Christmas Concert, Head Girl and Boy and Christmas cards
Christmas Concert
We were treated to the most amazing Christmas Concert with over 160 performers! All our students’ performances were exceptional and we were lucky to have been there. The grand finale included the usual snow machine as well as our new fog fury machines! Thank you to our amazing students and music staff for such a wonderful evening.
I look forward to sharing videos of the performances in the New Year.
Step into Christmas
Aimee Evans, Anya Page-Dove, House Band & Choir
Merry Christmas Everyone
Y9 Class Band – Daisy Hellier, Ella Randle, Ava Storey, Poppy Sims-Watson, Will Candy, Edward Evers, Harry Paull
Happy Christmas (War Is Over)
Y9 Class Band – Emilee Payne, Sam Johns, Harrison Harkin, Emilia Hunt, Grace Gibbins, Connie McMahon, Olivia-Mae Franke
Riptide
Junior Music Academy
Song 2
Y11 Music Performance – Syd Yarde, Henry McManus, Sam Eaton, Luca Cronje, Ollie Boyce
Dani California
Y10 Class Band – Tom Thorner, Charlie Porter, Zac Evans, Aimee Evans, Daniel Eales
Exile
Y10 Class Band – Summer Faulkes, Erin Giffard, Emma Matthews, Kirah Clee
R U Mine?
Y10 Class Band – Charlie Grimley, Austin Howell, Ollie Jones, Bartosz Mitula
Venus
Music Academy – Harrison Harkin, Joe Boyce, Sam Johns, Charlie Porter, Emiliee Payne, Halle Wotton
Supermassive Black Hole
Music Academy – Daisy Hellier, Ella Randle, Alliyah Smith, Summer Faulkes, Bartosz Mitula, Oliver Jones, Austin Howell
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Magic Show Year 12 Lewis Dewar
The Nativity – Academy Choir & House Band
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The Night We Met
Senior Music Academy – Rosie Hoyte, Lucia Aguado-Georgian, Ava Storey, Aimee Evans, Lorenzo De Paoli
Live Forever
Y13 Music Performance – Lorenzo De Paoli, Freddie Kingdon, Lucia Aguado-Georgian, Robin Pightling, Kelsey Hawkings
Deftones
Y13 Music Performance – Dylan Weatherburn-Bird, Robin Pightling, Rose Hoyte, Poppy Rogers
Footloose
Y12 Music Performance – Callum Edwards, Anya Page-Dove, Fraya Hyde, Arren Button, Lewis Dewar, Robin Pightling
I Was Just A Kid
Y12 Music Performance – Oliver Phillips, Ben German, Rose Bradley, Ava Sams, Erin Allen
Don’t Stop Me Now
Senior Music Academy – Daniel Eales, Lorenzo, Lucia Aguado-Georgian, Rosie Hoyte, Callum Edwards, Oliver Lucas-
We Are The Champions
Senior Music Academy – Aimee Evans, Ava Storey, Robin Pightling, Zac Evans, Tom Thorner, Oliver Phillips
Academy Choir
Phoebe Acton, Aaliyah Akpo, Poppy Anderson, Harry Austin, Jorgie-Jayne Barnett, Lola Benny, Rosie Bevan, Florence Botten, Sophia Box, Sophia Burnham, Allanna Butler, Gabrielle Buys, Anya Cosslett, Nisha Cosslett, Emily Cowan, Farah Davidson, Mason Dur, Aimee Evans, Summer Faulkes, Hattie Gamble, Grace Gatting, Erin Giffard, Kole Gjikolaj, Poppy Haslett, Robyn Higgins, Ivy Hodgson-Hunt, Alana Houlihan, Sophie Howard, Casie Howell, Lily Hubbard, Chloe-Mae Jones, Isabelle Leech, Cerys Lowe, Emma Matthews, Ava McArdle, Alba McKechan, Henry McManus, Kierra O’Neill, Katie Packer, Anya Page-Dove, Louise Porter, Emily Redmond, Daisy- Mae Rees, Amelia Rose, Ellie Jayne Scott, Myah Sellick, Ayrton Sharp, Lilly Shaw, Viktoria Simunkova, Niah Slowley, Miley Soby, Ava Storey, Bonnie Talbot, Chloe Taylor, Lily Thomas, Charlotte Townsend, Ruby Turner, Kiara Ujj, Serenity Ward, Millie-Ann Wigston, Mia Wilkins Grace Halsey
You can see all of our photos in our Facebook Album.
