End of term celebrations

This week our staff have been overwhelmed with messages of thanks, please see the message below. Thank you to everyone for these messages, today’s blog is one of celebration.

To begin with today we have launched 3 new webpages:

A Year 11 Leavers Page
https://plymstockschool.org.uk/year-11-leavers-page/

Year 11 Leavers – Plymstock Class of 2020

An extraordinary end for an extraordinary year group. This web page is dedicated to you

mail me your messages and memories and lets make this page as awesome as you are, Plymstock Class of 2020.

With love, Miss Robb and Mrs Harvey

A Year 13 Leavers Page
https://plymstockschool.org.uk/year-13-leavers-page/

Year 13 Leavers – Plymstock Class of 2020

A goodbye to the fantastic group of students in Year 13 from everyone is now available on our website.

Good luck to all our Year 13 leavers in 2020 – A special thank you and good luck from Miss Monelle, Beckie and Gemma.

Bon voyage and au revoir Year 11 and 13

We wanted to find a way of hosting a virtual leavers page, somewhere we could find a way to pay tribute to Year 11 and 13, celebrate their time with us and allow them the opportunity they lost with not having a prom or leavers assembly. It’s not quite the same but the messages are just as heart felt and we will miss you.

I would also like to say two big thank yous. Firstly I would like to thank all our parents and carers and secondly to our staff. It’s important we recognise their time in education and although the students didn’t sit their examinations, we all worked hard together over many years to this point.

Well done Year 11 and 13. Enjoy your summer – it is well deserved. We will be there for you on results days to support you with ensuring you take the next steps in your journeys.

A Year 7-10 Celebration Event Page
https://plymstockschool.org.uk/end-of-year-group-celebrations/

Traditionally our week of Celebration Events for Years 7-10 would have taken place on site in the Galley. Our pastoral team have been hard at work to create this virtual version which we hope you will enjoy.

This was a great opportunity to recognise the hard work and successes of so many of our students. The awards ranged from subject commendations, through to attendance, endeavour, perseverance and pastoral awards. It was lovely to see that everyone can still come together to acknowledge so many of the great things our wonderful young people do.

A huge thank you goes to our pastoral team and all our staff involved for organising the pages

It’s just simply awesome and great we can recognise all the hard work of our students throughout this school year.

To all of Year 12,
Well done for surviving what can only be described as a historical term and a half, you have demonstrated amazing resilience and hard work and should be proud of yourselves. We have all been thoroughly impressed with your levels of dedication despite the ‘different’ circumstances.

Make sure you have a good break over the summer to recharge your batteries so you come back in September refreshed and raring to go.

Stay safe
Miss Monelle, Mrs Littler and Year 12 teachers

To the Plymstock School Staff Community

We received this message for the craft piece received below for our staff as a thank you this week.

“Please accept this memento for the monumental achievement in 2020, of both the teachers and wider staff. Made locally by a crafts person, we recognised it symbolised the many individual parts it takes to make the whole; and in that comes strength, beauty and hope.
You are all awesome and we will never forget your dedication and determination.
With every blessing now and in the future
Thank you”

Edu-care

This week as Edu-care formally closes after operating since Monday 23 March, we pay tribute to the staff and students. We begin this with a message from a parent of one of the 53 students who have accessed this provision. Pictured below

Also pictured is some creative work from Eco Edu-care. Mrs Summers sent in this drawing by Freddy – he is their student of the week for his artistic talents and helpful attitude.
And a huge thank you to Mrs Childs for organising some socially distanced arts and crafts!

All work and no play! Our students’ messages from lockdown
Working and Learning at home

Year 8 Tutor Competition

Mr Rogers wrote to me to tell me, “This week and last week I ran an online quiz with my tutees to give them the chance to do something together as a tutor group.

I offered up chocolate prizes for the top 3 competitors each week. I did not want to make them wait until September for their prizes so I contacted the parents and asked if they would be happy for me to hand deliver them yesterday. They were all very happy for me to do so and the hour or so I spent driving around Plymstock to see them was one of the best hours of lock down. It really was great to see the winners and I wish I had the time to see the entire group.

