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George Bernard Shaw allegedly said, ‘England and America are two countries separated by a common language.’ This was cer-tainly not the case when we welcomed students from Meade High School, Maryland, USA to Sir William Robertson on a cold and misty mid-November day. This was part of their ten day visit to the UK, as part of their Homeland Security programme. Their school is located next to one of the largest military bases in the United States, Fort Meade, which covers more than eight square miles and is home to almost ten thousand service personnel.

The Meade High School teachers visited us during the Summer Term and had been fascinated by watching our pupils playing cricket outside in the sunshine, so as part of their day with us we introduced our American visitors to Kwik Cricket in the Sports Hall. Although we couldn’t arrange the sunshine

for an outdoor game, they absolutely loved it - as did our Sixth Form stu-dents! To the cricketing purist, there may have been a hint of baseball thrown in, but new friendships were formed very quickly. Our Sixth Formers also showed our visitors around the school, gave presentations on life in a UK secondary school and teenage life in Modern Britain, accompanied them to RAF Waddington to see the AWACS and guided them around the historic parts of Lincoln.

Our military theme continued (as befits a school named after such a celebrat-ed Field Marshal and tactician) with our recent Awards Evenings. We were delighted to welcome Flight Lieutenants Olly Parr and Joe Hourston from the Red Arrows as Guest Speakers at our Post-16 Awards’ Evening. They in-spired our students (and also the parents who attended) by describing their journey to becoming members of the world's premier aerobatic display team, ambassadors for the United Kingdom and promoters of British achievement across the world. Aspiration and the ‘Best of British’ was a theme reinforced by Maria Bertelli, Team GB Volleyball Player, who spoke passionately about her pride in representing her country in the London

2012 Olympics to our Upper School Awards. During the course of the day, many of our pupils benefitted from her inspirational teaching and coaching in both PE and Maths lessons. Our Lower School Awards were presented by Simon Cooper, Sales Director with Siemens. In an engag-ing address to our younger pupils he talked about the glob-al opportunities provided in British industry and the opportu-nities available in the field of engineering. Our young designers of the future showcased their considerable talents at our recent Fashion Show, jointly organised by the Art department and the Friends of Sir William Robertson Academy. Style and panache were the order of the day as our pupils modelled their artistic designs on the catwalk in front of a packed and appre-ciative audience. Special thanks are due to Mrs Lawson and Miss Dowler for co-ordinating this event and for providing the platform and creative skills to allow our pupils to dazzle and impress.

It is opportunities such as these which help to create a vibrant, ambitious and energetic school community. It was no surprise to us when the results from our Keele University Pupil Survey came back in to school record-ing extremely high levels of pupil satisfaction with their school experience. Two hundred and fifty eight pupils – selected at random from all year groups – completed the survey about their day-to-day experiences at Sir Wil-liam Robertson and we out-performed the national average for satisfaction against virtually every heading.

It seems hard to believe that Christmas is now nearly upon us! The cast of our fantastic school production,

Les Misérables, has recently completed some primary school workshops with the show being a complete sell-

out. We are greatly looking forward to our annual Christmas celebration for the local Senior Citizens this week. I hope all families will enjoy a happy and safe Christmas.

Thank you for your on-going support of the school.

Mark Guest

Headteacher

December 2014

SWRA News Page 2

SWRA Celebrates Student Success with Red Arrows Visit

Sir William Robertson Academy welcomed two of the Red Arrows' pilots as their special guests at the Post 16 Awards' ceremony last week, the last of its three Awards’ ceremonies to celebrate the achievements and success of their students over the past academic year. Flight Lieutenants Olly Parr (Red 8) and Joe Hourston (Red 9) kindly helped present the GCSE awards and shared their journey of how they became Red Arrows pilots with over 200 guests.

Mr Mark Guest, Headteacher commented: “It was a privilege to welcome Flight Lieutenants Olly Parr and Joe Hourston from The Red Arrows. Their presentation and address to stu-dents and their families was captivating and most entertain-ing, charting their progression from school, university, officer training to becoming pilots. We were delighted that they were able to stay and chat with our students and their families af-terwards. It was a memorable occasion shared with our cur-rent Sixth Formers and former students.”

Flight Lieutenants Joe Hourston (Red 9) and Olly Parr (Red 8) pictured with Sophie Borrill, Rachael Sutton, Exceptional Performance at GCSE Award winner and Conor Elliott, Outstanding Achievement at GCSE Award winner and SWRA Sixth Form students.

Flight Lieutenants Joe Hourston (Red 9) and Olly Parr

(Red 8) pictured with Vice Chair of Governors Mandy

Moran, Chair of Governors, The Venerable Air Vice-

Marshal Brian Lucas and Dale Soar, Year 12 Sixth Form

student.

SWRA News Page 3

.

SWRA Celebrates Student Success continued...