Student leadership team
I had the honour of interviewing some of our amazing Year 12 students this week for the role of Head Girl and Boy as well as their Deputies. We announced these positions on Tuesday. All of the students interviewed will join our student leadership team, with other roles, such as House Captains, will be announced in January.
Head Girl – Penny Richards
Deputy Head Girls – Evie Heron and Phoebe Lown
Head Boy – Kole Gjikolaj
Deputy Head Boys – Joshua Hawking and Charlie Fox
Christmas Cards
We do like a good Christmas card! Every student and member of staff received a personalised Christmas card this year. The was Coca Cola lorry inspired whole-school card and each year group has their own designs featuring the year team staff.
6th Form
Year 11
Year 10
Year 9
Year 8
Year 7
Christmas Lunch
Over 900 students enjoyed a Christmas Lunch on Wednesday. It was a lovely atmosphere – festive food and Christmas songs. What more could anyone ask for?!?
Christmas Jumper Day
Every year we support our local charities in their appeal to help families for whom Christmas is a difficult time. On Wednesday, we had a Christmas jumper mufti day where staff and students brought in an item of food that was donated to Riviera Life Church, a group that supports the local community in times of need. Torquay Academy students and staff surpassed their efforts last year in terms of donations and getting into the Christmas spirit. A big thank you to the student leadership team for organising this year’s collection.
Xmas Jumper Competition in the Sixth Form
This year we were overwhelmed by the effort many of our sixth formers made with their Christmas jumpers! With a full Santa costume, James Scrimgeour was our clear winner with Jeb Whatley a very close runner up!
Year 11 Christmas Quiz
After a great term’s work, our Year 11s had a fun quiz with the Year 11 team.
Christmas Movies
Nothings screams Christmas more than a festive movie with sweets! Years 7-10 enjoyed a movie in The Platform this week.
Year 9 Gold Celebration Lunch
On Friday we celebrated the year 9 students who achieved gold in the Cycle 1 effort boards with early lunch and cakes!
Well done and we look forward to seeing how you perform Cycle 2!
Celebrating Excellent Attendance in the Sixth Form
With the cold and flu season in full swing, it is often very difficult to achieve 100% attendance… However, Mrs Pidwell’s tutor group managed to smash it this term and were invited to enjoy a festive continental breakfast to congratulate them on a collaborative effort.
Kole Delivers an Assembly
Kole Gjikolaj took to the stage for the Sixth Form’s Wednesday assembly this week and delivered on a challenging topic: POLITICS!
Not only was his assembly educational and incredibly relevant for our young people, but he also entertained! He was fantastic. His audience loved him and have requested for Kole to deliver the sixth form assemblies in the future… Mrs Hosking will be grateful for the break!
Young Carers Christmas Party
It was our young carers’ Christmas party this week. They would all like to say a massive thank you to our staff that donated presents for them – the young carers are blown away that their teachers do this. An extra special Everyone had a selection boxes and a special secret Santa, so they all got lots of chocolate and got to choose a present. We are very proud of our selfless young carers who give up so much of their time looking after and helping their family members.
Year 9 100% Attendance
Year 8 Fun Friday
Years 8s were queuing up to pin the nose on the strangest-looking reindeer… I am making no further comment!
English with Miss Jelbert
It was the last lesson on a Friday, the week before the end of term and most of 8T8 were feeling burnt out and wishing Miss Jelbert would just put on a film. However, it was not time to kick back and relax (yet). Miss Jelbert’s plan was to think about, analyse and recreate Dickens’ use of semi-colons at the beginning of Bleak House; “Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river…”
I know that might not sound like the most fun and festive activity, however when they got started, 8T8 all embraced the challenge to ‘write like Dickens’ and found that they could create some original, precise and correctly punctuated (mostly) descriptions of a rainy walk in a deserted city. Enjoy these snapshots taken from the lesson and remember to try and use a semi-colon to add depth to your writing when necessary!
