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Dates to note School re-opens aſter the Easter break on Tuesday 14th April 2015 Week ‘A’. Monday 13th April is a staff training day so school will be closed for students. Thursday 30th April Year 7 Parents’ Evening School closed for staff training Monday 1st June Summer Concert 2nd July Inside this issue: Headteacher’s Message 2 Uniform 4 U14 Netball 5 Palmer’s Cam- bridg Iniave 6 - 7 School Council 9 Trips/Visits 12 - 21 Cyber Safety 22 - 23 Chafford Chronicle www.thechaffordschool.org.uk Lambs Lane South, Rainham, Essex, RM13 9XD Tel: 01708 552811, E: headspa@thechaffordschool.org.uk March 2015
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The Chafford School Easter 2015 Newsletter

Apr 08, 2016

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Page 1: The Chafford School Easter 2015 Newsletter

Dates to note

School re-opens after the Easter break on Tuesday 14th April 2015 Week ‘A’. Monday 13th April is a staff training day so school will be closed for students.

Thursday 30th April Year 7 Parents’ Evening

School closed for staff training Monday 1st June

Summer Concert 2nd July

Inside this issue:

Headteacher’s Message

2

Uniform 4

U14 Netball 5

Palmer’s Cam-bridg Initiative

6 - 7

School Council 9

Trips/Visits 12-21

Cyber Safety 22-23

Chafford Chronicle

www.thechaffordschool.org.uk Lambs Lane South, Rainham, Essex, RM13 9XD

Tel: 01708 552811, E: [email protected]

March 2015

Page 2: The Chafford School Easter 2015 Newsletter

tremely well with 67 out of 85 students gaining A* to C grades.

Also in preparation for the forthcoming examinations, a number of students took part in a residential trip to the PGL centre in Horsham where they were assessed in activities such as Ar-chery, Climbing, Abseiling and Orientering.

Year 11 students have now completed their speaking and listening assessments in English, French and Ger-man. They have completed their controlled assess-ments in Science English, Business and all Humani-ties subjects and are now preparing and revising for their examinations which begin on the 5th May with the last exam on Monday 22nd June. All practical and oral exams will be completed by the start of the exams. All of the staff at the school are also work-ing extremely hard to sup-port and help students to prepare for the examina-tions with many extra les-sons and sessions taking place before school, during lunchtime and after school as well as the very well attended Saturday Acade-my. All of our Year 11 have recently taken part in “Revision Cracked” ses-sions with a national expert in revision and study skills. Once again, we will be run-ning our Easter revision sessions for Year 11. A full timetable can be found on the school website.

It goes without saying that we wish our Year 11’s all

the very best in their forth-coming examinations and look forward to a more relaxing celebration of their time at the Chafford and to say our goodbyes at the school Prom on Wednesday 8th July at Ye Old Plough Inn and the Leavers BBQ on Friday 10th July.

I would like to personally congratulate Lewis Davis Year 11, whom has secured a place in the Parachute Regiment in September. In the sporting world we celebrate the U14 girls’ netball team reaching the final of the Essex county cup and the Year 8 and 9 boys’ rugby teams reach-ing the Havering schools’ finals.

The School Council/Student Voice continues to repre-sent students’ views across the school and has been working to support Rain-ham Food Bank, encourage students to joing Havering Youth Council and pro-moting Jack Petchey awards in school.

We have appointed a num-ber of students to become Media Leaders in the school this term. Their role will be to research and to report on all aspects of school life and to produce a student newsletter for students which will help keep students up to date with events and infor-mation about the school across a range of media. Our Student Digital Leaders and Media Leaders have recently attended a day at the Guardian newspaper

offices in London where they learned digital coding skills.

