Newsletter

URMSTON GRAMMAR

Iceland Trip

They said that it would be a trip to remember and they certainly didn’t disappoint as our teachers bravely took us out of the country and into the beautiful and breath-taking country that is Iceland. It was a once in a life time experience that was jam-packed with amazing views, long walks up the steep sides of volcanoes - still warm when they last erupted, a talent show in the middle of nowhere, gazing at the milky way and to top it all off a massive snowball fight on top of a glacier towering over everything for miles and miles. I am sure that we will never forget this amazing experience and I would like to thank all the staff and those who went for making it so fantastic.

Rachel WINTERBOTTOM

GCSE RESULTS

Six out of every 10 results were either A* or A grades in this tremendous set of GCSE results and one in every ten students achieved grade A and above in every subject.

With each GCSE attracting points too, we are pleased to see the points scores have improved on our bumper year last year, up from 464 to 484; a small increase but an increase all the same.

The headline figure of 99.2% of the year group gaining the 5 A* to C benchmark figure is outstanding and our "English Baccalaureate" score is an excellent and healthy 75% although we are unable to improve on a figure that reflects student subject choice from two years ago that has nothing to do with performance in examinations.

The full set of results are copied below showing each student and the number of A* to C grades as well as total GCSE pass grades they achieved:

A' LEVEL RESULTS

Our results day began at 8:00 prompt for all; shrugging off holiday mode for a full day of celebration and final planning for September, we collectively enjoyed the fruits of two years hard but enjoyable work.

We were thrilled again to see that underlying trend of improvement from previous years, and as ever, notable individual successes within that greater collective triumph.

Well done all who taught or were taught during the last two years. It is easy to dismiss just how much hard work and effort is involved in gaining a solid advanced level qualification. We are however convinced that this generation have much to be proud of, and today we celebrate that success.

An amazing "WELL DONE" to you all!

SPORTS DAY

A day at Longford Park and a day to remember! Records smashed, outstanding sportsmanship and an incredibly enjoyable day. Perhaps the most perfect preparation for our own olympics in July 2012.

Well done everyone for giving your all, and when not competing you were amazing spectators, cheering everyone to the finish line.

Vintage Urmston Grammar and a phenomenal day!

Wow!

I am grateful to the staff who have supported the student's extra-curricular learning by organising and running the following events during the last 3 weeks:

Year 8, 10 & 12 Geography Field Visits,
The Year 7 Science Visit to Chester Zoo
Year 12 Drama visits to the Theatre in Manchester.
The Year 8 Salters Chemistry competition.
Our Year 12 Art visit
The Year 10 event at Alton Towers.
Our annual and tremendously worthwhile New Intake evening.
Our equally polished and successful Year 12 Higher Education evening.
Our Business Dynamic week which at the time of writing is in full swing.
An amazing Y10 Drama production.
An incredibly good Year 11 Prom with our most wonderful students thoroughly enjoying their evening.
Mrs Wall and Mrs Tancred for organising the mammoth and enormously successful 1960's expo.

Friday 1st July

Go4SET 2011

Our 2011 Go4SET team of six year 9 students has been working tirelessly since March on their ‘Create Sport’ Go4SET STEM brief.

They surveyed the opinions of students at Urmston Grammar and in a local Primary school and decided they would like to create a sports centre themed around Free running, climbing, bouldering and a children’s gym, with the idea that young people could take part without the need for having to bring specialist equipment.

Supported by a company mentor from United Utilities and their teachers, they researched their proposal and presented their ideas at the Celebration and Assessment Day at Lancaster University on 29th June 2011.

Their professional report, confident and knowledgeable presentation, informative display and stunning architectural model impressed the assessors and their peers alike, and their superb effort was recognised when they were awarded the ‘Pupils’ Choice’ award after gaining over 80 % of the votes from other teams.

Well done to Emily Hammond, Bobby Mears, Alex Leslie, Alistair Tang, Fruzsina Rakoczy and Farouq Husein.

Duke of Edinburgh Award

Fifty year 10 students completed their Duke of Edinburgh's bronze award practice expedition over the weekend of July 2nd and 3rd.

They all survived the unforgiving sun and Mrs. Rowlands cooking (which was, as ever, pretty amazing). They are all now eagerly anticipating their assessed expedition in the Clitheroe area.

Pictured is one of the groups about to enter Delamere Forest after a most welcome ice-cream break. I am extremely grateful to the 12 members of staff who gave up their weekend and supported the expedition, our biggest group so far.

