Mrs Young receives the defibrillator from the Lions Club

Lions Club President, Peter Parr, on the left, and Colin Marsh with Mrs Young

Acting quickly when someone is in cardiac arrest and fighting for their life is crucially important.  When someone goes into cardiac arrest, every minute without CPR and defibrillation reduces their chances of survival.  A defibrillator is a machine that delivers an electric shock to the heart when someone is having a cardiac arrest.  These machines can also be called AEDs (automated external defibrillators).

Here, at Chailey, we are delighted to have been donated a defibrillator by the local branch of the Lions Club for use in the school and local community. Appropriate members of staff will receive training in the use of this life-saving equipment. 

Two members of the Lions Club, Colin Marsh, a member of the local branch, and Peter Parr, who is the President, officially handed the defibrillator over to Mrs Young at the Year 7 assembly last Friday.   They can be seen here with the defibrillator where it is located in a central position by the entrance to the school and next to the Medical Room.

Sport Relief

Mr Hillier from the PE department writes:

In the week leading up to Sport Relief on Friday 21st March, all the students at Chailey School were offered the opportunity to take part in a fancy dress mile. The variety of costumes and ideas that the students came up with was vast and imaginative, with everything from a stampede of horses, to a crab and a panda. As well as the amazing effort put in to completing the mile and dressing up, many of our students donated to Sport Relief to help raise money for people less fortunate.

The money raised currently stands at just over £380, and will be used for everything from education to food and vaccinations. The PE department and Chailey School are extremely proud of the effort put in by students and look forward to the next Sport Relief in 2016.

Year 7 Sponsored Readathon

34 students from Year 7 have just completed two week’s sponsored reading for Readathon and have raised the fantastic amount of £850 by reading 248 books for pleasure between them. 

Readathon is the UK’s national sponsored reading event, encouraging children to read for pleasure, while raising money for three children’s charities: ReadWell, which provides books and storytelling to children in hospital; CLIC Sargent, giving support to children and young people with cancer and their families; and Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity, which helps seriously ill and disabled children.  Since 1984, Readathon has raised more than £25 million and has helped encourage millions of children to read more books. 

Year 7 have responded brilliantly, raising more money than ever before, and we are very pleased to be involved in this worthwhile annual event which encourages reading for pleasure and, at the same time, raises money for children’s charities.  Their achievement has also earned the library free books worth £170, provided by Readathon.

All the students taking part were awarded certificates which they are proudly showing off in the photograph.  The students who raised most money and read most books were given a book by Malorie Blackman and chocolates.   One student raised £140 with the runner up raising £100, and the student who read most books managed to read her way through an amazing 22 books.  

The Year 7 students who took part in Readathon were asked why they enjoyed doing it and here are some of their comments:

“you read for pleasure and you help ill children”

“I can do something I love doing and get to put money towards a charity”

“It helps less fortunate children”

“It made me read regularly”

“I love reading books”

“It’s exciting and fun”

“It helps children with life changing conditions and encourages children to read”

BBC School News Report

27th March 9.00 - Our Year 7 reporters and Year 10 Media students pose at the beginning of the day and show off their press badges

9.30 - Our reporters meet with Mr Smith and Mrs Duck to discuss the plan for the day and select the stories in the news and papers to be covered 

10.00  - Sam and Nathan display the plan of the stories our reporters will be covering.  Scripts are being prepared ready for the filming and stories researched and written for the news stories.

World Theatre Day - today is World Theatre Day and Phoebe and Annalise conducted a lively and interesting telephone interview with the organisers in their Paris office about the significance of the event.   One of their questions was about the value and importance of drama being included in the curriculum in all schools.  