Maria Bertelli, Team GB Volleyball player and SWRA’s Sky Sports Living Mentor visited the school on 19th No-

vember to start a project with a group of Year 10 GCSE PE pupils. Maria was also the guest of honour at the Up-per School Awards, where she presented prize winners with their rewards and gave an inspirational, yet humble speech to the audience. Earlier in the day she spent three hours helping develop leadership and communication skills, with a greater focus on the six key skills to success: Mental toughness; Hunger to achieve; People skills; Sports and life knowledge; Breaking barriers and Planning for success.

Maria is the most capped female indoor volleyball player with over 100 international caps. She represented Team GB in the London 2012 Olympics helping the team finish 9th and going from 69th to 21st in the world rankings. Maria is an Athlete Mentor for the Sky Sports Living for Sport programme.

Maria commented: “Success is about being the best you can be in any situation. Sport has helped me to develop as a person and I’m excited to have the chance to work with schools and their pupils, sharing my story and help-ing them realise the positive impact sport can have on their lives.”

Year 8 pupil Jessica Chen from Newark who received four

awards is pictured with Mr Simon Cooper from Siemens.

Mr Simon Cooper, Sales Director from Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery Ltd helped present book prizes to pu-pils at the Lower School Awards held on 13

th November recognising their progress and achievement through

the year.

Our students pictured with Maria and

one of the balls used at the Olympics.

Head of Girls’ PE, Mrs Davison, PE Award winner Georgia

Blades-Richardson pictured with Maria Bertelli.

Year 9 pupil Ewan Armstrong with his PE and Drama Achievement book prizes.

SWRA News Page 4

Maryland meets Will Rob

On November 17th 2014, a group of 13 American students from Meade High School, a Maryland school arrived at

the school to experience the British school life and witness some of the defence systems at RAF Waddington. It was an early start for the American students with the coach leaving at 6am sharp, just to get to our school in time for the visit to RAF Waddington so as a result, they were knocked out asleep when three members of the Sixth Form marketing team and Mrs Alexander joined them on their coach.

Arriving at the base we introduced ourselves and were welcomed by a presentation of the different types of planes used at RAF Waddington. Unfortunately the runway is currently being renewed and so sadly no planes were in action. Following the presentation we went off to explore the hangers and display rooms. There’s a Lan-caster that had been recovered after over 60 years of being a wreckage in the Scottish mountains. The group was introduced to the different air surveillance systems they use including the UAV drone, which is the pilotless sys-tem, one of approximately 60 in the world. Fascinated by the surroundings, the Homeland security students had their photo with the AWACs, with a promise not to post it on social media! The day at RAF Waddington finished with a light lunch and a short talk by Phil Bonner about the history of the RAF. Our hosts, Northrop Grummen, kindly handed out some souvenirs for us to take away.

At around 1.00pm, the party arrived at back at our school. The rest of the marketing team then joined the group for a game of cricket in the sports hall. With an audience forming we began to play cricket and even thought the Americans had never played it before, they got into the swing of things really quickly.

Once we had finished playing cricket we went on a short tour around the school. They found our school incredibly small, compared to their 2,500-pupil school. We took them to look at the main hall, which they call an ‘auditorium’ back in America. After the tour some of the pupils from Sir William Robertson Academy gave a short presentation about life at our school, and gave them an opportunity to tell us about theirs. After the presentations we had love-ly cakes and cookies kindly supplied by Mrs Marr and her team, along with many selfies the Americans highly re-quested and excitedly made our way to Lincoln on their coach. It was filled with lots of chatting and finding out more about life as an American pupil. Some of the things we found out about are that they have specific monitors for patrolling the corridors, or as they call them ‘halls'. Other things we found out is that they have to have a hall pass to leave class; they all have to walk on the left side of their halls; and they have a school tannoy system.

SWRA News Page 5

Maryland meets Will Rob cont...

We shortly arrived in Lincoln and we walked up to The Collection Museum, to look at the history of Lincoln. We showed the Americans all about Lincolnshire past and future and they were very interested.

Following that we made our way up Steep Hill in Lincoln up to the Cathedral and Castle. We were all complaining about the trek up the hill, until our guests informed us they had hiked Hadrian’s Wall the previous day.

At the top the Meade students loved the views and so wanted to remember the opportunity with lots of photo-graphs. We took lots in front of the Cathedral, before going inside. The Cathedral was all lit up in the dark and they had never seen anything like it before and were all really excited to take a look. We walked around the inside for a while and then went to the gift shop where the students bought souvenirs.

We then made our way to Tequilas restaurant up in The Bail in Lincoln, to have a meal with everyone, and another chance to get to know them better. We learnt some new phrases that are common in America includ-ing: ‘yeet’ which means to be denied or to reject something, ‘squad’ which is a close friend group to which the Americans called us. We also told them some phrases of our own!