During the virtual tutor time it was wonderful to actually see everyone and have a chance to talk with them. It still seems very strange that a whole term has been lost with this fantastic group. We had plans to do a big charity challenge as a group during the summer term that would finish with the sponsored walk. We will move that to the New Year.

Now the results, you will notice that one of the winners is much older looking and sporting a very fine beard. That is because Mr Wookey went out of his way to take part each week as well. In his words “It is because it is the only time he has a chance of winning a prize” i.e. when in a quiz against 12/13 year olds.

There were three student winners but one declined the opportunity to be in the blog. The other two student winners are Jess, who came second in week one and third in week 2 and Amelie who came second in week two.

It really was great to see them all and I look forward to running a weekly quiz in Year 9 with them all. They had better get swatting up on their general knowledge, particularly of the Marvel Cinematic Universe…their results on this topic were very disappointing when their tutor is such a massive comic book geek.”

Year 9 Head of Year nominations

Mr Steward

Some members of 9PJS refused to let Mr Steward leave without passing their best wishes… Mr Dott has shared their slide show below that he sent him on their behalf featuring pictures and messages from those who wanted to mark the occasion.

That’s 33 years and our longest serving member of staff. Mr Steward wanted to go quietly, and we have paid our own private tributes to him, but on behalf of his tutor group, thank you

Head of Year nominations

Firstly, Mrs Parish’s student of the week is Morgan. She has worked super hard during this last unit of work on GCSE poetry, producing extremely thorough annotations to a very high standard. She has clearly put in huge effort to work efficiently and productively, making annotations for multiple reasons (e.g. language and structure) and producing annotated work of a Year 11 standard, yet done independently. Very impressive

The second nomination is from Mr Waterfield – Carla. Students in Year 9 were asked to take a different approach to their English Literature studies last week, making notes on the GCSE Anthology poems they are studying in a way that showed-off their creative flair. Carla’s video effort was outstanding and really entertained her teacher. It shows how home learning using technology can inspire innovation, bringing texts to life and developing other skills in the process. Well done, Carla.

https://plymstockschool.org.uk/cm-9yen-angus-video/

Fantastic work Carla.

The last nomination is from Mr Wyatt – Isaac. He said, “Isaac took the time to write to me about his experience of learning during lockdown when I asked Y9 students for feedback. His response went well beyond what I had asked for (518 words, all typed on his phone!) and provided me with a clear and moving insight into some of the highs and lows of lock down for our students. Thank you, Isaac!”

Year 10 Head of Year nominations

Lucy has been nominated by Year 10 this week.

We featured this very skilled and talented artist and signposted her work in our blog on 19 June.

I’m absolutely delighted that Lucy’s work has made it into the paper. I’m sure this budding entrepreneur will be asked for many more commissions.

We are extremely proud of Lucy and her endeavour and enterprise.

And… Madie

I’m also delighted that we can nominate Madie, please see the Tweet below.
She is to be commended on her initiative and endeavour. This young person should be very proud of herself.

Here is a socially distanced photograph of Madie receiving her certificate.

Distance Learning
Careers@PlymstockSchool

Careers@PlymstockSchool has been running a 6 week Careers Home Learning Programme via Show My Homework for Years 7-10 and Virtual Work Experience for Years 10 and 12.

The Optional Home Learning programme has included activities on topics including Apprenticeships, Going to University, Employment Sectors, Online Careers Quizzes and Careers in the NHS.

Careers Education

Careers@PlymstockSchool working with Skills Launchpad Plymouth

With so much uncertainty surrounding jobs and employment at the moment, it is understandable that this could be causing some anxiety or confusion for children and parents about deciding their next steps. It might be tempting to adopt a “wait and see” approach, but there are still many options for an excellent career in Plymouth, and now is the perfect time to explore the options available.