A number of very success-ful school residential trips have taken place during the course of the term. Year 8/9/10 students visit-ed Torgon in Switzerland on a week’s skiing holiday. Students have been to The Bay of Naples in Italy on a Geography and Humanities trip and a number of stu-dents have recently re-turned from a three day visit to Poland where we visited the Auswitchz Con-centration Camp and ex-plored life in Krakow under the Nazi occupation as part of their History GCSE course. We have also had visits to the Tate Gallery, The Imperial War Museum and The Inviva Art Gallery. There will be a netball trip to Spain over the Easter break and our Year 7s are very much looking forward to the annual Cumbria trip taking place after the East-er break.

Sadly, we have not been successful in the recent bidding round to the De-partment for Education for funding to rebuild our Sports Complex, but we continue to be hopeful for other bids and partner-ships, particularly with the London Borough of Haver-ing, in order to carry out the much needed work on our sports facilities.

Congratulations to Mrs Lisa Ford (Parent Governor), Mrs Julie Seagroatt (Co-Opted Governor) and Ms Lisa Spencer (Clerk to the

Headteacher’s Message

Page 2 Chafford Chronicle

Dear Parents/Guardian/Student,

It is with great pleas-ure that I present to you our Spring Term newsletter. This term has been another very busy and successful term.

Some of our Year 11 students have taken their English GCSE early in preparation for their final exami-nations in a few months’ time. They have performed ex-

Lewis Davies

Congratulations

to Lewis Davies

who has

secured a place

in the

Parachute

Regiment in

September

Page 3: The Chafford School Easter 2015 Newsletter

Page 3

Governing Body) all of whom have recently been elected to join our Govern-ing Body. The Governors of the school play an enor-mous part in shaping the future of the school, in ensuring sound financial planning and in supporting and advising the school in many important aspects of its work. The Governors held an Open Day on Wednesday 25th March, spending the whole day in school looking at all as-pects of its work and oper-ation. They also have their own training and develop-ment day which, this year, is taking place on Saturday 20th June.

Here are some dates for your diary. Monday 13th April is a training day and therefore students will return to school after the Easter break on Tuesday 14th April. This training day will focus on literacy and numeracy. Our last and final Training Day of the Academic Year is taking place on Monday 1st June when staff will be training and working on curriculum development for the next academic year.

Our students have taken part in a number of charity days and have raised a sub-stantial amount of money for each individual charity. Our students and staff took part in a Christmas Themed Jumper Day, Super Hero Day and a Food and Shoe Box Appeal. Donations were sent to local food-banks and hampers were given to the elderly for Christmas. Our latest Char-

ity Day was ‘Red Nose Day’ for Comic Relief. We had a cake sale with proceeds going to Comic Relief (thanks go to all the par-ents/carers who donated some fabulous red nose themed cakes) and stu-dents were also able to have a silly ‘selfie’ taken with a friend using some funprops. I would like to extend a big ‘thank you’ to all those staff and students who took part and helped raise money for these well- deserved charities. Our House Leaders are current-ly in the process of organis-ing an achievement trip event to recognise the effort, hard work and achievement of our stu-dents during the year. Stu-dents are being identified who meet the criteria with the trips running after the Easter break.

Can I thank all of the par-ents who have supported the school over the last term not least in the Year 8 and 9 options interviews, your attendance at Par-ents’ Evenings where we have seen the highest turn-outs ever and in the very successful Coffee Morning which took place a few weeks ago. We will hold another morning very soon and we would be delighted to see parents coming along to talk with staff about all aspects of the school. For your infor-mation the next Parents’ Evening is for Year 7 and will take place on Thursday 30th April.

I will shortly be sending out information with regards to

appointing a new Senior Prefect Team, 2015/2016. This information will be sent to students when we return in April.

Our IT Department are in the process of upgrading our servers. Our current servers are over 10 years old and are due to be de-commissioned. Our Library has had 10 new computers installed which have HD resolution monitors with sleek thin bodies which have been greatly appreci-ated by our students.

We have now opened our new student toilets which have been welcomed by our students.

