Woking High School is an exempt charity and company limited by guarantee. Registered in England with Company Number 8586085 and has a registered office as above.

Woking High School, Morton Road, Horsell, Woking, Surrey, GU21 4TJ

Tel: 01483 888447 Fax: 01483 888448

Email: info@wokinghigh.surrey.sch.uk

Web: www.wokinghigh.surrey.sch.uk

Headteacher: Jane AbbottN E W S L E T T E R

AS WE REACH THE END OF ANOTHER INCREDIBLY SUCCESSFUL YEAR at Woking High School, it is time to reflect on the past few months. The summer term, which has actually been sunny this year, seems to have flown by. Much of our attention at the outset of the term was in preparing our Year 11 students for their final GCSE exams. Both students and staff responded admirably to the challenge of the new “reformed” GCSEs, with students completing more exam papers than ever before. Considering the amount of revision and immersion sessions undertaken, I am confident that the cohort of 2018 will be rewarded with some excellent GCSE results in August. All examination results for both Year 11 and

10 students will be available for collection in the main school hall on Thursday 23rd August between 10-11 a.m.

Students have seized the many and varied opportunities to participate in the unparalleled array of extra activities the school provides. Over the past months these have included, camping in the New Forest, coastal skills and teamwork in Newquay, exchange visits to Germany and France, visits to the WWI battlefields, academic learning experiences at Oxford, Cambridge and Surrey universities and numerous Duke of Edinburgh expeditions.

As always, it is wonderful to celebrate the sporting and musical successes of our students (see reports), both areas where

SUM

MER

2018

the school has had a tradition of excellence for many years. However, it is also very gratifying to note the newly established successes of our students and school in the fields of STEM and Computing (see reports).

A warm welcome has greeted the many visitors to Woking High School this term. We have shared good practice with teachers from across Surrey and the South East, hosted students from France, Germany, Spain, Taiwan and China, and nearer to home, welcomed both new (Year 6) and prospective (Year 5) students and their parents to Woking High School. Every visitor has commented on our polite, courteous, knowledgeable student

Headteacher’s Letter

body and the evident pride and sense of belonging that our students feel in their school.

One particularly noteworthy characteristic of Woking High School students is the way in which they interact so positively with our local community, and in turn the local community gives incredible support to our students. The benefits accrued for all have included Work Experience placements, the Twinning project with Woking Hospice, careers events at Surrey University and Woking College, Duke of Edinburgh volunteering placements and work with St Mary’s Church on the Horsell Garden Safari and Young Carers. We are especially grateful for the support of our local Councillors and Mayors – Councillor Cundy and Councillor Forster, who attend all the showcase events, concerts and plays held at Woking High School.

I would like to draw to your attention to the generosity of our student community.

This term they have raised funds for Guide Dogs for the Blind, Woking Hospice, Bloodwise (Mr Scott and Mr Goosen are completing a London to Paris bike ride at the end of this month for this charity. Go to https://www.justgiving.com/Mike-Scott25 to sponsor them). I would also like to ask for your support for the Friends of Woking High School minibus appeal. They are collecting plastic bottle tops, triggers and used pens and highlighters. These can be brought into school at any time for recycling (see Friends of Woking High School article).

As the term draws to a close, we send our best wishes to those who are retiring. This year we bid farewell to Mrs Allison Lewis, Finance Officer for 13 years, Mrs Miriam Musa, Home School Liaison Worker and EAL support for 12 years and Mrs Chris Wilkinson, Student Support Officer for nine years. We thank them for all that they have done for the school and for our students over the years.

The summer break provides the opportunity for refurbishment projects to be completed for the start of the academic year. This summer the new air conditioning system will be fully installed, computer rooms will be upgraded and a new floor will be laid in the Drama Studio.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all students, staff, parents and governors, for all that they contribute in terms of commitment, hard work, time, effort and talents, for it is this that makes our school so successful. On behalf of all at Woking High School, I wish you, your families and all members of the local community, a relaxing, safe and enjoyable summer holiday. We finish for the break at 12 noon on 20th July. Students return to school on Thursday 4th September in a staggered start – 8.55 Year 7 and Year 10, 10.00 for Years 8, 9 and 11, for the start of the 2018/2019 academic year.

Jane Abbott, Headteacher

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THE HEAD GIRL/ BOY APPOINTMENT process was certainly challenging. It was a long few weeks of vigorous interviews, speeches and application letters. I think all agreed that the speeches to assemblies were the most difficult part of the process!

Our interviews where a gruelling fifteen minutes of questions from Mrs Walter, Mr Goosen, Mrs Abbott and Mr Ramdhony. The interviews, for me personally where I believed candidates

could really stand out. This means that our true colours and personality could be revealed, after all, in the head team we have to be approachable for student voice. The very day of our interviews, at 3:30 that day, we found that Ashlin James, Maddie McClements, Katie Mitocariu, Tom Mills, Emil Kautovaara, Jude Rainsborough and I had been appointed onto the Head Team. Issy Metcalfe had succeeded as Head Girl and Joel Smith as Head Boy.

I strongly believe that no matter whether

you succeeded in being on the team or not, we all received invaluable experience as to how one should go about a process like this and it will help in the world of work. I look back now, as many who have completed this have, and feel great pride as to how this has made me more confident as well as humble, shaping me as a person and a member of the school community.

Pravina Appasamy, Year 10

Headgirl/boy Team

Welcome Year 6I AM DELIGHTED TO WELCOME Year 6s, soon to be Year 7s to Woking High School. Year 6 have already begun their transition process to secondary school, having attended Year 6 Induction days and the Year 6 Induction evening. The Induction days were a tremendous success, and Year 6s went home buzzing with exciting stories of taster lessons, meeting new teachers, making new friends and the delicious food available from the restaurant.

During the Induction days, the Year 6s had the opportunity to sample a range of lessons. The learning, which included

maths coding, singing, creating unique leaves in Art and chemical reactions, was a real hit with the students, and a number of students asked if they could start secondary school immediately!

Once Year 6s are officially Year 7s in September, students will be introduced to secondary life, getting a `head start` in the restaurant at break and lunch. The Year 7 tutors have been specifically chosen to work with our new students, and many have been Year 7 tutors for a number of years, so they are experts at dealing with the primary to secondary transition.

I very much look forward to Year 7 starting in September, and wish all students and their families a happy holiday.

H Doe, Head of Year 7

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ON WEDNESDAY 27TH JUNE, our Year 11 students celebrated the end of a challenging GCSE exam year with their National Record of Achievement (NRA) graduation ceremony. This was held in front of their tutors, fellow students, friends and families. We were honoured to be hosts to Cllr Will Forster, the 45th Mayor of Woking and an ex-Woking High School Student, along with the Vice-Principal of Woking College - Mr Nuweed Razaq, who led the student address and presented National Record of Achievement folders to each student and congratulated them on five years of hard work. The event was an opportunity to celebrate the success’ of the students as well as award subject prizes for progress and attainment. Special awards were also presented for

evening with music, world cup footage, a photo booth, a chocolate fountain and the highly anticipated prom awards.

Prom Queen Kudzai Matmeba

Prom King Ibrar Hussain

Best Entrance Trolley Boys

Best Dressed Female Shannon Mathews

Best Dressed Male Vinni Saint

Best Dancer / Female Jeronah Ayinbode

Best Dancer / Male Declan O’leary

Best Couple Miles Brown And Megan Peeke

Most Outrageous Elliot Langley

Congratulations to all of our students on their NRA awards and their graduation from Woking High School.

A Jacques, Head of Year 11

Sport, Music, Technology, community work, year group contributions and academic excellence. Our special award winners were:

Excellence in Performing Arts Award Olivia Bowden

PE Award Samuel Webb

PE Trophy Guy Ferguson

Services to Musical Performance Award Sam Fox & Ella Shankla

Police Shield Declan O’Leary

Liz Kyriacou Award for Technology Ella Shankla

Students’ Student Benjamin Oppong-Manu & Kudzai Matemba

Governors’ Award for Excellence Samuel Belcher

The following evening the students were able to celebrate at their Prom. The students thoroughly enjoyed themselves basking in the warm evening weather against a backdrop of the beautiful surrounds of Chobham Golf Club, which was transformed to reflect the theme of Hollywood glamour. As ever the arrivals were spectacular and included vintage cars, camper vans, limos and sports cars, as well a selection of more unusual modes of transport such as modified shopping trolleys, a championship go-cart and bicycles. The attire was awe inspiring with beautiful dresses and smartly cut suits. The students were entertained throughout the

Goodbye Year 11

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English - AUTHOR VISIT

IN JULY the author Christopher Lloyd came to give a talk to our Year 7 and Year 8 students. A regular feature of literary festivals and visitor to universities and schools, Mr Lloyd spoke to our students about the history of science and technology, from the Stone Age to the present day.

In addition to his talk, students were given the opportunity to buy Mr Lloyd’s book entitled The Science Timeline Wallbook, which aims to help students understand the world by connecting ideas and reviving the ancient tradition of storytelling. He was available after each session to speak to our students and sign their copies of the book

Book Fair

ALSO IN MAY we held a Harry Potter-themed Book Fair in the Library, which proved very popular with students. Mrs Harrild-Poulter and her team of student assistants decorated the library and provided expert help with book sales and other events, including creative writing and reading competitions, a manga stand, and the opening of the Woking High School stationery shop. Many books were sold on the day, with sales continuing in the library throughout the week. The fair helped to earn Scholastic reward points, which will be spent on more books for the school and encourage our students to keep exploring the world of reading!