A level & GCSE Exhibition Evening

I am grateful to the staff who created our annual exhibition and the many talented students whose work, completed over two years, we were able to enjoy and wonder at.

It was a splendid evening and one dedicated to simply celebrating the achievements of this year’s gifted students of Art and Design at A level and GCSE and the Technology students, of both the Upper and Lower School.

I am grateful to the many Parents, Staff and Governors who attended this event and who were suitably impressed by the tremendous creativity, imagination and skill shown by all of the students. What could be nicer?

RHS Gold Medal....

Congratulations to the Growing Sense Team who with Andrew Cannell the RHS Regional Campaign for School Gardening Advisor, Dr Ibbs and Mrs Wall scooped the RHS Gold award for their mini garden, themed on the story of Alice in Wonderland.

All that was missing was the white rabbit... now where is our dear friend the White Rabbit... nibbling vegetables in the sensory garden again?

Visit the RHS Campaign for School Gardening Website

Under 14 Football success!

The under 14 girls 5 a side girls football team won the northwest finals on saturday morning 4 0 over two games against cockermouth.

They progressed to this stage after winning the Trafford tournament and then the Greater Manchester cup the Friday before whit break.

The team from left to right is Abigail willows, Charlotte Taylor (both 8u] , lianna Scott, Katie jones, Abi Thirsk, Sophie Newman and Emily Hammond.

Goals from Emily Charlotte and Katie secured the trophy. The team goes on to the national finals in Birmingham on July 2nd where it would appear that they will be playing against club sides!

We wish them well and congratulate them for a stunning performance in winning the North West finals.

Mock Court regional finals.
For the third year in succession, Urmston Grammar have beaten off all opposition from Independent Schools, Grammars and Comprehensives to win the North West Finals.

Our winning team will fly to Belfast for an overnight stopover and of course the UK finals of the Mock Court.

STEM challenge finalists

The STEM Challenge, coordinated by STEMNET and supported by BP, invited teams of 11 to 14 year olds from secondary schools across the UK to play their part in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The challenge was designed to enable young people to use the skills learnt in Science, Design & Technology and Maths lessons to create and pitch their plans for sustainable travel from their schools to venues for the forthcoming London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Our team were accompanied by Mr. Barber and Dr. Stuckey to the final at Reading University. They competed against seven other schools from around the country, in a Dragon’s Den style interview. Although the team did not win the top prize they did impress the judges, including the world-champion cyclist, Lizzie Armitstead, with their excellent presentation. Lizzie commented on the high quality of all the finalists saying “It was great to see how enthusiastic the students were about preparing for the London 2012 Games. Having competed at large sporting events, I’m aware of how important it is to ensure that we try and reduce the impact of our carbon footprint. This challenge is fantastic in raising awareness of that.”

Students were required to complete the challenge using methods connected to the curriculum. An awareness of how to handle data and work critically with evidence were essential Maths and Science skills used by the teams to find sustainable means of travel. Ian Duffy, Manager of UK Education Programme at BP comments, “At BP, we are committed to sustainability and it was fantastic to see students put so much thought into their plans for environmentally-friendly travel.”

Alice in Wonderland.
Congratulations to the cast as well as the support crew for this wondrous and flawless performance of the Lewis Carroll classic.

Children in Need

and how we hit the £3,000 target:

Pudsey Sales £670.97

Twister £160.61

Jam Sales £22.06

Cakes Sales (Staff Room) £21.75

Face painting £19.00

8M Cake Sales £84.40

7M Kyah Lomas & Emily Hayes

Sponsored Blindfold and Silence £49.80

8M Zoe and Marianne Using Left

hand all day £20.05

7S Concert £36.26

...and many more events during the previous few days making the

total raised £3477

SUMMER FAIR

On a slightly less than sunny Saturday, we were pleased to see so many of you supporting our annual PTA Summer Fair. We hope you all managed to dodge the showers and find something to entertain you.

URMSTON GRAMMAR

We are now an academy and are celebrating our conversion with a set of plans and improvements that we will roll out in coming months.

We are pleased to inform you that our first change, is to prepare and implement a restored Music Service for operation right across the school. This will offer free group tuition at lunch and after school every day; a service we lost many years ago when the Trafford Peripatetic Service fell down the LA priority list.

Should parents wish to continue to purchase one to one tuition, those arrangements remain unchanged.