Here is the first of our news stories reported by Keelan, Archie and Marley, Year 7 BBC School Report reporters:

Bayern Munich win Bundesliga in record time

Bayern Munich have retained the Bundesliga title in record time, after beating Hertha Berlin 3-1 

Bayern Munich won the league with 7 matches remaining. Bayern are unbeaten in the league since 2012. However this season has been a revelation with summer signing Mario Gotze being a key playmaker in the team. Our correspondent Keelan was sent out to interview Year 7 fellow student Dan who said: “because of their form and improved squad, Bayern will easily retain the Champions League trophy.” He then added “Lewandowski will come into play when he moves from Borussia Dortmund to Bayern Munich this summer for £30,600,000, also Phillip Lahm was their best player this season as he played in centre midfield, left and right back.”

This season Bayern have played twenty-seven games, won twenty-five, drawn two, so therefore lost zero.

Pep Guardiola has had lots of praise for his win from players and club members, including Javier Macherano who said: “he is another thing entirely; living football is contagious.” Pep has successfully managed Bayern this season and it will be interesting to see if this outstanding team can continue their amazing run.

Kate, Chloe and Tiger report on the fire at Millais School in Horsham:

Tragic Millais fire

Horrific facts have been revealed after a tragic fire in a West Sussex school.

On Thursday 20^th March, at 3pm, fire broke out. The flames swept across Millais School, on Depot Road, Horsham. A 16 year old girl has been charged with arson with intent to endanger life. She is being held in custody by Sussex police.

Millais School is a school for girls aged 11-16. It was judged as outstanding by Ofsted. Unfortunately, the fire destroyed the entire top floor of the school.

The Headteacher, Leon Nettley, was happy with how the pupils and staff reacted to the blaze.

“The pupils have responded magnificently showing great determination to carry on as normal and support each other and the staff.”

He is also concerned with the implications this fire could have on the education of the students.

 “We remain very focused on our core purpose of ensuring continuity of education for the pupils in the school, particularly all of the Year 11 students building up to their GCSE examinations this summer.”

However he was also traumatised by the event.

 “We were all deeply shocked and saddened by events last Thursday but very relieved that the pupils and staff were evacuated quickly and efficiently to a point of safety.’’

Sam and Nathan report on the secret hoard of art recently discovered:

Cornelius Gurlitt: one lonely man and his hoard of stolen Nazi art

Cornelius Gurlitt hoarded more than 1,500 woks of art, some stolen from Jews in Nazi Germany, for more than half a century. The BBC’s Steve Evans was given exclusive access to the high-security storage depot where the 238 treasures he stored at one of his homes, in Austria, are being held.

Imogen predicts a hot summer:

The scorching summer!!!

Britain could be in for the hottest summer this July. Scientists believe that the low-range indications show that this summer will be BOILING! Experts say that May to August will be beautiful, hot and sunny. Parts of the country will be like July’s heat wave all over again with temperatures reaching 28c. A professional forecaster states that heat temperatures can be broken easily!!! But on the other hand it can be very dangerous because you can very badly sun burnt and dehydrated. It can even get to such extremes that no one is allowed to go outside. So be ready this summer to put your sun cream and hats on as this will be a record baking hot, boiling summer.

1.30 pm -  Two of our Media Studies students, Alisha and Lottie, busy filming

2.30pm and our Year 7 reporting team hold up today's headline news
and celebrate a good day's work as young BBC School Reporters

Some comments by our Year 7 reporters at the end of the day:

"I really enjoyed working with my friends and being professional"

"I really enjoyed the BBC School Report; I learned new skills and I also feel more confident- especially when making phone calls to a different country" 

"I really enjoyed it. It was one of the best experiences in my life"

"It was really nice working with other people and it was a great opportunity"

Art trip to the Pallant House Gallery, Chichester

Mrs Johnson writes:

Talented Art students from years 8 and 9 visited Pallant House Gallery in Chichester on Friday 21st March.
They had a guided tour of the collection and gathered ideas for a personal piece of their own to create. They then enjoyed a two hour workshop session with Claire Westwood, an illustrator, looking at how artists develop their work and take creative risks in their sketchbooks.  They produced some excellent responses to the day and will be continuing with their ideas at school.

Look out for their work in the Summer exhibition this year.

Some statistics for the Blog

Visitors to our Blog might be interested to see the latest batch of statistics which show over 4,000 pageviews since the Blog began (almost 1000 in the last month) and the audience includes countries as far afield as Brazil, China, the Dominican Republic, Romania and the United States of America. 