B Harvey, Teacher of English

7), Matthew Rayner (Year 8) and Dora Savory (Year 9) who then went on to represent Woking High School against Gordon’s School and Hoe Valley.

The competition, judged by Mole Valley Poets, assessed students for their understanding of the poem, accuracy of recital and overall enunciation. The performances of our students was superb, with Dora winning best overall recitation for ‘Ypres’ by Binyon and Matthew gaining a close second with ‘The Hero’ by Sassoon. Louisa also got a special commendation for her outstanding performance of ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ by Sara Teasdale.

Congratulations go to every student who took part and learnt a poem by heart.

S Savory, Teacher of English

THROUGHOUT SUMMER TERM, students at Woking High School have been busy learning First World War poems for the Arete Cup “Poetry by Heart competition”. The standard of entries was incredibly high, but three students were eventually chosen: Louisa Akohene (Year

Poetry Recital

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THE UKMT JUNIOR MATHS CHALLENGE is aimed at students in Year 7 and 8 across the UK. The challenge involves answering twenty five multiple choice questions in one hour and is sat in school under exam conditions. Over 300,000 students sat the challenge this year with roughly 6% achieving a gold certificate, 13% silver and 20% bronze.

Around 9000 of the highest scorers are invited to take part in the Junior Mathematical Olympiad or Kangaroo papers. The Kangaroo is a one hour paper with twenty five multiple choice questions.

Congratulations to Matthew Rayner (Year 8) and Alex Heeney (Year 8) who qualified for the Kangaroo. The Kangaroo took place on the 12 June but we are still awaiting the results.

GOLD CERTIFICATES were awarded to the following:

Year 8: Matthew Rayner (best in school and best in Year 8), Alex Heeney, Oliver Griffiths, Louie Martin, Edward Szarvas, Reeha Kotni and Max Porter.

Year 7: Luke Holcroft (best in Year 7) and Meghna Amin.

SILVER CERTIFICATES were awarded to the following:

Year 8: Hiba Shahin, Dylan Humphreys, Tomas Heggberg, Kai Westaway, Jack Vaughan, William Pearce, Florence Freeland, Samuel Davies, Ha-Eun Kim, Megan Orpin, Libby Redman, Nona Lawrence, Madeleine Grainger and Elliot Mayho.

Year 7: Adam Joll, Anthony Lock, Madeleine Greaves, Jack Shearer, Tatiana Neeson, Ella Brunskill, Eloise Thompson and Joshua Gates.

BRONZE CERTIFICATES were awarded to the following:

Year 8: Brisha Kharel, Toby Bolton, Owen Bailey, Erin Fitzgibbon, Imogen Munk, Ashwin Venkatesh, Rosemary Duncan, Jack Moseley, Simon Finney, Joshua Ford, Amaan Omar, Steven Barron, Jacob Kelly, Joni Dervishi, Arabella Crisp and Sophie Price.

Year 7: Toby Spencer, Lorenzo Fantappie, Madison Brooker, Amy Theunissen, Noah Testa, Cara Parry, Cameron Reid, Carla Manning, Mia Crane-Bentley, Yusuf Nazir, Leanne Seet, Jess Manly, Peter Hamilton and Erin Shelley.

Well done to all the students who took part.

Fancy yourself as a mathematician? Have a go at the questions below, taken from the 2018 UKMT Junior Maths Challenge:

Billy has three times as many llamas as lambs. Milly has twice as many lambs as llamas. They have 17 animals in total. How many of the animals are llamas?

A 5 B 6 C 7 D 8 E 9

A drawer contains ten identical yellow socks, eight identical blue socks and four identical pink socks. Amrita picks socks from the drawer without looking. What is the smallest number of socks she must pick to be sure that she has at least two pairs of matching socks?

A 5 B 6 C 8 D 11 E13

UKMT junior Maths Challenge

You may recall that Ram Marwaha and Jacob Smtih qualified for the Intermediate Kangaroo following the Intermediate Maths Challenge in the spring term. Both students did extremely well, with Ram achieving a merit, the first student to achieve this at Woking High.

P Heller, Director of Maths

UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge

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ON MONDAY 25TH JUNE seventeen Year 7 students visited Horsell Village School to help run a Maths afternoon. Thirteen local primary schools were involved, each bringing two Year 1 pupils

The students wrote down some thoughts when they returned from the activity afternoon.

‘I finally felt what it was like to be a teacher.’

‘It was so much fun, I would love to do it again.’

‘One of the boys said ‘I think that was the best day of school’’

‘The children were all so creative and came up with great symmetry designs’

Thank you to the students who helped out. They were: Adam Ahmed, Daniel Baldwin, Eva Beeharry, Solomon Carter, Amy Cox, Jack Elliott, Maya Fellowes-Freeman, Joshua Gates, Lily Harris, Ryan Henshaw, Mamtha Muralidharan, Tatiana Neeson, Haroon Shabbir, Dylan Synan, Emma Twiston-Davies, Harvey Watson and Jessica Wells.

P Dixon, Teacher of Maths

and two Year 2 pupils. When the younger children arrived they were put into mixed groups of six or eight ready to complete the carousel of activities laid on for them. Each year had four activities to rotate around.

The Woking High School students split into pairs and decided which activity to run. They had to explain their activity to the younger children and then support them as they worked. The younger children loved working with the Woking High School students. One of them said ‘Today is the best day ever, we have young teachers for once!’

A few of the activities on offer were making tangram pictures, Tarsia (jigsaw) maths puzzles, using PE equipment to make symmetrical displays, finding the numbers on a 1-100 square and several activities using adding and subtracting skills.

Horsell Village School Maths Event

Visitors Science - HORSELL SCIENCE CLUBIN JULY we were very busy in school

as we welcomed Taiwanese students and their teachers from Taoyuan Municipal Yang Ming Senior School, in Taoyuan near the Taiwanese capital, Taipei. In addition, we were visited by thirteen Spanish students from Madrid and their teacher, organised via the Kinston Study Centre. These respective visitors were buddied with Year 9 students and experienced the English education system and life at Woking High School over a two week period.

J Allen, Business Administrator

THIS YEAR we have further developed our links with Horsell Church of England Junior School’s Science Club. We have invited them to visit Woking High School at the end of every term this year so that they can use our laboratories and equipment to enhance their understanding of Science. At the end of the Autumn Term they had the chance to try ‘Fire Writing’ which enabled us to build on links at KS2 on fire and the fire triangle. In the Spring Term they looked at the work of Elsie Widdowson, an inspirational female scientist who helped further our understanding of energy and food. We recreated her famous ‘Food Burning’ experiment to measure the energy given out by different foods. At the end of the Summer Term they decided to not set fire to anything, but instead we investigated fruit batteries. It has been a pleasure to have been

able to share our resources with our closest junior school - the students have always been superbly well behaved and interested in all activities that we have done. We thank Mrs Shoberu who very ably leads the Science Club and we look forward to continuing our close links in the future.

L Pollard, Science SLE

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Women in STEM DayEARLIER THIS TERM we had the pleasure of taking nine Year 9 girls to take part in a Women in STEM day hosted at Surrey University. The day began with a talk about university life which was fun and engaging and answered many of our students’ questions about what studying at university is like. We then took part in some engineering-based team challenges where our team of girls had to make a bridge, a raft and a tower. They worked superbly well together and definitely came up with some of the best structures of the day. After the team challenges their hard work was rewarded with a delicious lunch and had a short tour of the campus. We then were treated to two short talks by two female experts in their own STEM fields. One was an expert in IT systems and the other was a Biochemist who specialised in the study of cancer cells. Both of them were extremely good ambassadors for their own areas of expertise and it was so inspiring to hear them talk about how they ended up in their respective fields. The girls could not help but be enthused about going into higher education and studying a STEM subject. It was a superb chance for them to see how much Surrey have to offer and how women in Science and Technology are at the forefront of developments.

L Pollard, Science SLE

Siemens ChallengeTHIS YEAR we have had the privilege of taking part in the Siemens Healthcare Challenge. This is a joint project run by the Siemens Healthineers division in Frimley and Surrey SATRO. The project was launched in January at their headquarters were our team of four Year 10 students (Felix Novo, Asher Goosen, Ben Bonilla and Kelisse King) were presented with six healthcare challenges from which they had to choose one to be the basis of their project. We were matched up with our mentors from Siemens - Ben Davies and Dani Marsh (nee Roden, a Woking High alumnus) and got straight down to business by discussing our ideas and brainstorming some possible solutions. The team came up with the idea of using an app and technology to support the care of Alzheimer and dementia sufferers in their own home. Over the next three months the team and their mentors met regularly and the mentors were invaluable in finding out information and offering advice. The final was on Friday 27 April where we went up against ten local schools - each school had to create a stand to market

their product/idea and give a five minute elevator style pitch to the judges. We did extraordinarily well, and the team should feel so proud of their tenacity and how much they achieved. We would like to give our thanks to Dani and Ben from Siemens who were excellent mentors and we look forward to establishing more links with Siemens in the future.