Maths with Mrs Kirby
In Mrs Kirby’s Maths class, 8T5 have been looking at using the nth term rule to find specific terms in a sequence and how to determine whether a term is in a sequence. This follows on from their previous work on generating number patterns, finding an expression for the nth term rule and generating sequences from the nth term rule.
Students were initially able to build their competency in this topic by describing how to continue number patterns, using pictorial methods and number sequences, which allowed them to find missing terms in a sequence. They then developed their understanding of term to term rules to help them to find a rule to generate all terms in a sequence.
In this lesson, by using the nth term rule, students were able to find specific terms in a sequence. Here is a photo of Sophie Dean’s and Paul Blades’ work to show how successful they were in this topic.
Following on from this, the class extended their knowledge to find out if a given term would be in a sequence. In the pictures below Zak Helmore and Sydney Summers have shown how they were able to use function machines to help them solve equations to determine if n was a whole number and whether the term would be in the sequence.
Mrs Kirby was so impressed with 8T5 and how well the students were able to develop their understanding in this topic with some excellent examples of work in their books.
English with Miss Smith
7Q8 have been working incredibly hard with their persuasive writing this week. On Thursday they wrote a speech convincing Robin Hood to save people across the country. Students have combined their knowledge of the Middle Ages with their knowledge of AREDFOREST persuasive techniques to produce work that they are proud of. 7Q8 continue to use high level vocabulary in their written work, as well as their spoken answers and have adapted the TA habit of ‘Format Matters’.
Year 11 Art Exhibition
Shout out to 9A/Art
Mrs Lithgow’s Year 9 group have been developing their presentation and technical skills for artist pages on Vincent Van Gogh and working hard to complete and refine some amazing sketchbook pages.
Students of the Week
Year 7 – George Garbett and Sophia Blake
Year 8 – Leon Snell and Ruby Fitzgerald
Year 9 – Emilee Payne and Luke Horrocks
Year 10 – Norbert Tomsia and Cersy Lowe
Sixth Form – Lilly-Anne Winterton, Klara Cornforth, Jeb Whatley & Joshua Hawkings
Year 7 Girls reach the last 16 in the National Cup
On Wednesday our girls played against Mounts Bay from Cornwall in the ESFA national cup. We started pretty slow for our standards and were punished by conceding 2 early goals that put us on the back foot for a bit, but the girls dug in and tried their best to score but a few wayward shots and some good saves kept the score at 0-2 going into halftime.
A couple of tactical tweaks and the girls really up for the second half, we pushed to get back into the game. Bonnie was the first to latch onto a loose ball and score from inside the box to make it 1-2. Freja then was on another corner and whipped it in with pace and thankfully for us it hit the defender and went in making it 2-2. The girls were now full of confidence and continued to push for more goals. The striker for Mounts bay was very good and any half chance she was on it and at 2-2 she had a great opportunity to take the lead but Poppi pulled off a wonderful save to keep us in the game, moments later we went down the other end and Emilee scored our third from outside the box with a low drive. In the final minutes Isla sealed the game with a shot inside the box after another corner to confirm the win.
The girls are now into the last 16 Nationally which is a tremendous achievement in their first year, we now look forward to seeing who we meet in the next round.
Sixth Form Netball Academy v Plymouth City College
Our Sixth Form Netball Academy played against Plymouth City College in the AOC Netball League on Wednesday. The squad of 10 had an important game to win as this would decide whether they hold their top three position in the South West League in the first half of the season. The girls were up to the challenge and won the game 45-19 which currently places them 2nd overall going into 2024. Well done all!