Year 10 Relationships Day

On March 19th Year 10 were off their normal timetable and spent the day attending workshops about all the relevant issues affecting their lives.  
More to follow on this important and day .........

Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award

The Poetry Society is once again on the search for the top 100 poets aged 11-17 in the UK.  The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is considered the most prestigious and largest prize for poetry in the UK.  A staggering 7,478 young poets submitted their poems in 2013.  

If you are interested in submitting a poem please discuss it with your English teacher or Mrs Duck and, meanwhile,  you can find more details about the award on www.foyleyoungpoets.org. The closing date for entries is the 31st July.

The 15 top winners will have their poems published in an anthology and will be invited to spend a week working on their poetry at a residential course at one of the Arvon writing centres with this year's judges - Grace Nichols and Simon Barraclough.  Alternatively, Chailey School could receive a poet residency followed by one to one mentoring with the winning student.  All 100 winners will receive a year's free Youth Membership to the Poetry Society and a fantastic selection of poetry books, and will be invited to a glamorous prize giving ceremony on National Poetry Day in London (2nd October 2014).  

So, all you budding poets out there - get writing!

Polly and Bill Saunders - sports champions in the making

Polly jumping hurdles

Polly putting the shot

Polly pole vaulting

Polly last year in Portugal pole vaulting

Polly at Vault Manchester last weekend

Bill at Vault Manchester 

Polly (Year 10) and Bill (Year 8) are both keen members of the Lewes Athletics Club, attending during the week after school and at weekends,  and their hard work and dedication is gaining results for them.  Polly won Gold for Sussex in multi-events last year and Bill won Bronze at the same meeting.  In 2011 Polly was awarded U13 Female Athlete of the Year by Lewes Athletics Club.

Both Polly and Bill have “Power of 10” profiles which can be viewed on www.thepowerof10.info by entering their name and the Lewes Athletics Club.  The photographs here show them in action. 

They went to Vault Manchester last weekend and Polly was equal 10th  and Bill got the Silver medal for his age group.  On Sunday Bill also played at the 10th Sussex Junior Restricted Badminton Championships and got another second place with the trophy for runner up!  (he said he could have won it if he wasn't so tired from Manchester).

Well done and congratulations to Polly and Bill.  

House of Lords Peer visits Chailey

Chailey School hosted a talk from a member of the House of Lords on Friday 14^th March to encourage students to engage more with the political and parliamentary process.  Lord Luce met with Year 9 students for an hour to talk about the work and role of the House of Lords, along with providing students with an insight into his career, the people he has worked with, as well as outlining some of the key historical and political events he has been involved in. This was followed by a question and answer session on various aspects of the parliamentary process and life at Westminster generally. Questions posed by students included those on Lord Luce’s influences, the role of women in Parliament, the conduct of the different seats of Parliament and the current situation in Ukraine.

Miss Anne Jones, Humanities Faculty Team Leader, said “this was a fantastic opportunity for our students to interact with someone who knows the parliamentary system inside out, as it can sometimes seem far removed from their daily lives.”

The visit was arranged through the Lord Speaker’s Peers in School programme, which has been running across the UK since 2007 and has so far involved around 50,000 young people.  This continuing outreach programme sends members of the House of Lords into schools and colleges across the country to give talks in support of the citizenship curriculum. 

Duke of Edinburgh walk goes with a bang!

Mr Barker writes:

After a rather chilly overnight camp at Small Dole Scout Camp the sun rose into the sky on the morning of Saturday 15^th March. This was the first of the overnight camps as part of this year’s DofE Expedition training. Groups were allocated to their leaders for the day, who had the important, and often overlooked, role of imparting the knowledge required to ensure that the Chailey DofE’ers were not amongst the many groups who are typically seen wandering around the countryside with a rather forlorn expression on their tired faces muttering “does anyone know where we are?”