L Pollard, Science SLE

Nona Lawrence, Emily Armfield, Tomas Heggberg and Alex Heeney represented Woking High School at the Salters’ Festival of Chemistry. They thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to use the Chemistry laboratories at the University of Surrey. They successfully completed both the Salters’ Challenge and the Surrey University Challenge. They were treated to a dramatic demonstration of colourful and explosive chemistry from the Chemistry department at the end of the day.

H Gallagher, Head of Science

Science - SALTERS’ FESTIVAL OF CHEMISTRY

BUSINESS editor@wokingnewsandmail.orgNEWS & MAIL | Thursday 10 May 2018 | 15

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Helping to keepgirls in schoolGIRLS from the less-well-off familiesat Woking High are being helped tocontinue learning during their periodsthrough a donation of sanitary pads.

Brooklands-based Procter & Gamblehas given 8,640 of the Always pads itmakes to the Horsell school.

In the UK, around 137,000 girls missschool because they cannot afford san-itary products during their period.Woking High estimates that 120 of itsgirls are affected by the problem.

It has been calculated that a girl useseight pads per period during schoolhours, based on two a day, four days amonth.

That means the Woking High girlsneed a total of 960 pads per month –and a total of 8,640 over the ninemonths of the school year.

The school’s headteacher, JaneAbbot, said: “We have a number ofstudents who experience poverty andthis initiative will help overcome bar-riers, open communication opportuni-ties and support our female students tofeel more confident within their gendergroup.

“We are hoping that this focus willlead to these students having higher at-tendance throughout their school life,resulting in improved learning and ul-timately better pre and post 16 qualifi-cations.”

Studies among girls, parents andteachers conducted by Procter & Gam-ble to understand the extent of the issuefound that a fifth (19%) of parents saythey have struggled to afford sanitaryprotection for a daughter – equating toapproximately 373,778 girls in the UK.

Home care providers combine HOME care providerNovus Care, which hasoffices in Maybury andKnaphill, has purchasedSupreme HealthcareServices, a similarcompany which operates inWoking borough and theReading area.

Novus says thatcombining the twocompanies will strengthentheir ability to providequality, person-centredcare.

“We believe that by beinga larger organisation we willbe able to provide a widerarray of services,” saidspokesman Trina Kapur.

“Recruiting andretaining excellent peopleis a constant challenge. Alarger organisation willmean our staff will benefitfrom even more andstronger careeropportunities.”

Supreme also has anoffice at Mayford. Themerged companies’Woking borough bases willbe consolidated into oneoffice over the comingweeks, from a centraloffice at BoundaryBusiness Centre, inMaybury.

Teams from both officeswill remain intact and theday-to-day points ofcontacts for staff andclients will not change.

Young entrepreneurs take on achallenge to improve healthcareWOKING High and Gordon’swere among teams from sec-ondary schools across Surreyand Berkshire that competed topresent innovative solutions tosome of the biggest issues facingthe healthcare industry.

The two schools, from Horselland West End, took part in NextBig Thing Challenge, organisedby Siemens Healthineers and edu-cation charity SATRO.

The challenge aims to inspirepupils aged 14 to 16 to explore theworld of engineering and technol-ogy and promotes opportunitieswithin science, technology, engi-neering and mathematics (STEM)careers.

The teams of six to eight youngentrepreneurs worked under theguidance of mentors, comprisedof Siemens Healthineers employ-ees, to develop solutions to a vari-ety of high level challenges facedin the healthcare environment.

This year’s participants also in-cluded Collingwood College atCamberley, Tomlinscote at Frim-ley, Charterhouse at Goldalming,Christ’s College at Guildford,LVS Ascot and Blessed Hugh Far-ingdon Catholic School in Reading.

The teams were presented withsix areas, such as the uses of vir-tual reality and artificial intelli-gence within the NHS, and askedto produce a prototype or proposea new service that would demon-strate their solution idea.

Woking High proposed an app –Memory Mapp –that helps peoplewith memory disorders rememberday to day activities such as takingmedication, when to eat, how tocook food, who their family mem-bers are and more.

Gordon’s came up with a solu-tion called SPRAE, containingplatelets and antibacterial sub-stances, designed to protect andheal wounds.

The winners, from CollingwoodCollege, proposed a new scanningdevice for the NHS that wouldsignificantly reduce patient wait-ing times, improve diagnostic ac-curacy and save costs ofmisdiagnoses and unnecessaryprescriptions.

Following thorough market re-search, including a survey amongpatients, the team developedKrono Scan – a diagnostic scannerwhich would combine X-ray, in-frared scanner, weight sensor anddrug/air particle testing.

The annual competition tookplace at the Siemens Healthineersoffices in Frimley.

The company’s managing direc-tor, Peter Harrison, commented:“We are proud to have a long his-tory of developing innovativetechnology, but to keep this mo-mentum, we need to enthuse thenext generation to explore theircareer options in STEM indus-tries. The Next Big Thing Chal-lenge is an effective method to

show young people the link be-tween these subjects and theirreal-life applications.

“I am pleased to say that thestandard of the projects is gettinghigher every year and I’d like tothank all the participants for theirhard work.”

Siemens Healthineers works toexpand precision medicine, trans-form care delivery, improve pa-tient experience, and digitalisehealthcare. It actively supports ac-tivities and projects which enthuseyoung people about STEM careeroptions.

UP FOR THE CHALLENGE – Above, Ben Bonilla (left) and Felix Novo fromWoking High School with their Memory Mapp idea – Memory Mapp and,below, Gordon’s Pupils Emma, Daisy, Sadie and Keyar, Nathaniel, Ben-jamin, Owen and Saskia, plus teacher William Barron de Burgh (thirdfrom right). Their idea was for a healing and protecting spray

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HistoryAS A QUALITY MARK SCHOOL, one of our responsibilities is to help promote Holocaust education in other educational institutions. This year, Hampton School in West London are completing the Beacon School application and training process. As part of their work, a group of their Year 9 students are working on a project aimed at raising awareness of the Holocaust and other genocides to mark the upcoming 70th anniversary of the Genocide Convention. A book is being created, showcasing excellent work completed in lessons, to which our Year 9 students were asked to contribute:

“We know that you are experts in Holocaust education and with that in mind we wondered if you would like to collaborate with us to raise awareness.”

Once the lessons and assessments were completed in May, our students spent time helping Hampton School with their project. Some students were keen to explain the importance of challenging widely held misconceptions, whilst others thought that there were individuals who deserve recognition and should be included in the book – people such as Leopold Socha, Kurt Gerstein or Mordecai Anielewicz.

The work that our students produced was of a very high standard and much of it will appear in the forthcoming book. Copies of the book will be sent to all schools across the UK in time for the 70th anniversary of the United Nations adopting the Genocide Convention in 1948.

M Jones, History SLE

ON WEDNESDAY 20 JUNE, 48 Year 9 geographers travelled to London to enrich their GCSE studies next year when they will learn about urban change in London. The students experienced a snapshot of the 47% open green space in the capital, visiting a community garden project and Spitalfields City Farm, where they were allowed to pet goats and relax in the beautiful gardens, but only if they could avoid the three ankle-pecking chickens and the noisy bell ringing parrot! Following this they walked to Brick Lane and Old Spitalfields Market

and experienced the wide range of cultures in this part of London, as well as looking for evidence of the past use of this land. Finally, a short coach journey was taken to Canary Wharf where the clean streets, skyscrapers and smart business dress were a stark contrast to the earlier locations. The students were exceptional, both in their behaviour and their organisation, so we are thoroughly looking forward to teaching them next year.

L Dixon, Head of Geography

Geography MFL - FRENCH EXCHANGE

The French Exchange was an amazing experience for me. As well as being fun, I feel as though it has given me a boost in confidence and has massively improved my understanding and knowledge of the French culture and language. Being in a community where French is the language spoken really helped me to improve the oral aspect of the language. You use it consistently and in an everyday manner, so it feels natural to speak it. My exchange partner was fantastic, and arranged lots of exciting things for us to do. Overall, I would highly recommend an exchange to anybody who is considering studing a launguage.

Evan Brewin, Year 9.

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Computing - DIGIGIRLZ 2018

IN APRIL, a group of sixteen Year 8 girls participated in Microsoft DigiGirlz day. This one-day event is designed to provide secondary school girls with a better understanding of what a career in technology is like, and to encourage girls to select STEM related subjects and careers in the future.

There was an opportunity for the girls to meet successful women in the industry, and have a discussion with them through a Q&A session.

The girls worked in two teams, using Micro:bits to create a safe road crossing system, using mini engines and sensors to operate. Then the two teams had to

present their project to Cindy Rose, CEO of Microsoft UK, and discussed their ideas and demonstrated how the system worked. They were highly praised for their focus, originality and computing knowledge.

WOKING HIGH SCHOOL was delighted to host five German students from the Lisa-Meitner- Gymnasium in Königsbach-Stein to spend a week with their exchange partners. Five Year 10 students, who visited Germany last year in December, met up again with their partners at Gordon’s School. Between the 29th June and 5th July, German students visited London and enjoyed a walk along the Thames and had lunch at Borough Market with their teachers and of course shopping in Oxford Street. At the weekend host families organised a wide range of activities and thanks to the wonderful weather were able to go to the coast. Our visitors, accompanied

by their partners, also enjoyed a trip to the Big Apple in Woking and went bowling. They really enjoyed their stay and our

students were very happy to renew their friendships.