Plymouth City Council, together with city wide partners are adopting a multi-agency approach to help and are planning for ‘Skills Launchpad Plymouth’ – a single front door to help our people who are facing redundancy, and targeted support for our young people through the new Youth Hub. This will match real opportunities to pathways into employment, apprenticeships and traineeships, work experience, training, education, volunteering and self-employment.

Further information on the Launchpad services and new online platform will be sent to you along with the exam results in August, however in the meantime you can email enquiries to childrensservicesresponse@plymouth.gov.uk

Details on Skills Launchpad Plymouth will be shared shortly on:
https://www.plymouthonlinedirectory.com/covid19/septguidanceforschools

Maths

Last week, as it should have been activities week, maths staff set more creative mathematical activities for their classes. Here is a selection of their favourites from years 7 – 10.

Miss Marshall said that her favourite is the Plymstock school badge, although the cake does also look good….

English

Brand New Words

As a department, they have set students the task of creating a brand new word. A few are pictured below

Here is one fabulous invention by Finley in Year 8, Miss Bartlett has made him student of the week for his constant hard work and efforts.

Poetry Week

Miss Robinson’s classes have been writing poetry this week. Please see 3 poems below. Mrs Robinson has nominated all three as Students of the Week.

Not just for the poems, but for their commitment and effort throughout lockdown.

They are; Ewa (Year 8), Ellie (Year 9) and Charlie (Year 10)

Music

Many thanks to everyone who took part in the Music Department’s Key Stage 3 End of Term Music Quiz! We have had a huge amount of entries and it was lovely to see such a vast musical knowledge from our students! Thank you to all the families that got themselves involved too – it seems like lots of you have turned this into quite the daily event!

We had so many entrants into the quiz, and it was so close at the top in all three year groups, that Mrs Lowe has decided to give out a first, second and third place in each year group. So, the winners are (drumroll please….)

Year 7: 1st – Mitchell, 2nd – Alex, 3rd – Charlie

Year 8: 1st – Brendan, 2nd – Nell, 3rd – Brooklyn

Year 9: 1st – Amy, 2nd – Annie, 3rd – Charlotte

Prizes will be given to you when we are back in September.

Year 8

Mr Watteau has sent in 5 brilliant pieces of work from Year 8 students “They deserve to be seen in the blog.” Pictured below is the creative and highly impressive work of: the following Year 8 students: Jessica, Amelia, Ruby, Yasmine-Marie and Amelie.

He has also sent in an update on the most recent French cooking competition:
“On this day of French celebration (14 juillet), I am pleased to give you the winner of the 2020 Croque-Monsieur challenge:

Ava Year 7,

2nd place: Hugo Year 7

Joint 3rd place: Alex in Year 7 and Annie in Year 8

MFL

As a part of the cultural and creative weeks that the MFL department have done for Y7, pupils had to recreate the flags of French-speaking countries for a collaborative poster and competition. We were amazed by the efforts and creativity of pupils and 25 out of 29 countries have been represented. A fantastic finish to the year. Please see the poster below

Additionally, the flags were then put in for judging for a competition (prizes to be awarded upon return) and the winners are (with pictures of creations attached):
1st: Ava in 7yFrBerra (Switzerland)
2nd: Billy in 7xFrBerra (Seychelles)
3rd: Lara in 7yFrLints (Rwanda)
Runners up: Jessica in 7yFrClaig (Benin) and Ella in 7xFrYealm (Chad)

Well done everyone, absolutely Fantastic!

Art

This week’s gallery contributions come from Miss Clarke who wanted to share with you some of the fantastic art work that students have been doing at home.

Pictured below is the creative and talented work of her Year7s:
Tree of Life drawings from: Alfie, Amber, Ella, Isla. Sam’s Comic Book Cover. Ava, Cerys, James, Kacie, Mitchell, Molly, Nat and Katie in Year 8 Storyboard

She has also included a piece of work that she has been doing during lock down.
Compositon IIII The Symphony

Thank you to Miss Clarke for sharing all this work and well done to the students.