Examination results:

GCSE level:

We are again immensely impressed by all of our our students' performance at GCSE level. No prizes for guessing which two students gained straight A* grades in every subject; we will be celebrating this and the performance of 20 other students whose grades were all A* and A grades as part of our wider celebration of all of the GCSE successes at our first assembly of the year. A truly fantastic 60% of all examination sat were awarded either A* or A grade.

We are, as ever, proud of your hard work and commitment to your studies which your staff also commit so much to. Two years of hard work pumped up by revision breakfast classes as well as the many other extras hav

e paid off for you at this key stage in your education.

Well done!

A' level.

We are all tremendously pleased to declare our highest ever set of examination results for advanced level study this year with 62.5% of our passes being A* to B grades. Our average point score per candidate this year is 418.14, an increase of 21.4 points per pupil and 5 students gained straight A* grades. Our AS level pass rate remains unchanged at 100%.

A very special day for us all - well done all staff and students who have proven again that hard work pays off !

19th August 2010

The Duke of Edinburgh Award expedition descended on their camp site worrying the campers who had also set up for the weekend. A delegation spoke to staff on the final day congratulating the school on the incredibly polite, well mannered and well behaved young adults who they met during the weekend.

Yet another wonderful weekend away for the staff and students who enjoyed not only the expedition, the walking and the weather but each others company.

Earlier this week, we were very excited to spot a Bee Orchid on our school field. The Bee Orchid is so named because its labellum mimics the shape of a female bee. This attracts male bees, who attempt to mate with the flower and in so doing brush against the pollinia. These pollinia stick to the bee, and the bee can then cross-pollinate the plant with other flowers.

These flowers, usually found in the Mediterranean, are more common in the South East of England, so our Year 12 Environmental Studies group reported our find to the Botanical Recorder for South Lancashire.

If you want to see this unusual plant for yourself, it can be found near the Moorside Road entrance of School.

Lucy Smith (12U)

The Big Bang - Manchester Central March 2010

Our “Science and Engineering Club” was one of twelve clubs nationally that was asked to showcase at “The Big Bang” in Manchester. The STEM clubs form a nationwide network of after school clubs focusing on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM subjects) and is co-ordinated by STEMNET. The clubs develop STEM enhancement and enrichment.

M A Stuckey, T F Barber and S D Greaves accompanied four lower school pupils to represent the UGS club. Our pupils demonstrated a variety of experiments including soap making which proved to be particularly popular.

NKK and JL also visited the Big Bang Fair with Year 9 pupils from UGS, Wellacre Technology College and Flixton Girls’ High School as part of the triple science project.

All pupils were able to take part in a variety of events, including:

• Sampling how much science and engineering affects all our lives, our

world and our future - from gadgets to goo, farming to fashion and space to surgery .
• Watching and taking part in experiments, explosions, simulators and shows - plus the chance to meet a celebrity or two. Ben Fogle and James Cracknell demonstrated the equipment and techniques they used on their Antarctic expedition in 2008.
Pupils measured their lung capacity on a computerised treadmill to see if they could make it to the South Pole. Pupils also had the opportunity to quiz scientists and engineers about their jobs and were able to discover their perfect careers.

Triple Science Project

The Triple Science report was submitted after an extremely successful collaborative project led by R S Wall and N K Kelting. The project was a success in a variety of ways: increased uptake of triple science by 122% across the network from 2009 to 2010; increased pupil awareness of the importance of triple science throughout the network schools; CPD partnership and collaboration opportunities for staff; very positive feedback back from pupils and a simple case study to share good practice.

A second bid for £8000 was submitted by R S Wall in May 2010. The collaborative project bid which focused on e-learning was successful. O. Richards will be leading the project in 2010/11. All projects are funded by the Learning and Skills Network (LSN) on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). The triple science support programme is now in its third successful year of supporting schools, managers and teachers to plan, develop and deliver Triple Science GCSEs. The projects are designed to promote networking opportunities and help to create a wealth of resources to support non-specialist schools who are offering Triple Sciences. Our network will once again include our partner secondary schools Wellacre and Flixton, but it is hoped that the collaboration can be extended to include other schools in the authority.

PCR at Manchester Museum

All Year 13 students visited Manchester Museum to take part in PCR (polymerase chain reaction) workshops organised by D E Hesford. During the sessions students used genetic research techniques to carry out the polymerase chain reaction using their own cheek cells as the DNA source. The DNA extracted was amplified using the PCR technique and then visualised by using agarose gels. All sessions were delivered by PhD students from The University of Manchester.