William Brookes School Blog

Students and staff have been voting for their preferred house names this week, and we can now declare the outcome of the vote.

Of the 625 votes cast, Olympic Athletes gained 111 (4th); Inspirational People attracted 130 (3rd) and Local Landmarks secured 144 votes to take second place.

With 244 of us opting for Olympic Cities of the 21st Century, we can now look forward to belonging to Athens, Beijing, London or Sydney house.

A big thanks to the OSP Ambassadors for organising the vote and everyone who took part.

As work starts on the new swimming pool, Jaya and Rebecca celebrate their efforts in raising £335 for the Teenage Cancer Trust.  The girls came up with the idea to make people aware of the condition and to raise funds for suffering teenagers.

The swim lasted over an hour and covered 245 lengths of the pool, which is 6.125 kilometres (nearly 4 miles in old money).  “It was quite hard, but definitely worth doing”.

Both girls belong to Northgate Swimming Club and are very excited about the new swimming pool.

Let’s hope the new facility encourages even more people to aspire to Jaya and Rebecca’s swimming ability.

Congratulations to Matthew, a Year 10 William Brookes student who completed a 60 mile sponsored bike ride on Sunday 17^th May.

The ride began at New Street, Birmingham, 10.00 a.m. and finished a gruelling six hours later in Cheltenham.

Raising more than £300 for the following charities:- Autism West Midlands, Autonomy and Conductive Education.

The day was wet and windy and Matthew commented: “It was very hard at times with quite a few hills: some of them were long climbs, like the one at Broadway, but we all encouraged each other to get up them. There were about 300 of us taking part”.

These two Year 11 students danced to say “Au revoir” to their fellow class mates on Friday, May 22nd.  The short piece was one of many performances and speeches to celebrate five years at William Brookes.

Some of our students will meet again for exams: many will return as Sixth Formers, but just about everyone will be at the Prom on June 26th.  Watch this space for the red carpet exposé.

Interested in seeing how the work on the new school is progressing?  Wishing you had front row seats for all the action? Fret no more: WBS Presents “Building for the Future”.

new build in progress

O.K. It’s not exactly rivetting viewing but you do get an idea of where we’re at with the work.  As you can see, things are really starting to take shape and it won’t be long before the lid’s on.

This picture is already out of date, but click on it to go to an up to the minute vista.

A number of current Year 9 students will be embarking on a new project in September, as part of their Citizenship studies. They will be aiming to qualify for a Safe Road User Award by understanding how to use the roads and developing positive road user attitude.

William Brookes has qualified as one of just three practitioners in England for the new award, teaching the importance of road safety to students aged 14 to 17.

Malcolm Farrar, Shropshire Council’s road safety officer, said: “A great deal of hard work and commitment has gone into qualifying as one of the first practitioners in the country to deliver this award. Credit must go to William Brookes School for taking the challenge of introducing and developing a new course into their school timetable.”

Mrs Turner commented: “At William Brookes School we believe this is a valuable and important skill to develop in tandem with academic qualifications. Our students are very keen to start this course and we are looking forward to working in partnership with others to implement a Pre-Driver Qualification which will harness young people’s enthusiasm and, at the same time, give them a qualification.”

Students successfully completing the award will gain a partial credit for the theory test, allowing learner car drivers to take an abridged test.

William Brookes students will have stars in their eyes this term as the school has just received a free SPA 1YA2009 telescope from the Society for Popular Astronomy. Over a thousand telescopes have been donated to schools by the Society, and ours was presented to us by Miss A Bailey, the Society’s Publicity Officer - who is also a Cover Supervisor at William Brookes!

The telescope will be used to study the Moon and other celestial wonders. It will make the Moon appear 60 times closer, and under good conditions can reveal galaxies at least 50 million light years away. The telescope will also show the rings of Saturn and the major satellites of the giant planet Jupiter, which will be visible later in the year.
Dr Hearle says “This is a great opportunity to enthuse students in astronomy and show them how observations and measurements are so important in all aspects of Science.”
Miss Bailey added “It was lovely to see the excitement and enthusiasm of the students who will have the opportunity to use the telescope. This made all the work of the last two years, bringing this project to fruition, very worthwhile!”
The project, which is also supported by the Royal Astronomical Society, is part of the International Year of Astronomy held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first astronomical use of the telescope in 1609. Thomas Harriot in England and Galileo in Italy both observed the Moon with the newly-invented instrument. Galileo’s discoveries helped to convince people that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe, but orbits the Sun.

Student, Martyn Pridmore commented “I have just one question: how are we supposed to use a telescope during school/club time? Will we have to come to school at night?”
In response, Dr Hearle invites students to talk to him about forthcoming (evening) events at an astronomical society, where the telescope will be used. Thanks for your comment Martyn.

