William Brookes School Blog

It was great pleasure for the school to be visited by two senior officers of the ISOH at the school on Wednesday 27^th February. Dr Karl Lennartz is President of the Society, accompanied by his wife, and Mr Bijkerk is the Secretary General of the ISOH. They visited in the morning to see the Linden Field for themselves, where the local games were and still are held. They met with the Head and three sixth form students (Bethan Pugh, Gabriella Hill and Stuart Preston), visiting the Coubertin Oak tree (planted by Pierre de Coubertin) and watching a presentation about the Wenlock Olympian Society and the history of the local Games. On the following day the Historians attended a session of the British Olympic Academy in Greenwich. Dr Lennartz is from Germany; his many publications include a special focus on the history and statistics of the Olympic Games. Mr Bijkerk is from the Netherlands and has a special interest in the involvement of athletes from his own country. Both visitors are recipients of the Olympic Order. During the day in Much Wenlock, when the sun shone to show the area in all its glory, they also met with Liz Thomas, Vice Chair of Governors at the school, Peter Thompson and Chris Cannon of the Wenlock Olympian Society.

Thank you to Ben for Photographs.

 Yesturday students from all year groups learnt how to create multi-media podcasts. Thank you to all the students who took part and to Steve Beard for coming in to school to teach us how to do it.

The podcasts will be uploaded every day - so stay tuned!

In a true here’s-one-I-made-earlier stylee, two year 11 students make a Caeser Salad.

On Thursday 21^st February an almost full house at the Edge knew how it must have felt to live in the 1690s near Boston, America, where people’s simple faiths and anxieties led, tragically, to witch hunts in the town of Salem. The sad tale evolves to show the hurt that one person, Abigail Williams, can wreak upon good people in her town. Accusations of witchcraft grow, fanned by a fear of being hung, to involve many innocents. John Proctor has to make a deadly decision: does he speak the truth and hang or falsely point the finger at others?

Abigail was played by Natalie Holloway, revelling in creating disquiet and controlling the group of young women – admirably establishing unease through their rocking and apparent possession by the devil. Michael Yates played John Proctor, convincingly portraying the farmer who although adulterous nevertheless highly values truth, with fiery outbursts of anger and then deep remorse. Equally convincingly, John’s wife Elizabeth plays a quieter and softer role – supporting her husband but not wanting to be tainted by lies and falsehood. This important but less central role was played by Laura Whitehouse who managed the determined, sometimes passionate but non-judgemental wife with a great deal of sensitivity. Other supporting roles created the tragedy of the play’s theme: ministers brought in to root out the evil; judges fixed and over-zealous thirst to blame and appear firm; the residents of
Salem and their growing horror at the events and the small but significant chorus of ‘possessed’ young women, managed and manipulated by Abigail. Costumes, lighting and music effectively established the puritan times. This play was Miller’s attempt to mock the crazed hunting of Communists in McCarthy
America (between 1940 and 1950). Susie Newell and Robert Petty powerfully directed the play with stark and impressive performances from the whole, mixed-age cast.

During half term, over twenty Sixth Form students went on a once in a lifetime trip to the Big Apple itself: New York, accompanied by Mrs Fone, Mr Walker and Mr Brocklehurst. The students were surrounded by celebs on their visit meeting Bill Bailey the famous comedian as well as Rachel Bilson who stars in the O.C. We caught up with Y12 student Katie who was more than willing to share her memories of the fantastic time she had.  

They stayed at the Herald Square Hotel, which was also the original building of the Herald Newspaper of New York. The Hotel was situated around the corner from the Empire State Building. They were in New York for three nights and experienced a varied weather pattern from arctic conditions and heavy snow, through to torrential rain and mild temperatures. During their stay they visited Schroders Investment Management, the United Nations, World Trade Centre Site, the Rockefeller Center, Ellis Island, Central Park, the Guggenheim museum and Bloomingdales.

 Katie tell us, “It was predominantly a business studies trip: however, other students were allowed to participate.” The first night the students arrived, they were allowed to explore Times Square, which was “not like your average night in Telford.” The students had a chilling experience as the temperatures were at around -12  ̊C! 

On the second day, the students went to the Rockefeller Center and Bloomingdales. Some went ice-skating outside the Rockefeller Center. The students also saw where Hitch and The Day After Tomorrow were filmed. “We went to TGI Fridays and for dinner - we had massive burgers. There was no way I couldn’t finish it.” 

“On our third day we were invited into a breakfast show, similar to GMTV, where we got to see the show being filmed by Fox Studios and had a free breakfast before moving on to the United Nations.” The students went for a tour and were able to go into a major conference with all the members about climate change and also witnessed a United Nations meeting about Kosovo.  “Then we went to Central Park and had a massive snowball fight, before heading to the Guggenheim and McDonalds in Times Square.” 

The last day was spent going to Ground Zero and Ellis Island. The students were quiet and reflective at Ground Zero as that is where the Twin Towers fell.  

Overall an amazing amount of activities, visits, shopping, eating and weather changes was packed into a few days and the students and staff enjoyed the trip thoroughly.

