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Sandhill Soundbites I S SU E 6 S UMMER 2017 ED I TION
SHV
I am pleased to introduce our third and final edition of ‘Sandhill Soundbites’ of this academic year and I hope you will agree that it is another impressively packed issue which showcases the student achievements, successes and activities which have taken place over the past term here in Sandhill View.
Mr. Carr Head of School
Upcoming Events Activities Week
Mon 17th July 2017
School Year Ends Fri 21st July 2017
GCSE Results Day
Thurs 24th August 2017
School Resumes
Wed 6th September 2017
We are approaching what for most schools is a nervous time of the year. The Year 11 students have now completed their exams and across the country schools await the results. The situation is even more tense for us here at Sandhill View because we are also expecting the School Ofsted Inspectors to visit in the near future, yet we are confident in how far we have come and what we can demonstrate without being nervous. We have lots to be proud of and shout about.
This year has been a great year for the Academy with every indicator showing enormous improvement. We believe that our attendance figures will make us one of the best schools in the city, incidents of poor behaviour and exclusion have been reduced to almost insignificance and there is a great feel amongst staff and students. Other highlights to mention include further significant improvements in the standards of teaching and learning received by students due to the appointment of new and well experienced teachers, upgrades to many facilities such as bike storage as well as a complete overhaul of the catering facilities and menu accessed by students during lunch-times. There have also been
significant improvements to guidance for students in the areas of careers and health, diet and well-being.
This year has seen us continue to strengthen the relationship which we have with our feeder primary schools and we prioritise the transition experience for Year 5 and Year 6 students in preparing them for entering the Academy as part of the next stage of their education. We have also expanded the opportunities for students to partake in visits, both locally and internationally and I am pleased that based upon very positive feedback, next year will see an even wider range of opportunities. But what about the results? Well, it’s hard to say as a new grading system has come in for the first time which makes it hard to predict this year, but I do predict that our results will be by far the best ever achieved by Sandhill View and that there will be lots of smiling faces on August 24th. The future for the Academy is both bright and exciting. Thank you for your on-going support in helping us to achieve this.
Sandhill View Academy: Telephone: 0191 594 9992 Email: info@sandhillview.com wwww.sandhillview.com
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Sandhill Soundbites I SSUE 6 SUMMER TERM 2017 E D IT IO N
Sandhill Ski Supreme Sandhill View and Southmoor had a very successful joint skiing trip to Passo Tonale, Italy during the Easter holidays. In total, 72 students and 9 members of staff across the Academy Trust hit the slopes in style. Each day students had five hours of ski lessons with a qualified ski instructor on top of a 3000m glacier. All students showed exceptional resilience and made progress throughout the week. All of our students were a credit to the Academy and behaved exemplary at all times. It was an unforgettable week for us all, with many great memories to look back on. The trip was such a big success that we are already in the early planning stages for securing a further trip to the slopes during Easter break 2018.
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SHV Sunningdale Success A massive well done to six of our Year 10 students who recently spent the day at Sunningdale School to help out with their school sports day. The children who attend the school all have severe learning difficulties and, in addition, many also have additional needs relating to communication, social, behavioural and physical skills. The students from Sandhill demonstrated excellent sports leadership skills and encouraged the children to complete the events and races through demonstration, physical assistance and vocal encouragement. Miss Simpson, who helped coordinate the event, said of our students:
‘What stood out was how quickly your students overcame any initial apprehension and built relationships with our children. They asked the children’s names, introduced themselves, talked with them throughout activities and even when they were told some of our children were non-verbal, they continued to talk and look for positive responses in terms of facial expression and gesture. We can’t thank you enough for helping to ensure that every child, ranging from Pre-school to Year 6, at Sunningdale got to take part and most importantly have fun during our Sport’s Day.’ Well done to you all for representing your school so well.
In this issue... • School News • School Visits & Events • Teacher Talk • Numeracy & Literacy at Sandhill View Academy • Careers News • The Sixth Form Update • School Visitors • Transition at SHV • Sports Spot
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Bridge to the Future
Our Year 7 students had the opportunity to visit the £117 million new Wear crossing constructions site, where they looked forward to the future by discussing career opportunities with the project managers. The groups were then given a tour of the operation where they saw and discussed the planning, manufacturing, assembly and construction taking place. Our students also had the opportunity to see the five stage plan for Sunderland in the long term, to date the project is currently only at stage two, so there is still a lot to look forward to for our city! It was an amazing and informative day for our Year 7 students who may yet go on to become the architects, builders and engineers of the future in Sunderland or across the world.
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Swooping into Action Five of our deaf Year 9 pupils attended a Falconry/Reptile Experience day at the Newcastle Riverside Centre recently. The day was organised by past Sandhill View pupils currently working for The British Deaf Association, reaching out to their younger peers at the school. The torrential rain and high winds didn’t stop us having a fantastic day with our students having the chance to get hands on with some of the beautiful creatures at the experience!