Sixth Form Netball Squad: Mia Denby (C), Milla Schwarz, Evie Sutton, Lilyella Monk, Lily Unsworth, Maisy Green, Ellie Denby, Tammy Westacott, Ella McLachlan and Skye Warner
Year 10 Football vs Queen Elizabeths
On Thursday the year 10 Football team travelled to Wimborne FC to take on Queen Elizabeths in round 5 of the national cup. TA’s opponents made it all the way to the quarter final stages last year so were always going to be tough opponents. TA started well but after 25 minutes luck went against us and we conceded a penalty. Queen Elizabeth took the lead and it soon doubled when we were caught cold. At half time rallied and started the second half on the front foot but could not take the chances they created. Eventually the weather took over and the game ended with Queen Elizatbeths scoring with the last kick of the game. TA will now turn their attention to the Devon and South Devon Cups.
Year 11 Netball vs TGGS
Elspeth Herring, Tammy Westacott ©, Ella McLachlan, Elise Pile, Ivy Hodgson-Hunt, Ema Kestell, Maisy Green, Emily Graham
The Year 11 netball squad played a match against TGGS on Thursday 7th December. The girls worked hard to defend throughout the court, making it difficult for TGGS to move the ball towards their goal, and enabling TA to gain lots of interceptions. However, TGGS were also defending hard and took advantage of every small error that TA made. TA went into the final quarter trailing by 5 goals. This did not deter the girls and they fought hard, with some fantastic attacking movements being rewarded with some great goals from our shooters. TA closed the gap, but unfortunately they ran out of time and narrowly missed out on the win, losing 18-19.
This match showed the vast improvement has been made, as well as demonstrating the resilience that they have built up. The whole squad played some very impressive netball. All their hard work is paying off! Well done girls!
Coaches Player of the Day: Ella McLachlan
Players Player of the Day: Maisy Green
Year 8 Rugby Tournament
The year 8 rugby team attended the South Devon rugby tournament at forches cross on Tuesday. In difficult conditions they draw the first game 5-5 with Dawlish with a great individual try from Oscar Spurl. In the second game it was a 0-0 draw with Teignmouth but we showed progression. Zach Venter and Noah Margetts both scored in the 3rd game to help us beat Paignton. The 4th game it was a disappointing 10-0 loss against NAC. They were a very good team and well deserved winners of the tournament. In the final game it was a 10-0 win for us with a solid performance and a great captains performance from Jamie Tully. Leon Snell had a fantastic try as well. Well done to all the boys involved
TA House Climbing Competition
This year’s house climbing event was extended to year 9’s and 10’s as well as the 7’s and 8’s due to popular demand. Over 100 students competed on our climbing all to qualify for the finals at Exeter’s clip and climb. The finals consisted of a timed climb on the speed wall with the top 3 winning medals but all winning house points. Well done to everyone who competed.
Year 7 Boys: Gold- Corey Davies, Silver-Jacob Richards and Bronze- Harry Austin
Year 7 Girls: Gold-Rosie Beven, Silver-Treesa Telson and Bronze-Elissa Mae Greenwood
Year 8 Boys: Gold-Toby Howell, Silver-Zach Venter and Bronze-Leon Snell
Year 8 Girls: Gold-Neeve Thomson, Silver- Evie Ford, Bronze-Annie Aldous
Year 9 Boys: Gold-Ben Jolly, Silver-Harrison Harkins and Bronze-Josh Parkinson
Year 9 Girls: Gold-Frankie Skelly, Silver-Neve Lithgow and Bronze-Maisy Sanderbrook
Year 10 Boys: Gold-Oscar Hughs, Silver-Gregg Hindom and Bronze-Charlie Porter
Year 10 Girls: Gold-Agatha Sadlik, Silver-Amy Harrison and Bronze-Ivy Hudson Hunt
South Devon Cross Country Trials
TA took 16 athletes to Stover last friday to compete for the 16 available places on the South Devon Cross Country squad. We had some great performances in heavy conditions and excellent effort all round. Congratulations to our 4 runners who got selected for the South Devon X Country team. They will now compete for places in the Devon squad. Congratulations to Jude Snell, Josh Parkinson, Analyse Little and Matilda Thorner.
Year 9 Indoor Cricket Tournament
The year 9s competed in the indoor cricket championships last week. In a cold environment the boys performed fantastically well finishing second in their group and winning the next round of games. It was a great day out and some excellent experience for the boys for when the weather warms up.
