Over the next 12 months, Plymstock School will be undergoing some significant changes after we secured additional funding to further improve the facilities for our students. You are already aware of the exciting Arts Centre build that will commence in the next few months. However, we are now also going to extend our Maths/MFL building to provide an additional 5 classrooms, a computer suite and extra toilets. On top of this we will be extending the Galley to provide a bigger kitchen, additional seating, more serving points, as well as reconfiguring the entrances to allow improved flow of students and reduce queuing times. We are working closely with Plymouth City Council and Vickery Holman (Property Consultants) to ambitiously complete all work by September 2019! The first photo below shows the location of where the new Arts Centre will go and the second photo is where the Maths/MFL extension will be (you will have to imagine an ‘L’ shaped extension.
The next phase for us in the coming years, is to make plans to build a brand new teaching block, with state of the art facilities for Post-16. Watch this space!
Plymstock School was honoured to be joined by a House of Lords Peer, Lord Teverson. Lord Teverson is a Liberal Democrat Peer who visited us as part of the ‘Peers in Schools’ Programme. He gave a very interesting speech to a variety of Sixth Form and Key Stage 3 Life Education classes about the role of the House of Lords, how he became a Peer and his involvement with the Liberal Democrat Party. The session ended with a range of different questions. Topics included whether the House of Lords should still exist; the role of the House of Lords in Brexit; the challenges facing the South West economy; religion and politics; how laws are made and whether 16 year olds should be given the vote. It was a brilliant experience and we are very grateful to Lord Teverson for giving up his valuable time to visit Plymstock School.
Our Year 10 BTEC Travel and Tourism students took part in a visit to Dartmoor Zoo as part of their research into customer service at travel and tourism organisations. The students were given a talk about how the zoo markets itself, how it trains and supports workers, and how it meets the needs of its visitors (the talk was actually given by an ex-Plymstock student, who is now working as part of the education department at the zoo). After this, the students had the opportunity to look around the zoo, meet some of the main attractions and complete some tasks to help them to understand how the zoo puts its policies into practise.
Our Year 8 cricket team recently played in a Devon tournament. Here’s a match report written by one of the team – Joe.
The school cricket team travelled to Exmouth to play in the Devon School Softball Cricket Tournament. We were in a pool with Sidmouth and Okehampton School, and played Sidmouth first. We won the toss and chose to bat with three of our team all retiring on 20. Plymstock finished on 90 off 7 overs. With 91 to win, with a run rate requiring 13 an over for Sidmouth to win. Sidmouth started well and batted with confidence and ease. They needed five off the last over and unfortunately they managed to win. With this defeat behind us, Plymstock comfortably beat Okehampton with a strong batting and bowling performance throughout. Plymstock then went on to play South Dartmoor (winners of the opposing pool), in the semi-finals. Again, we won the toss and elected to bat. We finished on 75, our lowest total of the tournament. Three of our students all took wickets in this important semi-final match. We bowled South Dartmoor out for 45, which meant we were in the final and set for a showdown with St Peter’s School. We quickly hit two sixes and two fours in four balls. Three of our team ran between the wickets well and pushed the total up to a challenging 82. Two wickets fell for St Peter’s early, but they scored quickly. We approached the final over, in which St Peter’s needed 11 to win. They hit a four on the opening ball, but we finished the over only conceding seven runs. Plymstock School were crowned County Champions winning by just three runs!
Well done everyone – a brilliant outcome.
Congratulations go to one of our Year 11 students – Aimee. She has just been awarded Young Volunteer of the Year by the Plymouth and District Netball League. Aimee has been volunteering with Plymstock Community Netball Club since she was in Year 7. She has played netball successfully for many years at both junior and senior levels, and this year as part of a regional team. This year Aimee has been coaching the next generation of young netball players and they have been very successful throughout the season. The club introduced a new session called ‘Nippy Netters’ (aged 2 – 7) and Aimee has given up all her Saturday mornings to help and coach many future netballers. This year has also seen Aimee complete her umpiring course, which has enabled her to volunteer her time at both Hi 5 and junior matches. The Plymouth and District Netball League wanted to recognise all the time and dedication that Aimee has given over her many years of volunteering, and presented her with her award at the senior presentation evening held at the Crown Plaza a couple of weeks ago.
Well done Aimee – we are really proud of you.
Finally we reach our students of the week.
I have four amazing students this week who are all being recognised for their hard work, positive attitude, their support for others and being fantastic members of our Plymstock School community. So a big well done goes to Ellie in Year 7, Sophie in Year 8, Shanine in Year 9 and Ella in Year 10. Keep up the great work girls.