School at the Stage On Tuesday 13th June 655 students and staff, funded by the Academy Trust, attended Billingham Forum Theatre to watch Oddsocks Theatre Group conduct a performance of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Oddsocks performed the original text with a ‘mods and rockers’ twist. There was audience participation throughout and two pupils and one member of staff were selected on the day to perform with the cast on stage. The cast came out into the audience, prior to the show and met with the pupils, they involved them in the songs and gave them a once in a life time experience of the beauty of the theatre and Shakespeare. One pupil (Jake) in Year 9 stated: ‘...it was the best thing I have ever seen’.
The impetus for this trip came from Assistant Headteacher, Mrs. Hill who was responsible for the organising and running of this whole school event that was free to pupils. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is part of the new G.C.S.E curriculum in which students must answer an examination question on this text. This theatre trip provided an opportunity to develop aspirations and experiences as a school community.
Student Exhibition 2017 This year’s end of year exhibition for our GCSE Art & Photography students has been a huge success. Doors opened for the exhibition at 4pm on Tuesday 20th June, with visitors from the community welcome to view the eclectic collection of art styles for the entire week. Feedback from our visitors and the students and staff who have also been to see the exhibition has been overwhelmingly positive. Well done to our students, Mrs. Roche and Mrs. Johnson for their hard work in setting up the show.
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Ready, Steady...Cook Teachers and pupils swapped textbooks for cookery books last month, when they took part in their own version of ‘Ready Steady Cook’. Special guests from Chartwells’ ‘Putting Fun back into Food’ programme, came in to Sandhill View to set students the challenge of making two healthy meals in less than 15 minutes using only fresh ingredients. The competition heated up quickly as the two selected groups of students and their form tutors squared off against each other, with an audience of our own pupils acting as judges. This was a brilliant opportunity for our pupils to learn that eating sensibly as part of a healthy lifestyle can be fun as well as rewarding. After a frantic cook-off, Mrs. Ord and the girls from the ‘Red Tomato’ group emerged as winners. Thank you again to Chartwells for staging the event, our students had a fantastic time.
The Amazing Marathon Ma Recently, our deaf pupils were visited by James Clarke - a Deafblind marathon runner. James has Retinitis Pigmentosa and Ushers Syndrome, a degenerative sight condition in addition to being profoundly deaf. He cannot hear at all and can see very little. This year, James completed his 100th marathon! James was also an Olympic torch bearer for the 2012 games. He gave an inspirational presentation - showing us that no matter what barriers we may face, if we put our minds to it - we can achieve great things!
The Doctor‘s Digest
July is a strange kind of time. We have all done the work, we know we have done well but as we wait for the results we have a growing sense of excitement of what has been achieved. It has been a long busy year and amid all the fun and the wide range of activities, our students have worked incredibly hard. So to them I say get out there and rock the world. To everyone else I say well done! We look forward to the results because we are confident of our improvement. To the school inspectors I say bring it on!
Dr. Ingram, CEO of the Academy Trust
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Year 10 in the Frame
Year 10 students have recently had an exhibition of their work at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle. This is a result of the ARTiculate project: where students combine photography skills with visual literacy to develop photographs which tell a story. Inspiration behind the projects have included computer games, pop art and Disney villains.
Parisian Perfectio Earlier this year, a group of our ICT students visited Paris to attend the ‘ICT Live!’ conference. The group had plenty of time to take in the sights and sounds of the city of lights, including a river cruise on the beautiful Seine, where our pupils learnt about the history of Notre Dame Cathedral, Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum and the city’s many grand bridges. Our students were lucky enough to stay at the Disney Cheyenne Hotel which is Cowboy themed, and less than five minutes away from the Disney parks on a shuttle bus. After check-in our group went and explored the rides and attractions of the Disneyland Parks. As it grew darker the Disneyland Parks lit up which added to the magic of our little adventure.
On Monday afternoon our group attended the ICT & Computing LIVE! Conference, which was at the Gaumont Cinema in the Disney Village. There were many other schools and colleges also there and our students were very well behaved throughout. There were three main speakers at the conference; Geoff White — Channel
4 Technology Journalist & Producer, Joe McEwan — Head of Brand and Social Media at Innocent and Gemma Milne —Tech Innovation Strategist Ogilvy Labs. Geoff spoke about how the impact of sharing too much of your data can be dangerous and how we don’t always know where all of our data is actually going. Gemma spoke about upcoming job opportunities which do not exist yet and encouraged all of the students to think outside of the box when it comes to technology and mainly focused on the developments with Virtual Reality and Space.
