Easter 2013The Rocky Monster ShowStudents have been working hard since September on the production of the Musical ‘The Rocky Monster Show’. It is Frankenstein meets the Adams Family with a few slightly peculiar village folk, a little bit of love and a lot of fun.

Tickets are now on sale and can be purchased using Parent Pay. The price is £2 for students and £4 for adults. There are two productions, Friday 19th April 2013 and Saturday 20th April 2013. Each production starts at 7.30pm in the Academy hall. Please come along and support the students in this wonderful and exciting production. They are truly children to be proud of.

J. Cringle

Germany/Poland 2013“2,800 miles!” “It has snowed every day.” “I don’t know what I was expecting, but this trip has been absolutely amazing.”

From the 8th – 16th February, 40 intrepid students and 4 slightly less intrepid staff went on the Humanities trip to Germany and Poland. In Berlin we visited many interesting places including the Brandenburg Gate,

the Holocaust Memorial, Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall, a Stasi Prison and Berlin

Zoo - all in the space of three days! From there we travelled down to Krakow where we followed the Schindler Trail, walked around the Jewish Quarter, saw a fire-breathing dragon statue and had a guided walking tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. Needless to say, the experience was emotional for many students and as always they conducted themselves brilliantly.

From Krakow we travelled to Munich where we had a very interesting walking tour of the City Centre before departing to head back to Wilmington the following morning. Over the course of our 9 days, we covered over 2,800 miles on the coach and coped with snow and sub-zero temperatures every day. Even so, the students had a wonderful time and described the trip as ‘changing my perspective on life. I would totally go and live it all over again if I could’. Another student said ‘Considering what you’d learnt at school, it was even more eye-opening to go and see these places in real-life’ and ‘just remembering the trip makes me smile.’

Mr. Devlin

Relocation of the Main Academy ReceptionIf you are not already aware the reception has been relocated to a temporary mobile office along the new pathway into the Academy. You cannot miss it as the hut is surrounded by lots of lovely planters supplied by our Horticulture Centre.

Please note that our temporary telephone number is: 01474 700779.

K. Wellham / L. Elson

N E W S L E T T E R

Year 7 FootballThe Year 7 Wilmington Academy football team not only had to battle St. George’s School for the win on Tuesday 29th January but Mother Nature as well. A waterlogged pitch and torrential winds made for a tough match. Despite some questionable calls and some miscommunication, the boys never gave up. Although they didn’t walk away with the win, their effort and determination was commendable as evidenced by the mud!

The boy’s commitment to training and their enthusiasm made for one of Wilmington Academy’s most successful football seasons to date. Congratulations are in order to the following Year 7 boys on a job well done and for paving the way for sporting success at the school:

Jack Towler Harry Rowe Jade Arthurs Joe Field Max Goodger James Huckle

Joe Wootton Max Taylor Harrison Chambers Charlie Bishop Courtney Johnson Sonny Merrall

Charlie Hammond Alex Kuzmanovski Teddy Petkin Josh Collins Connor Howell Kenny Kendrick

Also, thank you to the following Year 7 boys who although didn’t play in matches, showed commitment and dedication by showing up to training every week: Tate Lamb and Louis Palmer-Smith.

A. Marchant

Cross-country Event at Hextable – Friday February 8th Wilmington Academy was well represented by a mix of year groups on a cold, windy, Friday afternoon at Swanley Park. Showing up with the biggest contingent of athletes, Wilmington Academy’s long-distance running team looked a force to be reckoned with.

Congratulations are in order for the following Year 7 boys who finished 1st and 3rd respectively: Max Taylor and Bradley Brazier.

Congratulations also go out to the following students for their commendable effort in finishing their race, contributing to the team event, and showing excellent sportsmanship:

Year 7: Year 8: Year 9:

Max Taylor Holly Stevens Millie Tout

Bradley Brazier Lauren Crabb Tom Mills

Oliver Anderson Grace Letchford Bradley Cloake

Ben Brewster Abbie May

Joe Field Smriti Gurung

Beth Carter-Hart Matthew Ray

Rhiannon Penkert

Chloe Mitchell A. Marchant

Year 11 BTEC Hospitality For their final unit of work the 2 groups had to plan and organise a Hospitality event where all students had to participate.