B Weston, Teacher of MFL

German Exchange

Digital School House

THE COMPUTING DEPARTMENT at Woking High School made a successful application was successful in becoming the “Digital School House-DHS” regional hub as part of the school’s outreach to the primary schools in Surrey. Mr Afana, Head of Computing, is the hub leader.

This accolade allows the school to lead, organise and deliver training sessions for teachers and students in primary schools across the region. This will help in creating and introducing creative Computer Science into the primary curriculum, while increasing the confidence of teachers in delivering the subject using various methods such as “Un-plugged” approach.

This whole programme is aimed to help bridging the shortage in the delivery of Computer Science knowledge and skills in KS2, allowing students to access higher levels of Computational Thinking at KS3 and KS4.We are really looking forward to this new area of development in the coming academic year.

A Afana, Computing SLE

FORTY FIVE STUDENTS from Years 7-9 visited Bletchley Park and its educational museum in May. This visit was aimed to introduce students to the history of Computer Science and the vital part it played in winning WWII by breaking the Enigma Machine encrypted messages.

The students participated in an educational challenge and learnt how to break encrypted messages while using a real

Enigma Machine. They also had the chance to see and operate the “Bomb” computer, the computer that was designed and created by Alan Turing and his team at Bletchley Park.

The cyber security demonstration was very engaging for the students, and they learnt about the importance of encryption and the risks that we face on daily basis when using digital media.

Bletchley Park visit

10 11

FOUR OF OUR YEAR 8 BOYS (Edward Szarvas, Samuel Threlfall, Samuel Davies and Joseph Rourke) competed in a McLaren elastic powered buggy project, hosted at McLaren in Woking.

Despite being the youngest team, they took 4th place defeating their older rivals at Woking College and a number of other teams.

The judges of the event were so

impressed that they sought out the boys to tell them how much they appreciated the quality included within their design, and their knowledge.

The boys represented the school with motivation, enthusiasm and drive and are already planning their come back next year.

Well done boys!

L Brownlie, Teacher of Technology

Technology - MCLAREN CHALLENGE

Drama‘THE COMEDY ABOUT A BANK ROBBERY’ FROM MISCHIEF THEATRE

In June, a group of Year 9 and 10 Drama students saw ‘The Comedy About a Bank Robbery’ at The Criterion Theatre, London. Presented by Mischief Theatre, this production proved to be a delight, exploring the theatrical style of farce in the context of 1950’s Minneapolis. Featuring an array of corrupt characters, the comedy performance was full of organised chaos, as Sam, Caprice and Mitch broke into the Minneapolis City Bank in order to steal a giant diamond. We were presented with slapstick comedy, play-on-words, puns galore and mistaken identity; all prompting rapturous laughter from the audience. The production was full of performances and techniques which will be very inspirational to our Drama students; it will be used as a stimulus for analysis in the GCSE Drama Written Examination, and the performance techniques will inspire practical devising work within the GCSE course. It really was a very entertaining and valuable visit, and the students were an absolute credit to the school.

K Wilson, Head of Drama

MusicON WEDNESDAY 4 JULY, a packed and very warm school hall was the venue for a spectacular Summer concert. Attended by the Mayor of Woking, Senior staff, family and friends, we also welcomed a number of primary school children and their families who had been specially invited to attend. Students were in excellent musical form, and were supported brilliantly by our Technical Assistance Group. The Windband, choir and String Ensemble, performed music with an American theme, linked carefully to the date of 4th July and American Independence Day. One of the outstanding items was the choir’s rendition of “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman. The soloist was Year 7 student, Karl Sonoy, who, dressed in black tie, brought the house down with his angelic voice.

We said farewell and thanks to five ladies of the Music Performance Committee who are

sadly moving on, along with their daughters. We also said fond goodbyes to our Year 11 musicians in the band and choir, who for some, performed for the last time as a Woking High School student. A final upbeat and invigorating encore by the band saw some of the primary school children come to the stage with percussive instruments to beat in time to The Blues Brothers.

Moving outside, everyone enjoyed a picnic by the Marquee whilst the talented band, “No December”, entertained us with some great cover songs. It was a fantastic evening of music from students in all years, and a final impromptu flash mob of Shosholoza sung by all the students concluded the evening, leaving us all in a joyous mood. Many thanks to all the staff who supported this event and a massive thank you to all the talented and dedicated students.

S Goodwin, Direct of Music Performance

10 11

ArtIN MAY, 68 Year 10 GCSE students visited the Tate Modern in London. This was not only to see their fantastic, comprehensive collection of modern art but also the acclaimed ‘Shape of Light and Picasso’ exhibition. Students’ had the opportunity to use their photography skills

taking panoramic views across London’s landscape up on level 10 of the new extension and exploring the South Bank capturing the hustle and bustle of London life. Students saw an exhibition based on the abstraction of light and the manipulation of the photographic process. The work

they completed will go towards their coursework, worth 60% of their final grade.

The visit was a great success with lively debates, photography and direct observational drawing.

S Taylor, Art SLE

THE PENULTIMATE DAY 11 for 2018 was the changeover day for the Year 7 Curriculum Challenge in the New Forest. Those left in school completed a carousel of activities in a range of subjects including English, Drama, Maths and Languages.

Year 8s were involved in a carousel of Computing, Art, History and Languages activities. Students in Year 9 who have selected GCSE Geography for September took part in a visit to London to prepare for their course. Another group of Year 9 students led by Mrs Norris visited the World Wildlife Fund centre as part of their Science curriculum. The rest of Year 9 spent time in Science making water rockets, which then were launched on the field. Year 10s were able to spend their day honing their English skills in

preparation for their indicative Romeo and Juliet exam. We also welcomed a team of Year 8 students from Hoe Valley School to complete an intensive course, prepared by Woking High School, on British Values.

The last Day 11 of the year, Friday 13th July, saw over 130 Year 7 students visit Marwell Zoo for work on habitat / hibernation / adaptation as part of their Science curriculum. With the rest of the Year Group spent time in sport, computing and Geography. The geography department used the many World Cup countries as inspiration for their activity. Year 8 took part in an exciting new joint History and DT challenge, looking at castle invasion and defence systems. The Year 7 and 8 reading group visited Woking Library in order to sign up and to find out about all the activities and resources they have to support homework and research tasks. A group of Year 9 students worked with Roehampton University, through our links with the Holocaust Education Programme, and visited both the Woking Muslim burial ground peace garden and Brookwood cemetery, developing further their work from the WW1 visit earlier in the year.

M Abbs-Rowe, Assistant Headteacher

Day 11

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ATHLETICS

Our athletes have been extremely busy and in excellent form this summer and some have been in excellent form. We have had seven school records broken, many multiple times.

DISTRICT ATHLETIC CHAMPIONSHIPS:

We were successful winning two out of the eight competitions. There were fourteen schools competing in the Districts. The top three team results are below:

Year 7 Girls

1st Gordon’s 1252nd Woking High 1173rd Collingwood 100.5

Year 7 Boys

1st Tomlinscote 1162nd Gordon’s 1073rd Winston Churchill 997th Woking High 74

Year 8 Girls

1st SWPs 113.52nd Gordon’s 1133rd Winston Churchill 112.55th Woking High 94

Year 8 Boys1st SJB 120.52nd Gordon’s 1203rd Tomlinscote 1068th = Woking High 74

Year 9 Girls1st SWPs 1252nd Gordon’s 1093rd Collingwood 1059th Woking High 77

Year 9 Boys1st Woking High 121.52nd Fullbrook 1183rd Gordon’s 112

2018 ResultsYear 10/11 Girls1st Gordon’s 118.52nd Tomlinscote 112.53rd Winston Churchill 1128th Woking High 48

Year 10/11 Boys1st Woking High 1222nd Gordon’s 107.53rd Fullbrook 93.5

Selected Individual Results from both Key Stage 3 and 4 Championships

Year7Gold

Elizabeth Chapman Discus

Elizabeth Chapman High Jump

Silver

Elizabeth Chapman 200m

Summer Brogden Shot Putt

Dylan Campbell 200m

Year8Silver

Ellen Yates Long Jump

Bronze

Denisa Buhoi 100m

Ellen Yates 300m

Year9Gold

Charlie Terry 300m

Chris Baker 800m

Boys 4x 100m Relay

Silver

Matthew King 80m Hurdles

Matthew King 200m

Emma Harris 800m

Bronze

Toby Webb Discus

Year10/11Gold

Mia Crees 200m

Silver

Gideon Jansen 100m Hurdles

Guy Ferguson 100m

Max Chitty 800m

Nathan Holmes 1500m

Gideon Jansen High Jump

Sam Smith Triple Jump

Billy Hewlett Discus

Bronze

Adriana Khan 80m Hurdles

Emmie Savory 1500m

Adriana Khan Long Jump

Abiel Natnael 400m

Sam Webb Long Jump

Guy Ferguson Javelin

Vinni Saint Shot Putt

Boys 4x100m Relay

SURREY SCHOOLS ATHLETIC CHAMPIONSHIPS’:

Nine of our students represented North West Surrey at the County Championships. All nine performed well. See highlighted results below:

Toby Webb Junior Boys Discus Silver

Dominic Ariyo-Francis Junior Boys 200m Bronze

Gideon Jansen Inter Boys 100m Hurdles Bronze

Sam Webb Inter Boys 100m Hurdles 4th

Following the County Championships Year 9 student, Toby Webb was selected to represent Surrey in the South East Inter Counties Athletics Match at Crawley and performed well achieving a personal best. Year 10, Dominic Ariyo-Francis has been selected to compete in the English Schools Athletics Finals in the Inter Boys 200m and 4x100m Relay in Birmingham in July.