Year 7s Inter School tournament
Year 7s went to Churston Ferrers grammar school for an inter schools rugby tournament. The boys started slowly and unfortunately lost their first game but came back strongly finishing second in the group with some strong performances and displaying some excellent rugby. They then went on to beat NAC and Churston Ferrers in the next round of games winning both convincingly. The year 7s are developing really well. We move to rugby 7s training after Christmas and all are invited to attend training.
Year 9 Rugby vs TBGS
Junior Table Tennis Tournament
Well done to all of our students who competed in our second Junior table tennis tournament. It was open for all ages and abilities. Congratulations to the winners.
Primary Schools Category
1st place – Louis Edward (Stokeinteignhead), 2nd place – Jacob (Sherwell Valley), 3rd place – Evan Jones (Sherwell Valley) and well done to Lukas (Sherwell Valley), Tyler (Cockington), Leon (Cockington), Jack (Stokeinteignhead) and Everett (Torre C of E Academy).
Secondary Schools Category
1st place – Oliver (Torquay Academy), 2nd place – Gustaw (Torquay Academy), 3rd place – Toby (Torquay Academy) and well done to Brodi (Torquay Academy), Freddie (Torquay Academy), Oscar (Torquay Academy), Jesse (Torquay Academy) and Casey (Coombeshead Academy).
House Students of the Week
Year 7
Brunel – Fred Blagdon
Christie – Theo Slater
Darwin – Chloe Taylor
Fawcett – Kara Breach
Harrison – Tilly Longthorpe
Kitson – Flo Evans
Nearne – Edith Mackenzie
Pengelly – Bradley Wright
Year 8
Brunel – Alexa Lyons
Christie – Benji Davies-Miles
Darwin – Lilly-Rose Garbett
Fawcett – Toby Hamilton
Kitson – Lucie Bowers
Pengelly – Ivan Masliakovas
Year 9
Brunel – Indy Evans
Christie – Scarlett Huxtable
Darwin – Sam Johns
Fawcett – Lottie Roberts
Harrison – Ava Storey, Will Candy and Emilee Payne
Kitson – Olly Payne
Nearne – Rufus Scrase
Pengelly – Alex Nagy
Homework Students of the Week
Year 7
Brunel – Brogan Holmes-Inch
Christie – Elena Bolton
Darwin – Morgan Fisher
Fawcett – Poppy Evely
Harrison – Ayrton Sharp
Kitson – Alexa McCarthy
Nearne – Poppy Haslett
Pengelly – Aaron Pinto
Year 8
Christie – Thomas Cox
Darwin – Leon Snell
Fawcett – Aleta Stojic
Kitson – Aiden Hooper
Pengelly – Sienna Wilschere
Year 9
Christie – Millie Routledge
Darwin – Eden Nelson-Minns
Fawcett – Aleksandra Treder
Harrison – Karthika Sundharam
Kitson – Jade Cook
Nearne – Thomas Connelly
Pengelly – Daniel Elkins
University Offers this Week
| Jack Skedgell | UCFB | Football coaching & management |
| Alan Kumiega | University of Birmingham | Mechanical Engineering |
| Tyler-James Nunn | University of Bristol | Biology |
| Jamie Darlow | UCFB | Multimedia Sport Journalism |
| Erin Colclough | Nottingham Trent University | Criminology |
| Freya Boote | Plymouth University | Photography |
| Sonny Houlahan | University of Plymouth | Economics |
| Beth Jones | University of South Wales | Fashion business and marketing |
| Josh Furze | University of Plymouth | Paramedic Science |
| Ena Brett | University of Warwick | Mathematics, Operational research, Statistics & economics |
| Jack Skedgell | Solent University | Football Studies |
| Sonny Houlahan | Kingston University | Business economics |
| Rose Hoyte | Winchester University | Popular Music |
| Thomas Johnson | University of Manchester | Modern History with Economics |
| Lizzie Cameron | Plymouth Marjon University | Sport & Exercise Sciences |
| David Robinson | Loughborough University | Automotive Engineering |
| Paige McGeown | University of Bath | Chemistry for drug discovery |
| Paige McGeown | University of Bath | Chemistry |
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