L Dickinson | Chantry Middle School

Kids’ Lit Quiz (UK) Competition

9th November 2015L Dickinson

From left to right: Sam Tate Y6, Josh Williams Y8, Miriam Cummins Y8, Megan Bell Y8

On Tuesday, two teams from Chantry travelled to Gosforth to compete against nineteen other schools from around the North East in our regional heat of the Kids’ Lit Quiz.

This is a national competition with similar regional heats taking place in Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England throughout autumn. The UK final – which decides the British
team that competes in the World Final in Auckland – will be held in December.

Click continue reading for more about the event.

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Chantry Students Present Science Project at Houses of Parliament

9th November 2015L Dickinson

Two Chantry Year 8 students, Mathew Eltringham-Davison and Callum Woodcock, recently attended the prestigious Big Bang @ Parliament Science showcase event at the Palace of Westminster.

Only nine projects from the whole of the UK were selected to attend the event, which was hosted by the Chairman of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, Stephen Metcalfe MP.

The boys’ work, which had previously featured at the regional Big Bang North East Science Fair, was an investigation into the best ingredients for making colourful fireworks. The Schools Minister, Nick Gibb MP, made a special mention of the project during his speech at the event.

After the event Mathew, Callum and Dr Jackson went for a quick tour of the capital’s key tourist attractions, including The Tower of London, The Shard, St Paul’s Cathedral and Buckingham Palace.

Very well done to Mathew and Callum for being such good ambassadors for Chantry on the national stage.

School Minister Nick Gibb MP’s address at the Big Bang @ Parliament event: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/big-bang-parliament-the-importance-of-stem

For more pictures from the trip click continue reading.

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Year 5 Parental Questionnaire

5th November 2015L Dickinson

Many thanks to the parents who took the time to complete our online Year Five questionnaire. Your feedback is always very important as it enables us to improve the transition process year on year.

See below the results.

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Rugby going from strength to strength

2nd November 2015L Dickinson

Rugby at the Cheviot, which is a joint Newminster and Chantry team, is flourishing and this is evident through the number of Year 7 and 8 boys turning up to training on a weekly basis. I am sure everyone has been inspired and are buzzing from the Rugby World Cup.

Over the last few years we have had great success in growing the rugby reputation of the school and now with over 40 boys training some weeks. Mr Shaw is optimistic this reputation will continue to grow over the next year.

So far this season we have had fixtures against some top independent schools such as Newcastle School for Boys and Dame Allan’s, together with playing in some local RFU tournaments.

Over this next half of term Mr Shaw has been busy organising more fixtures to allow for as many pupils as possible to become involved.

To see the fixtures list click continue reading

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Curriculum, Assessment & Reporting

2nd November 2015L Dickinson

Many thanks to all of the parents and carers that attended our Curriculum, Assessment & Reporting Changes event on Thursday the 22^nd of October.

The feedback from parents has been excellent and a number of parents that were unable to attend have been in touch to see if they can access some of the resources shared on the evening.

The folder linked below contains a copy of the presentation to parents and resources used in the changes to the Maths & English curriculum workshops. Additionally, more materials can be found on the National Curriculum Assessments website.

More information on the changes to Assessment and Reporting, plus Assessment Frameworks can be found here.

Careers Talk

22nd October 2015L Dickinson

Chantry were delighted to be able to welcome Joe Slater, Dhillan Bhardwaj and Hussain Manawer for a careers talk this week to Years 7 & 8.

Joe Slater is an English singer-songwriter originally from Liverpool. Since 2013, Joe has appeared as character Lenny Brown on the BBC Drama ‘Waterloo Road’ With musical inspirations hailing from The Beatles to Oasis, Joe confidently plays five instruments including the piano,
guitar, bass, drums and ukulele. Here is a YouTube link of him below;

https://youtu.be/yRPzaqymNvc

Joe was accompanied by 18 year old entrepreneur and designer Dhillan Bhardwaj. Dhillan has had an interesting journey which has taken him from designing t-shirts in his garage, to Number 10 Downing Street. From clothing Miley Cyrus to drinking tea with the Prime Minister, Dhillan Bhardwaj, is living his dream. In the last two years he has opened his own store, employed 30 people, and has a turnover of over £1million. His determination has helped him to succeed in his market, and his story is quite remarkable. Check out the press links below;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-26607825

Finally we were fortunate enough to have Hussain in school who is most well known for his You Tube channel called ‘Hussain’s House’. In his short videos he is often seen interviewing celebrities such as Kevin Hart and Joey Essex as well as appearing on an episode of Eastenders. Hussain has also won the chance to be one of three young ambassadors to go into space in 2018, due to his hard work and commitment to inspiring young people around the world.

Our students found the message simply inspiring as the visitors shared their own personal stories about their education and how they have been gained success in such a short amount of time.

The students at Chantry said;

‘It was inspirational and fascinating because we could easily relate to them all’

‘It was really interesting and everyone was keen to listen, it was great that they showed interest in us and our thoughts.’

KEVI chosen to help train the next generation of teachers

12th October 2015L Dickinson

The King Edward VI School has been selected to become a National Teaching School.

Teaching Schools take a leading role in recruiting and training new entrants to the profession, identifying leadership potential and providing support for other schools, not least by exemplifying excellent standards of teaching.

The King Edward VI School is one of 52 schools in England to be granted teaching school status in the latest round.

Introduced in 2011, Teaching Schools are all rated as “outstanding”. They work with partner schools in an alliance to ensure high quality school-led initial teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers at all stages of their career.

They raise standards through supporting other schools, engage in research and development, and ensure that the most talented school leaders are spotted and supported to become successful headteachers.

To read more click continue reading.

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New Curriculum, Assessment & Reporting Arrangements

9th October 2015L Dickinson

As of September 2014, a revised National Curriculum for England and Wales came into being. The schools of the Three Rivers Learning Trust have worked closely together to plan, write and deliver a new curriculum for our students. In 2014/15, the new curriculum was implemented with Years 5 and 7, in 2015/16 the new curriculum is being implemented with Years 6 and 8 and from 2016/17 the new curriculum will be implemented in Year 9.

To view more information click here

The World Marathon Challenge 2015

9th October 2015L Dickinson

Chantry Middle School took part in the World Marathon Challenge on Wednesday 7th October at KEVI athletics track with students from Newminster Middle School and King Edward Vl High School.

The aim was to try and beat the World Marathon time: 2:02:57 men and 2:15:25 women, with student taking it in turns to run 200 metre legs to a total distance of 26.2 miles. 69 students took part and were split into an A team and a B team. It took 2hrs 4 mins for team B and 2hrs 7 mins for team A to complete the run. Our times were fed into the computer and we are waiting to hear how we performed nationally.

The weather was pretty miserable on the day so a great big thank you goes to all the students who took part in this fun event.

To see pictures of the event click continue reading

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European Day of Languages

5th October 2015L Dickinson

26th September was European Day of Languages. Every year, Routes into Languages North-East run a competition to celebrate the event. This year, the theme was Peace. Some of our pupils put forward entries to be sent off in hopes of winning the regional KS2 and KS3 titles. This inspirational drawing is by Year 8’s Laurie Blacklock. Good luck to all who entered and fingers crossed we will have a winner in our midst very soon. Bonne chance! ¡Buena suerta! Buona fortuna! Viel Glück! уда́ча! Szczęście!