The Joshua Foundation is a charity created in 1998 to provide holidays and experiences for children and their families, where the child is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Sarah Cornelius, Chief Executive of the Joshua Foundation and more importantly, Joshua’s mother came to give a talk about the charity and to give year 12 students the opportunity to raise money and show their support. For the last few years, Mrs Cornelius has been giving talks to Sixth Formers.  

One year 12 student, Heather, has already had several ideas about how she might raise some money for the project.  “Everyone was both moved and motivated by what she said.” I am thinking of putting on a play, doing a sponsored run and perhaps organising a sponsored dance-a-thon!  

The project will take place in summer 2009 and the amount each person has to raise is £2,600.  Half the money goes towards covering the costs of the trip; the other goes to The Joshua Foundation. During the trip students have the chance to do a variety of charity work including conservation and trips to hospital units for children with terminal cancer.  

If you would like to help Heather raise money or get involved, you can approach Heather directly, in her form room (Room 36) or alternatively see Miss Steward in the ICT office.

http://www.thejoshuafoundation.co.uk/

There are interviews taking place this week to enrol potential new Sixth Form students. A year 12 student and a year 13 student share their top tips and advice on how to do your best whilst in the interview and beyond.

1. Don’t decide your options beforehand even if you are certain these are what you want to do, take advantage of the chance you have to experience different lessons in the taster week and it may make all the difference (for the better!).
2. If you have a rough indication on your future, whether it be university or a job, the 6^th form staff will be more than willing to aid you in the right direction. This might help you choose the subjects you want to do.
3. Don’t get nervous about the interview, it is basically an informal chat to find out why you want to join Sixth Form and how you think your time here will be beneficial.
4. Take the subjects you enjoy and not the subjects you feel you have to take.  In the subjects you enjoy, you will be more likely to get better grades.
5. Don’t just think about the college and the subjects. Think about the general atmosphere, the teachers and the accessibility.

There are pro’s and cons to all colleges when considering tertiary education. The thing to remember is that it is your future and you make it what it is. So make sure you make the decision that is the right one for you.

As part of a new feature to highlight the variety of clubs available at William Brookes School, sixth former Alex interviewed  year 8 student Steven about what it is like to be part of the Gaming club and what happens there.  When we walk into the maths room, it is as if the last battle in Lord of The Rings is taking place, each table has been transformed - there are Orcs, Ogres and Elves fighting each other.  Completely confused by it all, we took one of the year 8’s out of the war zone to question him on all things Warhammer. Steven begins: ‘Warhammer is a game where you form a unit with your army and fight your opponents, in a similar way to the board game Risk you roll the dice to try and defeat the other players.’   We also asked him to tell us about the club: ‘I would say that, at the moment, the club is more boy-orientated. I have made a lot of friends here and it has a really friendly atmosphere. We buy the models from the Games Workshop then paint them and make most of the scenery ourselves. The merchandise is quite expensive to buy though, so it takes a while to build up an army.’ The 2008 UK National Championships will be taking place on the weekend of the 16^th of February at Warhammer World in Nottingham. Steven has high aspirations, as he wants to represent Britain one day. We wish him all the luck in the world.  

The club meets once a week, after school on a Thursday in room 3. So pop along if you want to get involved.

The Eyre Affair
By Jasper Fforde

Tom, a year 11 avid reader, first read this book last year, he’d seen it in a bookshop a few times and been drawn in by its cover. After looking it up on the net and reading more about it he decided to buy it.
The Eyre Affair is one of a series by Jasper Fforde. Once you’re hooked on the first book, then you can read the next ones. Tom has read the next two in the series, which he says are good as well, but it is the first book that he wants to recommend.
The book is a surreal, literary novel involving time travel. Fforde combines a well-told story with many classical references, which make this book one that you enjoy reading from and whilst you’re doing so, you have the added bonus of learning a lot of stuff you didn’t know! Super.
To read more about it, in the author’s own words then go to: http://www.jasperfforde.com

Pictured left (PHOTO TAKEN BY JAMES WATKINS, Shropshire star) are current Year 13 William Brookes Sixth Form students Oliver, Ieuan, Sarah and Moira together with their Science teacher, Mr  Pyle and Mark Smith, Design Engineer at Ricoh Products UK in Priorslee, Telford. These talented individuals have come together through The Engineering Education Scheme (an Engineering Development Trust (EDT) Programme which links teams of four Year 12 students and their teacher with local companies to work on real scientific, engineering and technological problems) where they have been working on a solution to ensure the correct positioning of rivets on a photocopier panel whilst under manufacture on the production line. Errors in the past have meant that entire copiers have had to be stripped down and reassembled to address the problem - a timely and costly exercise.  Oliver Clayton came up with the idea of using contact probes which check the location of each rivet.  Together with Sarah, Ieuan and Moira, the team designed and assembled a prototype which successfully checks the position of all rivets and reports back any problems via a display.  Ricoh are so impressed that they intend to put the device on the production line in February, and are considering developing it further so that it can be used on other product lines in
Telford and other sites elsewhere.  Mark Smith, Design Engineer at Ricoh said “I couldn’t have come up with a better solution myself – it’s simple, cheap and very effective..”  Teacher, Mr Pyle added “Our students have come up trumps yet again with an innovative solution.  We’re all really proud of them. It’s another successful story from the excellent relationship we have had with Ricoh for some years now.”