This year in the English Schools Track and Field Cup competition our Inter Boys Teams qualified for the London and South East Finals where our Inter Boys Team performed incredibly well in finishing third out of twelve schools. There were individual wins for Gideon Jansen in the 80m Hurdles, Dominic Ariyo-Francis in the 200m and Alexis Cortade at javelin.

Sports Review

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At the Arete Athletics Track competition, we pushed Gordon’s very close and won eighteen out of the thirty eight races. The final team scores were:

Gordon’s 196Woking High 157Hoe Valley 28

Individual winners include :

Year 7 Boys

Dylan Campbell 100m and 200m

Year 7 Girls

Elizabeth Chapman 100m

Year 8 Boys

Mackenzie Russell 300m and 800m

Year 8 Girls

Denisa Buhoi 100m

Year 9 Boys

Nathan Barber 100m

Charlie Terry 300m

Liam Stone 800m

Year 9 Girls

Jodie Bongartz-Skene 300m

Emma Harris 800m

Year 10 Boys

Dominic Ariyo-Francis 100m and 200m

Abiel Natnael 400m

Joseph McHugh 800m

YEAR 7 NETBALL

Our Year 7 Netball team have continued their success this term and were invited to compete in the Surrey School Games County Netball final in May. The girls won their pool which saw them face Gordon’s, who came second in their pool, in the semi- finals. Unfortunately they were beaten 4-2 but in the play-off they beat Weydon to avenge earlier defeat to finish third in the County. This was an excellent achievement for this newly formed Year 7 team, captained by the Goal Shooter Erin Shelley.

Surrey School Games Year 7 Netball County Finals (Third Place)

Lost 1 - 4 v Weydon

Won 8 - 2 v St Andrews

Won 8 - 4 v Warlingham

Won 5 - 0 v Magna Carta

Won 5 - 3 v Guildford County

Lost 2 - 4 v Gordons (Semi-final)

Won 6 - 4 v Weydon (3rd/4th Play off)

CRICKET

Last year’s postponed Year 8 District Cup Final against Gordon’s, was re-arranged for this summer. In a dramatic game that saw fortunes change hands several times, Woking High School posted a total of 70 from their 16 overs. However, the game turned with the outstanding opening bowling efforts of Alfie Winter and Prithi Ramesh who took 8 wickets between them to bowl Gordon’s out for only 31 to win by 39 runs.

Team scores:

Woking High 70 - 4 (16 overs)

Gordons 31 all out (Alfie Winter 5 - 12, Prithi Ramesh 3 - 9 and Josh Thompson 2 - 4)

DISTRICT FOOTBALL FINALS:

Our Year 8, 10 and 11 boys were successful in winning the District League and automatically qualified for the District Final. In the finals our Year 8 Boys won an excellent match versus Fullbrook. Having taken a 2 – 0 lead through goals by Spencer Whitfield and Owen Bailey we were pegged back to 2 – 2. The game was then decided by penalties. After scoring 4 of our penalties and some excellent saves from

Will Lane, saw us win. The Year 10 boys demonstrated an excellent performance which saw us narrowly miss out by loosing 3 – 2, with Sam Smith winning ‘man of the match’. The Year 11 boys lost in their final by Heathside losing 4 – 0. The Under 14 girls team lost 4 – 1 in their final versus Winston Churchill.

ROUNDERS

Our Year 7 and 8 rounders teams played a mixture of friendly and tournament fixtures this term. Both teams won all their matches in the tournaments with the exception of Gordon’s so came overall second place. This meant they qualified for the District Finals in June where the Year 8’s played a round robin against Sir William Perkins School (SWPS) and Gordon’s finishing overall 3rd. The Year 7’s played a semi-final which they lost to SWPS, but in the 3rd 4th play-off they beat Fullbrook also finishing overall 3rd. Well done to all girls involved.

TENNIS

Our tennis teams performed well at the District competitions. The stars of the show were our Year 9 boys and girls teams who won all their matches and became District champions. The boy’s team were Zain Moolji and Prithi Ramesh and the girls were Charlotte Hamilton and Year 8 Amelia Sage. Our Year 8 and 7 girls’ team finished second.

J Justice, Director of Sport

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YEAR 7 have had an exciting and action packed year. I can hardly believe that they are already nearing the end of their first year at Woking High School. It seems only yesterday that I was visiting students in their primary schools, and here we are at the end of the year, preparing students for Year 8 !

It was great to see so many parents at the Year 7 Curriculum Evening in September. It marked the beginning of Year 7 students’ school career and hopefully answered some questions parents might have had about their son or daughter’s ‘academic diet’.

Day 11s have been a highlight for Year 7 and many students have participated in visits to, the New Forest, and Marwell Zoo. Activities at Woking High School have included computing, sport and fitness, a village fete, medieval survival, and internet safety. Students particularly enjoyed the legendary camping trip to the New Forest and I think it is fair to say that most did not make it through the trip without getting rather wet!

It has been heartening to see that so many Year 7s have fully involved themselves, not only in lessons, but also in extra-curricular activities. A number of Year 7 have participated in house competitions and have really benefited from the team work and challenge involved.

Well done Year 7, you have had a very successful and rewarding first year at Woking High School. Keep up the good work!

H Doe, Head of Year 7

THIS ACADEMIC YEAR has been highly successful for the current Year 8 cohort. It has been a pleasure to see our students develop socially and academically. They have represented themselves extremely well, in and out of school.

Congratulations to Leah Skuse, Emma Griffin, Sarah Griffin, Amelia Sage and Maya Newsam who won certificates and prizes at the Soroptimist International ‘STEM Challenge for Girls’. Also to the students who took part in the annual Magistrates’ Court Mock Trial competition, with Zak Whiting being described as ’outstanding – the best usher of the day’ and Matthew Rayner was praised for giving a ‘robust challenge of the main prosecution witness’. A number of our students recently participated in the Junior Mathematical Challenge, a special mention should go to Oliver Griffiths, Alex Heeny, Reena Kotni, Louie Martin, Max Porter, Matthew Rayner and Edward Szarvas who were awarded a Gold Certificate.

Within school, Year 8 students were successful at the annual Instrumental, Ensemble and Vocal completion, congratulations to Nona Lawrence who won the String category, and Kai Westaway who gave the Most Promising Performance. This year’s School Production, ‘The Sound of Music’ was fantastic and well done to the Year 8 actors and musicians who were involved

Groups of students have also attended the GASP engineering course that ran for two six week periods. Students gained valuable experience of working in the automotive engineering setting and learnt many of the practical skills needed. Harlequins Rugby Club have also spent two terms at Woking High School working with groups of Year 8 boys encouraging leadership and teamwork, and Beat Box gym has provided a program of kickboxing, focussing on discipline and control.

Year 8 students have been involved in school

visits such as The Canterbury Tales at Canterbury Cathedral, Lulworth Cove and an evening visit to Wembley to watch the England vs Italy International. Students have also been exceptional representing the school on the annual Newquay Watersports Residential and ski visit to Italy.

It has been a fantastic year for sporting achievements and Year 8 students have represented the school in many sporting competitions. Just some of our sporting successes this year include performances in the Surrey County Cross Country and Swimming championships, where Mackenzie Russell was awarded gold for 100m Freestyle. Mackenzie was also selected to represent the South East Schools Swimming Team in the ESSA National Finals. The U14 Badminton teams competed in the County Finals, having previously won the District titles, and the Year 8 girls Basketball team finished second in the Surrey League and went onto play in the finals at Surrey Sports Park.

During tutor time, students have been learning different approaches that support resilience building through the Smart Moves programme. They have received their own book as a place to explore thoughts and feelings, as well as providing a useful long term resource for times of stress. The students have also been working hard completing their Personal Achievement Portfolio, which is designed to develop readiness for independent study in senior school and develop critical self-reflection.

As the end of the year fast approaches Mrs Clapton, Year 8 Pastoral Coordinator and I want to say a huge thank you to all our students for their hard work and commitment. They are a talented and energetic group of young people who are a delight to work with. I am proud to be their Head of Year. I would also like to thank all our parents/carers for the support given throughout the year and I look forward to taking the students into Year 9.

L Downie, Head of Year 8.

Year 7 Review

Year 8 Review

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YEAR 9s Dora Savory, Madiha Hussain, Mana Komatsu and Sadia Hossain created this year’s winning product design for the Design Ventura competition: a mess-free way of making pancakes and waffles. Lauded as both exciting and innovative, their design went on to compete against submissions from some 14,500 pupils from all across the United Kingdom.

In music, Year 9 really excelled this year. Highlights included Toby Webb, who received a Distinction for his Grade 5 guitar; Charlotte Hamilton, who received Distinction in her Grade 4 saxophone and Dora Savory, who received a Distinction for her Grade 4 piano. Mana Komatsu, who won the much coveted Lorna Paterson Award for Special Achievement in Music at the 10th Annual Woking High School Music Awards.

