Dear parents/carers,
The weather thankfully held out last night for our outdoor Summer Sessions concert. Huge appreciation goes to Mr Simm and Mr Bottomley for putting on a showstopper, and also to Mrs Bellamy and Mrs Satterley for their help and piccolo playing! It was great to see so many families and staff supporting our young performers, enjoying burgers and listening to a total of twenty four great tunes, including Somebody to Love, Live Forever and Valarie. All our performances are utterly memorable but there is something magical about sitting outside together and enjoying the music: the perfect way to end a very productive half term for our students, especially our exam groups who somehow manage to juggle revision, sitting exams and treating us to such wonderful performances; they certainly are resilient, ambitious and tenacious! We are all now looking forward to the ‘Annie’ production and wish all the students involved and the Arts team the best with their preparations.
A huge congratulations to MC in Year 9, who has recently achieved his 1500 day streak on the Duolingo language learning app. This shows fantastic dedication and commitment to learning. The Languages department thoroughly recommends this app as it encourages the highly-effective ‘little and often’ approach to language learning. A big well done to all the students who have used the app this year, especially Year 11 students who have used it for exam preparation and Year 9 students who have taken part in our competitions this term.
We have had another really positive week of Year 11 exams. Students have once again shown real perseverance and dedication and we are incredibly proud as a college of their commitment to the exams. Students have arrived punctually for their morning workshops and been thankful for the breakfast we are providing. They have also returned back to their lessons promptly and made full use of having subject specialists still supporting their revision. We would once again like to thank all of the staff at the college for their support in ensuring this process runs smoothly and also thank you for the support at home. Please do check your emails as Mrs Calderwood has provided some important information for after half term.
Last weekend 32 students successfully completed their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh expedition walking from Shaldon to Exeter with a night camping and cooking for themselves. All the students were fantastic and worked well as a team showing great perseverance and hard work.
A short spell of better weather has led to another busy week on the sporting front. Last Friday our year 9s competed in a mixed Touch to Twickenham local rugby event. They did amazingly well winning six out of seven games and therefore won overall, meaning they go to the national event at Sixways in June with a chance to get to Twickenham in November. The same day also saw some of our best athletes compete at the South Devon Athletics trials at Stover, which provided them with a fantastic opportunity to pitch themselves against the best in the local area in the hope of qualifying for the South Devon team at the Devon Finals.
We have had two friendly rounders fixtures this week with our year 8s playing against Teign and our year 9&10 playing against Torquay Girls Grammar School. In Cricket, both our male and female under 15 teams competed in the South Devon championships; the girls did very well despite a number of the team having limited cricket experience and came fourth overall. Our boys did fantastically well, winning three out of their four matches and progressing through to represent NAC in the regional finals day on the 20th June at Exeter University.
We continue to strengthen our sporting links with our feeder primary schools; and this week our Netball leaders went to Highweek to run some netball sessions and give the year 5 & 6 students a taster of what they can look forward to on the Netball courts at NAC.
We finished the week with nearly 150 students from years 7-9 competing today in the annual NAC swimming gala. The energy, enthusiasm and team spirit on show in the pool this morning was incredible. A hygge thank you to our 6th form leaders for helping to make it such a successful event.
A huge well done and congratulations to all the students mentioned above; their teamwork, sporting talent, achievements and how they have represented the college have been wonderful to see.
Our Wellbeing Hub for students goes from strength to strength in providing our college community with a calming space to go to at break times and spend time with our Wellbeing Ambassador students working on mindfulness projects like making jewellery. As the weather is becoming sunnier, we are looking to extend the hub to include an outside wellbeing space.
We will be running our ‘BIG charity challenge walk’ this year on Saturday 6th July 2024. It would be great to have fifteen teams enter this year so that together we can reach our target of raising £10,000 for THAT (Teignbridge Homeless Action Today). The walk is 12 miles long from Exeter to Dawlish Warren and students need to be in teams of up to six people, with a teacher or parent/carer to lead the group. This is a great event and a really good chance for us to all work together to raise money for a great cause, so if you and/or your child/ren are interested in taking part, please contact your child’s tutor.
Please remind your child that we start back on a Week A and we expect all students in college for 08.25am to give them time to be in their first lesson for 08.35am. We would appreciate your support in ensuring they have the correct equipment and are wearing the correct uniform.
Have a lovely half term.
Amy