Whilst in the restaurant they showed us some of the 900 photos some had taken of being in the UK. They had only been here three days! They were fascinated that we had sheep in fields at the side of our roads, and couldn’t believe we had animals outside. They also showed us pictures of where they were staying in Yorkshire and also of the walk around Ha-drian’s Wall. We all exchanged names and were adding each other on various apps so we can carry on talking together, even when we were not in the same country. We were chatting most of the night like we had known each other for years. It was a fantastic experience.

After the meal we made our way back to the bus and took lots more photos on the way. On the journey back to school we were all still talking about the day together and about America and the way we differ as a country. The day was beginning to end and we were not looking forward to having to say ‘bye’ to so many friends we had made. We took many more selfies on the journey back to school and we were each trying to speak in each other’s accent, it was so funny!

When we arrived back at school at around 8:30pm, we were all sad to say ‘goodbye’ and we all said we’d try and keep in touch. The Ameri-cans teacher said he was going to try and see about us going out to America, which would be such a good experience. After saying our ‘goodbyes’ we got off their coach and wished them a great rest of their time in the UK and a safe journey back to Yorkshire.

It was such an amazing experience and one that we will remember, from the day at RAF Cranwell, to the cricket at our school, the trip around Lincoln and the meal. It was such a good day and hopefully one they will remember and go back and tell their school all about it!

Charlotte King & Libby Arnold, Year 12 Students

SWRA News Page 6 Sports News

Fourteen Year 9 and 10 boys met in the school car park at 8.30am on Saturday 29

th November to claim the best seats

on the minibus for the long journey down to Twickenham (the home of rugby). Spirits were high amongst the group as the 90,000 seat stadium appeared on the horizon. Once parked we made our way through the electronic turnstiles (all except Jake Stamp who did not seem to understand how a barcode scanner worked!) into the vast but empty stadium. Kick off was at 2.30pm so there was ample time for the boys to spend a small fortune on pizza, chips and drinks.

The minute’s applause for the Australian cricketer Phil Hughes was emotional and the national anthems were stirring. The game itself flew by with an England victory over the old enemy. The other big victory of the day was getting the fourteen boys out of the stadium minutes be-fore the final whistle, through the local housing estate and back to the bus before Twickenham’s infrastructure ground to a halt with 90,000 people all trying to get home on a Saturday night!

A good day was had by all!

Mr Quincey/Mr Symmons/Mr Costello

Twickenham Trip England v Australia

Our Under 14 & Under 16 Girls’ Teams competed in the Kesteven School Sports Association Netball tournament on 15

th October at St George’s. Both teams played in a round robin competition with St George’s, KSHS, KGGS

and Stamford. The U16 Team won 1 and lost 3, beating St Georges 9-2

U16 Team U14 Team

Katheryn Bradford Chloe Haggo

Kenya Watson Abbie Bennison

Maddie Marchant Millie Heppell

Iona Mowat Chloe Sloan

Georgia Blades-Richardson Eve McDonough

Emily Andrews Holly Appadoo

Emma Peto Jasmine Keyworth

Freya Grocock

The U14 Team won 1, drew 1 and lost 2, beating KSHS 7-2 and drawing against St George’s 4-4.

Well done girls!

Mrs E Brewin

Kesteven Netball Tournament

SWRA News Page 7 Sports News

Team GB Volleyball player, Maria Bertelli visits SWRA

Maria Bertelli, our Sky Sports Living Mentor visited the school in mid November to start her project with our chosen Year 10 GCSE PE pupils. They spent three hours developing leadership and communica-tion skills, with a greater focus on the six key skills to success:

1.Mental toughness

2.Hunger to achieve

3.People skills

4.Sports and life knowledge

5.Breaking barriers

6.Planning for success

Finally, Maria was the guest of honour at the Upper School Awards, where she presented our prize win-ners with their rewards and gave an inspirational, yet humble speech to the audience.

Our Year 10 pupils involved in the project are:

Iona Mowat, Erin Draper, Katherine Bradford, Indianna Bomford-Smith, Ellie Hollingsworth, Katie Stayne, Toby Latham, Kieran Harbron, Joe Twigg, Nathan Campbell, Max Hamilton, Rory Mclean, Michael Topley, Kurtis Taylor, Adam Pykett and Robbie Kemp.

Well done to all our GCSE pupils.

Mrs K. Davison

SWRA News Page 8

Will Rob’s Got Talent!

The 2014 Finalists Ivan Szabo DDCB Jade Blenkinship DEHT

Charlie Marshall CCDE Alicia Arnold CEBT

Callum Parish LT Sam Foskett SED

Allister Spence LAES Charlotte Hinbest & Holly Grainger LBA

And the Winner was….

Allister Spence on the piano

Runners Up were…

Ivan Szabo with his magic

Sam Foskett with his dancing feet

Will Rob’s The final of Will Rob’s Got Talent was held on Wednesday 12th November with eight great finalists selected from the House auditions.