This year’s Duke of Edinburgh saw sixty nine of our students take part in their Practice Expedition on the North Downs in Surrey. In a tribute to the indefatigable enthusiasm of intrepid Year 9 all of the groups completed the expedition successfully: a fine accomplishment.

We were successful once again in the first round of the Rotary Club Youth Speaks competition, winning both the Intermediate and Senior categories. Here, our two Year 9 Intermediate teams did us proud. Toby Webb, Charlotte Hamilton and Abigail Lambert came first at Intermediate level, defeating competition from St John the Baptist, with whom Abigail shared the award for best Vote of Thanks. There were also strong performances from the other Intermediate team of Roisin Fellowes, who was awarded best Main Speaker, Emma Joll and Safah Mahmood.

At the national Poetry by Heart competition Phoebe Cartmale was awarded Commended by judges for her recitation. Congratulations go to all our teams and individuals – not just for their triumphs but also for their keenness to participate and be involved in such a variety of events.

In November Year 9s showed guest pupils and their teachers from Naruo

School in the Osaka region of Japan around Woking High School. A wonderful reciprocal exchange of culture took place with Japanese sweets from our visitors as a tasty reminder of the occasion.

Year 9 students enjoyed a magical opportunity to visit the Warner Brothers studios, where they filmed the Harry Potter series. Here they explored the wonder of film-making; investigated props from the movies; got to take part in live demonstrations of forced perspective and green screen technology and delved into the mysteries of wand choreography.

Open minded and unafraid Year 9 students embraced the opportunity to be immersed in another culture in June when they travelled to Paris to visit the French exchange students they had hosted earlier in the year. Describing the experience as a real “boost in confidence” they were outstanding ambassadors for the school.

The list of victories goes on and on. From our highly successful Careers Day, to the superb Women in STEM visit hosted at the University of Surrey. From Geography’s highly successful urban challenge field trip in the capital, to the Madrid football tour and back again to London for Drama’s visit to The Criterion Theatre, and a production of ‘The Comedy About a Bank Robbery’.

As their Head of Year I have been very privileged to watch them develop, and am truly proud to continue on with them into Year 10. I am grateful to all the parents and carers of our students for their continued support and will look forward to working with you all again next year as we embark into KS4.

B Bunsell, Head of Year 9

Year 9 Review

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IT HAS BEEN A VERY BUSY and successful year for the Year 10 students as they continue making excellent progress in the build up to their final year at Woking High School.

The students’ work in the school and community continues to be outstanding. Students have volunteered their time for a variety of projects, such as supporting students in the Peer Mentor scheme, volunteering at Woking Hospice and continuing to volunteer at a variety of locations to support their Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award.

Ethan Maher and Isabel Metcalfe were named as Duke of Edinburgh Young Ambassadors earlier this year and they have done an excellent job promoting this opportunity to the current Year 9 students. Several other Year 10 students have continued their experience of Duke of Edinburgh Award and completed their silver awards.

Within performing arts, the students have taken lead roles. Several students were involved in the annual school production, supported by the Windband. At the Lorna Paterson Competition, Isabel Metcalfe was

successful in winning the wind category. In addition, Will Carter, Ethan Maher and Jude Silverton won the award for Best Film in the Woking High School Film Festival.

Throughout the year, the students have been superb ambassadors as they continue their learning outside of school settings. As well as the several opportunities offered to them as part of Day 11 and through their GCSE courses, some students have also been on a week long residential at Longmoor Camp, as part of the Army’s Shared Outcomes initiative. Students have also had a taste of higher education by attending both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. All students have spent a day at Woking College as they look towards their future post Woking High School. In addition, the students spent a week in local organisations building up their experience in a work place.

In school, many students have been awarded full colours in addition to the half colours that they had already received in KS3. Isabel Metcalfe, Madeleine McClements and Alana Lynch have represented the school in debating competitions and won the Rotary Youth Speaks competition. Tegen Brown, Allanah Collins, Lucy Francis, Aneesa Hussain and

Ellie Thorne won the Group Achievement Award at the GASP Motor Project Awards. Several students have also taken some GCSEs (languages and statistics) and are eagerly awaiting their results in August.

Students have also been hugely successful in representing the school in a variety of sporting competitions including football, basketball, athletics and netball. Several students have also represented their sports at county level. More details will be included in the sports section of the newsletter. A special mention however goes to Leah Payne who went to America to represent her club at Cheerleading in the World Cheerleading games.

I will round off the review of the year by congratulating Joel Smith and Isabel Metcalfe for being appointed Head Boy and Head Girl after a lengthy process in which over thirty five students applied. Congratulations must also go to the other members of the Head Boy/Head Girl team, as well as the Senior Prefects, who I am sure will do an excellent job as senior members of the school community over the coming year.

B Goosen, Head of Year 10

Year 10 Review

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THIS YEAR we were able to extend the Character Awards so that Years 7, 8 and 9 were all involved. Each half term we focus on one of the six Woking High School character traits. Students are encouraged through assemblies and tutor times to do their best to display each of the traits. Staff then nominate students and each half term. All nominees receive a post card home, and all winners receive a badge for their blazer and take home a trophy that they keep for half a term.

The winners this year are as follows:

RESPECT Year 7: Erin Shelley Year 8: David Brown Year 9: Alfie Winter

INTEGRITY Year 7: Amy Rolfe Year 8: Ollie Strong Year 9: Rachel Christie

RESILIENCE Year 7: Jack Elliott Year 8: Kara Moore Year 9: Safah Mahmood

COURTESY Year 7: Xavier Ippolito Year 8: Tia Crook Year 9: Lilia Wada

ENTHUSIASM Year 7: Adam Ahmed Year 8: Tomas Heggberg Year 9: Koo Zheng

RESPONSIBILITY Year 7: Madeline Hanham Year 8: Farah Ali Year 9: Ella James

A Strong, Teacher of PE

Character Awards

Respect

Integrity

Resilience

Courtesy

Responsibility

Enthusiasm

THIS HAS BEEN AN EXCITING AND BUSY TERM FOR THE HOUSE TEAM.

In May, thiry students took part in the annual, three legged, House Fun Run. The students went to great lengths with their fancy dress and the onlookers enjoyed watching them negotiate the obstacles. An incredible £1187 was raised for Woking Hospice with Stephenson House raising £587. A special mention to Dylan Synan who single handedly raised £91.

Twenty two students entered a Carnegie Writing competition, most of whom were from 9A, assuring Faraday of a clear win. I am delighted to say that as well as winning the house competition, Madiha

I am very grateful to Mr Goosen, for running the events and for Mr Justice and Mrs Strong for their help. Thanks to the heads of house for supporting these events and cheering on their teams.

The year ends with the biggest day in the House Calendar -Sports Day, exciting times ahead for the House Team! Good luck to all who take part - may the best house win!

E King, Head of House System

Hussain was one of the runners up in the Carnegie competition and won a prize.

The annual DodgeBall and Tug of War events were well attended with teams from Years 7, 8 and 9 battling it out to be house champions. The results are as follows:

DODGEBALL

Year 7: 1st place Curie 300 HP

Year 8: 1st place Stephenson 300 HP

Year 9: 1st place Brunel 300 HP

TUG OF WAR

Year 7: 1st place Stephenson 300 HP

Year 8: 1st place Brunel 300 HP

Year 9: 1st place Brunel 300 HP

House News

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Battlefields 2018AS PART OF THE SCHOOL’S ONGOING COMMITMENT to remember and commemorate the centenary of the Great War, two visits to the Ypres Salient took place this term. One 2 - 4 May and then 9 - 11 July, 90 students made their way across the channel to memorials, cemeteries and battlefields of Flanders.

The tour had three main themes that took the form of ‘big’ enquiry questions. These key questions were referred to at each site that we visited:

n What can we learn about life on the Western Front from visiting the battlefields? Was it the same for everybody?

n Why is the First World War known as the ‘Great War’?

n What is left of the First World War today and how should we continue to remember it after 100 years?

At each site, teachers set the scene, providing brief details about why it is significant. It was then up to students to investigate the personal stories of individual soldiers and battalions in order to bring the site to life. At Lijssenthoek cemetery, students found out about Nellie Spindler, a staff nurse from Wakefield

who was killed during the Battle of Passchendaele. She is one of only two British female casualties of World War I buried in Belgium. We investigated the role of the Chinese Labour Corps and also saw an incredible visual representation of the impact of each day of the war. We then visited the memorial and preserved trenches at Vimy Ridge, Talbot House and Poperinge Town Hall, Tyne Cot, Hill 62 and Langemark Cemetery.

Perhaps the most poignant part of the visit was spent at the Ramparts Cemetery at Lille Gate. Two students laid a wreath from the school at the Menin Gate during a very moving ceremony and after spending time investigating some of the 54,406 soldiers’ names from Britain, Australia, Canada, South Africa and India, we headed along the ramparts. This was a place for us to reflect upon how we memorialise and remember the fallen. Students saw two contrasting sources. The first was Siegfried Sassoon’s bitter poem “On Passing the new Menin Gate” and the second was Will Longstaff’s haunting painting “The Menin Gate at Midnight” Both were created in 1927, but they reflect very different attitudes to remembrance and commemoration. As one student commented “It just shows how different

people’s experiences of the war actually were. It is really important that we don’t generalise, but instead remember those who served as individuals with different stories and experiences.”