The groups were all briefed on what was expected from them during the day and set off on staggered starts from 9.30am onwards on their day’s walk across the beautiful sunny (I never thought I would say that word in connection with a March DofE event) Sussex countryside ending up at Devils Dyke for a 3pm rendezvous with the coaches to return our tired participants to school.

So, after a fantastic morning of navigation practice involving a climb up Tottington Mount, it was time for lunch in the sun, (there’s that word again), at Edburton Hill Viewpoint. Once the hunger pangs were satiated and some bags made considerably lighter, judging by the amount of food consumed, it was time to continue.

We headed South through a field of cows and suckling calves, which we decided to give a wide berth, only to hear a voice in the distance shouting to us a from further on down the path. It soon became apparent that the voice belonged to a Police Officer who was attempting to get our attention. I instructed the group to wait whilst I liaised with him to find out what the problem was. He politely informed me that the Armies EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) were in the field next to the path and were just about to do a controlled explosion and requested that I take the group to a safe distance. I dutifully did as I was told.

Whilst sitting with the group all kinds of theories were exchanged as to the nature of the ‘bomb’ in the field with the only detail we got correct being it was a WW2 explosive ploughed up by a farmer!  After a few minutes of anticipation there was a shout to “stand by” which was closely followed by a rather loud BANG and a cloud of dusty smoke spreading across the field. 

It was now safe for us to continue.

I asked the Police Officer and attending Soldiers what had been disposed of and was told that it was a WW2 phosphorus mortar shell left behind by the Canadian Army. The rest of the walk was an anti-climax after that, except, of course, the glorious sight of the awaiting coach in the car-park at Devils Dyke.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who took part, both staff and students, on making this another successful Chailey School DofE event.

 

Aimee stars in 'Grease'

A talented Chailey drama student is pulling on her pink lady jacket to star in Seaford Musical Theatre Junior's production of GREASE, April 4th-6th, at the Barn Theatre, Seaford.
Aimee Eaton is starring as Jan, the socially awkward Rydell High teenager, for the award winning community youth theatre group.
The cast are also taking part in a special fundraising performance to support CTLA - Accessible Community Transport and hope to raise £1000 for the charity.
Tickets are available for GREASE from : www.ticketsource.co.uk/thebarntheatre
  

Journalist visits Chailey

Alex Jenkins, a local journalist, visited Chailey today to talk to Year 7 BBC School News reporters and Media students from Years 10 and 11 about her career in journalism and her experiences of working for newspapers and magazines.  She is currently editor of a Sussex and Hampshire lifestyle magazine called etc.  Prior to this she has worked as a journalist for the West Sussex County Times, in Horsham, and the Worthing Herald.  

Alex held workshops for the students in which they were given scenarios about various events which they then had to report on and they were also given themes for magazine articles which they had to develop and present to the class.

After lunch Alex spoke to a  group of students who were interested in a career in journalism.

A hair-raising experience for Year 7 in Science!

Mrs Scott-Smith writes:

A Van de Graaff generator is an electrostatic generator which uses a moving belt to accumulate very high amounts of electrical potential on a hollow metal globe on the top of the stand. It was invented by American physicist Robert J Van de Graaf in 1929.

A large number of my year 7s had a go at being charged up and the result was some hair raising experiences!

A fantastic trip was had by students and staff on the recent ski trip to the USA.

Chailey staff running half-marathons for charity

Mr Simmonds at the finishing line

Mr Simmonds, from the PE department, completed the Eastbourne Half-Marathon on the 2nd March.

Mr Smith, from the English department, completed the Brighton Half-Marathon on the 16th February.

Mrs Marshallsay, Deputy Head, also completed the Eastbourne Half-Marathon.

All three members of staff were fundraising for their specially chosen charities and have each raised significant amounts of money.  

Congratulations from all the staff and students at Chailey for such a tremendous achievement!

Music in the community

Mr Sandford from the Music department writes:

On Saturday 29th March, students from Chailey School will be joined by students from Plumpton Primary School to put on a joint concert of musical items to raise money for St Peter's Church funds. The concert will take place in St Peter's Church, Chailey at 6.30pm. Admission is free but donations for wine and nibbles are welcomed.

