Kingdown Week Friday 30th January 2015 Number 17, 2014-15 Curriculum Support: ‘Heroes and Monsters’ The Learning Centre invited Kingdown’s very own Mr Trimby to their English lesson last week to learn more about real-life heroes in everyday situaons. Mr Trimby is the Watch Manager at Warminster Fire Staon and spent me with Josh Anderson, Addi Brock, Nelson Davies, Callum Fish, Ben Hill and Daniel Wilson discussing his role as a Watch Manager and what the job of a fire- fighter entails. As part of their learning, the students asked Mr Trimby lots of quesons about his experiences tackling fires, aending traffic collisions and making young people aware of the hazards of fire. Addi said, ‘Mr Trimby is an everyday hero because he saves lots of people from fires’. All of the students had the opportunity to try on Mr Trimby’s uniform before he had to rush off to the Fire Staon to assess a real-life emergency. They all agreed that being a fire-fighter, along with doctors, air ambulance crew and the police was a very dangerous job and they were courageous and heroic people. Aendance Terms 1 & 2 Student aendance is a key ingredient to the success of any student. At the end of Term 2, we had an overall aendance of 95.3%, slightly below our 2013 figure. 388 students must be congratulated for having 100% aendance during this me and, with the December bug behind us, we hope that overall aendance will begin to rise again. The introducon of aendance tokens which enabled students to vote for a project (like Waitrose) saw’Fighng Fit’ from the PE department being awarded the £500 prize. For Terms 3 and 4, the projects that will be voted for include: ICT gadgets and cameras; outdoor fitness equipment from the Heads of House; and Wall Art from the sixth form who want to promote student art work and success in the new sixth form block. On the 11th and 12th February 642, students from Years 7 to 10, who had >97% aendance for Terms 1 and 2, will be awarded with the opportunity to watch a film during the school day. More details of this will follow by leer to the successful students. Mr Evans Kingdown Aendance Manager Kingdown TOPS the Tournament The Year 8 and 9 Kingdown Netball team played amazingly at St Augusnes on Tuesday evening. Firstly, we played John of Gaunt. There were some spectacular shots by Gemma Humpries and Ella Daly which put us in the lead and we won by 15-0. In the second game, we played John of Gaunt and won by 14-0. There was some incredible defending by Jess Ryall and both Georgias. Finally, we also won against St Augusnes A team 12-2. Great game and superb win girls. Wrien by Ella Foot (MiHD) Your Community Needs You... Would you believe that there once was a safe space for our youth to meet aſter school and evenings? Sadly those days are now gone as local authories have had their funding cut by the current UK government and sadly it was Warminster's turn to close the doors on it's youth services towards the end of 2014. Our local authority now has tough decisions to make when it comes to how to spend the money in the pot. It would be fantasc to see youth assistance being fully funded as a public service to our community again, but it is now our community who need to come together and work with our young people to get youth services back. “Youth services provide vital support to young people, with so many broader benefits for society – such as reducing unemployment, improving the take-up of educaon, reducing substance abuse, cung crime and an-social behaviour, and improving community cohesion.” (www.unison.org.uk) Aſter the strong fight that was put up against the cuts from our youth, we now need to keep the momentum going, by encouraging our youth to use their confidence to co-ordinate their own youth commiee to put their voices into proposals to the council for funding a project. The younger generaon need to lead and run these meengs and become involved in shaping future events directly with Council representaves. To ensure that your voice is heard and the acvies on offer match what you want, become a part of the advisory team. All our youth community can be involved, from being a mentor, a volunteer to collecng donaons, sharing your me, sourcing equipment and so on. It is now up to you. The first meeng will be held in the coming weeks at Kingdown (TBC), please complete and forward to me an applicaon of interest. Contact: Diane Email: [email protected] : Warminster Youth Community, UK Tuesday February 3rd 2015 - Early closure Please note school closes at 1.20pm on Tuesday 3rd February 2015 due to Year 11 Parent Meengs.