Chailey School presents "Show Me"

Last night the PE Department were extremely proud to present the first Aesthetic performance of Dance, Gymnastics, Trampolining and Cheerleading.  This performance celebrated the fantastic work students create during the PE lessons and extra-curricular clubs.  There was also a special guest performance from the University of Brighton with The Performers & Fidget Dance Company performing a contemporary dance.

There was professional lighting and sound and the Senior Prefect team introduced each act with confidence and style.

These photographs can only give a glimpse of the enthusiasm, creativity and talent on display last night.

Mrs Young and the PE Department who received enthusiastic applause from the performers and audience for a fantastic evening's entertainment

Well done to everyone who took part in the show.

Lexia party

The current cohort of 20 Year 7 and 8 students who have been working on the software literacy programme Lexia Reading during the spring term enjoyed a party to celebrate their achievement and progress.  They have all now completed their ten week course of three twenty-minute sessions each week.  The students were given a book and a certificate for doing so well and then sat down to a table full of party food.

Lexia students with their certificates and books

Fortuitously one of the students was celebrating his birthday today so we all sang Happy Birthday to him

And it's Mrs Hickman's birthday tomorrow so we also sang Happy Birthday to her!

Mrs Payne retires today

Today we say goodbye and good luck to Mrs Barbara Payne who is celebrating an amazing 40 years of teaching and 25 of those years have been at Chailey.  

In her time here Mrs Payne has taught French, Art and Design, Textiles, Learning to Learn, Child Development, and Health and Social Care, but she will be most remembered for her inspirational Food Technology lessons.  Thousands of fortunate students have been taught by her and gained excellent exam results.  

Mrs Payne has also been an exceptional form tutor and will be fondly remembered by all those who have been guided and supported by her during their school careers at Chailey.

We wish her a happy retirement.

An 'enigmatic' object

This 'enigmatic' object is part of 8 Caburn's entry for the Humanities inter-form competition now taking place and to be judged after the Easter holidays.  Forms have chosen a significant historical figure who has made an impact on our lives today and will represent them by creating a collection of items for a display. 8 Caburn have selected Alan Turing and Billy Dean-Gant has used an apple with a piece bitten from it to show the way Alan Turing chose to end his life - he treated an apple with cyanide and then bit enough of it to end his life and left the apple as evidence of his unusual choice of suicide.  

If all the entries are as creative as this one the judges are going to find it difficult to choose a winner!

Year 11 Chailey students deliver a lecture at Sussex University

Tuesday 24th March marked an important day for Chailey School. Jess Christie, our PPG co-ordinator, and Phoebe Caswell, Harry Jones and Katherine Meloy from Year 11, were invited to give a lecture at the University of Sussex, on the topic of ‘critically exploring how media outlets represent gender in an arts based program for children aged 15-16.’ Using our well established, active links with Higher Education, Chailey students demonstrated their confidence and well informed, academically grounded opinions and knowledge to articulate, not only to undergraduate students, but also post graduate students about how they consume mainstream media information and imagery, how this can be destructive to young people and why they feel it is important to address this issue in schools. The lecture lasted two and a half hours and was attended by around 40 people!  Ms Christie and the students received very positive feedback from those who attended the lecture - well done to everyone involved! Below is a photograph of two students in a video clip during the lecture.

Comic Relief

Comic Relief raised £330 so well done to all who helped on the day

Chailey School lands two national awards

Chailey School has received national recognition for the value it adds to enable students’ high achievement at GCSE.

The school has qualified for two SSAT Educational Outcomes Awards by being in the top 10% of schools nationally for progress made by pupils between key stage 2 results at the end of primary school and GCSE results at age 16, and in the top 20% nationally for high attainment.

The school has been invited to receive their awards at a regional celebration ceremony hosted by SSAT at Holland Park School in London on 12 May.

Sue Williamson, Chief Executive of SSAT said:

‘Chailey School should be congratulated for their exceptional achievement.  They have proved themselves to be leading the field in improving GCSE outcomes for their students.  There is so much good practice that this school could share, and I hope they will join us at the celebration evening for the chance to network and share strategies with award-winning schools.

‘These results are testament to the commitment and hard work of the students, teachers and leadership team at Chailey School, and show what can be achieved when skilled teachers have high expectations and ambition for every young person.  I am proud that this school is a member of the SSAT network.’

Chailey Science Fair

As a final flourish to Science Week a Science Fair was held in the hall during lunch with an amazing and varied selection of stalls with activities connected with science.  Year 7, 8 and 9 students have been involved in preparing for the Science Fair and put on an impressive show.  Most of the students in the school visited the Fair to try their luck on the stalls.

Well done Chailey scientists!

 

The Solar Eclipse

Year 7 assembled on the playground with teachers from the Science department and an astronomer, Richie Jarvis,  who visited the school to talk to them about the solar eclipse before it happened.  

There was a sense of cold and slight darkness but unfortunately the heavy covering of cloud prevented the solar eclipse from being viewed through the special spectacles provided by the Science department.  

Mr Jarvis can be seen in the photo holding his mobile phone with a special solar app which showed the exact moment when it would have occurred had the cloud not been present.  

BBC School Report

Today thousands of secondary school children across the country will become news reporters for the day for BBC School Report.