Following the success of the Christmas Tea Dance in 2011 they decided to plan the event again. It was held at the Academy in December 2012. The students prepared and cooked all of the food, wrote to companies who donated raffle prizes and decorated the hall with Christmas decorations and laid the tables. Over 75 senior citizens from the local community enjoyed an afternoon of good food and Christmas dancing. We were also joined by a group of students from Milestone School, who are now a part of the Leigh Academies Trust. Well done to all the students!

The second group decided to plan a charity dinner where they sold tickets for a four course meal, which was cooked and served by themselves with the help of the school Chef, Scott McKenzie. The students divided into 2 groups of ten and half worked with Scott and the other half prepared the school canteen for a formal dinner. The event was a huge success with over 40 tickets sold and a 5 star meal cooked and served. The students worked so hard and their efforts paid off. The response at the end of the evening was overwhelming and money made from the raffle (over £400) is being sent to Macmillan Cancer Relief. My thanks go to everyone who attended and made the event possible and to Scott for all his hard work with the students.

J. Murty

Teaching and Learning News:Staff at Wilmington Academy are always striving to share outstanding teaching and model effective classroom strategies. This academic year, we have produced many of our own resources including: Teaching and Learning Newsletter, Learning Portfolios at Post16, utilise a new technique called “Steps to Success” which provides students with a clear idea to progress and achieve in lessons, a useful handbook that contains fresh and innovative tasks for pupil engagement, an online bespoke resource website and research groups that study ways of learning. Our latest approach to drive standards forwards is by making a video of outstanding practitioners in the academy and asking members of staff to present their techniques and strategies so that we can maintain our high levels of teaching and learning. Staff will have access to the first video by Module 5 and we hope this will support and continue to produce outstanding lessons throughout the academy.

M. Gore

Year 7 Castle CompetitionThe Humanities Faculty would like to thank all students who took part in the Castle Competition. The response was amazing and there were lots of excellent entries. It was very difficult to choose the winners.

Apollo Winners:First prize went to James Hollis (A8) for an outstanding model castle made from concrete, with a fully working moat! In joint second place were Emily Knight (A16) and Ellie Newbury (A11).

Minerva Winners:First prize went to Solomon Homewood (M7) for an unusual creation out of carefully place sugar cubes. Second prize went to Toni West (M11). Third prize went to George Hancock (M16).

Smaller prizes for excellent models have been given out in groups. Photographs of the models and the names of the winners are on display in the Jubilee Building entrance.

E. Hathorn and H. Bramall

James Hollis (A8)

Solomon Homewood (M7)

World Book DayTo celebrate World Book Day on the 7th March, Wilmington Academy went book crazy! Students who collected World Book Day tokens were able to collect their own free book to keep from the LRC. The titles included works by famous authors such as Tony Robinson, Anthony Horowitz, Cathy Cassidy, and Francesca Simon, the author of the ‘Horrid Henry’ series.

During tutor time, students completed a World Book Day quiz. Students also competed in a ‘Teacher’s Favourite Book’ competition where they had to guess the identity of teachers holding their favourite book without being able to see their face. Congratulations to A13, M11, and A4 who won a tray of cookies as their runner-up prizes. However, it was A8 who won the competition with a perfect score, winning a pizza party for their tutor group!

ReadathonThe major literacy competition for Module 4 is Readathon. This involves students reading in and out of tutor time from Monday 25th February to Friday 15th March. Students are awarded points for every page they read. We look forward to seeing which tutor group wins the first place prize - £250 to spend how they wish!

Accelerated Reader Success!Rhea Uppal in Year 7 Minerva has become our first Millionaire Reader for the year! This means that she has read over 1,000,000 words since September 2012. Well done Rhea!

Due to a new library being built in the new build, the LRC has been moved to a temporary home in 7A. All Accelerated Reader books are still available, as well as magazines, newspapers, and computers. Unfortunately the Reading Tower and many of our non-fiction titles have had to go into storage for safe-keeping. We look forward to seeing them again in our brand new library.

Wilmington Academy’s Best WriterAn exciting new competition is taking place from this module. To celebrate achievement in extended writing in all subjects, teachers can now nominate their students’ work to be considered for the modular prize of Wilmington Academy’s Best Writer. All students have to do is create a great piece of writing (over a paragraph) in any lesson and ask their teacher to consider them for the award. The winner will receive a £25 Bluewater voucher for their efforts, so keep up with the excellent writing!

