Weekly Newsletters

This week I have met with Year 11 students to explain the following that I would like to share with you

1.    There is no study leave.  Educational research demonstrates students that go on study leave early, are not as likely as their peers to perform as well in the examinations

2.    Students attend all lessons for a subject until the final examination has taken place at which point the lessons will stop and they will only attend on a part time basis, signing out of school at appropriate times.  

3.    Prior to the examinations, the school will be providing a breakfast menu and a booster session.  I have stressed about leaving for school a little bit earlier than normal just to avoid being delayed and the impact this may have on starting an examination in the wrong frame of mind.

4. Year 11 students need to be in full uniform whilst attending lessons and examinations. 

5. Balance your studies with a good dose of fun activities to relieve the stress, but try to not overdue one or the other.  Distractions are so tempting but remember after the exams you have up to 10 weeks to switch off!

Key Dates for Year 11

• June 26 Year 11 Graduation Day
• June 28 + 29 Post 16 Induction days
• July 5 Year 11 Prom
• August 23 GCSE Results Day (Assembly Hall) starting from 9.00am

Revision Help and tips

I am grateful to Mr Abbott and Mr O’Neill for providing the following revision tips in the article below -"Revision strategies and access to past examination papers"

I also shared with the Year 11 students two fee resources on how to plan your revision:  

•      https://www.revisionplan.com

•      https://getrevising.co.uk/planner

Wellbeing opportunities

My final message to all students is that you cannot pay for your education on credit.  What do I mean by this?  Well, you cannot put the preparation afterwards as it is too late (e.g. the credit model). The system that opens doors, requires daily focus, hard work, goals and discipline.  There needs to be a daily commitment (payment upfront) rather than an intention (payment on credit) regardless of how hard it is, boring or how you see its relevance. 

Best wishes

Bryan Erwin
Principal

Jade went on to win the girls under 18s handicap competition and came runner up in the girls under 18s scratch competition, leading to her coming 5th overall - including boys and girls! This resulted in Jade bringing home yet another trophy to proudly show off, although, Mum is struggling to find room at home to put them all!

She is very focused on her dream of playing golf professionally and is currently on a 12 handicap, so let's see if this great result reduces this further!

Well done Jade!

Mr B Erwin
Principal

This directed our young people to craft a 750-word original piece incorporating a theme that interested them. All of the entries were imaginative, inspiring and extremely well-written and the students demonstrated an artistic flair that exceeds their years.

To celebrate their achievements closer to home, Mrs Willoughby, our Head of English, was asked to read the entries and select a first, second and third place winner. Congratulations to the following students who were delighted to have received a book of their choice and some chocolates for their hard work and creative talent:

1^st place: Richard Coric (Year 9) - his wonderful narrative piece included an array of language devices, convincing imagery and characterisation.

2^nd place: Millie Salisbury (Year 9) – her creative piece was gripping and beautifully constructed to build tension and create a haunting atmosphere.

3^rd place: Isabel Skinner (Year 8) – she created an otherworldly and mesmerising setting which could be likened to the style of J.K Rowling.

On behalf of the English department, we would like to acknowledge the commitment and work ethic of our HAL students that were involved in this competition and we are excited to see how their creative pieces are received in the national competition.

National winners receive four tickets to see the London production of WICKED at the Apollo Victoria Theatre where they will also get the opportunity to meet cast members after the show along with an exclusive backstage tour. As well as this, they will receive £50 worth of books/eBooks tokens to spend, an annual subscription to First News and £100 worth of books for the winners’ school library donated by Hachette Children’s Books.

Fingers crossed and we will keep you updated when the results are in!

Miss Curtis
(HAL Lead – English)

This included general advice about revision and some specific strategies students revising for GCSE, AS / A’ Level or vocational examinations can use to help them to best prepare for their forthcoming public examinations.