Allister Spence was crowned winner with his fantastic piano playing, with runners up being Ivan Szabo and Sam Foskett. Well done to everyone who took part and all who attended raising valuable funds for the Poppy Appeal .

SWRA News Page 9

52 Years of Celebrating with our local Senior Citizens

Monday 15th December saw us celebrating 52 years of our Senior Citizens’ Christmas Parties with more than 40 people from Welbourn and Leadenham. Miss Dillnutt and the Year 11 GCSE pupils did a fantastic job making the delicious food and serving sherry and tea to our guests. Our senior prefects looking very festive helped with the Bingo session, the raffle and looking after our local residents. They were enter-tained for two hours which concluded with one of the guests called Rosie giving us a rendition of ‘Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner’! Everyone went away with a goody bag of food and a smile on their face.

Well done to everyone involved in making it another special event.

Armistice Day

Pupils and staff who are involved in ca-dets or the Armed Forces were encour-aged to wear their uniform on Armistice Day. Thank you to everyone who gen-erously donated to the Poppy Appeal.

SWRA News Page 10

ACADEMIC MENTORING

Since the start of October, twenty four dedi-cated Sixth Formers have been using one hour a week of their enrichment time to pass on their knowledge and experiences to some of our Year 11 pupils.

With the support and guidance of subject teachers, the sixth formers have been spending time helping the Year 11s in a way best suited to them individually. For some this has been completing extra work in the subject or making a start on their revision. For others it has been helping them prepare for recent assessments in English and speaking tests in Languages. Due to the number of Sixth Formers taking part this year we have been able to offer this type of mentoring in a wide range of subjects in-cluding Art, English, Geography, German, History, Maths, Media, Music, PE, Resistant Materials and Science.

We believe giving pupils the opportunity to share experiences and help each other is a really positive way to help empower them, develop good communication skills and build a feeling of community within the school. It is won-derful to see confidence in both the Year 11s and Sixth Formers growing with each session and to see our sixth formers inspiring our younger students to try and reach their full potential.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the following Sixth Formers for their work as Academic Mentors so far this year.

Ashley Johnson-Bark, Caitlin Bartlett, Cameron Bomford-Smith, Cameron O’Hara, Chelsie Peck, Connor Brunsden, Emma Boardman, Francesca Boyer, George Burrage, Geri Goldstein, Jessica Howard, Joe Maloney, Liam Foster, McKenna Henson, Liam Shaw, Nathan Spence, Oliver Winter, Rachael Sutton, Tom

Lane, Tom Millican, William Gowshall.

Miss E Baker, Learning Mentor

PEER MENTORING Since September our newly appointed senior prefects have been settling into their roles. A major part of this has been to complete their Peer Mentoring training. During the training period, the pre-fects have attended weekly sessions to learn about the skills needed to be a peer mentor and have had the opportunity to prac-tice these skills by taking part in group activities.

The prefects have worked extremely hard and have all successful-ly completed their training. They are now able to put their skills into practice by supporting younger members of our school. They do this through weekly one to one meetings with Year 7 and 8 pu-pils and also by working in teams to offer support in lunch time clubs.

The early years of secondary school can be a difficult time for some students and the support, advice and un-derstanding from our experienced older student makes a real difference. They can help build confidence and resolve issues or just be someone that can listen and a familiar face to approach if needed.

Thank you to the prefects for the work they have completed so far this year. In Year 11 Liam Wright, Emily Par-ker, Megan Milner, Megan Pepper, Conor Harbron, Daniel Fawkes, Anna Durrance, Anna Chick and Joseph Haggo. In Year 10 Olivia Calver-Bridge, Nicholas Angwin and Emily Odling.

Miss E Baker, Learning Mentor

SWRA News Page 11

http://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/parents/things-to-do/what-to-do-in-

the-school-holidays/

(click above to visit the Christmas Guide)

Attention all Year 11s

Calling all Year 11s...in early January you will have the opportunity to order your SWRA hooded top in a variety of colours at a cost of £15.00. If you would like to see a sample, please ask.

You will also be able to order your very own Yearbook as a great memory of your time at the school. Look out for the letters coming out soon.

Mrs E Healey

£1000 raised for Children in Need

We are delighted to report that we raised £1000 for Children in Need

from our non-uniform day held recently.

Thank you to everyone who contributed.

Options Evening Thursday 5th March, 6.30pm-8.30pm

ASPIRE to a brighter future...

Christmas Activities

Looking for things to do this holiday?

SWRA News Page 12

Our 2014 School Production

There will be a full report on our produc-tion in next time’s Newsletter. Well done to all our 50 cast members on making it a wonderful sell out show!

