On Thursday 14th February school will finish early at 2.45 due to staff training.

Good luck to Sam Wakefield who tonight will represent The Leeds Rotary Club in the Yorkshire final of The Young Chef competition. Back in November Sam fought off the competition of 8 other Leeds schools to scoop the coveted semi-final place at Betty's Cookery School.
We wish him the very best of luck! Go Sam Go!!!

On Friday 1st February, the Year 12 Geographers spent the day undertaking fieldwork on the east coast. Our first stop was at Hornsea where we observed the different methods of hard engineering that have been put in place to protect the coastline from erosion. We then visited Mappleton further down the coast to assess the effectiveness of the coastal management scheme there. Students were actively involved, measuring the beach gradient at various intervals. The data collected will be used to complete follow-up tasks back in the classroom. A great day was had by all!

In case you had been in hibernation and had missed the fact that we are in the middle of rehearsing this year’s school musical, ‘We Will Rock You’, I thought I would write a short piece about where we are at to get you up to date.
The cast and staff have been in on Saturdays working hard to choreograph Act 1 Scene 10 where the main characters, Galileo and Scaramouche find themselves in the middle of a battle between the Globalsoft clones and the Bohemians. Music is dead and there is only one person who can bring it back to life….Galileo! Without him, resistance is futile! I won’t tell you what happens next or that would be a complete spoiler! Suffice to say, this rehearsal was extremely successful and the final moments of Act 1 are looking spectacular, and that’s without lights, sound, costume and a live band!
The cast have been working hard on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday evenings to get this piece to the standard we have come to expect at Ralph Thoresby, but they’re not the only ones hard at it. Behind the scenes, the team is working tirelessly to bring the vision together.
Graham Connell and his tech team are well on the way with the plans for set and lighting. The scaffolders have been contacted and the plans approved….not long now before the scaffolding goes up and Mr Wilson and Mr Padbury work their creative magic!
Costume is being collected by the fabulous Miss Thomas and, seamstress extraordinaire, Miss Winfield is working hard on the Killer Queen costumes and clones uniforms.
 Mr Hackshaw, Mr Evans and Mrs Liles are well on the way with rehearsing the band for what will be an epic evening of rock and some old ‘Queen’ favourites.
Visuals and imagery have been collected by Mr Hackshaw and will help to transport the set into the future – way forward into a world where music is banned and our lives are controlled by a giant computer!
Mr Milnes and I are battling away at blocking and directing some massive scenes and trying our hand at choreography! Thankfully Miss Winfield has been on hand to get the majority of the larger pieces of choreography together.
We are slowly but surely coming to the end of the hard part – getting the general ideas of each scene together. Soon scripts will be down, song words learnt and the dance steps memorised and the show will really start to come together!
Keep checking the website for more info and look out for the extra performances on Saturday 9th March – matinee and VIP evening performance. Come along dressed as your favourite rock star, get some red carpet treatment and sing along with the cast.
It’s going to rock.

Please find attached the year 9 options booklet & Presentation

Attachments:

options 13-15.pdf	[ ]	6909 Kb
Options_Information_presentation 2013.pdf	[ ]	285 Kb

The Consultation evening for Y9 students has been arranged for Wednesday 30th January from 4:00pm until 7:00pm.  Subject staff, Mr Hayball (Head of Year 9) and other senior staff will be available to discuss your child’s progress this year.

This is a particularly important evening because Year 9 students will soon be making choices about which subjects to follow in the optional part of their curriculum next year.  It is vital that parents and students understand how the curriculum works next year and what degree of choice is available for students in the different pathways.  Therefore as part of the evening there will be three twenty-minute presentations about the subject choices for next year.  Parents/Carers are asked to attend one of these presentations and fit this around their other appointments.  The main purpose of this presentation is to ensure that parents and carers are clear about how the options process works.  

Refreshments will be available in the Street along with information about some of the different types of courses we offer at Key Stage 4 that your son/daughter will not have experienced yet at Key Stage 3.  Our Careers Advisor will be available to talk to you and Mark Hancock, our Work Related Learning Co-ordinator for those who may be considering College placements.  Please allow some spare time to have a look at all the options available when making your appointments.

An Invitation Letter and an attached Appointment Sheet have been posted out to all parents and carers.

Year 13 Creative Edge students performed their original devised piece titled ‘The WoMEN’ on Wednesday 16th and Thursday 17th January to good audiences. It was encouraging to see so many people brave the snow on Thursday to support our students. Local artists Simon Brewis and Alan Lane attended alongside parents, staff, members of Escape Youth Theatre and friends of the drama students.

The 30 minute piece took the audience on a journey through time from ‘the dawn of man’ to the current day. Each scene explored the role of women and men throughout history and examined the way women in particular were viewed by society. Incorporating movement, image, multi-role, direct address, verbatim, some exaggerated characters and a nicely edited soundtrack the students moved through time seamlessly.

Performances by Bella Curtis, Abigail Jones, Daniel Lowe, Molly Mesher and Edna Sulejmanovic were excellent. They demonstrated a wide range of skills and styles throughout the piece which enabled them to ask the question, ‘where do we stand now?’ The strongest moments in the piece included an upper class dinner party which descended into an apes tea party and symbolic movement and text exploring the life of 19th century woman, Suzannah Palmer.

Overall this was a well-constructed and thought provoking piece of work that the students should be proud of. Huge thanks go to the students for their creativity and hard work, to Sam Milnes (drama teacher) for the support and guidance offered to the students, to Alan Lane and Simon Brewis for their feedback and contribution to the process.

Next performances for A level students are 22nd and 23rd May 2013 where the students will be performing monologues and duologues from some verbatim plays and a production of Edward Bond’s ‘Passion’. Other performances include the school musical ‘We Will Rock You’ on the 6th -9th March and GCSE showcase examination evenings in the w/b 29th April – most likely to perform on Wednesday 1st and Thursday 2nd May (to be confirmed). Keep checking the website for more details!

School is open as normal Tuesday 22nd January

Year 7 Parents evening is postponed due to the bad weather

 Y11 students taking the Science exam tomorrow morning should be aware that this exam will run as normal - please make every effort to be at school well before the scheduled start time of 9.00am.