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Community Heroes Visit No. 10
Moorside sent two of its community-based staff to a reception at Number 10 this month, to celebrate their contribution to the community. Mel Parker, Parent Support Adviser, and Lindsey Bell, Extended Services Co-ordinator, met up with our local MP Hilary Armstrong at the House of Commons. After tea in The Pugin Room with Hilary and Pat Glass, the new candidate for North West Durham, Mel and Lindsey were treated to a tour of the House – including a visit to the House of Lords where the Bishop of Durham was speaking!
At 5.30pm they lined up with other community champions to meet Gordon and Sarah Brown at a reception a Number 10 Downing Street. “It was an incredible experience”, says Mel. “Hilary made sure we saw the all the rooms and gave us an understanding of how the Prime Minister’s residence works. We managed to get a quick chat with Gordon and Sarah before an official photo.”
Lindsey adds “Meeting the PM was amazing, but I think the tour with Hilary was equally exciting. I’d never expected to sit in the House of Lords, even for a few minutes! It was an experience I will never forget.” Mel Parker provides support for parents of students at Moorside and our partner primary schools. If you think she can help you with any concerns you have about your child, contact her on 01207 588 440 or by emailing mparker@moorsidecollege.org.uk
A Cut above the Rest!!!!
There’s along story to tell about the growth of hairdressing as a subject at Moorside.
You might know that cover supervisor, Niqui McConnell, is a qualified hairdresser and from very small beginnings in the old first aid room, Niqui and Karen Wilson, Assistant Head for Curriculum, have developed student interest in the subject. We reached the point last year where we were ready to lead one of the new diplomas in Hair and Beauty and
actually offer Niqui’s teaching to other schools. But we couldn’t do that in a room not much bigger than a cupboard. We knew that we didn’t have a spare classroom because Moorside is full to bursting. We even thought about borrowing a hairdresser’s shop premises for a day a week. However, when Karen saw how good the D 1-3 temporary classrooms are when they were installed, she asked me to find one for hairdressing. So over to Philip Archer, our Chair of Governors, who used his business networking skills to track down a company in Middlesbrough called Translift. In a very short time they provided a second hand demountable classroom, transported it and installed it and then proceeded to equip it with state of the art hairdressing equipment. The result is stunning. We now have a purpose built
classroom combined with industry standard salon facilities.
The official opening was a very happy event. Our hairdressing students were there, all of the Moorside people who had helped with the project and friends from CCSC, Derwentside College and the academy sponsors. And Hilary Armstrong
was there too, on what was probably her last visit to Moorside as our constituency MP.
And thanks again to Niqui and Karen for making this exciting innovation a reality. Just give Niqui a ring to book a hair do!
Real Care Baby Programme
Our first Real Care Baby programme started in September with a small group of girls. The girls attended ten sessions which included Child Care, Child safety, child protection and practical excercises how to care for babies and toddlers. However, the girls wanted the experience of looking after virtual babies. Ashleigh Carrick and Rachel Batley (year 10) applied to the Youth Opportunity Fund and were successful in securing £4,000 which paid for six real care babies, and
a curriculum pack to facilitate future sessions. The girls looked after the babies for a weekend to have a real experience of how demanding babies can be. Ashleigh Carrick achieved 100% care whilst looking after her baby.
The rest of the group did well also. As the pilot programme was a success we are going to run the real care baby project as a rolling programme throughout the year. We will be offering the programme to pupils in year 10 and above. Pupils will be interviewed to ensure that they will be committed to attending all of the sessions will which run on a Tuesday night in the Phoenix from 3.15 until 4.45 p.m.
Ashleigh Carrick will be helping to facilitate the sessions as a peer mentor and will also be involved in the interview process for new group members.
For further information please contact myself Lynn Walton (Community Worker) in the Phoenix Centre or speak to Ashleigh Carrick.
Recharging the Earth Project
Year 7 students are leading the way in our ‘Recharging the Earth’ project! Jenny Hall and Lucy Spence (Year 7 students) were at the press launch to represent Moorside and its partner schools who are taking part in this project.
Recharging the Earth is an environmental project looking at sustainable choices – what will our Earth be like in twenty five years if we make sustainable choices now, or if we don’t?
Year 7 students are learning about the issues with Miss Smith in science lessons, and then going out to seven primary
schools to teach younger students what they have learned. There’s a competition between the primary schools to produce the best project on this theme, and we’re all collecting used batteries for SANYO’s recycling process too!