OFSTED. We are now very overdue an inspection from OFSTED. I am more or less certain that this will take place during the Summer Term. The school receives notice in the afternoon on the day before the inspec-tion commences. The in-spection will last 2 days and will probably involve 4 Inspectors who will be looking at every aspect of education and life at the Chafford. I will notify you as soon as we have notifi-cation of the inspection. The Lead Inspector will also write to you through the school to introduce them-selves and to talk about the Inspection process.

Sadly, the end of term is always a time for saying goodbye to staff. Mr Thompson is leaving us to take up a post in a London school. I would like to thank him for his fantastic contribution to the school

over the last 9 years and we all wish him every suc-cess. Miss Lauren Mackie and Miss Amy Goddard are also leaving us and Sylvia, our concierge member of staff, is also retiring from the Chafford School after 44 years’ service to the school. Sylvia has been a fantastic asset to the school in her many differ-ent roles and we will all miss her and wish her an enjoyable and well de-served retirement.

Joining us next term is Ms Emma Sees, Head of Per-forming Arts along with Mr Shaun Burford, our new Director of Information Technology & Computing. He will also have responsi-bility for the development of IT and learning across the school.

On closing, can I, once again, thank you all for your continued support of the school. Our website and social media sites con-tain a lot of information and news about the school, so please visit these regu-larly. I always welcome feedback from parents, students and the local com-munity both positive and as to where we can make im-provements to the work that we do. Please contact me via my PA’s email ad-dress: [email protected]

Have a lovely Easter break.

Yours sincerely,

Gary Pratt Headteacher

Page 4: The Chafford School Easter 2015 Newsletter

As of 27th March the school uniform shop which is located on site will close as Jenny , who has run the shop for many years, will be retiring. Jenny would like to pass on her thanks for your valued custom over the years.

We have now agreed a new arrangement with a local retail outlet (‘Twilight

Schoolwear’, in Rainham). ‘Twilight’ come highly rec-ommended and we have met with them regarding our expectations. They are always keen to work with schools and parents to make sure the items pur-chased fit in with school policies so, we hope you find their service just as good as you have experi-enced in the past and we

would welcome any feed-back you have on this matter over time.

Twilight are located at

183 Cherry Tree Lane Rainham RM13 8TU (Next to Post Office) Telephone: 01708 557229 Email: twilightshop@

New School Uniform Arrangements

Page 4 Chafford Chronicle

School Uniform Reminder

Uniform Reminder We have very high standards for appearance. We expect all students to :

Be smartly dressed and wear your uniform correctly

Shirts tucked in

Tie and top-button done up properly

Skirt at knee length

No jewellery

No Make-up, including nail varnish

No piercings of any sort

Proper school shoes—not

trainers or plimsolls

Coats are not to be worn in the school building and should be plain black

Only cardigans or jumpers with the school logo should be worn. No alternatives al-lowed.

No extremes of hair cut or colour are allowed

PE and dance kit should only be worn for the appropriate lesson—not around the school.

If you are buying new items of uni-form clothing during the Easter Break please look at our website for full details of our school uniform rules.

btinternet.com Opening hours 8.15ish – 5pm Monday to Friday 9am -- 1pm Saturday During the last 2 weeks of the summer break they open until 8pm each weekday evening

Page 5: The Chafford School Easter 2015 Newsletter

U14 Netball - Essex Cup

Page 5

Congratulations to our U14 Netball team who defeat-ed 70 schools who entered into the Essex Cup to make the finals!!

Ellie Miller, Megan Gore, Millie Bearman, Maisy Ste-phens, Emily Fanning, Hope Edmunds, Niamh Curran, Angela Mgbeike, Elizabeth Wood, Olivia Drakes, Yinka Shokunbi and Sadie Smart worked hard since Septem-ber to beat some of the strongest teams in the county to make it to the final. They won against the likes of Bancroft, St Martins, Brentwood and Great Baddow all in incredibly exciting and very close games.

