29 June, starting at 6.30pm alongside the Club 73 choir. This will also be your opportunity to see our choir and a cappella groups in extended performances for Disneyland Paris just two weeks before they leave as well as watching our dancers in a fantastic piece with musicians from the Peterborough Centre for Young Musicians. 

Mr Norman
Head of Faculty: Performing Arts and Music

The workshop was hosted by the Transformation trust and delivered by Efe, a leading youth motivational speaker who only the day before had received the BEM British Empire Medal from the Queen at Buckingham Palace celebrating her work with young people. The day at the university focused on the IT industry and included the students working in teams, researching, planning and designing a new technology based product to address current social issues. The teams then pitched and presented their idea to Lincoln University staff and the student ambassadors, Efe and a representative from Dell.  All teams had some innovative ideas and delivered pitches with confidence and answered challenging questions on their products. As staff we felt very proud of them, well done everyone. A winning team was selected by the University Ambassadors and Dell staff, congratulations to Mehdi Faqirzad, Dylan McIlroy, Amy Hunter, Michael Balasal and Julia Lora their idea was a robot called Pax who would combat loneliness and encourage a healthy lifestyle.  


Students also had the opportunity to tour the university campus with student ambassadors and it was wonderful to see an ex student of Ken Stimpson, Bradley Sawkins representing the university and supporting our students during the day.

Efe said of the day:  The Dell Powering Transformation programme was a great success when delivered to the amazing students at Ken Stimpson Community School. All of the students were engaged, enthusiastic and produced fantastic ideas in the workshops. I was so impressed and inspired at their progress and presentation skills throughout day. They are a credit to the school and it was a joy to work with both the students and teachers. Efe 

The Careers Team
Mrs Patman, Mrs Gregg, Mrs Ayre, Mr Billitt, Miss Kingston & Mr Ennis

We created a mental health awareness display which students could access every break and lunchtime throughout the week. They could find out about the variety of help and support that is available to them, whether in school, out of school and online.   Flapjacks and energy balls were available to purchase during the week which were made by a number of Year 7 & 8 students.

We have also been running a Well Being Logo competition the winning design will be announced after half term.

As the week nationally has focused on stress we wanted to show students that there are many things they can do when they might feel stressed and students and staff have shared their ideas during the week, here are some wonderful suggestions that we have had over the week and we hope that we all might benefit from trying these:

When I'm stressed I ............

• Listen to music
• Call a friend and have a good chat
• Make a cake
• Walk the dog
• Watch a movie 
• Do Yoga 
• Laugh
• Talk to family
• Draw / Paint / Colour
• Sing or Play an instrument
• Punch a pillow

We would like to say a special thank you to the wonderful students who have helped us with the stand throughout the week, you have all done a brilliant job raising the profile of positive mental health.

 

Our Student Well-being Ambassadors, Mrs Gregg & Mrs Patman

Revision in students spare time in school and at home from numerous resources that have been made available is  more important than ever. Revising SMART (topics students struggle with) is the key to improving their grades from the previous PPEs.  

A great way of doing this is through the free PiXL Maths App which is available for download on all smartphones and can be accessed on laptops, desktop computers and iPads. We have been busy uploading students recent marks from their Maths PPEs onto the app and students can now work directly on their own individual areas of weakness. The app has excellent videos and PowerPoints to help students relearn topics with lots of questions to practice on too! If students have forgotten how to access the App or their login details they will need to see their class teacher.

Every week I have been sending out resources students can start using at home called the final countdown. I am pleased to attach week 13 of the countdown in this edition of the newsletter. This is a set of resources of questions students can do at home with parental support (markschemes have also been added as well as examiners reports). As well as the countdown please find attached a PowerPoint about how to do a Maths exam, a lot of this could also apply to other stubjects as well! Furthermore there is a PLC students can use to track their progress which can also be used alongside HegartyMaths (www.hegartymaths.com) and/or the PiXL Maths App. 

Please do feel free to email me personally for advice and more resources to help Year 11s revise at l.donnelly@kscs.org.uk. Together we can ensure our students are successful in the exams ahead. Depending on year halves and exam commitments there is only one lesson between maths papers so the revision sessions offered during May half term and on Saturday the 9th of June will be vital for students revision from predicted papers.

After school revision classes are ongoing with maths teachers available Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Half term revision and a Super Saturday on June 9th will take place where students will be given predicted papers for paper two and three which in previous years have been extremely accurate so attendance at these sessions could be the difference between grades.

Mr Donnelly
Maths

Aspire are still in first place this week with the other Houses closing in behind them. Exams have started this week, so it is a very busy time in school. Year 11s still need to attend lessons and come into school as normal. For the rest of the school it is business as usual and you must continue to attend on time so that you can get the most out of your lessons. If you are ill you need to call the school daily and on the third day you will need medical documentation. Good luck to Year 11 and Post 16 for your exams.

Mrs Blackledge
Attendance Officer