The programme will feature items from the two school choirs, Chailey school orchestra and some solo/small ensemble items. The soloists have been through a rigorous audition process and now have just a couple of weeks to get their performances ready. I am sure they will all contribute magnificently to what is sure to be a magical evening.

Chailey and Plumpton teamed up for a similar event last year and it was an evening enjoyed by all who attended. If you are interested in attending but are not a parent of one of the performers, please let me know by email so that the organisers at St Peters know how many extra guests they need to accommodate.

  

e-mail: jsandford@chaileyschool.org 

7 Glynde look at adventure books

7 Glynde celebrated World Book Day by having a lesson in the Library looking at the genre of adventure with Mrs Bamford and Mrs Duck.  They were given six covers of adventure books to analyse and compare.  They then searched the book shelves for adventure books to read and borrow.  A top favourite to read was the action-packed 'Mortal Engines' by Philip Reeve.  

World Book Day

Students enjoying reading for pleasure in the Library at morning break

Books, books, books 

All around the school at tutor time and in English lessons, World Book Day was celebrated by the students.  Form tutors discussed favourite books with their forms and some read extracts from books.  Miss Jones read from Roald Dahl's 'Revolting Rhymes' to her form, 7 Ashdown. Some of her students performed  Dahl's 'The Three Little Pigs' to the delight of the rest of the form.  The Library was busy throughout the day with students keen to borrow books.

and more books ........... 

Year 7 are currently enjoying participating in Readathon, the sponsored annual read which raises money for CLIC Sargent and the Roald Dahl Foundation, charities for sick children. We are hoping that Year 7 will raise more money and read more books this year than ever before.  

Sussex schools cross country event

Mr Austin writes:

A group of Chailey School students recently attended a Sussex schools cross country event at Christ's Hospital in Horsham on Thursday 27th February. All successfully completed the course with most of the runners finishing approximately half way down their category.

Joey Webbon from Year 8, however, finished in 10th position and as a result has qualified to represent Sussex schools in the regional competition in Chelmsford, Essex at the end of March.

Well done to all runners who all literally battled the elements to compete, as well as proudly representing Chailey School and the PE department.

EuroHockey at Crawley

On Friday 14^th February, Miss Maynard took a group of students to watch the EuroHockey Indoor Clubs Championships at the K2 in Crawley.  East Grinstead Hockey Club hosted the event with their men’s indoor team (the English Indoor Champions) representing Great Britain in the competition. 

The top eight Club Teams across Europe met to take part in a fast and furious tournament lasting three days. These included teams from Germany, Russia, Spain, Belgium, Ukraine, Sweden and France.

Students were given the opportunity to watch an East Grinstead line up consisting largely of England and Great Britain players. The standard of Hockey seen in the tournament was outstanding and students benefited from watching the fast pace and silky skill level of the competitors.

Although we did not see East Grinstead win their game, we did witness the supreme level of technical ability and team performance displayed by the ultimate winners HTHC Harvestehuder from Germany. It was a fantastic day topped by the gaining of many autographs!

The Chess Club

The Chess Club is flourishing and is open to everyone.  It takes place every lunch time in the Library and staff and students are welcome.  If you have never played chess and would like to try, then come along and a student will show you how to play and give you a game.  

Year 7 boys talking about books

Ed and Billy with their books

Year 7s, Billy Dean-Grant and Ed Smith, visited Ms Hall's Year 10s to talk to them about their private reading. Year 10 are currently studying narrative writing and thinking about the features that need to be included to make writing as effective and engaging as possible. Billy and Ed talked to the class about their own reading, and then shared a passage from each of the books they are reading at the moment. Billy explained that 'White Fang' is "the most intense book" he has ever read but warned of the grim and vivid descriptions. A big fan of the Lemony Snicket books, Ed explained how he has become addicted to the series and particularly enjoys the way the writer communicates directly with the reader. The Year 10s were impressed by the confidence demonstrated by the Year 7 students and gave them a big round of applause at the end.