Key Notes: 28 November 2022

28th November 2022

iPads in Spanish

We are delighted that David Binns of Sanako UK has very generously given Mrs Stanley a free trial of Sanako Connect. David Binns visited us earlier this year to talk to students about the importance of languages. Now our year 10C Spanish students are the first to use Sanako Connect to revise for their speaking assessment. This technology allows students to listen to questions and seamlessly insert their own answers. They can also practise their reading and writing skills. Sanako Connect is a very powerful tool to aid students' learning of languages.

Forthcoming Events

• 30^th November: Year 8 HPV vaccinations
• 30^th November – 2^nd December: lost property available to check in reception.
• 1^st December: Dragon’s Den Event
• 2^nd December: Year 10 Reports to parents/carers
• 12^th December: MVC Christmas Concert at 7pm (tickets available from school reception)
• 13^th December: Youth Sport Trust athlete mentor visit.
• 15^th December: flu vaccinations for Years 7, 8 and 9 (an email to give consent will be sent to parents/carers shortly)

Caterlink

Please check your child’s food account to keep it topped up as the weather is cold and damp.

Physical Education

Year 7 and 8 A teams both made a winning start to their football matches this year to make amends for the Year 11 cup exit. Having made some good progress in rugby lessons recently and beating Bassingbourn at rugby it was good to see our football team continuing MVC’s success with another victory in a friendly fixture against Cambourne.

We scored several goals and played some excellent football. Hopefully the Year 7 A team can follow this up next month at Bottisham (13^th December). Mr Barlow was pleased with what he saw, particularly from the new Year 7 team. He said, “Many of our Year 7s have engaged in the Monday football enrichment and are now reaping the benefits as they were organised and free-flowing as a team this week. The challenge is to improve this level of performance next month at Bottisham”.

Meanwhile, Year 11 lost 5 – 1 to Samuel Whitbread School this week. Thomas scored our goal to against an opponent that has over 200 boys in their year 11 to choose from. Samuel Whitbread reached the final 16 out of over 500 schools last year, so to avoid a heavier defeat was a credit to our boys. We reached the last 120 in the league this year and were one of the smallest schools, if not the smallest, left in the competition – so that was a great achievement for MVC. Well done.

Fixtures timetable
Tues 29th November:	Girls’ Football Tournament at home. Finish time 2.35pm
Tues 7th December:	District Cross-Country at Netherhall. 9am-12.30pm
	Boys Football at KJAR Astro 3.45-5pm (Y10/11)
Wed 14th December:	Table-Tennis at KJAR 3.45-5pm (Y10/11)
Tues 17th January:	Girls’ Football at home after school (Y10/11)
Mon 23rd January:	Netball at home after school (Y10/11)
Tues 7th February:	Basketball at home after school (Y10/11)

Outstanding sporting achievement

Congratulations to Hannah (11 Franklin) for finishing in 4^th position when she represented MVC at the British Schools Pistol Shooting Competition for the East of England on 4^th November.

Primary Friendship Games

On Tuesday, the South Cambridgeshire School Sports Partnership hosted a ‘Friendship Games’ event at MVC, which involved a small group of our Year 7 students as well as groups of Years 5 and 6 children from Harston & Newton, Melbourn and Gamlingay Primary Schools. Around 50 children took part in the event, which was focused on supporting children’s transition to secondary school by helping them to develop new friendships and increase their confidence and motivation.

During the afternoon children got to take part in a number of different activities which they might not have tried before. These included archery, new age kurling, sport stacking, table tennis and dodgeball.

MVC Year 10 sport leaders did a fantastic job leading the activities and supporting the children throughout – making sure that they all had a really fun-packed afternoon.

Claire McDonnell, organiser of the event, said, “The focus was very much on providing a fun and enjoyable event for the children, giving them a chance to try out some new sports and activities and perhaps helping them to make some new friends whilst dampening any nerves they might have about moving to secondary school.”

One member of staff commented on how “the event was such a positive experience for all the children, and that to see them actively engaged in all the activities with beaming smiles and amongst other schools at a different venue was really special.”

Post-16

Form the Future has two online events coming up that may be of interest to students and parents/carers. These are online and free of charge:

• Parent Webinar on Apprenticeships on 5^th December 2022
• Insights event: Careers in Construction on 7^th December 2022

English

Our Year 7 students have been studying persuasive writing over the past few weeks and have produced some wonderful leaflets. They don’t just look great, they also demonstrate the excellent progress they have been making; showcasing their wide range of techniques and amazing persuasive writing skills.