Miss Bennett and 16 of the cast visited Navenby, Ancaster and Long Bennington Primary Schools the week before the show with a drama workshop and an ex-tract performance. Thank you to our cast members for helping make the workshops so successful:

Tom Lane, Ed Fox, Cameron Coles, Ewan Armstrong, Conor Elliot, Aaron Simons, Alana Lloyd -Jex, Jake Shaw, Jack Fawkes, Martha O’Brien, Dannie Taylor, Molly Burgess, Joe Statham, Kieran Har-bron, Tomas Jackson-Spooner and Natha-nial McNarry.

Thank you to the Primaries for letting us share some of the show.

Pre-show press article in the Sleaford Standard

SWRA News Page 13

National Citizenship Scheme

Conor Elliott

How do you think NCS has benefitted you?

"My experience on the NCS programme has helped develop my team building and leadership skills as well as growing my confidence and independence. It really helped my organisational skills giving me first hand experience of organis-ing activities and working to deadlines. One of the tasks included making lots of phone calls and I now feel more confident on the phone and making professional calls."

How will it help you in the future?

"It was only after I finished the NCS programme that I realised how many trans-ferable skills I gained which will help me when I move on to University, get in-volved in other activities and apply for jobs. I am now more confident, more in-dependent, better organised and work well in team and leadership situa-tions. Being involved in the NCS programme is a great thing to add to my CV and feel it will help me stand out from the crowd when applying for jobs and at interview. I am applying to the Sutton Trust in America and my NCS experience has helped and I am sure will help me if I should be successful in securing a place."

What skills have you taken from NCS?

“”Greater leadership and team building skills; increased confidence and independence; improved organisational skills and working to deadlines; transferable skills to help on my journey to university, enrichment and employment.”

Joe Spurr

"I really enjoyed being involved in the NCS programme and it has really helped develop my team building skills as well as making new friends and meeting new people. Initially it was a little daunting joining a group of people you don't know but it was really easy to make friends and get to know people in a new situation."

"Being a part of the scheme has helped grow my confidence and taught me to be more outgoing which I think will really help me in the future and when applying to jobs and at interview."

"I am now more confident in new situations and have really developed my team building and leadership skills. I feel that I can think on my feet more and can plan for activities and find ways of fixing any problems."

Jonathan Jackson-Spooner

"NCS was a fantastic experience and helped me learn how to be a better team member and a leader. It also taught me an awful lot about the area I live in as our Community project was in my home town of Sleaford. We worked hard cleaning up a public space and planting bulbs to regenerate the area for others to enjoy. The fundraising aspect of the project went really well too."

"Being part of the NCS scheme has helped me develop my interaction with other people as part of a team and taught me how to be a better leader. These are skills which are already helping me in Sixth Form at SWRA and when I apply to univer-sity and then employment."

"As well as team building and leadership skills I feel that it has helped develop my listening and organisational skills which is really important."

SWRA and the above students will be featured in the next issue of the NCS publication. The above are extracts from the forthcoming article.

We are immensely proud that so many of our students have taken part in NCS pro-grammes. We are a rural comprehensive school with a relatively small sixth form and our strength lies in the strong sense of community that we foster. The NCS programme is, therefore, a perfect match for us. It provides our students with the opportunity to make a contribution to their local community whilst further developing the wider life skills that are so essential beyond their time at school. The majority of our sixth form students opt to continue their studies at university and the NCS programme helps to create the confident, well-rounded students that higher education institutions, as well as employers, are looking for. There is no doubt in my mind that the students who have taken part in the NCS pro-gramme, have returned to us with enhanced levels of independence, empathy and drive to succeed. It is for this reason that we continue to strongly encourage as many of our students as possible to take advantage of the unique opportunities presented by the NCS programme.” Mr S. Mann, Head of Sixth Form

SWRA News Page 14

Where are

they now?

90% of students accepted by

their first choice of University

A third of all A-level grades

scored at ‘B’ or above

SWRA News Page 15

SWRA News Page 16

Our Sixth Form participated in the Christmas Jumper Day last Friday, a charity event for Save the Children. They adorned their festive jumpers alongside their normal busi-ness dress and a fun day was enjoyed by all along with raising £100 for Save the Children. Well done to our Sixth Formers!

The Dining Hall

Our new Spring menu is available on the website & leaflets are in Reception

Sixth Form Open Evening

A warm welcome awaited our Year 11s who came along to our Sixth Form Open Evening in early November. It was great to see students from other schools looking at SWRA Sixth Form as an option for next year too.

SWRA News Page 17

Since my AQA Extended Project speech back in September, political life has become even busier. With only 6 months to go until the general elec-tion, it is my job as an activist and enthusiast to deliver the political mes-sage of my party on the doorstep. I spend a good chunk of my free time knocking on the doors of the residents in Lincoln, getting their views on what keeps Lincoln and the surrounding villages ticking. I actively cam-paign on behalf of Lincoln’s MP Karl McCartney, in the hope he will be re-elected next year.