Everyone at the school is incredibly proud of how hard the girls have worked and how far they have come this year. They have been a credit to themselves and the school. It was a great team effort to make the finals which took place on Thursday 19th March at 4pm at Redbridge Sports Centre.

Unfortunately we didn’t manage to win against the stiff competition put up by Cooper’s but to come se-cond in the whole of Essex is still a fabulous achieve-ment.

Apps for Good Project

Our challenge is to create an app that will benefit society in an innova-tive way. This project is called Apps For Good, and in our STEM (Science Technology Engineering Maths) group, we are tasked to design and complete an app for this project using Balsamiq mockups, a designing software, and write code in Java Script.

We are working well and will submit our presentations to Apps for Good on April 29th, 2015 Amman Hussain and Claire Hennessey

The STEM Club meets weekly and works at problem solving a range of challenges.

The challenges are often national competitions and they are often competing against schools across the UK.

The club encourages proactive and independent work from the students with the teacher being the facilitator and support for the students endeav-ours.

Page 6: The Chafford School Easter 2015 Newsletter

Palmer’s Cambridge Initiative

Year 10 students joined twelve other schools and Palmer’s College to sample life as a University stu-dent, visiting Cambridge University in the process. The three day event was designed to challenge and develop skills in key areas to enable them to think about their future choices and gain valuable infor-mation about both Further and Higher Education. Here, some of the students who attended the event write about their experiences.

Page 6 Chafford Chronicle

As part of The Cambridge Initiative, we were invited to visit both Palm-er’s College and Emmanuel College Cambridge from the 11th to the 13th of March. Our 1st day started with a general meet and greetsfrom the staff before being divided into teams and starting the first chal-lenge; the great egg challenge. Be-ing given only certain items like 2 plastic plates and straws we had to make a Kinder chocolate egg move the furthest possible distance with-out touching the egg. This challenge allowed us to think outside the box whilst interacting with our new teammates. The winning group managed 9.1m compared to 2.6m and 1m from us. After break 7 cur-rent Palmers students showed us around the college and answered our questions concerning life at col-lege and in the afternoon 2 media students tasked us with making a logo for the new web series ‘Footie Hub’. All of this made the first day at Palmers a success.

We spent day 2 in Cambridge and were based at Emmanuel College, one of the 31 colleges linked to the University of Cambridge. On arrival we were greeted by Lizzie Dobson, the Liaison Officer for the college. She showed us to the Queens build-ing and told us about the possible options we have concerning univer-sity and post 16 education. We were then shown around the whole of the college by three students showing us where they live, cook, study and socialise. After lunch and a tour of Cambridge showing us most of the other colleges and the University departments we had to choose be-tween one of two options; go to the artistic based Fitzwilliam Museum or as we all picked, the more scientific Sedgwick Museum. This was home to over 1.5 million artefacts from billions of years ago to the Darwin age. The largest of these was the Iguanodon towering above us at 30ft tall. This marked the end of our day at Cambridge and a great expe-

rience.

Our final day was again at Palmers. We were first asked about the trip and asked about what we learnt. We then split back into our previous groups and were asked to design a University with the only require-ment being that it had to have all the basic things a university would have like accommodation and lec-ture halls. Our design was an island university and it only being accessi-ble via boat. Our task for our final afternoon was to make a presenta-tion to show to the rest of the stu-dents. We were shown the most common errors that a presenter might do and then sent off to make it. We made a quiz for our presenta-tion and we were generally well received. We enjoyed every day of our trip and would definitely recom-mend anyone to visit Palmers. By Jack Bridgland-Clifford, Caleb Sabel, Emma Reid & Neeraj Sunder.

Jack Bridgland-Clifford Caleb Sabel Emma Reid Neeraj Sunder

Page 7: The Chafford School Easter 2015 Newsletter

Palmer’s Cambridge Initiative contd.

est distance one of us stood on a chair and then released the cup.