Who will remember, passing through this Gate,

The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?

Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate, -

Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?

Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.

Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;

Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,

The armies who endured that sullen swamp.

Here was the world’s worst wound. And here with pride

‘Their name liveth for evermore’ the Gateway claims.

Was ever an immolation so belied

As these intolerably nameless names?

Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime

Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime

S. Sassoon

M Jones, History SLE

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Cambridge VisitON TUESDAY 3 MAY we had the pleasure of taking ten Year 10 students on a visit to Trinity College Cambridge. We beagn the day with a tour of the beautiful college and its grounds given by a current student who was both knowledgeable and interesting. We walked through the college and visited the famous chapel. We were treated to a delicious lunch, during which we were joined by a Woking High School alumnus - Isabel Aughterson. She was delightful company and helped our students feel that studying at Trinity College was something they could aspire to. After lunch we had a talk by a member of the admissions team who was able to answer our many questions about applying and studying at Trinity. Izzy then took us on a tour of Trinity Hall and even let us peek in to her room

to show us what a student’s room looks like. On the way home there was much talk of how the day had given them aspirations to study at Cambridge. Many thanks go to Dr Wernham, one of our Governors,

for organising the day and to Isabel Aughterson for being such a wonderful guide.

L Pollard, Science SLE

IN APRIL, Woking High School took a group of football fanatics to Madrid to experience a once in a lifetime opportunity. After settling at our accommodation, and familiarising ourselves with the local surroundings on the first day, we were ready to commence a week of pure football. Training at the Real Madrid Cuidad training complex on three occasions, playing matches against

two top local sides and even managing to get our hands on tickets to watch Atletico de Madrid and Sporting Lisbon in the quarter final of the UEFA Europa league. The week was action packed and we were constantly on the go. It was crammed with activities, mostly football related, however we managed to find time to look round the beautiful city of Madrid. In my opinion, I think the highlights of the week for many

of the boys were the tours of both the Santiago Bernabeu and the museum of Spanish football history. We came within touching distance of many Champions’ League trophies and even a World Cup! Overall this was an extremely memorable trip and one I think all of our lads will cherish for the rest of their lives.

Alfie Winter, Year 9

Arriving at the Real Madrid training ground was like arriving in football heaven. Amazing scenery, amazing pitches, and even amazing changing rooms! The training sessions from the Madrid coaches were a lot more intense than we are used to, and I could definitely feel myself developing as a football player straight away. The Madrid stadium was stunning. Over 70,000 people could sit down in that stadium just to watch a football game.

All in all the Madrid trip 2018 was absolutely amazing and it couldn’t have gone any better.

Asher Goosen Year 10

Real Madrid Tour

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Newquay TourTHE NEWQUAY TOUR was really good. There were a variety of activities like paddle boarding, kayaking, coasteering, body boarding and surfing. Personally, we thought it was the best visit we have been on. We all had lots of fun as we got to try different activities that we might not have done before, including when we went to Bishops Forum to do a range of team building and confidence building activities including abseiling, rock climbing and problem solving activities on water. Overall, the intructors were very welcoming and it was a great bonding trip for you and your friends. It was great!

Lauren Baker, Mia Le Maitre and Ellie Mason Year 8

THIS HAS BEEN ANOTHER BUSY YEAR for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award at Woking High School with Year 9 completing their Bronze Expeditions and Year 10 completing their Silver expeditions.

In June, sixty nine Year 9 students took part in their practice expedition on the North Downs in Surrey. This was a successful expedition and proved to be a good grounding for the assessed expedition, particularly for those who needed to polish up their navigation skills! This was soon followed by the assessed expedition in July. On the first day the participants walked in their groups for approx. 15kms to a campsite in Sixpenny Handley, followed by a further 10kms on the second day. All of the groups completed the expedition successfully and I am very proud of all of them.

The Year 10s were the first cohort for many years to undertake their Silver Award, having completed their Bronze Award the previous year. The weather for the practice expedition can only be described as wet, as the participants navigated their way around a very boggy New Forest. Happily, the sun shone for the duration of the assessed expedition which all participants successfully completed.

The next task is for all participants to complete their Awards, by finishing the Volunteering, Skill and Physical sections, so that we can have a great celebration at the Award Presentation at the H.G. Wells suite in March next year.

I am very lucky to have such an amazing

team of staff who run expedition training sessions and of course give up their free time to help with expeditions. Without their help this award would not run in school and I thank you all very much.

E King, Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme Manager.

Duke of Edinburgh’s Award

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Lucy Nicholls (2013) graduated 2018 - 2:1 degree in Graphic Design with illustration at Loughborough University She starts work as a Junior Graphic Designer for a small company called Think Plus Ink She has also been selected to play quidditch for the East Midlands Archers in the Quidditch Premier League, and is playing in an Exhibition match, representing The Netherlands, in the centre of Florence at the Quidditch World Cup on 29th June 2018.

Rob Hall (2012) graduated July 2018 - 2:1 degree in Geography. He is joining Woking High School for a year’s Teaching Assistant experience.

Hayley Nicholls (2010) (1st in BSc Psychology from Exeter University) has been promoted to Account Director at Kinase.

Ebony Zarth - graduated 2010, went to Farnborough 6th Form and took A levels in History, German and English Lit. She trained as a chef (Patissiere) at Lakefield in London and now lives in the Lake District and runs her own Wedding Cake business.

Asher Zarth - graduated 2007, went to Woking College and studied A levels in Maths, Physics, Art and Music Technology. He went to Bristol University and did BSc in theoretical Physics. He is now living in Germany and has just completed a Masters in Mathematics.

Caleb Zarth - graduated 2005, went to Woking College and studied A levels in Physics, Art and Graphic Design. He then did a BA in Industrial Design and Technology at Loughborough University and is currently working in Sydney.

Alumni

IT’S BEEN ANOTHER BUSY TERM for the Careers Department. We’ve wished our Year 11s well and continued to provide valuable careers information, advice and guidance to Year 10s, who are in the process of making important decisions about what they’d like to do once they leave Woking High School. College open events are well under way, so if your son or daughter is exploring their post-16 options, summer and autumn term are the best time to visit colleges and sixth forms to see what courses are available. Check college websites for details of open evenings

and go armed with a list of questions to find out about A Levels, BTECs, entry requirements, teaching styles and assessments.

And don’t forget, apprenticeships are also available to anyone age 16 or over. Find out more by visiting www.apprenticeships.org.uk.

This term Year 8s have been taking part in careers education workshops, fast-forwarding to the Year 2038 and designing what their lives might look like – thinking about future careers and lifestyle choices. The aim being to encourage students to plan ahead and think about the choices they are making in the here and now with regards to their effort in school and career planning.

If you have a son or daughter in Year 10 and would like to request a careers interview, then please ask their tutor for a referral.

Anna Murray, Innervate Careers Services

Innervate Careers Services

INSPIRE - CAREERS NEWS

AT WOKING HIGH SCHOOL we strive to ensure that students leave us prepared for life in modern Britain. To support this our summer term has been packed with numerous careers activities.

Week commencing 9 - 13 July saw our annual work experience week. Our Year 10 students had worked hard to source some fantastic placements. They experienced the world of work first hand and learned key employability skills which will be important to them as they embark on their future studies. We support our students through the process by visiting them whilst at the various work experience establishments, these range from pharmaceutical companies to golf courses to film companies and an artist’s studio to name but a few. It goes without saying that without the support and dedication of our local community our Work Experience week could not take place. So we thank all those companies who provide placements for our students.

C Jarman, Careers Coordinator

On Friday 6 July all Year 10 students experienced a day in the life of Woking College . The college created a personalised timetable for each student allowing them to take part in five individual taster sessions. We would like to thank Woking College for hosting this day.

Woking College also hosted the Brighton and Sussex Medical School hub event. A small group of our students were chosen to attend this event which will be beneficial to the decisions they make in the future.

Year 10 Woking College Taster Day

Year 10 Work Experience

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Puppy Paradise

WE WERE DELIGHTED to host the return of the Guide Dog puppies for the third year running on Tuesday 2 May at the Well-Being Centre, supported by our Young Carers.

Students from across all year groups were invited to sign up for our ‘Puppy room’ where they played with the puppies to promote well-being - it was a truly joyful experience for all of us. The puppies also seemed to enjoy playing with our students but they were tired towards the end!

Once again, we thank Denise Clark from the Guide Dogs for the Blind for facilitating this event and supporting us with our fundraising. We would also like to thank all the puppy walkers for coming to the school, especially Mrs Meakin (Luna’s walker) and Mrs Atkins (Mitchell’s walker).

Students donated £2 for time with the puppies and the Young Carers organised an old fashioned sweet sale at lunchtime. So far we have raised over £170 for the Guide dogs. The organisation receives no Government funding and rely solely on donations. It costs £50,000 to breed, train and support a partnership with a blind or partially sighted person throughout the lifetime of the Guide Dog. This is especially pertinent to us at Woking High School, as it is highly likely that some of our Visually Impaired students may need in the future the aid of a guide dog. So far we have raised enough money to sponsor two guide dog puppies, Luna and Boris.

