Dear parents/carers,
I hope you have had a good week.
Some lovely news to start with – following a monologue writing workshop led by Papatango Theatre Company in November where our GCSE Drama students had their monologues published and acted out by professional actors, we have recently received the news that our very own year 9 student – OH – was awarded runner up for his monologue piece ‘Whispers in the Chamber’ in the national competition the ‘Papatango Young Playwrights’ Award’. This means that he has made it to the final six students to be shortlisted for the award out of the hundreds of students whose work is submitted across the UK yearly. We would like to congratulate him on this amazing achievement.
Our year 13 Performing Arts students undertook their Unit 27 Musical Theatre exam, a condensed version of the Mean Girls musical. Our Year 12s have worked incredibly hard on their Unit 3 Devising piece, whilst our Year 11s have completed their Unit 3 externally assessed coursework. A huge week for students and the department.
Yet again, the ‘Spring’ weather has meant we have again had a number of fixtures called off this week. We did however have our year 8 and year 9 boys football teams competing in the South Devon cup quarter finals. Unfortunately, that is where the cup dream ended for the year 8s – but the year 9s progressed through to the semi-finals with a comprehensive 3-1 win over our very local rivals Coombeshead. We wish them the best of luck for the semi-final next week.
We have had French and Spanish speaking exams over the last two weeks, with students demonstrating their skill and hard work in these all-important assessments. The MFL department have been delighted by the way students have prepared for their exams and applied themselves, demonstrating excellent organisational skills and punctuality. If they continue in this positive way, students are set for a fantastic exam season.
This afternoon Year 11 were involved in Elevate, an external revision company who have worked with our students three times this year to help them prepare for their exams. The session focused on how students can fine tune the revision skills they have learnt over the last five years, and it gave them some last-minute tips before the exams start next week. Year 11 have also had their final Morning Mastery tutor session this week. We are so proud of how they have conducted themselves over the last year in these sessions and are confident that the additional focus on Maths and English will have a positive impact on their summer results.
Continuing with exams, next week the exam window opens for our year 11 & 13 students. To provide sufficient exam rooms for all our students to sit their exams we use several classrooms close to the DCA. This means that there are several re-roomed lessons during the exam period. We share the changes with students in advance so they can write them on a copy of their timetable to minimise the disruption; and ask them to make sure they have all their equipment on them as there won’t necessarily be spares for them to borrow. Please could we ask for your support with this by ensuring that your child has the right equipment on them each day during the next six weeks. They will need, as a minimum, two black pens, a purple pen, ruler, pencil and rubber. Ideally, they would also have a highlighter pen with them as well. If your child is missing any of these items, they can purchase them from our ClassCharts shop using their ClassCharts points. We also sell a fully equipped pencil case if that would be easier for them to purchase.
We also change the timings of the college day during the exam season to ensure that students sitting afternoon exams can do so with the minimal amount of noise from lesson transitions and break time disturbing them. Break 2 therefore moves to before lesson 4, which means lesson 04 and 05 happen back-to-back from 13.05-15.05. We still require students moving between these two lessons to be as quiet as they possibly can be so they support their peers who are taking exams. If you can talk this through with your child over the weekend it would be much appreciated.
Have a lovely bank holiday weekend. We look forward to seeing all our students on Tuesday at 08.25am.
Amy