After watching everyone else’s ideas it was revealed that ours had travelled the furthest making us the win-ners. For this we received the most amount of points on the leaderboard.

We were then taken on tour of the college by a student. The college was beautiful with a newly re-furbished library, a dance studio and new facilities including science labs. We were given an opportunity to ask the student ques-tions about college life and what he likes about Palm-ers.

Then we made our way down to the canteen for lunch with the other col-lege students. This was provided for us and the food ranged from sand-wiches to chips, burgers and pasta.

After lunch we headed back to our room for the

By Mia Gladman - On Wednesday 4th March, together with Henry Seagroatt and Ellie Miller, I attended Palmers College for Day 1 of the Cambridge Initiative.

On arriving at Palmers we were introduced to the other schools and put into teams which consisted of us three and two pupils from Abbs Cross.

The first activity of the day was ‘The Great Egg Race’. We were given a Kinder Egg and had to find a way to make it travel the fur-thest distance. The egg had to move under its own momentum and we could only touch it at the start.

We were given a range of materials that we could use, including a cup, string, paper clips and a balloon. Our idea was to make a pendulum. We attached string to a cup and then hung the pendulum over a fire exist sign about a door. In order for the pen-dulum to travel the great-

Page 7

next challenge. We watched a video explaining that media students had created a com-pany called ‘Footie Hub’ and they wanted us to design a logo, website and hoodie. We were provided with tem-plates for the hoodie and website but we had to think outside the box to create a logo from scratch.

As a team, we decided to cre-ate a silhouette performing a trick as the logo and have a red hoodie with a personal-ized number on the back as well as a detailed website promoting ‘Footie Hub’. Once we had created the perfect idea we had to present it to the rest of the teams and judges (Palmers Staff). This involved us having to say why we had chosen that particular design and what the colours symbolized. The group that had the best logo would win and gain the most points as well as their design being used for the website.

There were many excel-lent presentations and logos but the judges declared our idea as the best and therefore we were the winners!

As we had won both activities of the day our team were each pre-sented with a prize of an Easter egg.

Overall I had a wonder day and am glad I had the chance to experi-ence college life and interact with new peo-ple. By attending the Cambridge Initiative my confidence has grown and this experience has made me want to suc-ceed even more.

Mia Gladman Henry Seagroatt Ellie Miller

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Page 8 Chafford Chronicle

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School Council Update

across Havering to express their views in a formal way. It creates opportunities for them to discuss the issues which are important to them within their local community. We were en-couraged to get students from The Chafford School to join. Information and applications were sent out to all tutorials. Watch this space!

I believe while I have been on the School Council, I have gained leadership skills, the ability to talk

By Luke Lewis Year 10

Purpose of the student council

We meet on a regular basis in the school library to dis-cuss ways to improve the school through our learn-ing, our school experience and to develop our student leadership skills.

We think it is important for students to have a voice to change things in the school for the better.

Key issues we have begun to tackle this term in the local community: Food Bank

We will be focussing on supporting our local Food Bank in Rainham next term. We had representa-tives come to talk to the school council about our local food bank. There will be an assembly to explain all about Food Banks next term which will be fol-lowed by a campaign to donate items to the Food Bank.

Havering Youth Council

This is a way for students

Page 9

with more confidence as well as getting an insight into how the school is run. This has put me in a good position to put forward the views of the stu-dents. I would highly recom-mend it as a way of boosting students’ confidence as well as a way of getting them to think more about how to use their education to good effect.

Jack Petchey - By Mia Glad-man

A group of students from the student school council have come together to form The

Jack Petchey organisa-tion. Our task is to set up the Jack Petchey scheme within school and nominate award winners each month.

We have been attending weekly meetings to de-sign a display board, nomination slips and a powerpoint presenta-tion to ensure pupils are made aware of what we are doing. Hopefully, in the future, you will see more and more stu-dents from The Chafford winning a Jack

Luke Lewis Year 10

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Page 10 Chafford Chronicle

School Council 2014/2015

Senior Prefect Team 2014/2015

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Attendance Matters!

