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GEOGRAPHY
KS3
All the Year 9 Geographers returned safely from their fieldtrip
to Malham in the Yorkshire Dales. Apart from one early morning
downpour we had some lovely sunny weather. The students have produced
some excellent work, some of which is on display in the Geography
corridor.
GCSE & A Level
Year 10 Geography students will be going to the North York Moors
next year on a two day residential as part of their fieldwork.
Also, Year 12 AS students will be hoping it isn't too cold in
February when they visit the Cranedale centre near Malton to complete
their environment investigations.
CC4G
Computer Club 4 Girls is officially up and running! A massive
number of girls arrived at T6 last Monday after school to munch
on biscuits, create their user names and some very strange passwords!
The club is designed to equip girls with the skills they will
need for success in their future workplace whilst exploring all
the things that they enjoy.
Students logged on to the colourful site and immediately set to
work on the activities. Favourites seemed to be virtual nail art,
room designing and dance sequencing. Loyal members will be rewarded
with files to store their work in and a goodie bag of other girly
treats, such as pens and stickers. CC4G will be running all through
the New Year and is open to girls in Years 7, 8 and 9 on return
of a (pink) parental consent form!
Ms Jepson, Mrs Afzal
ENGLISH
A group of Year 10 students visited Yorkshire Post Newspapers
in November to take part in a 'Newsletter Day'. They worked extremely
hard to produce a professional newsletter using industry standard
software and PCs. The finished newsletters looked absolutely fantastic.
Each of the students was given a copy to take home and I hope
to be able to display their achievements in the English department
soon. Well done to all those students who took part!
Miss McNeil
Writers Workshop
24th November saw the first meeting of the Year 10 Creative Writing
group. Each year, Aim Higher and Leeds University run a Creative
Writing Programme, aimed at C/D borderline pupils. The idea behind
the scheme is to improve confidence and open pupils' minds to
the possibility of going to University. Six Leeds schools take
part and past results have been very impressive.
To kick-start the project, we took the 12 Year 10 students on
an outing to Leeds University. The bus trip gave the pupils a
chance to flex their creative muscles, as they made up rhymes
to reveal their ideas about University life. They were expecting
to chat about philosophy over a cup of tea! At the University,
we took a tour around the site, with lunch being a major highlight
for the children. We then had a creative writing lesson, led by
the poet James Nash. All the pupils produced amazing work. They
all behaved extremely well and worked together in a relaxed, confident
manner.
By the end of the session, pupils were saying how surprised they
were at how well they'd done. There was a real sense of pride
at having written some really inspired pieces of writing. All
of the group agreed that University was not as they had imagined
it (there was not a scone in sight).
The day was a huge success. The group not only realised that University
is a real option for them, but also developed new skills that
pleased and surprised them.
Miss Poole
School for Scandal
The Sixth Form and staff went to see this innovative production
at Skipton Cattle Market - a unique setting adding considerably
to the atmosphere of the evening.
Staffing News
We are very happy to welcome Mr Ward as a part-time member of
the department. He is working mainly with Year 7 on Thursdays
and has settled quickly into the team.
The final note on Christmas and its true meaning should perhaps
come from the pen of Charles Dickens, in his 'ghostly little tale'
of 'A Christmas Carol.'
"…. the only time I know of, in the long calendar of
the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their
shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if
they were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race
of creatures bound on other journeys."
Mrs Housam
Book Club
Congratulations to all those who took part in the special Children
in Need Book Club event in the OLC and helped to raise loads of
cash for charity, with a little help from Bramley Bear, Pudsey
Bear's second cousin!
Reading
Week
Are you stuck for something to buy your child for Christmas as
a stocking filler? Then why not treat them to a book and let them
read it during reading week when we come back after the Christmas
break. All pupils in Years 7-11 and staff (yes even Mr Pickles)
will be reading their favourite fiction every day from Monday
9th January to Friday 13th January during period 4.
Pupils will read in their form groups after lunch. There will
be inter-form competitions to see which form can read the most
pages in the week and other competitions and prizes for the best
reviews of books read during the week. You can help by writing
in your child's planner if they read extra pages after school.
The Open Learning Centre has carried out a survey to find out
which books pupils prefer to read and have ordered new books from
the lending library. This is part of the school initiative to
get pupils reading for pleasure, in particular boys. So put those
comics away and get your child to read for pleasure during our
reading week. This could help them in their lessons as well. So
let them choose a fiction book and get them reading.
Mrs Marsden
ART
This half term has sent the Art department out and about on several
occasions. A group of Year 8, 9, 10 and 12 students have all spent
time at Leeds Art Gallery to participate in Art Workshops. Most
have worked with a practising artist to make artworks and some
have also considered the display of artworks and the way we come
to understand them.
Year 11 and Sixth Form artists have spent a day in London studying
some of our national treasures at Tate Britain and The National
Gallery. As well as preparing for their Art Mock they also saw
some of the sights of London and experienced being crammed into
an underground train at rush hour!
Art Staff
BUSINESS STUDIES
A Year 13 team from Priesthorpe took part in the Bank of England
Target 2.0 presentation competition. The students researched the
level they thought interest rates should be set at for the Bank
to reach its inflation target. They then presented their findings
to a panel from the Bank and answered questions.
The team did extremely well in what is renowned as a difficult
competition. They came runners-up in the regional heat and narrowly
missed out on proceeding to the national finals. The team consisted
of Eva Almon, Caroline Hicks, Heather Seel and Harminder Singh.
Well Done!
Enterprise Week
As part of Enterprise Week in November Rio Knowles, Claire Westerman,
Simone Large, Rachel Marshall, Navi Cheeman and Emily Corcoran
from Year 10 went to the Royal Hotel in York to take part in the
Women Into Enterprise Masterclass.