I have also been fortunate enough to be selected by my local Conservative Association to stand is a candidate in May’s local elections. I hope to be elected as a local Councillor in South Kesteven next year, and any support you may be willing to offer would be greatly appreciated! Alongside the campaigns for the Parliamentary elections in May, I will gain vast experi-ence through my own campaign, as I am to represent local people and play a part in local democracy.

In addition to all the hard work and campaigning I have also had the pleasure of meeting the former Education Secre-tary and Government Chief Whip Michael Gove MP last month, at the Sleaford & North Hykeham Conservative As-sociation Annual Dinner held at The Venue at Navenby. I spoke with him about his work in Education, and how as a pupil, I have seen the change in our school since becoming an Academy. It was great to chat with someone leading our campaign next year; offering an invaluable insight into the message others and myself will be advocating on the door-step in the next few months.

And finally, in the run up to Christmas, I had the honour of visiting Parliament on a work experience placement with Karl McCartney MP, who hosted me at his office over a two week period in November. It was a memorable experience and gave me a different perspective on the career I strive for in the future. I learnt in detail the role of an MP, and Parliamentary procedure. I was lucky enough to see both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary give statements in the House of Commons and I also observed Deputy Prime Minister’s Departmental Questions too. My time in Westminster was phenomenal; the travelling to London by train, the negotiation of the Underground, and walking the corridors of power, where so many great people had walked before me, has fuelled my aspiration and enhanced my understanding. My placement was nicely rounded off with a drink with Karl on the Parliament Terrace of Stranger’s Bar, an area exclusive to Members and their guests.

I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I hope to keep you updated in the exciting period as we run ever closer to the Gen-eral Election.

Best Wishes

Alexander Maughan

Year 13

Work Experience with a difference!

Alex with Karl McCartney MP at the House of Commons.

SWRA News Page 18

Dan Black, founder of Black+Blum talks to A Level Students

A Level Design and Technology students recently attended a talk with an established innovator and designer! The Design and Technology Department was proud to an-nounce that the A level students attended a talk given by Dan Black, founder of black+blum on Saturday 22nd November 2014 to talk about his work and designs and answer any questions they had. They found it very insightful and were slightly star struck. Their enthusiasm continued for many days afterwards. The expe-rience has added new depth to their understanding of how the world of design and manufacture operates. Dan Black came from a manufacturing background, From an ear-ly age he grew up discussing products and design with his family. His passion and skill for design was recognised in a first class honours degree from the respected ‘Design for Industry course’ at the University of Northumbria (Newcastle). Dan gained further professional foresight by working at IDEO (London), Frog Design (California) and under Julian Brown at Stu-dio Brown (Bath). Dan completed successful group projects with his friend Martin Blum whilst studying in Newcastle, sparking the

idea for the creative partnership that is now black+blum.

Here is a small selection of black+blum products sold in

John Lewis stores.

Miss L Dickson, Head of Design & Technology

Samuel Walton, Kieran Martin and Dale Soar pictured with Dan Black.

SWRA News Page 19

Gifts & Gowns Success!

A fantastic time was had by all who attended and took part in the 3

rd annual Fashion Show & Gift Market. The students showed off

their creations to a sell-out crowd. Despite being quite nervous beforehand they did themselves proud. Year 11, 12 & 13 students were elegant in their gowns & the boys very handsome in their suits: a taste of how they will look next June at the Prom!

Year 8 & 9 pupils’ collection was inspired by the work of our cur-rent Y13 A Level Art students, responding to diverse themes such as War & Poverty, Self-Image and the links between the rural & urban environments. They are already looking forward to their participation in the Lincolnshire Fashion Academy next year, com-peting against other Lincolnshire schools. Our Y10 students know all about that: they are Fashion Academy graduates, winning the prize for Most Creative Apparel this year for their Tudor Roses collection inspired by Elizabethan portraiture. They relished the opportunity to step onto the catwalk one last time!

The evening was made complete by the contributions from students working within Expressive Arts. The audi-ence were treated to a preview of this year’s school production of Les Miserables. The singing was beautiful. Other students gave individual performances singing & playing instruments which were very much appreciated by the audience. Thanks must go to the Expressive Arts teachers for their hard work in preparation for this evening.

The Friends of Sir William Robertson worked tirelessly in the Sports Hall serving refreshments during the show and Gift Market. Stallholders commented on how much they enjoyed coming each year. They were certainly kept busy! The audience were able to browse the stalls before the show and during the interval as well as en-joying mulled wine to get them in the Christmas spirit.

At the time of writing, I do not have an exact figure as to money raised for the school, but we expect it to be our

best year yet, raising in excess of £550.Our thanks go to all who gave their time up in preparation for and during

the show as well as the Friends who give up their time willingly to raise funds for the pupils in this school. It is a

team effort & we couldn’t do it without a lot of help.

Mrs J Lawson, Head of Art & Friends Committee Member

SWRA News Page 20

You can find a full list of our Lunchtime & Revision Clubs

on the website. Learn new skills and have fun!