The PowerPoint shown to parents is being emailed out to all students in Years 11 to 14 today and can be downloaded by parents by clicking here

One of the best ways to revise is to make use of past examination papers and mark schemes.  These can be downloaded from the following websites:

The following grid shows the various examination boards that the various departments at KSCS currently use for examinations.

Mr Abbott
Assistant Principal

We were taking part in the festival for the fifth time and have been successful in winning on every occasion we have entered previously winning four out of four. In terms of individual group wins it stood at 2 for choir and 2 for A Cappella.

 Both groups performed extremely well with confidence and panache receiving comments such as "A Joy to Watch!" and "An Energetic and Engaging Performance". 

 And so, to the results, would one of our groups win and, if so, which one would take the third title; or would it be the Peterborough School who took part and also performed extremely well? The result was A DRAW, joint winners were the School Choir and A Cappella groups jointly bringing the title back to KSCS.

 The bonus though was that both groups were awarded an 'Outstanding' rating, something that is rarely given and something that we have not received in previous years showing the continuous improvements we have made as a group. 

 Particular well done to our soloists this year Steph Pullen and Sophie Hardy in "Tell Me It's Not True", Hollie Atkins in "How Far I'll Go" and Maddie Rickards, Sophie Cowell and Chloe Blake in "Stand By Me".

But this is a team game and to win this five years consecutively shows the commitment and hard work that goes into every one of our performances.

See our performances live next week when we take part in 'Schools Make Music' at Kingsgate Church. Thursday 22 March, 7pm - Entry is Free.

Mr Norman
Head of Faculty: Performing Arts and Music

Please find attached week 5 and 6 of the countdown, If students have not already started using the resources they can add this to their resources to revise from. Every week I will be sending out resources students can start using at home called the final countdown, their are only 31 teaching days to the first maths exam on the 24th of May and revising gradually is much more effective. 

Using the countdown alongside Hegarty and other revision resources will really make the difference to closing the gap on areas students still have issues with. Please find attached the 3 weeks of the new extra questions students can do at home with the support of parents as mark schemes and examiners reports are also attached.  Also attached is a Personal Learning Checklist so students can track what they feel they have mastered and what they need more help on. This can be used alongside Hegarty maths which has video tutorials to help students understand topics. A new Maths App from Pixl will also be launched in the coming week, it is similar to Hegarty but uses powerpoints instead of videos to guide the students in any areas they struggle with. Like Hegarty this can be completed on Smart phones as well as computers which will appeal to a lot of our youngsters.

If you would like access to more look back at previous weeks on the old resources as these are equally as useful, please feel free to email me personally for advice and more resources to help Year 11s revise at l.donnelly@kscs.org.uk.

Revision guides are also available in school at cost price saving you more than 50% on the RRP. There are 3 books at £2.50 each and an answer book for £1. Please see your class teacher or Mr Hussain or Mr Donnelly if you wish to purchase these. Alternatively you could pay on the schools parent pay system.

Mr Donnelly
Second in Faculty: Maths

We would like to thank Abid Hussain and his staff from Healthy Peterborough, Will Collins and his Fire Safety crew, Jack Wright from Cook Connect, Parese Ahmed from Teenage Cancer Trust and Jackie Liken from KSCS.

As part of the healthy eating session students took part in two quizzes, Diet and Nutrition and Food and Hygiene. The following students have been awarded a £10 voucher for their efforts: Owen Brown, Marcus Peach, Aqeeb Aktar, Ruben Dos Santos for the quiz 1 and Holly Bembridge, Matteo Lobozzo and Matthew Rudd for quiz 2.

As part of the day, the students completed an evaluation, which was very positive, comments included: educating, informative, interesting, well organised, and engaging.

The next collapsed day will be for Year 11 on Tuesday 27th March 2018.

Ms McNaughton
Teacher of Social Science

Following on from our phone calls and correspondence with the companies involved we were extremely impressed and proud following their feedback. Comments ranged from 'doing exceptionally well' and 'always punctual and polite and shows a good degree of confidence.' These are the type of qualities we hope work experience can develop and encourage.