See www.popastro.com and www.astronomy2009.co.uk for more information.

We’re all very much aware of the new school building and the exciting opportunities for students and the local community.
The old building will make way for the new, but a time capsule will serve as a reminder of the school and the many thousands of people of all ages who have benefitted from its existence.
OSP Ambassadors, William Brookes’ staff and officials from Shropshire Council joined the construction company to receive the capsule, which will be buried under the reception area of the new William Brookes School.
Councillor Ann Hartley, Cabinet member for Children’s Services, presented the students with the capsule. She said: “This is a fantastic way to mark the start of building work on this wonderful new school. Students at the school are recording aspects of the life of young people in 2009 and information about the early stages of the build.”
Councillor David Gibbons, Local Member for Much Wenlock, said: “This is an exciting opportunity for today’s children to help tomorrow’s children understand the world they live in.”

We’d be interested to hear your suggestions about what should be included in the time capsule. If ‘you now’ were ‘you now’ in 50 years time, what would you like to find inside the capsule?
Please comment on this blog with your suggestions.

This year we celebrate the 26th Anniversary of our exchange with the Collėge Gaston Huet, Vouvray!
41 French exchange students arrived in Much Wenlock on 26th March, to take part in our well-established annual Year 9 Exchange between the two schools. They were accompanied by 4 members of staff - Mireille Nicault, Nicole Maier, Gerard Regnier and Martine David.

The students have been very well looked after by our Year 9 hosts and their families, to whom we’re very grateful for the kind hospitality they offered.
During their stay in Shropshire, our visitors have had a wonderful time visiting Much Wenlock , Ludlow, Ironbridge, Blists Hill and Shrewsbury . They also sampled a variety of lessons in school, and French and British students all enjoyed their shared trip to ‘Waterworld’.

Our French visitors returned to Vouvray on Friday, 3rd April.

This term, the Year 9 hosts from William Brookes travel to Vouvray to sample the delights of the Loire Valley, and improve their French!
We know that we will be equally well looked after, and look forward to our visit.
Madame Ellison.

French Visit from Bavay
The Languages Department has been very busy lately! As well as our successful Exchange Visit, on April 2nd we also welcomed 25 students and their teachers from Le Collège Jean Lemaire de Belges in Bavay, Northern France. The French students have been writing to students in one of our Year 9 French groups all year and it was an opportunity for them all to meet up face to face.
After a welcome from Mrs Cooper, they were given a talk about the school from Mrs Crowther and some of our Sixth Form students and then engaged in some “getting to know you” activities with their penpals, during period 3.

After lunch with their penpals in the school canteen, they observed some lessons in the afternoon before going off for a tour of Much Wenlock. It was a really successful visit and we hope to be able to continue to build on this link in the future.
Mrs Crowther.

We always knew last year’s production of ‘The Boyfriend’ was going to be a hard act to follow.  Well we think we might just have the answer, and, if ticket sales are anything to go by, ‘Guys and Dolls’ already looks like another winner.

Everybody involved in the show has really been enjoying the experience: it’s clear the cast and directors have been taking it all very seriously and rehearsals have revealed some sublime performances.

We are expecting a review of the show fairly soon and possibly some more photos. Until then, here’s the cast tuning up for the performance.

If you saw the show, please give us some feedback by leaving a comment at the foot of this article.

Now, thanks to Tom Poole for the following review:

Guys and Dolls
Performed by the WBS Musical Theatre Company
By Tom Poole
Frank Loesser’s ‘Guys and Dolls’ was performed by the WBS Musical Theatre Company from Wednesday 25th to Saturday 28th March.

Based on two of Dam Runyon’s short stories and written by Frank Loesser, Guys and Dolls is a fast paced and exciting musical concerning, as ever, love. Gambling fiend Nathan Detroit is in need of money to stage his crap game and he stages a bet with Sky Masterston that Sky cannot get the next ‘doll’ he sees to fall in the love with him. Unfortunately the next woman to walk through the door is local missionary Sarah Brown. With Sky’s attempts to woo Sarah Brown played out against Nathan’s longstanding engagement to showgirl Miss Adelaide, numerous other characters combine to make this an enchanting musical.

Every aspect of the performance was wonderful, with the students showing their theatrical vitality in a mix of singing, dancing and acting. The four main characters were superbly performed, with Sarah Brown played by Jenny Beddow and Laura Whitehouse, Nathan Detroit by James Newman, Miss Adelaide by Elise Biddulph and Amber Regan and Sky Masterston by Robbie Smith. The musical numbers were well choreographed and sung and the acting was carried out with comedic aplomb. Special mention must of course go to James Newman, who took the last two night’s performances in his stride despite having a broken arm. The orchestra was also great, providing fitting accompaniants to the singing, and kudos must go to all those who worked behind the scenes to help make this production as good as it was.