A2 Geography Trip to North Yorkshire

On the 25th November, ten students embarked on a journey to Cranedale Field Centre, Kirby Grindalythe, North

Yorkshire, for four days. Upon arrival, we were given a tour of the centre and had lunch before making our way into Malton. In thick fog we analysed the town’s flood defences which had been built as a result of the 1999 floods, such as flood walls and raised houses by the riverside. After we had finished our walk along the river and through the town, we returned to Cranedale for our 3-course meal. After this we went to our classroom to look in more detail at the defences before having free time and going to bed.

The next morning we woke for a full English Breakfast at 8.15am. We then had a briefing of the day, before making our way to the River Derwent to analyse three sites along the course. This involved us standing in the river and measuring depth, width, hydraulic radius as well as some of us discovering that our wellies weren’t waterproof! After measuring all three sites, we returned to Cranedale for a well-deserved meal. This proved to be the first Christmas dinner of the season!

On our third day, we had a trip to Scarborough to measure urban micro-climates and urban heat islands using our very own mini-weather stations. On the fourth and last day we looked at the effects of Counter and Sub-Urbanisation in the villages of Kilham and Seamer, where we recorded types of houses and services that were there. After we returned to Cranedale to collect our things, we started our journey home at 4pm. Over-all the week was a lot of fun and our geographical skills improved significantly.

Liam Shaw and Emma Boardman, Sixth Formers

SWRA News Page 21

Free School Meals

– Are you claiming your entitlement?

According to current research it is estimated that over 200,000 pupils entitled to claim Free School Meals are not doing so in Lincolnshire! School meals offer a nutritionally balanced meal during the school day to ensure your child is ready and able to engage fully in their learning and we would encourage you to apply for this entitlement. The following eligibility criteria apply:

Income Support

Income-based Job Seeker’s Allowance

Income-related Employment & Support Allowance

Support under Part VI of the Immigration & Asylum Act 1999

Guarantee Element of State Pension Credit

Child Tax Credit with an annual household income of less than £16,190 & do not get Working Tax Credit

Cashless catering*– there is no differentiation between who pays and as a parent you can track your child’s meals online. An additional sum of money has also been allocated to pupil’s daily allowance above the pre-scribed floor value.

Trip subsidies – for all curriculum based off site events to ensure they can participate fully in all learning oppor-tunities.

Easter revision classes* – to ensure your child is prepared for their final examinations by accessing additional sessions based on examination technique and content linked to a wide range of courses.

1:1 Tuition in Maths and English* - to bridge any barriers to making progress in these key areas of the curricu-lum.

Learning Mentor* – provided to support pupils who are struggling to make progress or who are having difficul-ties at home or school.

For a full list of the interventions the school is providing please see the school website (under Parents, Pupil Premium). (*This intervention is accessible by all students)

Mr D. Bensley, Assistant Headteacher

Making the claim not only benefits your child in providing a healthy meal but also releases additional funds to the school to ensure they meet their full academic potential through a range of interventions that the school has put in place. Current initiatives include:-

Sign up for Free School Meals

From September there is a new universal checking service for free school meals which will enable us to check all secondary school pupils for free school meal eligibility. This system will also deter-mine eligibility for Pupil Premium, which means schools receive an extra £935 per eligible pupil from central government to fund valua-ble support such as extra tuition and learning support.

The form and further information is available on the school website and can be found under: Finance/Free School Meals and under

Pupil Premium on the Parents section of the website.

SWRA News Page 22

Save money and raise funds

www.spendandraise.com/swra

Pupil Premium change in Eligibility

Please be aware that the criteria for Pupil Premium funding is being widened to include:

Pupils who are adopted but have been looked after for one day or more or were adopted from care on or after 30 December 2005 and left care under:

- a Special Guardianship Order on or after 30 December 2005 - a Residence Order on or after 14 October 1991

If you feel that you may be eligible for the funding (£1900), please contact the school office.

Mr D. Bensley

Year 10 Computer Building Project

Year 10 pupils have been learning aspects of computer sci-ence with regards to the mother board and how a computer works. They have gone through the CPU, bus system, Cache memory, RAM, ROM and have now been able to get hands on experience seeing what these actually look like by building the machines themselves.

Practical experience is an essential part of the learning pro-cess and providing these facilities should hopefully provide opportunities for pupils in the computer building industry and also when they purchase their own machines. Building your own can save hundreds of pounds plus with an added extra of achieving ‘moments of time’ so the pupils do not forget the material learnt. Well done to the groups.

Mrs A Gwyther

SWRA News Page 23

History in the making…

Since September Year 7 students have been learning about the Middles Ages in England. Following the battle for the throne in 1066, students then learnt about a good way of keeping William’s throne secure after his victory in the Battle of Hastings. Students have learnt about how the King used castles and have completed an independ-ent research project based around English castles. As part of this project several Year 7 students have made a model of a typical motte and bailey castle that can be found in Medieval England. The castles ranged in size and materials with three even being made out of cake! The project allows students to be as creative as they wish and many commented on how much they enjoyed making the models.