Then from Mr Hurd-Thomas a couple of late entry Nose puppets that really deserve to appear in the blog… from Grace in Year 8 and Hugo in Year 7.

D&T

Year 7 Design & Technology project

The pictures below show the huge range of design models that have been submitted to Miss Pring. The students conducted design research and then were set the following brief:

“You have been asked by the famous design company Vitra to design a new chair for the 2023 European Games. The UK has submitted a bid and has approached Vitra to design a commemorative chair design.”

Last week’s lesson was to model their favourite idea from card/paper and scrap materials.

As you can see the outcomes were simply stunning!

Miss pring could not pick a favourite but wanted to applaud the way the students have approached their home learning right to the end.

Many of them have shown fantastic design skills and have bright futures in D&T.

Home Projects

Miss Pring has had an update from Lucas, who you may remember has featured throughout this period undertaking various DIY projects and honing his skills
Miss Pring is really impressed by his enthusiasm and his skills have progressed massively. He started lockdown with working in cardboard and has ended up being very creative with offcuts of timber and using the hand tools himself.
“I have awarded him ‘Star maker’ – he has done an amazing job and I think has a very bright future. I told him he could take orders on his herb planter design.”
His work is pictured below. Fantastic Lucas. Well done

Results of the cooking competition

Miss Stevenson has sent in the results of the cooking competition, which we mentioned in the blog dated 12 June.

The winner was Ms Pring but the competition was very close. We had over 200 votes on all the dishes.

Geography

Mr Schindler has nominated Lizzie in Year 9 as his Geography Student of the Week.

He explains “I have been communicating with Lizzie (Y9) and her mum since lockdown and they have been working extremely hard together to continue learning about lots of different aspects of Geography from rainforest and taiga ecosystems to Asian cuisine .

Lizzie’s enthusiasm for learning has been tremendous throughout the whole year. She has continued to produce informative and engaging pieces of work each week building on and developing her understanding of the world in which we live. I have been so impressed with the efforts that she has gone to, working hard with mum at home to communicate well and produce excellent work consistently. I wish every student had such a passion for learning!

Below is just a snapshot of some of the things she has discovered.

Lizzie has worked extremely hard and with great enthusiasm. She has therefore this week been awarded a Headteacher’s Personal Achievement Award for her efforts throughout distance learning.

History- A Creative week in Humanities

To celebrate the end of a hard and somewhat unconventional term, the History Department has been running its Hard-boiled Histories Challenge.
Pictured below is an entry that Mrs Wilkins received from Jack in Y8 – the History of the future.

Mrs Wilkins said, “I am so impressed with the thought that has gone into so many of the pieces that I have received. I would like to nominate the following as students of the week as they not only produced fantastic work this week but have done so consistently throughout the last two terms:

Ella Y7, Kate Y8, Sam Y8 and Rosie Y9

Well done to all for these funny and very creative pieces.”

Pictured below is a selection of their work

EPiC – Spirited Arts Project

The work produced for this project continues to amaze Mrs Slade. She commented, “All the students have demonstrated exceptionally high levels of skill and have produced amazing work. I thank all the students for working so hard on this.”

Here is a small selection of some of them:

Firstly Abi in Year 7 and Samuel in Year 8

Both students have taken the time and effort to create such thought provoking pieces of work, pictured below.

They have been made Students of the Week by Mrs Slade for EPiC for not only their hard work but also their kindness.

In addition, a piece from Jessica in Year 8 who has been made Student of the week for this amazing piece of work: “My paintings and sketches represent the contradicting evil and good in humans. Where is god when we need him? The eyes are representations of sinister intruders watching you, waiting with prying eyes as your expectations take a toll on the consequences. This is the side of people that we are oblivious to, the side that is vacant in our minds. Where is god when this happens, when it’s evident that someone needs help.”