Teaching and Learning

Following on from their work on embedding ‘retrieval practice’ techniques and tiers of language usage within the learning environment, teachers are now focusing on feedback.  Feeding back to pupils is really important so they know how they are progressing with their work. Again, this is an area that staff will look at more closely over the coming weeks. We know pupils like to have their work marked, but this can be time consuming. Verbal, whole class and peer feedback are other ways that staff ensure pupils are able to see what they are doing well and what they need to do to improve.

Science

Science Club goes from strength to strength hot on the heels of receiving the bronze STEM Club Quality Mark.  The students have had an ‘eggcellent’ time over the last few weeks creating NASA inspired egg landers.  They initially created landers from junk materials and tested them by dropping eggs from various heights. The most successful even managed to protect their eggs from being thrown 5 metres up into the air!  We therefore had to make a harder challenge the following week and only provided straws to protect their eggs with. Nevertheless, the students rose to the challenge and made some cracking landers, quite literally!

This week the students got to the ‘heart’ of science by watching Miss Piper dissect a sheep’s lung before Miss Piper and Dr Johnson went on to dissect – yes you’ve got it – a heart!  The students then had a chance to look at the anatomy of organs close up and see how everything is connected and how they work.  Next week students will get the chance to dissect some eyeballs. Hopefully they will produce some eye-catching dissections!

St Andrew’s Day – 30th November In the lead up to St Andrew’s Day, Assistant Head Teacher, Mr Willder has been doing assemblies for students in years 8-11. St Andrew is the Patron Saint of Scotland and students learnt some interesting facts about the country and considered the importance of national and individual identity. Some of the year groups were even treated to a bit of bagpipe playing (by Mr Willder himself!)

Student Showcase – Art

Also on the topic of anatomy – art students in Mrs Heeks’ Year 9 class have been creating observational drawings of Leonardo da Vinci’s  ‘the skull sectioned’ (1489). Da Vinci was interested in human anatomy. He worked from an anatomy class and his drawing are so accurate that they are still used in medical education. Year 9 have also been continuing their work on the Day of the Dead.

Student wellbeing

If you are worried about your child’s self-esteem, why not complete this short questionnaire with them to identify what it is they are struggling with and open up conversations about how to help support them to build their self-esteem?

Self-esteem Questionnaire This questionnaire will help you find out how high your self-esteem is.  The results do not evaluate you as a person, they simply indicate your current opinion about yourself. Answer yes or no to the following question: Do you like yourself? ----- Do you feel lonely most of the time? ----- Do you want to look different? ----- Do you take full responsibility for your actions? ----- Do you compare yourself to others? ----- Are you concerned about what others say about you? ----- Do you feel comfortable attending a party? ----- Do you focus on your failures instead of your successes? ----- Do you think that you are worthy of being loved? ----- Do you often blame others? ----- Do you often blame yourself? ----- Do you always finish what you start? ----- Do you need recognition to feel good about yourself? ----- Are you confident all the time? ----- Do you stand up for yourself? ----- Do you think that you are talented? ----- Do you have goals or dreams to fulfil? ----- Do you give before you get? ----- Do you tell the truth to yourself? ----- Do you think you can handle any situation? ----- Do you like being alone sometimes? ----- Do you always achieve your goals? ----- Scoring If you answered yes to the following questions – 1 4 7 9 12 14-22 give yourself 1 point for each. The answer No = no points If you answered yes to the following questions 2 3 5 6 8 10 13 give yourself 0 point for each. The answer No = 1 point. The higher the score the higher the level of your self-esteem.

Pastoral support team

• Ms Rebecca Drum: Year 7 – rdrum@melbournvc.org
• Ms Rhonda Howard: Year 8 – rhoward@melbournvc.org
• Ms Georgina Butcher: Year 9 – gbutcher@melbournvc.org
• Ms Emma Tidby: Year 10 – etidby@melbournvc.org
• Mr A Kennedy: Year 11 – akennedy@melbournvc.org (until Jan) and Ms Alison Flowerdew: Year 11 – aflowerdew@melbournvc.org (from Jan)

Vacancies

We are currently advertising the following vacancies on our website:

• Senior IT Technician
• Food Technician
• Chef Manager

Christmas Concerts

Tickets are selling fast for the MVC Christmas Concert on Monday 12^th December at 19:00.

You can also see Science Technician, Dr Jeanette Dyer and the University of Cambridge Concert Band performing at St Giles’ Church in Cambridge on 1^st December. Dr Dyer was also ‘instrumental’ in enabling our Science Club gain the Bronze Quality Mark Award recently!

 

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