Here at Chailey we have a team of 14 Year 7 students and 3 Year 10 Media students working on the local and national news stories and throughout the day pictures will appear on our Blog showing their progress.

9.00   Mr Smith, Mr Lowe and Mrs Duck have a briefing with the students and discuss the structure of the day and the main stories to be filmed and reported on.   A selection of today's papers are looked at to see what's in the news today.

10.00  Our reporters interview Jess Lloyd and Lindsay Willis from Universal Dance who are giving a demonstration and workshop on Street Dance for Year 7.  The first photo shows some Year 7 students trying out the steps.

11.00  Rosanna and Lily busy researching today's news

11.45  The team assemble for a photo shoot.  Filming and editing going well and we are mid-way to the deadline.

STOP PRESS - CHAILEY SCHOOL FEATURED ON THE BBC WEBSITE www.bbc.co.uk/schoolreport/31962230

12.45  Not much time left and some last-minute research taking place by our Year 7 reporters

Here is a report on the day by some of our Year 7 reporters

Thursday.19^th March. Not your normal day.  Selected Year 7 students had the opportunity to dip into the world of journalism. We started off by browsing through today’s papers searching for catchy and interesting headlines. In pairs or small groups we each chose a topic which we would delve into throughout the day. We covered local and school news, interviewing members of school or leaders of activities.

Our next job was to research and create reports and scripts about our chosen subjects. We used the day's newspapers and online research for this task. Each small group wrote and planned interviews with visitors, staff and students.

Our first group covered Investors in Careers. Aislinn Goss and Corin Beckwith interviewed Sue Whitaker about this topic. This was done in incredible time as it was filmed 30 minutes after the reporting team came together.      

At 10.00 Universal Dance came in and led a hip-hop street dance taster session for 25 Year 7 students, and stayed to be interviewed by Rosanna Greenwood, George Goodyer and Lily Kianfar.

Following that Amelie Woodbridge-Cox and Ellen Pannett looked at the 'Show Me' Aesthetics rehearsal.

Next up Barney Morris, Philip Payne and Matthew Cudby covered the solar eclipse which is happening tomorrow, Friday 20th March. Barney and Philip interviewed Mrs Thust ahead of the final day's Science Week events.

Sporting achievements and the Arts Award were covered by Sophie Gander and Sophia Von der Beck, who interviewed Ms. Maynard and the high-flying students, Bill Saunders in Year 9 and Ollie Hopkins in Year 10.

Comic Relief was covered by Chawana Mayenge and Daisy Buckenham, who interviewed Mrs. Hickman about school and national fundraising.

There were refreshments provided for us, which included biscuits which were very nice!

We’d like to thank the Year 10 Media Studies students Terry Fordham, Jay Sinden, Ashley Bishop and Harvey Melvin-Harris for helping us film and edit.

We all really enjoyed the day it was an amazing experience!

Report by Chawana Mayenge, Barney Morris, Corin Beckwith and Philip Payne

Visit from Lewes District Councillors

Today we received a visit from four Lewes District Councillors who met with our Student Council to discuss the many issues affecting Chailey and its surrounding towns and villages. These included the condition of the roads in the area, transport problems, the redevelopment of parts of Lewes and Newhaven, and refuse collection.  The Councillors were impressed by the confidence shown by our students and it was a successful session. They have made notes of some of the issues raised at the meeting and will be looking into them.

Year 10 Relationships Day

Year 10 have been off timetable today to attend workshops about relationships.  They have had sessions about STIs, HIV/Aids, being a young parent, E-Safety, Sex and the Law and Safe Sex.  

Local author runs writing workshop for Year 10

Local author, Jenny McLachlan, who came to Chailey recently to talk to Year 8 and 9 girls about her books, 'Flirty Dancing' and 'Love Bomb', made a return visit on Monday to deliver a writing workshop to Year 10.  

The aim of the workshop was to show Year 10 how to produce an excellent piece of descriptive writing for their controlled assessment.

She began the morning by talking to the whole year group about her books and then gave the workshops to smaller groups, which ran throughout the morning.

During lunch she had a book signing session for all those students wanting to buy her books.

Year 7 Sponsored Readathon

For the past fortnight Year 7 students have been taking part in a Sponsored Readathon to read for pleasure and, at the same time, raise money for charities who look after seriously ill children.  

Watch this space to find out how much money has been raised.  We are hoping to beat last year's total.

Here is a Year 7 class showing off their current reading.  

Comic Relief 2015

Making faces funny for money for Comic Relief

Mr Simmonds and some of Year 8 getting into the Comic Relief mood.

Year 10 Further Mathematics Competition

On the 3^rd  March four Year 10 students took part in the annual ‘Maths Feast Competition’ run by the Further Mathematics Support Programme, which took place at Dorothy Stringer School, Brighton. This is a national competition which combines mathematical, communication and teamwork skills and offers students another way to express and develop their enjoyment of mathematics.

The team: Adam Cork, Abigail Hollingsworth, Nathan Preston and Zoe Webber, worked brilliantly together, jointly winning two of the six rounds and being commended for their teamwork. They especially excelled in the origami round, creating and stacking many more ‘Columbus Cubes’ than any other team. Here they are pictured with their impressive creation…

World Book Day

Chailey students enjoying reading for pleasure in the Library for World Book Day