A huge thank you to all of the companies, parents, staff and most importantly students involved in making our second year of work experience so successful. You have made the school extremely proud.

Mr Billitt
House of House: Success

Students were presented to by Sally Hunt from Journalism For Schools, who taught the students how to format and properly write an article. After Sally had taught them the basics, the students went over to either Perkins Engines or Allia Business Centre to interview some of the workers for companies such as Abax and NHS. 

Students will be turning their reports into a booklet to show to young students titled “A day in the life”

Mrs Patman
Pupil Premium Administrator

We would like to remind students that their scores indicate where they are now, but with more exam practice inside and outside of school they will achieve even higher grades. In some cases that means increasing the effort applied to revision. In other students this could mean smarter revision; targeting particular topics and exam skills. They should have a better idea of where they are and what they need to do now, particularly if they attended Tuesday's subject evening. If in any doubt, please see the class teacher.

There are many great resources to help with revision, and they are freely available to everyone. An email was sent to every Y11 personally in November, listing useful websites and giving revision advice. Reminders of these will be added to the newsletter over the coming weeks. 

This week the focus is on learning the core practicals. There is good information in the revision guide, but these websites show each practical set up in a classroom and there are explanations attached.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g7jpMW6jBw&list=PL7O6CcKg0HaGP3xojKg1d4...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WChr35ilD0o&list=PLgnFz_-rsUIeTHg9ya2cla...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESk8JGx7VIU&list=PLd73NiWcskXGkhx5R7xdsv...

Not all of the practicals will apply to you as other exam boards do more core practicals than Edexcel. Again, this is where your revision guide can help you, or see your teacher if you are unsure if a video applies.

Please remember the revision sessions after school on a Wednesday in 1L07. 

British Science Week article

Sharing the work done by Y12 Biologists to highlight the importance of STEM subjects and careers - we hope you find this interesting!

Stem cell treatment

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells. This means that they have no specific role or adaptations for a job in the body.  They are able to develop themselves into specialised cells needed in the body of the host. In mammals, stem cells can be either categorised as ‘embryonic’ or ‘adult’ stem cells. Embryonic cells are taken from the  inner cell mass of a blastocyst (an early-stage embryo before it plants itself into the uterus wall). These special undifferentiated cells have the capacity to be any specialised cell found in the body. Adult stem cells can be found in bone marrow, tissues such as the brain, the blood, skeletal muscles, skin, and the liver. Unfortunately, they only have the ability to divide and generate the cell types for the organ from which it originates but can self-renew or duplicate indefinitely.

These cells are very important for treating illnesses; they are transplanted routinely to treat blood and bone marrow diseases, blood cancers and immune disorders.

How does it work? The patient receives high-dose chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy and then a stem cell transplant. At this point the donor’s stem cells will transfuse into the patient’s blood flow which will eventually make their way to the patient’s bone marrow. Since this is where your body creates new specialised cells to repair the body, the new cells will grow and provide a supply of the new cells needed in the body.

There are some drawbacks to the transplants though, like the fact that the person will have to be on immunosuppressants from around six months to a year (heightening their chances of getting other diseases and illnesses) and the stem cells can even form tumours themselves which could be cancerous.

There are ethical reasons why we do not use embryonic stem cells as some people see destroying a blastula for its cells as destroying an unborn baby. Others feel a blastula is not a formed child yet, because unless it is imbedded in the uterus wall, it will never have the chance to develop into a baby. Fertility clinics create many blastulas every year that are destroyed because they are redundant and unnecessary for the parents. Supporters of the research agree that using cells left over from these clinics for research and developing medical treatments, which could save people’s lives, is much better than throwing them away.

However, artificial embryonic stem cells have now been tested in people for the first time in November of 2017. The stem cells come from unfertilised eggs, so no life is created or ended. This brings hope for the future to all those affected by the lack of stem cells currently available to them; soon we will be able to cure as many of these diseases as possible.

Mrs Young
Science Teacher