C Wilkinson, Student Support Officer

ON 3 MAY we were invited by Surrey University to participate in an exciting day of activities. The Young Carers and Visually Impaired students were taken to the ‘Widening Participation room’ for introductions and plans for the day. Our first activity was to investigate the ‘Mysterious disappearance of Fred the Skele’. The three suspects were previous alumni of Surrey University, namely Mary Berry, Brian Cox and J.K.Rowling. We collected finger prints, DNA samples and powder samples from various crime scene locations across the university. We eventually worked out who the culprit was (although we won’t say in case it spoils the fun for future participants !). At the end of the mystery Fred the Skele was safety returned to his rightful place.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch on Campus and then badminton coaching in the afternoon at Surrey Sports Park. We all had a wonderful day and came away

ON WEDNESDAY 4TH JULY a group of students from the VI and SEND department took part in the Surrey Para Games at Charterhouse in Godalming, delivered by Active Surrey.

This event is open to young people with special educational needs and disabilities and allowed students to take part in a range of different activites including cycling, Boccia, swimming and rowing.

feeling inspired to attend university in the future. A number of Young Carers (Years 9-11) will be joining the Summer Camp at Surrey University between 18th-20th July.

My favourite part was the disappearance of ‘Fred the Skelly’. I enjoyed going around and searching for the DNA and exploring the University. It was very organised and well planned, I enjoyed it a lot (Xavier Ippolito Year 7)

C Wilkinson, Student Support Officer

The games were opened by Jeremy Hunt and Rachel Morris, Paralympic athlete, was guest speaker. One of our students, Joshua Brennand, was lucky to receive some advice from her to improve his rowing technique.

All students worked hard to include the Surrey School Games values including honesty, team work, self belief and determination.

A Stonehill, Head of VI Department

Young Carers and VI students trip to Surrey University

Surrey Para Games

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We have had a busy summer term launching initiatives to help source a newer model 17 seater school bus. Our target is to raise £10,000 towards the bus and the appeal will run to December 2018. We have created a Just Giving website to make it easier for you to donate, so please visit the following link and donate https://www.totalgiving.co.uk/appeal/schoolbus . Please help us get to our first £1,000 before the end of the winter term.

We have also launched with some schemes that we are hoping will help us reach this target without you spending any money.

SHOPPING - donate for nothing as you spend

n Do you shop at Waitrose in Goldsworth Park? We are very excited that the mini bus appeal is one of the Community Matters charities throughout July - ask for a green token at the checkout and put it in the box under our name. Please ask you friends and family to pop in and vote for us with the green token.

n Do you shop at Amazon? Next time please log on via https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ch/1053122-0. Amazon donates 0.5% of eligible purchases to Friends of Woking High School. Every time you shop at Amazon using this link, we get a donation and it doesn’t cost you a single penny.

RECYCLING - making money from what you throw away

n One of the Friends of Woking High School fundraisers for our new minibus is to collect used pens/biros/highlighters. From Monday 25th June collection buckets will be in all classrooms and offices around the school, so instead of binning pens that have run out, we are encouraging recycling. Please do send in any used pens from home to add to the collection.

n Also, don’t forget we are collecting plastic bottle tops and home care products for recycling. The items (please see picture below) can be brought into main reception or be sent in via students who can take them to student reception and then they will be stored before phased recycling.

GETTING COMPANIES TO DONATE /SPONSOR

n Matched funding from your company - contact us if you are eligible so we can plan how to take advantage of this. For instance we doubled the amount raised from the cash 4 coins earlier this year thanks to HSBC.

n Corporate Sponsors/Donations needed

Do you know of any businesses that would like to support the school by sponsoring or making a donation to the bus? Please ask them to get in touch via fowhs@wokinghigh.surrey.sch.uk.

n The PE Department wanted some equipment to help with dance, gymnastics and health related fitness lessons, so we have purchased an

n Ion Block Rocker Sport Bluetooth Waterproof Speaker System

n Apple 9.7” IPAD – 32GB Space Grey

n Food and Nutrition needed a new larger capacity fridge to support Food and Nutrition, Hospitality and Catering courses.

Please also remember to sign up for the Give as You Live scheme. It only takes a minute to download the toolbar and then every time you shop with over 3,500 online stores, a percentage comes to the FOWHS. There’s no extra cost to you or the school – and no hidden catches!

We would also like to remind you about the Woking High School Prize Club that gives parents and carers the opportunity to enter a termly lottery and at the same time make a donation to the Friends of Woking High School. Subscriptions to the Prize Club are £5 per month collected termly.

Thank you once again on behalf of the Committee, staff and students of Woking High School for your continued support. If you are interested in finding out more about the Friends of Woking High School or signing up for the Prize Club or Give as You Live, please contact us at fowhs@wokinghigh.surrey.sch.uk or

Our next meeting will be the AGM held at the school on 18 September 2018 at 7pm.

L Bostock-Cross, Secretary Friends of Woking High School

Friends of Woking High School

WE WILL BE COLLECTING OUTGROWN UNIFORM at Student Reception. Please ensure your donations are clean and in good condition so that they can be sold next year at our second hand school uniform shop. All the money raised will be donated to a fantastic charity called The Mango Tree which works in Western Kenya and South-West Tanzania delivering a range of development projects to tackle the causes of poverty and help to address

social and gender inequality. Some of their current projects include building a girl’s secondary school in Kenya, providing good quality education to 360 girls per year, a new HIV awareness project, and an aim to expand the residential training centre with an IT hub, a community bank and an agricultural co-operative society. This particular charity was chosen as it has a close link to school, with a large part of its work revolving around education and

helping vulnerable children and teenagers to gain qualifications. The money raised from selling your uniform can go towards providing necessities, including uniform, to children in undeveloped countries, thus allowing them to attend school.

Also we need spare uniform for some of our students who are in need of good quality clean items.

I Metcalfe, Headgirl

Uniform Recycling

Woking High School, Morton Road, Horsell, Woking, Surrey, GU21 4TJ

Tel: 01483 888447 Fax: 01483 888448

Email: info@wokinghigh.surrey.sch.uk

Web: www.wokinghigh.surrey.sch.uk

Headteacher: Jane Abbott

Woking High School is an exempt charity and company limited by guarantee. Registered in England with Company Number 8586085 and has a registered office as above.

Could we please remind all parents/carers that safe parking in and around our school site is incredibly important in order to safeguard our students. Many of our students walk and cycle to and from school and this can be dangerous if cars are parked in such a way that they either obstruct access or prevent clear sight lines. Please respect the parking signs and restrictions, and not park on the double yellow or zig-zag lines on Morton Road. Please can we also request that you are courteous to local residents and avoid parking over driveway entrances

PARKING

ANSWER TO MATHS QUESTIONS: E) 9 Llamas B) 6 socks

NoticesLEAVE OF ABSENCE

If parents take their child out of school without the Headteacher’s approval, this will be viewed as an unauthorized leave of absence and may result in a Penalty Notice. Penalty Notices are issued by the Local Authority for unauthorised leave of absence for 5 days or more. Penalty Notices are issued per parent per child and the amount due is £60.00 if paid within 21 days, rising to £120.00 if paid between 21 and 28 days. If the Penalty Notice remains unpaid after 28 days the Local Authority must consider a prosecution in the Magistrates Court. Please see our website for full details of our Attendance Policy.

COMMUNICATIONS

We communicate with parents on a regular basis via, primarily, Schoolcomms (email or text) with important announcements (such as snow days), letters and the Headteacher’s Weekly Review (distributed at the end of every week). If you are not receiving emails from us, please contact aphipps@wokinghigh.surrey.sch.uk so that we can check we have your correct contact details on our database.

We also post news and announcements on Twitter @WokingHigh and Facebook through the pseudonym of William Henry Smith, or on the Woking High School page, so please follow us or look out for our posts on the Horsell Village Wire.

A Phipps, Communications Manager

SCHOOL GATEWAY

I would like to take this opportunity to thank those of you that have successfully created a School Gateway

account for tracking your son or daughters Attendance Data, Behaviour and Achievement Points. Many of your initial comments and suggestions have helped us streamline the service and hopefully it is proving efficient for you to use. If you have not downloaded the mobile phone application I would highly recommend it for a convenient way to keep track of your son or daughters achievements.

M Crowley, Assistant Headteacher

FOR SAFEGUARDING REASONS, the Horsell Rise gate will no longer be in use during school hours (between 8.50am and 3.30pm). The front gate, which is supervised and can be monitored by staff following a visitor or student signing out, will become the sole entrance and exit to the school site. We apologise for any inconvenience caused, but safeguarding is our priority.

M Crowley, Assistant Headteacher

Site Security

ACADEMIC YEAR 2018/19

AUTUMN 4 September 2018 - 19 December 2018

HALF TERM 22 October 2018 - 26 October 2018

SPRING 3 January 2019 - 5 April 2019

HALF TERM 18 February 2019 - 22 February 2019

SUMMER 23 April 2019 - 24 July 2019

HALF TERM 27 May 2019 - 31 May 2019

INSET DAYS

3 & 4 September 2018

29 October 2018

18 January 2019

25 February 2019

28 June 2019

TERM DATES

PASTORAL STAFF organized a Big Breakfast with delicious bacon sandwiches, a variety of other breakfast foods and a tombola, to raise funds for Woking Hospice, this event is connected to the ‘Twinning’ project currently being run with our Year 10 students and the Hospice. The event raised almost £500.

Charity LinksWOKING HOSPICE