The most influential speaker was Joe, he spoke to the students about how Social Media is now used by many businesses to promote their products and interact with their customers . Our staff and students had a magnificent time, with excellent behaviour all round. We look forward to returning to France again for next year’s conference!
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2015 Year 7 & 8 Student Planner
Attendance at SHV...
The academy is currently on a drive to improve attendance throughout the school. We are on a massive attendance drive to express the importance of being in school everyday and will be introducing initiatives to reward our top attenders for being in school and learning every term. Our attendance team have also been out and about within the community in their new vehicle, making sure that parents and pupils are aware of the importance of being at school
A Taste of Sandhill View Life Throughout the year we have been inviting groups of Year 5 and Year 6 pupils from our feeder primary schools into school for taster sessions. These sessions are designed to give younger students an idea about the kind of topics they will study at secondary school as well as to better familiarise themselves with our academy and their future teachers.
Our prospective students have had a great time visiting us and we hope to see many of them again in the next few years. A special thank you must go to our staff for hosting the sessions and our primary feeder schools for allowing their students to visit us, have fun and learn.
Our new primary transition booklet is available now to help Year 5 & 6 pupils learn more about life at the Academy
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88 Mr. M Heley
I am a teacher of P.E. currently completing my teacher training, I manage the school football teams, support GCSE PE and I am a Year 11 progress and achievement mentor. I am also a Year 7 tutor which is a great experience, it’s a very rewarding start to the day seeing the same pupils grow, develop and resolve minor dramas (who knew a pen meant so much!) We are definitely the best tutor group in the school!
Teacher Talk
Who was your favourite teacher?
What is the best thing about Sandhill?
When I was a student Mr. Wallace was always there to support and
It has to be the sense of community and togetherness of staff and
guide me. He made my P.E. lessons engaging and exciting, he’s my
pupils. From taking my first steps in the school as a Year 7 in 2007, I
main influence and inspiration in wanting to become a P.E. teacher.
felt a sense of belonging. Now all these years later as part of the staff
What are your spare time interests?
whether it be from Science, Geography or P.E, all have amazing
As a trainee teacher, spare time is very rare! Although when I have
support for one another and most importantly thrive for the success of
spare time I spend most of it with my best friend, we both enjoy football, cars and winding each other up! I also like to take part in
I have witnessed the journey the school has taken. Each staff member
the pupils. A special mention to Miss Lamb who is my mentor and all the staff members who have gone above and beyond to help me along
sports; football, skiing, kick boxing and surfing. I love them all.
the path of my own development.
What’s your favourite Artist/Band?
What’s the one thing you can’t be without?
I like all kinds of music, from Ben Howard to Disclosure to Chance the Rapper. My all-time favourite song is ‘All of the lights’ by Kanye West.
Although I do like my material things (car, phone, laptop), it has to be my parents! The support I receive every day from them is invaluable. Their love, sacrifices and guidance has truly let me lead the most privileged and fulfilled life possible and for that I am forever in their debt!
Food for Thought We have recently totally refurbished and redecorated the school restaurant as part of our initiative to improve lunchtime at Sandhill. It’s not just the fresh paint on the walls that we are changing either; an entirely new lunch menu has recently been introduced to excite the taste buds of our students. We have had a lot of feedback from pupils about lunchtimes at the academy and we have listened to this by improving the quality and variety of the food on offer and by introducing an entire suite of lunchtime activities in the hope that our students will have more to look forward to throughout their day at the academy.
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Skills to Shine Thirty KS3 pupils are taking part in an Enterprise program through Skills to Shine. They will be working every week to come up with an innovative project linked to healthy eating. They will have to come up with their own business idea and present this to a panel of judges in a Dragon’s Den like scenario. If successful, this can then be extended to benefit the local community. For the launch of this program students spent the day alongside other competing schools at Sunderland University.
They then met a range of entrepreneurs that introduced them to the enterprise project. This is an exciting opportunity for these pupils who have also taken part on a trip to Nando’s, where they got to work in the kitchen to prepare their own lunch and see how a commercial business works in order to inform their own business ideas in the future. Watch this space for more updates on the project!
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The Soundbites Conundrum
Our Numeracy and Literacy initiatives continue throughout the school, with students enjoying another term of Countdown Conundrums. Congratulations to this year’s overall winners from Years 7, 8 and 9. Can you solve the word and number puzzles below? Some of our students have certainly shown us that they can!
World Puzzle
Number Cruncher
S - I - L -T - S M -I -L - E
Use 25, 5, 6, 10, 7, 4 to create 720
Make the longest word you can using the letters.