Miss Smith says “This project is a great way for our students to learn about sustainable choices, and through teaching younger students they have the messages we all hear emphasised again and again. The competitive side of the project has really fired up the primary schools too!”
Our partner schools in this project are Castleside Primary School, Moorside Primary School, The Grove Primary School,
Delves Lane Community School (Federated), Consett Junior School, St Patrick’s RCVA Primary School, and Bishop Ian
Ramsey C of E School.
The project is led by the County Durham Development Company, SANYO and NET Park.
Royal Air Force
With all the snow and disruption in January, some school events had to be cancelled or postponed. One of these events
was a visit to Year 8 by the RAF. The RAF ran a crosscurricular ‘STEM’ activity, where students investigated how Science, Technology and Maths were connected and how they relate to real-life scenarios in the RAF. A selection of students across all sets participated in this event and had a brilliant time.
More importantly – they all learned something! Did you know, for example, that although we usually measure in metric (mm,cm and m), 80% of the equipment in the RAF requires imperial (inches, yards) tools! RAF Engineers need to be able to convert from centimetres to inches and from yards to metres.
We will be booking them again next year.
Year 11 Oppotunities Conference
Moorside's annual "Opportunities Conference", which is unique in the area, was held on 6th of October 2009. All of our Year 11 students attended, receiving the advice and information needed to help with future decisions.
The aims were:
· To raise students awareness of the opportunities available to them when they leave Moorside;
· To raise aspirations and to dispel any misconceptions about post 16 education;
· To encourage career planning so that informed and realistic decisions are made;
· To encourage students to look beyond college, ie to university or future employment, so that an appropriate progression is taken into consideration.
All local 16-18 education providers and local universities were represented. The students attended three workshops, dependent on their interests, in the morning. This was followed in the afternoon by a careers fair. Our students learned a great deal and are well advanced, in their application process, for their continued education/training next year.
Our visitors, as usual, spoke very highly of the attitude, behaviour and prior knowledge of the students.
PE Department News
Netball The netball season is underway with teams from MCTC represented in Years 7,8,9,10. All teams are doing well so far, particularly the year 8’s who have won every game! Sarah Broadley, Georgia Bowman and Julia Broadly have all been selected for the County Durham satellite Academy; this involved training sessions with a level 2 coach and various matches. Beth Cordey, Jenny Hall, Megan, Sophie Lee and Rebecca Chipchase have all been invited to try out for The Derwentisde District Netball Squad. They will find out after Christmas whether they will make the final team.
Golf The professional Golf coach has been working this half term with our BTEC year 10 group; focus has been on developing skills andstrategies. The students have enjoyed it and marks can go towards their individual practical mark.
Climbing In order to extend our PE curriculum, students have been given the opportunity to complete a 6 week block in 'bouldering’ at Durham’s Indoor Climbing Wall. Bouldering is like climbing but with no ropes! So far the year 10’s and year 8’s have been, the other year groups will get a chance to go as the year progresses.
Badminton Thursday night is badminton club night! The club is well attended by all year groups and our elite players have recently competed in The Derwentisde and Chester-le-St Tournament. Our KS3 girl’s team, KS4 girl’s team and KS4 boy’s team all won the tournament. They have now all been selected to represent the District in the County Competition.
Cross Country Gemma Chilton and Charlie Harris Pratt both won their respective events at The Derwentisde and Chester-le-St League. They, amongst others, have been selected to represent the school at the forthcoming District Championships.
Billy Elliott Our resident B Boy Ryan Taylor has been selected to join thirteen other boys from across the county to go to London to watch Billy Elliott. This will be an amazing opportunity for him to see a career in dance. As well as watching the show the boys will tour London and visit the Tate Modern.
Villa Real Links The Year 10 GCSE PE class recently had an opportunity to test their sports leadership skills to the max. The KS2 class from Villa Real came down to use our facilities and the GCSE group taught them some basic skills. Both sets of students enjoyed the experience and we hope to continue to forge links with Villa Real.
Moorside visit the Clothes Show Live 2009
Following a successful visit last year, Art, Technology and Hairdressing departments teamed up again to give students an insight into the world of fashion. Pupils attended a live fashion show hosted by George Lamb, from T4, and Roxanne McKee, from Hollyoaks.
New boy band “Vice” started the show by performing their new song and hope to follow in the footsteps of girl band the “Saturdays” who were also seen first at the Clothes Show Live in 2008.