There is a clear link between poor attendance at school and lower academic achievement. Children with poor attendance can also struggle to maintain friendships and their social skills development can become delayed.

Here at The Chafford we are dedi-cated to ensure that every child has the best possible care and oppor-tunity to succeed. The law states that parents have a legal responsi-

bility to ensure their children attend school. Please ensure your child attends every day.

If your child is absent from school please ensure you contact the school as soon as possible, notifying us of your child’s absence and the reason why.

From time to time children can be-come unwell. However, please ensure your child attends school if

they are well enough to do so. Ill-ness such as coughs and colds are common among children but they can generally still attend school and should be encouraged to do so. We can often accommodate children in school, with most illnesses, and are happy to administer medication such as antibiotics with written consent.

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School Trips and Visits This Term

Page 12 Chafford Chronicle

Bay of Naples—February 2015

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Bay of Naples—February 2015

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Page 14 Newsletter Title

Bay of Naples—February 2015

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By Mia Gladman On Monday 9th March a group of History GCSE stu-dents together with Mr Pratt, Miss Shaw and Miss Peck trav-elled to Poland, Krakow on a two day trip to visit Auschwitz. After an early morning flight, our first visit was to a Jewish synagogue. From there we received a short tour of Galicia Museum, met a holocaust survivor, visited Schindlers’s factory and then on to a Jew-ish ghetto square and mass memorial ground. This was a very long, eventful and ex-hausting day. The following day we headed out early once again to meet our tour guides at Auschwitz I. This provided the students with the opportunity to ob-serve the gas chambers, living conditions, death block, camp

Poland/Auschwitz Trip March 2015

“For evil to

flourish, it only

requires good

men to do

nothing “

Simon

Weisenthal

Page 15

placed them on a grave stone allowing us the chance to reflect on what we had seen and remember this harrowing time. In the evening, to gain a better understanding of the culture, we dined at a Jewish restaurant so we could try new food and listen to a live band. Our visit to Krakow was a once in a lifetime opportunity that allowed us to have fun as well as visualise the devastation that the holocaust caused. Even though it was incredibly tiring and sad, it was a won-derful, interesting experience that has helped many of us place ourselves in the Jews’ position and widen our knowledge of Nazi Germany preparing us for future exams.

gate and more. We were able to see the hair of the prison-ers, their luggage, shoes and brushes. Witnessing this made us understand just how many people were affected by the holocaust and the ex-tremeness of this act. Later, we drove to Auschwitz II Birkenau which was huge compared to Auschwitz I, covering 420 acres. We had a guided walk of the camp and had the chance to see where the captured slept as well as the ruins of the gas chamber. Also we stood at the sorting area. This was where Jewish and other groups/races of people were placed into two lines deciding if they would be killed or forced to work. Finally, to pay our respects to those that lost their lives, we gathered around the pond of ashes and lit candles. We

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Page 16 Chafford Chronicle

Poland/Auschwitz March 2015

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Year 9 Trip to The Guardian Newspaper

By Lucy Kearney and Lucy Manning A group of year 9 students visited The Guardian head office this term in King’s Cross to take an introduction course on coding and journalism. We were given a brief history of The Guardian Newspaper and how the paper now uses the digital world to

interact with their readers. We were taught some basic java script and html to design and create an interactive news related quiz, like the ones you would see on The Guardian website. All the students enjoyed the experi-ence and are very thankful. We all learnt a lot of useful information and would go back again.

Ski Trip to Torgon Switzerland - January 2015

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Page 18 Chafford Chronicle

Ski Trip—Torgon, Switzerland January 2015

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Ski Trip—Torgon, Switzerland January 2015

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Page 20 Chafford Chronicle

Inviva Art Gallery, London March 2015

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Inviva Art Gallery, London March 2015

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Page 22 Chafford Chronicle

Cyber Safety

We are

supporting the

Metropolitan

Police in raising

awareness with

parents about

use and misuse

of mobile

phones.