N. Marken

Paired Reading ProgrammeThe Paired Reading Programme has got off to a successful start. Ten enthusiastic Post 16 students volunteered to give up their time and read with Year 7 students each week. We attended a training session with Mrs Kitley before we started, where we were given strategies to support and encourage the younger students. We aim to share our personal enjoyment of reading with our Year 7 reading pair. Lauren Russell and Katie Firmin, two of the volunteers, commented: ‘One of the main things we try to do is build their confidence with reading. It is very rewarding’! The Year 7 students are enjoying having individual attention and look forward to their weekly session.

Amy Allaway Year 12

Post 16 Volunteering – Giving Something Back!Students here at Wilmington have taken the challenge to volunteer and give something back to the local communities in which they live. So what made our young people decide to do this?

It is rewardingIt provides opportunities to make a difference to people’s lives in the local community. Volunteering can enhance future employment prospects and enable employers to see that you have developed the necessary skills you may need in their organisation. It is especially useful when completing application forms and during job interviews to illustrate the skills you have developed through these voluntary experiences.

Opportunity for training and developmentVolunteering provides development opportunities that are not always possible with paid employment, for example; communication and people skills, organisational and time management skills, planning and budgeting skills. It can help open up fresh opportunities and is a way to explore new career paths.

Have fun!Volunteering is fun and fulfilling, allowing you to experience many diverse opportunities not always available to you elsewhere.

Many of our students now regularly take part in volunteering activities and are making a real difference to our local communities. The following are just a few examples of what our young people are doing:

“I currently volunteer at Cheeky Monkeys, a young disabled peoples club in Swanley. I help run various activities including arts, crafts and cooking. Since volunteering at this club I have grown in confidence around others and enjoy the teamwork and group atmosphere”. Will Leonard Year 12

“We volunteer with VSU at Temple Hill Primary School. We have been volunteering here since November last year. Here we work with disadvantaged children, their disadvantages range from learning difficulties to poverty. At this club we work with the children for about an hour and a half, in this time, we do arts and crafts activities with the children, then we go to the sports hall to participate in sports activities with them. After the activities with the children, the volunteers evaluate how successful the session was and what changes we think should be made. We have gained skills such as communication, team working, organisation, leadership and responsibility in terms of working with the children. We enjoy doing this as we believe it will be beneficial to not only our own future, but

the children’s too as we help them build confidence during the session, and we feel that we help them learn little things. We find these things very rewarding”.

“We also volunteer with the accelerated readers at our school which has just started. This club is for the children in Year 7 who are below average with their reading age, or lack confidence with reading. Here we just sit with the students and read with them, we either listen to them read, or read with them depending on how confident they are. We learn how to be very positive at this volunteering, as one of the main things we try to do with the children is build their confidence with reading. We gain the same sort of skills here as we do with VSU. We have been doing this for one week so far, and have only completed one session. However it is also very rewarding and we both intend on continuing with this volunteering for the duration of our time at sixth form”. Lauren Russell & Katie Firmin Year 12.

“I volunteer at an Islamic Youth Group which is held every Friday. We have talks on Islam in general and have meetings on how we can better the mosque. We have organised a number of Islamic exhibitions to explain the religion to the community. Our last exhibition was in February which had a theme of “Science and Islam”. During the lead up to the event my job was to clean up the mosque, put up billboards on walls and during the event I acted as guide to the visitors whilst showing them around the mosque”. Mohammed Uddin Year 12

Our volunteering is starting to spill into overseas projects with the Romanian Schools Project & Africa Adventure Project. These projects will see our young people fundraise to get them to their chosen project and once there run summer school activities for disadvantaged and orphaned children in Romania, build classrooms teach primary students and take part in community feeding projects in Kenya. If you would like to support our students in fundraising in excess of £25,000 to help them make a difference please contact Sue Stevens – sue.stevens@wilmingtonacademy.org.uk or Rebecca Roberts – Rebecca.roberts@wilmingtonacademy.org.uk or come along to the numerous events we are planning to help develop global citizens.

R. Roberts

Horticulture News We are enjoying another successful year in Horticulture. Things are starting to happen and we are approaching the busiest and most exciting time of the year for us.

During this module we took Year 12 and 13 students on a trip to Coolings Nursery, Sevenoaks. They had the opportunity to see behind the scenes of this large and well established business. It was a real eye-opener for both students and teachers and gave us all an insight to the working environment in the land based sector.