Then…

Issy and Emma in Year 9 for these very thoughtful pieces of work

Jake in Year 7, Mrs Slade said, “Today he has sent his work off to a competition so we look forward to seeing if he is successful. I think that he is a star anyway as he has spent a lot of time, thought and effort into creating this piece of work and I am very proud of both him and the work that he has done.”
.
In addition, Mrs Slade has nominated Abi in Year 10.

“Abi deserves much praise. She has been just brilliant with her work for RS. She is motivated, works hard, thinks on her feet and is pro-active. In general an ambassador for taking the ‘bull by the horns’ and no matter what difficulties she has been faced with, with distance learning, she has made sure that she tackles this head on and makes the most of the time that she has. She really has stood out as an exceptional student.”

Student Senate

On Tuesday afternoon, the Plymstock School Senate met via Microsoft Teams to share our experiences and opinions relating to distance learning, as well as thoughts and ideas about returning to school in September. A range of issues were discussed, including Show My Homework, communication with teachers, the variety of teaching methods used and the motivation for continuing to complete work. In these challenging times, I found it very interesting and informative to listen to the views of students from different year groups. It is very important that students have a voice in order for our school to work together and move forward, ensuring that any areas for improvement are identified, in order to best help and support us all.

Max Port Year 10 Student

Students of the week

All our winners have demonstrated Endeavour, Resilience and Empathy; Plymstock School students striving to “Be the best you can be”

Our winners include:

The following students mentioned in the blog have received nominations as Year 7 students of the week:

Abi, Jake, Hawkeye and Freddy

The following students mentioned in the blog have received nominations as Year 8 students of the week:

Jack, Finley, Samuel, Kate and Sam

The following students mentioned in the blog have received nominations as Year 9 students of the week:

Morgan, Lizzie, Emma, Ewa, Issy, Jessica, Ellie, Carla, Charlie, Ella, Isaac and Rosie

The following students mentioned in the blog have received nominations as Year 10 students of the week:

Lucy, Madie and Abi

And finally…

ARGYLE – “Summer Provision Argyle Community Trust are offering across Plymouth.”

Lots of summer opportunities

Latest updates and Staying in touch and up to date with Plymstock School

New Virtual Tour of Plymstock School

We have added a new video to support Parents/Carers and students, both current and new, in their return to school in September, with a message from our Headteacher, Mr Pearsall.

You will find the video on our Year 6-7 Transition webpage: https://plymstockschool.org.uk/plymstock-transition-year-7-2020/

This webpage is designed to help all students who may have chosen Plymstock School for September 2020 or wish to join us in September 2021.

Your hosts for a tour of the school are Mr Chick, Assistant Headteacher and Mrs Kirk, Head of Year 7.

The video provides a tour of our site to both support Year 6 students starting Plymstock School in September and families with students in Year 5 who are now in the process of considering schools for their applications in the autumn term. As part of the tour we meet Mrs Summers, our Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO), in the DEN, our SEND base.

Finally, before the tour ends, I explain to all our students, Parents and Carers about what makes Plymstock School such a special place and how we are preparing and looking forward to welcoming all our students back in September.

We hope you enjoy the tour, see you all in September.

Best wishes
Mr Pearsall

NEW Re-opening for September webpage now ‘live

Since sharing information with you on 2 July about the wider re-opening of schools for all students in September, I am delighted to announce that the webpage for our re-opening is now ‘live’.

https://plymstockschool.org.uk/re-opening-september-2020/

Here, you will find pertinent information, letters and FAQ all in one place which will make accessing information much easier.

We will add updates from 24 August as well as contact Parent and Carers directly through our MyEd messaging service to provide you and your son/daughter with all the information you need.

Parents and Carers of New Year 7’s can also find information on this specific page to support their transition: https://plymstockschool.org.uk/plymstock-transition-year-7-2020/

Information on Mental Health and Wellbeing can be found here:
https://plymstockschool.org.uk/mental-health-and-wellbeing/

and specific information related to COVID-19 is on our Re-opening for September webpage

Thank you to Mrs Kirk for her photographs used in this week’s blog.