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Cyber Safety contd.

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Page 24 Chafford Chronicle

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Revision Cracked Seminar

We were delighted to welcome Tim Foot to The Chafford in March to run a day of seminars for our Year 11 students.

The seminars were designed to help KS4 Students improve their revision skills and to give students the confidence to tackle revision tasks.

Tim has worked as a teacher and has also worked in industry. He has run study skills seminars at more than 200 schools to over 100,000 students.

His booklets bring together the best ideas and approaches developed through his seminars. 'Revision Cracked!' was published in 2009 and since then he has had two further

booklets published: 'Surviving Your Workload!' and 'Smart Study Skills! He suggested the following strategy of revise, test and rest.

‘An enjoyable and interesting ses-sion to help students prepare for our GCSE examinations.’

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Lambs Lane South Rainham

Essex RM13 9XD

Phone: 01708 552811 Fax: 01708 522098

E:[email protected]

Many traditions and practices have formed around Easter eggs. The colouring of eggs is a established art, and eggs are often dyed, painted, and oth-erwise decorated. Eggs were also used in various holiday games: parents would hide eggs for children to find, and children would roll eggs down hills. These practices live on in Easter egg hunts and egg rolls. The most famous egg roll takes place on the White House lawn every year. Orthodox Christians in the Middle East and in Greece painted eggs bright red to symbolize the blood of Christ. Hollow eggs (created by piercing the shell with a needle and blowing out the contents) were decorated with pictures of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and other reli-gious figures in Armenia. Germans gave green eggs as gifts on Holy Thursday, and hung hollow eggs on trees. Austrians placed tiny plants around the egg and then boiled them. When the plants were removed, white patterns were created. The most elaborate Easter egg traditions appear to have emerged in Eastern Europe. In Poland and Ukraine, eggs were often painted silver and gold. Pysanky (to design or write) eggs were created by

Christians celebrate Easter to commemorate the resurrec-tion of Jesus Christ. Some aspects of modern Easter cel-ebrations, however, pre-date Christianity. According to the Venerable Bede, Easter derives its name from Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. A month correspond-ing to April had been named "Eostremonat," or Eostre's month, leading to "Easter" becoming applied to the Christian holiday that usually took place within it. It seems probable that around the second century A.D., Christian missionaries seeking to convert the tribes of north-ern Europe noticed that the Christian holiday commemo-rating the resurrection of Je-sus roughly coincided with the Teutonic springtime cele-brations, which emphasized the triumph of life over death. Christian Easter gradually ab-sorbed the traditional sym-bols. In Medieval Europe, eggs were forbidden during Lent. Eggs laid during that time were often boiled or other-wise preserved. Eggs were thus a mainstay of Easter meals, and a prized Easter gift for children and servants. In addition, eggs have been viewed as symbols of new life and fertility through the ages.

carefully applying wax in patterns to an egg. The egg was then dyed, wax would be reapplied in spots to preserve that color, and the egg was boiled again in other shades. The result was a multi-color striped or patterned egg. Hares and rabbits have long been symbols of fertility. The inclusion of the hare into Easter cus-toms appears to have originated in Germany, where tales were told of an "Easter hare" who laid eggs for children to find. German immigrants to America -- particular-ly Pennsylvania -- brought the tradition with them and spread it to a wider public. They also baked cakes for East-er in the shape of hares, and may have pioneered the practice of mak-ing chocolate bunnies and eggs. In Medieval Europe, churchgoers would take a walk after Easter Mass, led by a crucifix or the Easter candle. Today the-se walks endure as Easter Parades. People show off their spring finery, includ-ing lovely bonnets deco-rated for spring.

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WHERE STARS ARE BORN

A brief history of Easter and its traditions