Pupils thoroughly enjoyed their day …. They all shopped till they dropped!
Zoolab
Zoolab visited the Science department on 24th November. Year 7 pupils all had an opportunity to see and touch a range of invertebrates and vertebrates. A cockroach, corn snake, rat, millipede and giant land snail were all handled by the
pupils. Thankfully the tarantula stayed in her tank! Year 7 learned how animals are classified into vertebrates and invertebrates, and how these groups are divided into smaller groups. They also found out some interesting facts about the animals’ habitat, food etc. Everyone enjoyed the Zoolab visit.
“Stars in their Eyes”
The annual ‘Stars in your eyes’ competition at the Lamplight Theatre in Stanley was held on Sunday November 22nd. Representing Moorside were young singers Tony Berry, who finished third in his category, Hannah Collingwood, Holly Craggs, Emily Garfoot, Jennifer Hall, Kayleigh Innes, Lauren Raine, Hannah Scarr, Abbie Thompson, and our Year 11 band 'The Notice', namely Jake Chapman, Grant Jackson,Ryan Malone and Robb Hill, who won first prize in their category. Well done to all contestants!!!
The Notice go from strength to strength! In addition to their success at the Lamplight 'Stars in Your Eyes' the band were booked as a support band at the Stanley Lamplight under-18's rock nights, and went down a storm, with good support from parents and Moorside students. They were so well received, that they were re-booked by Consett YMCA on Friday 11th December, higher up the billing this time, to play at a similar event in Consett. Well done, and good luck for the future!
Young Voices
Forty-two students from Y7, 8 and 9 practised hard to learn twelve new songs by heart, in preparation for a huge gathering of 4,000 children. Schools from all over the north joined forces at the Sheffield Arena Young Voices concert for a fantastic music making experience on Thursday November 26th. Moorside students were a credit to the college,
and we look forward to next year's concert!
“Amazing, there was so many people, the lights and sound were overwhelming.” “How could one man control all 4,000 voices? He was funny and brilliant.” Feelings from two of our year 8 students.
Privacy Notice
In accordance with DCSF and the Data Protection Act of 1998 all parents were issued with a Privacy Notice during October 2009.
More Support for Parents
A new job has been created for someone to give much needed advice to parents and carers.
Moorside has clubbed together with its partner primary schools to appoint a Parent Support Adviser to work with parents on supporting children through school. There was hot competition for such an interesting job and the successful candidate was Moorside's very own Melanie Parker.
Headteacher, Jonathan Morris, sees Mel's success as a major step forward: "Bringing up youngsters these days is a tough job and parents should have the right to be able to call on help if they need it. Melanie is well respected in the community for her work with young people and I'm sure that her appointment will be warmly welcomed."
Melanie will commence her new role at the start of december 2008 when she will be based in The Phoenix Centre (Tel. 01207 588440).
Summer Activities and Commemorating the Holocaust
With exams and reports out of the way, we always devote a week in July to fun and educational activities.
Our 2008 Activities Week was probably the best ever with staff providing a wealth of opportunities to students. Around 30 students went on an educational visit to Paris, the London Community Gospel choir led an all day singing workshop and Consett YMCA provided quad biking and paintballing. There was even a special seminar on designing computer games.
Many other events occurred that week but for headteacher, Jonathan Morris, the highlight was the one day conference for all of year 9s on the World war II Holocaust: “I’ve never witnessed a more powerful learning experience. Year 9s attended a series of workshops led by our Humanities staff and visiting speakers. One of the best was actually taught by our Year 10 GCSE History students.
However, none of us will forget the talk given by Joanna Milan, an actual Holocaust survivor whose family were killed by the Nazis and who had to survive on her own in a concentration camp from the age of 2 until she was rescued by Russian soldiers. It was a privilege to meet her.”
New Technologies
There have been big changes at Moorside since we became a specialist technology college.
Specialist status has brought extra funding and a different curriculum based on using new methods and high tech equipment to teach maths, science and design technology.
The design technology department has had a complete revamp with new classrooms for resistant materials and computer aided design.
Pat Borthwick, head of design technology, is proud to preside over such big improvements: “ Our facilities are now as up to date as any in the region and we’ve certainly seen the impact on the quality of students’ work.”
Deputy Headteacher, Linda Rodham, is director of the specialist status: “One of the benefits of being a technology college is that everyone gains from the new initiative. There’s been more sharing of good practice now that we have all of these new resources, especially between maths, science and DT.”
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