This year Chelsea Flower Show will be celebrating its Centenary and Wilmington Academy are proud to say they will be taking part in this grand event which celebrates Horticulture. Our aim this year, however, is to improve on last year’s Silver award to Gold, “Chelsea here we come”. Peter Seabrook from the SUN news paper has visited the school to give his advice, and we are all very much looking forward to this year,s show.

In the March issue of Amateur Gardening Magazine, we had an article published about the Horticulture Department. The article showed Lloyd Burke and our Year 13 students working in our garden. It talked about our successes and about Mr Burke’s past farming experiences when he lived in Jamaica. It was a really interesting article and great to highlight the work we do in horticulture. The magazine has said that they hope to have more articles about the school in future issues. (Fame at last!).

To read the full article please go to our website www.wilmingtonacademy.org.uk and click on the link.

As a fun activity, we are staging our first ‘Tomato Olympics’. Every tutor group in the school has been invited to design their own planters to grow tomato plants in. At the end of the competition, the planters and plants will both be judged and prizes awarded accordingly.

Lastly, we would like to thank you all for your past and future support of the Horticulture department.

L. Burke

AP☼LLO SPOTLIGHTComic Relief - Do something funny for money

On 15 March staff and students threw themselves into the Red Nose Day spirit to raise money for the very worthwhile causes that Comic Relief supports in the UK and Africa.

During our Apollo assembly on 12 February, we considered why charity events are so important and watched videos of children less fortunate than us, who don’t even have clean running water in their homes.

Lots of money was raised through our non-uniform day – wearing something red or indeed fancy dress. The English faculty dressed up as pirates, we had the pink ladies, lots of red hair and ‘onesies’ and a fantastic ‘mushroom’ hat to mention but a few.

For several weeks, tutor groups have been planning imaginative events including cake decorating, face painting, fancy dress jog and five-a-side football. Miss Mongon volunteered to have her hair cut if enough money was raised and Miss Haynes and Mr George went into the stocks.

We are still counting the money but so far, we estimate over £800 – enough for 160 mosquito nets or life-saving vaccinations.

As ever, I would like to thank the staff for their hard work and dedication and wish all students and their families a relaxing Easter break.

Mrs Trusler

Wilmington AcademyCommon Lane, Wilmington, Dartford, Kent DA2 7DR

01322 272 111 | www.wilmingtonacademy.org.uk All text and images © Wilmington Academy 2011

Newsletter design by Toby @ Genobi Ltd | www.genobi.net

Key Dates

Monday 15th April - Thursday 23rd May Module 5Friday 24th May Inset DayTuesday 28th May - Friday 31st May HolidyMonday 3rd June - Friday 19th July Module 6Monday 13th May - End of June GCE/GCSE Exams

MINERVA SPOTLIGHTAlthough this has been a short module it has been a very busy one in Minerva College! Since February we have moved offices from the front of the academy into the main campus, as the next stage of the building project gets underway. Slowly we are all getting used to the new arrangements and we are enjoying watching the new academy building take shape.

The weather has tried hard to keep us from our learning, but with little success. Despite the snow and rain our students have still managed to play some excellent sports fixtures, even if they have come home rather muddy!

We have already been able to celebrate some excellent GCSE and A-Level results this module, with some top grades being achieved by Minerva students. A big congratulation goes out to all those who were successful this time, but remember the next lot of exams are just around the corner so keep working hard, attend your revision classes and try your best!

During this module we have launched our new Peer Mentoring programme. The transition from primary to secondary school can often be challenging, getting used to the size of the school, new routines and making the right friendship groups. The peer mentor programme is designed to help the younger students overcome these challenges, and be more confident members of the Minerva community. It has already been really successful, with representatives from Year 10 working closely with some of our year 7 students.

Red Nose Day 2013 was great fun! Students wore fancy dress and participated in a range of fund raising events throughout the day. The cake stall was as popular as ever selling homemade cookies and treats to raise monies towards the cause.

Unfortunately this will be my last Wilmington Academy newsletter as I am leaving at Easter to take up the position of Vice Principal at Longfield Academy. Having been at the school for the last 5 years I have seen many changes, but know I am leaving the Academy at it’s strongest point. I have been very fortunate to work with and be part of the Minerva team, a dedicated group of staff and a friendly, fun loving and hard working group of students. I wish you all every success for the future as well as a very Happy Easter!

E. Smith