Mrs N Rawding

Creative Castles made by our talented Year 7s

SWRA News Page 24

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Keep up to date with school news

@SWRACADEMY

Year 12 History trip to

On Wednesday 15th of October myself and my History class went to The National Holocaust Centre. We learned of not only some of the glob-al stories and facts but of the individual struggles and fights that happened all those years ago.

After arriving early in the morning and checking in we were shown into the event hall, which was also a beautiful synagogue built in honour of those lost, where we received an introduction to the centre and some information about what we would be doing for the day.

First we were shown The Holocaust Exhibition which not only told us about a lot of shocking facts and terrible events that took place, giving us a moving insight into the past, but it also had first hand accounts and tales of horror that they had witnessed and lived through.

At the entrance of the centre, this monument is placed in honour of all the children that were lost during the holocaust. When you enter you can take a stone from the well and place it on the pile in remembrance.

Parental Surveys

On-line Our Parental Surveys are now available on-line and can be

found on the Home page of the website. They are quick and

easy to complete.

http://www.swracademy.org/parents-evening-dates/

Visit the website for the revised Grantham bus

times.

SWRA News Page 25

Are you due to be deployed? As a school we recognise the strain that deployment can place on the families of Service Children and have implemented the following resources that you might want to access during this challenging time.

A learning mentor – who can be assigned to your child to offer both pasto-ral and academic support.

A counsellor – trained and experienced specifically in helping Service Chil-dren.

Tablet PC’s – discrete access to email and Skype has been made possible to ensure that pupils can maintain strong communication with a deployed parent.

If you would like to make use of any of these services please contact Mr Bensley

for further information.

After we came out of the exhibition we were allowed to go around the Memorial Garden. It featured multiple statues and a variety of beauti-ful plants including over a thousand white roses placed to commemorate the loss of all the lives and create a quiet place to reflect and pay our respects.

After a small break we continued our tour of the centre and we were shown The Journey Exhibi-tion. It gave us an in-depth look at the lives of children during the Holocaust and what hap-pened to them during the Second World War. It followed a young German-Jewish boy named Leo and what he and his family had to do and the choices they had to make in Germany from 1938.

After stopping for lunch in the café we were then treated to a guest speaker;

Simon Winston, a holocaust survivor and writer.

Simon Winston told us about what he lived through and experi-enced over his childhood in the 1940’s. Simon grew up in a Jewish household in Poland and was only a young boy when his local town was occupied by the Russians and, eventually, The Nazi’s. He told us of his families intense struggles and trials and some shocking stories about what he experienced, such as getting peed on by Nazi officers, before eventually escaping from the Ghettos to England and living happily with his family after the war.

Written by James Johnson,

A Level History Student

SWRA News Page 26

Important Dates for Next Term & 2015

GENERAL

Monday 5th January - Staff Training INSET Day

Tuesday 6th January - Term starts

Tuesday 3rd February - Whole School Careers Day

Wednesday 11th February - Hi5 Primary Schools Netball Tournament

Friday 13th February - Term ends

YEAR 10

Tuesday 27th to Friday 30th January - Disney Trip, France

Monday 2nd February - Controlled Assessment English

Monday 9th February - GCSE PE Controlled Assessment (Mountain Biking)

9th - 13th March - Work Experience Week

Tuesday 17th March - Parents’ Evening, 4.00pm - 6.30pm

YEAR 11

Art GCSE Exam paper will be given out during the first week of term

Tuesday 13th January 4.00 - 6.30pm - Year 11 Parents’ Evening

Thursday 18th June - Year 11 Prom at Newark Showground, The Cedric Suite

YEAR 12 & 13

Tuesday 6th - Wednesday 14th January - Year 12 & 13 Mock Examinations

Wednesday 4th February - Visit to Bishop Grosseteste University ‘Next Steps to Study’ Programme

Help us to help you! Keep us informed

Please make sure that we have up-to-date contact information in the event we need to speak to you during the school day.

Absences:

If your child is absent from school or has a medical appointment, it would really help us if you could telephone and leave a message by 9am on the same day. Messages can be left by:

Dialling 01400 272422

Selecting Option 3 to record pupil sickness/absence/medical appointment

Selecting Option 5 to report anything else or leave a message for a named member of staff.

Alternatively, we have a new Attendance email address: attendance@swracademy.org which can be used to communicate absence and appointment information.

For future medical appointments, a note can be written in your child’s Planner and should be shown to Mrs Jex at the Office in advance of the appointment.

Attendance is monitored daily/weekly and parents are contacted about any unexplained absence.

Thank you for your help with this important communication process.