This involved the girls working as part of a company. There were
over one hundred girls from eleven schools across Yorkshire. The
girls were selected on the basis of the qualities of their business
plans produced as part of their business studies course as well
as showing a real interest in business. The day began with an
icebreaker activity followed by presentations by women entrepreneurs.
The main part of the day involved a Business challenge whereby
two companies competed against each other to design a new mobile
phone. Each company was involved in operations from HR, Sales
and Marketing, with some girls given the roles as Directors in
the simulation.
The day culminated in a presentation given by both Boards of
Directors, with prizes awarded to the winning idea.
The day was fun and showed the girls what is required to be a
successful entrepreneur.
Thursday saw all Year 10 involved in an Enterprise project. A
group of sixteen were invited to spend the day at Yorkshire Post
Newspapers to produce their own newsletters in full colour.
The rest of the year group took part in the Enterprise Challenge
with students working in their Tutor Groups designing and making
a product to sell to Year 7 pupils.
They came up with a range of products including new versions
of the i-pod, calculators which were mobile phones, MP3 players
which could do just about everything and even a time tie to prevent
pupils from being late to school.
The overall winners were 10E led by their Managing Director Emily
Corcoran. A special prize was awarded to Jordan Hunt who worked
hard as Managing Director. All Year 8 groups worked extremely
hard during the day and were a real credit to the school.
Who knows, we may have the designers of the future in our midst!
Year 11 Business
All three groups have been on a visit to Coca Cola in Wakefield
to look at the production process as well as see the varied job
opportunities at such a large employer in the region.
Mrs Marsden
FOOD TECHNOLOGY
On 16th October the Year 11 group went on a trip to Cadbury
World in Bourneville, Birmingham. The trip was a reward for
their hard work in catering for the visitors to the Wedge
Art Exhibition in June. The group worked exceptionally hard
to produce a high quality buffet on two nights for the exhibition.
Everyone who visited the exhibition was complimentary about their
efforts; Chris Edwards Head of Education Leeds said they should
go into the catering business, they were so impressive. Praise
indeed!
Mrs Jennings
Enterprise Week
Two food groups took part in this event. They were given the definition
of Enterprise, and this was discussed. Each class formed small
groups and decided what to make. They were each given £5
and were told that they were responsible for buying the ingredients
and keeping accounts, the aim being to make a profit to be used
to benefit pupils in Food Technology.
The group who made the most profit would get a prize, to be presented
in an Achievement Assembly.
The groups made and sold:
Popcorn
Flapjack
Mud Pie Cake
Muffins
Chocolate chip cookies
Pizzas
One group bought in ready-made buns and decorated them
The group who made the most profit, the most enterprising, were
the group who decided to buy in and decorate their fare; they
made £19.03 profit. Pupils in this group were Kilma Mahmood,
Annie-Rose Goddard and Hazel Anderson.
The runner up group was Matthew Chapman, Kyle Stevenson, Shabana
Habib and Rebecca Holmes.
All the groups managed to stay in profit! Well Done!
Here are some of their written accounts:
Enterprise Week
In Enterprise Week we made original foods and sold them to make
a profit. Mrs Jennings gave each group £5.00 to spend on
ingredients. Our group made chocolate chip cookies. We made half
of the cookies with milk chocolate and the other half with white
chocolate. We sold all the cookies but we only made 35p profit.
We sold some of our ingredients back to Mrs Jennings and our final
total was £1.06. The only problems we had were when we used
self-raising flour and the cookies turned into cakes! On reflection,
we should have sold our cookies for more money!
Sophie Turner 9Cr
Food Glorious Food
Over the last few lessons of Food Technology, Group 9A1 have been
planning to make a teenage snack to sell out on the corridor.
On Friday 18th and Monday 21st we made it. Different groups chose
different snacks, for example: cookies, jam tarts or buns, but
our group chose pizzas. There were four people in our group: Luke
Barker, Emma Dawson, Kiranjit Kaur and me. On Friday break time
we sold our pizzas for 20p a piece, (although I think they should
have been 30p each because we didn't make much profit!) In total,
we made £2.02. I think it would have been better to make
something like buns because then we would have made more and got
a bigger profit!
Tom Marsh 9J
DESIGN TECHNOLOGY
Clothes
Show Trip 2005
On Tuesday 6th December, Mrs Mumby, Miss Ferris and Mrs Brookes
took a group of forty-six students down to the NEC, Birmingham
for the yearly Clothes Show Exhibition. This is the largest fashion
event in the world showing previews from the very latest collections,
high street brands, vintage gear and boutique labels.
Mrs Mumby would like to thank all pupils for their excellent behaviour
throughout the day, which was spent shopping, watching catwalk
shows, seeing samples of work from students who are undertaking
Textile related courses at further and higher education colleges
and talking to tutors about careers within the industry.
Staffing News
All D&T staff would like to thank and say goodbye to Mr Slezak,
who leaves Priesthorpe at Christmas. Mr Schofield joins the department
in January.
Student Successes
Textiles
This term Mrs Mumby set up a Textiles Club, initially open to
Year 8 and 9 pupils. Their first project was to each make a tunic
top following a commercial pattern. Many of the techniques and
processes used to make their top are advanced and only normally
covered at GCSE level. All pupils involved are coping extremely
well with this level of skill and some have now gone on to tie
dye their completed top.
From January the club will continue after school on a Tuesday.
Pupils will be involved in designing and making a set of floor
cushions for the library based on subjects taught within Priesthorpe.
Any pupils interested should see Mrs Mumby for details.
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