(or the closest possible number)
T
L
U
O U
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Every year, all Year 10 pupils have the opportunity to complete a week of work experience as part of their work-related learning. It is an opportunity for students to spend some time with an employer or other organisation, allowing them to experience as far as possible the hours, working conditions and regulations they may encounter when they go to work themselves. The students worked hard to find their own work experience placements and in the current economic climate, this proved very
challenging. However nearly 90% of our students succeeded in finding their own placements and they should be congratulated for their initiative and determination. Several of our students so impressed the employers that they would have been offered a permanent job if they had not been at school!
Our current Year 9 students will be seeking work placements for next year. If you would like to offer our students a work placement, please contact our school office.
In the Business of Book Building Recently, we were excited to host not one but two best selling authors, who came into school to speak to our pupils about their writing experiences.
Our first visitor was Kathyrn Evans; whose debut novel ‘More Of Me’, has won several awards including the ‘Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award’. Kathryn was kind enough to take our Year 7 group through several of the creative exercises she uses to help her write stories, which produced a lot of wild ideas from our pupils, who had great fun dreaming up impossible scenarios with Kathryn’s help.
Pupils at the Polls In early June we staged a mock general election as the rest of the country went to the polls. Many of our students will be eligible to vote in the next general election so hopefully this experience has given them some food for thought and will spur them on to remain politically engaged, forming opinions and judgements on the people who run the country. The results were as follows...
Labour - 51.9% (295 votes) UKIP – 22.8% (129 votes) Conservatives – 9.3% (53 votes) Liberal Democrats – 6.6% (38 votes) Green Party – 5.3% (30 votes) Abstentions – 3.2% (18 votes)
The second author who visited us was L.A. Weatherly; she has written several series of books including the ‘Broken Sky’ trilogy, book one of which was presented to some of our best-performing disadvantaged students by the author. Mrs. Weatherly read excerpts from Broken Sky to our students and explained her reasoning behind the story and why she became an author.
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Offers of a Lifetime Offers have flooded in for our sixth form students from universities across the country. Special mention has to go to Adam Liddle who has secured a place studying Natural Sciences at Christ’s College Cambridge. Adam is a hugely talented scientist who has passed the most rigorous application process in the country - we are immensely proud of him. Among the many students who have secured excellent offers, three former Sandhill View students stand out. Brandon Smith has been offered a place at Veterinary School in Liverpool while Bobbie-Jay Barnett and Dillon Scott are both heading to Durham to study Psychology and Physics respectively. Many congratulations to all of our hard-working sixth formers!
Fundraising Fun Sixth Formers donned their pyjamas to raise money for this year’s Comic Relief as well as holding a bake sale at break time and challenging Mr. Ireland, Mr. Lavery and Mr. Wright to have their legs waxed in aid of charity. Congratulations to all involved for raising £300!
Goodbye & Good Luck Year 13 We recently said goodbye to our Year 13 students. It has been a long and emotional journey for many of them, but once their summer exams are out of the way, we are sure they will have a bright future ahead of them. We will see them again at their end of sixth form prom and one last time on results day in August where many of them will be going on to some of the best universities in the country. Good luck everyone!
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SHV
Sandhill
Sports Spot Tackling the Talent Trials Just before Easter, Miss Reed took a group of five deaf students to compete in the England FA Disability Talents trials. The trials were based at East Durham College, led by England FA coach - Alysha Cook and Sunderland AFC Coach Kevin Darke. After a gruelling training session, the deaf students competed against other young pupils with varying disabilities. It was a great afternoon! We are extremely proud to say, that all five pupils were selected for the finals and the chance to be coached by England coaches as part of a ten week talent programme!
Boccia Brilliance
Thank you for taking the time to read Sandhill Soundbites. We look forward to reporting on more of the exciting changes, achievements and events that are taking place every term here at Sandhill View. Sandhill View Academy: Telephone: 0191 594 9992 Email: info@sandhillview.com wwww.sandhillview.com
Sandhillview @SHVAcademy
One of our most sportingly talented students in Year 11, Thomas Ferry, travelled to Hertfordshire in April to compete in the Heathcoat Cup finals. This is a cup which celebrates the abilities of disabled young people in the sport of Boccia. Boccia is a competitive sport which requires players to target a fixed jack by throwing leather balls to be as accurate as possible. Due to his skill and talent he was able to compete against opponents much older than him. Thomas competed against a young man who was a member of the Great Britain Boccia squad and successfully overcame his opponent by a fantastic score of 9 -0. His parents and all of the Deaf Resource Base team are very proud of Thomas’ achievement.
Sandhill View Girls Sweep Up the Sunderland Silverwear We are pleased to announce that under the management of Miss. Reed, the Under 14 girls football team were crowned as champions in 5-a-side as well as also taking the league tournament in a presentation at The Stadium of Light in May. Congratulations must go to Miss Reed and all of the players for their achievements this season. It was a great experience for staff and family members to see the girls receive their awards. We look forward to as successful a season once again next year. Well done everyone.