Cycling at the Velodrome, drama and tumbling

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High School Musical tickets to go on sale next week

On Thursday I was lucky enough to watch our incredible Performing Arts Academy students continue with their rehearsals for High School Musical.

I am delighted to be able to invite you to the Performing Arts Academy Production, High School Musical. The students are very excited about this and they have been rehearsing twice a week after school since October in preparation.

I would like to invite you to the Production which will be held in the Assembly Hall over three nights. Tickets will be available from the Finance Office for students to collect for £2.00 each. Please make sure you specify the date of the performance you wish to see when collecting your tickets.

Year 8 Theatre Visit

Doorstep Theatre and Exeter University Drama students visited us with a performance and workshop that explored the effects of social media on people’s minds and behaviour. The whole of Year 8 watched the performance and were asked to interact by voting on the next actions making the decisions for the characters.

Following the performance, the students who have opted to pursue Drama at KS4 for their exam participated in a two-hour workshop with the performers. They further explored the themes and issues linked to Social Media and devised their own pieces combining acting skills with live feed, music to add to the mood and technology.

The performances our Year 8 created were emotionally intelligent and thought-provoking. The students thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and demonstrated, in both their attitude and work, real promise for great results at the next level.

Enterprise Highlights

Highlights from the Enterprise Learning Area this week heavily feature our recent achievements as part of our 2019 Greenpower Formula 24 campaign. The season opener at the historic Goodwood Race Circuit led to two great races, six superb drives and little bit of bad luck!

Relive our Greenpower race day with this time-lapse video of the first race at Goodwood race track. Great job Team TA!

House Cycling Competition at the Velodrome

On Monday our year 7 and 8 students competed in the house velodrome cycling competition in Newport Wales. After a 90 minute coaching session they competed in time trails for medals and house points.
Well done to all who competed! The results are as follows;

Year 7 boys
Gold-Steve Fitzpatrick
Silver-Will Harrison
Bronze-Tommy Aldous

Year 8 boys
Gold-Charlie Nunn
Silver-Angus Graham
Bronze-Marcus Griffiths

Year 7 Girls
Gold-Ava Sams
Silver-Matilda Bindon
Bronze-Mellisa Arscott

Year 8 Girls
Gold-Elizabeth Cameron
Silver-Maya Green
Bronze-Serena Milton

Maths GCSE Revision Continues

Last Saturday nearly 60 year 11 students were in again with members of the Maths department doing extra revision. A big well done to those students for coming in and doing the extra work, and a big thank you to Mrs Thomas, Miss Martin, Mr Gratton, Mrs Schwartz, Mrs Knock, Mr Dobbs, Mrs Scagell and Mr Thatcher who have all been in so far, giving up their time over the last couple of weekends to help the students with their revision. We are very lucky at TA to have such a great Maths team who are willing to give up their time, to help the students succeed.

I know there are also sessions coming up for all GCSE Maths students on:

Saturday 18th May
Tuesday – Wednesday during half term
Saturday 8th June

All these sessions will run from 8:30 and will be finished by 11, I’m sure attendance at these will make a difference to students outcomes in their GCSE Maths examinations.

Exam briefings

Before students sit their exams they receive one final briefing from their teachers to help them in the exam they are about to walk into.  No stone is left unturned in our support for our boys and girls.

Team TA Sports Roundup

 Year 7 Torbay and District Champions

Congratulations to our year 7 team at Torquay Academy becoming Torbay and District champions.  What a great bunch of lads they have been this year and hopefully their first taste of silverware as TA will continue through their time here. The final v Churston Grammar finished 6 – 2 with our goals coming from Josh Thompson x2, Will Green, Reef Beer, Robbie Wright and Charlie Stevens. We are looking forward to this team growing over the years am enjoying more success along the way.   Thank you to the parents who have supported the boys this season.

Double Champions ECFA U19S

Wednesday 15th May was the day we again proved our post 16 football education programme is the best in the area by winning both leagues after a draw and win v local college (South Devon – Pro Direct)

Our 1st team finished their campaign with a 2-2 draw to take the championship and put the icing on a fantastic season. Our 2nd team also were crowned champions after their win keeping a dominant season going all year without a loss.    The football programme is continuing to improve year on year and we keep showing we have the players, environment, coaches and staff to compete with these large colleges and pro clubs and continue to show we offer an outstanding package of football and education that gives success on and off the field.

We are so proud of every student and we are already looking ahead to next season with some more targets to achieve, we now look forward to celebrating our success and will be holding our presentation evening soon to recognise all the hard work the whole group has put into this programme.

National Sporting Success

Elizabeth Cameron in year 8 had an outstanding weekend last weekend when she took part in the National Tumbling Championships held in Telford, in a hard fought contest Elizabeth did fantastically well finishing 3rd overall to earn herself a Bronze medal. Well done Lizzie a great achievement. Proof that hard work does pay off!

Devon County Athletics Championships

Emma Harrison in year 9 took part in the girls 800 metre race at these championships, competing against athletes a year older than her she ran a brilliant race to not only record a personal best but she also won the race, but some margin at that. This is a great achievement and just rewards for a student that work extremely hard at everything she does. Well done Emma.

At the same event year these three 7 students also competed Grace Povey and Hannah Carr both competed in 100m, 800m and long jump and Jazz Povey competed in 100m, long jump and shot putt, between them they achieved new personal bests and a bronze medal for Jazz in shot putt. Again well done to all three of you. It is great to see students performing well at this level in their own time.

 Cricket

Monday saw the first game of the eagerly anticipated cricket season. With the World Cup and Ashes both on home soil this summer what better way to begin the long-awaited season of cricket than with the unmistakable sound of leather on willow in the basking sunshine of a Devonshire Monday morning? We replaced the sound with plastic on plastic and whilst the sunshine was apparent the drop in temperature and subsequent wind chill factor made this an interesting affair.

The team consisted of a mixture of year 7 and year 8 boys in an U13 tournament. The day started well with Josh Thompson bowling a double-wicket maiden in his very first over (for those of you not up to date with your cricket lingo this means he bowled 2 people out and no one hit any runs from his bowling!!) An amazing start. The boys then built on this pressure and managed to bowl the opposition, Paignton, out for 40 runs. They then went on to knock the runs off with a couple of overs to spare. Finley Last with the pick of the batting retiring on 20 not out.

Next up was Teign, who offered little resistance to the TA bowling machine, scoring just 18 runs from their innings! The lads quickly hit off the runs and with a reshuffling of the batting order allowing all players to bat they scored a meaty 62. (The rules allow each team to continue batting even when the game was won).

Next up was Newton Abbot College who batted very well from the start and had some very handy players who rotated the strike and managed to take runs where other teams had failed. That said, the boys dug deep and took their catches, fielded like demons and managed to contain them to 62. With the original batting order resumed the boys took to the field knowing that 63 would seal victory. With an early loss of wicket stuttering the run chase the boys focused really well and batted with great temperament. They hit the winning runs with an over to spare, ending the score on 71. The pick of the batters were again Finley, Josh Thompson and captain Will Bevan all making significant contributions. As all boys had to bowl and all managed to get a bat at some point it was a truly team effort. The three wins mean that TA top the group and go on to the next round of games in a few weeks time. A great effort from all involved and some outstanding cricket was played along the way as well. Well done to all. Team: Finley Last, Will Bevan, Bobby Western, Josh Thompson, Gabriel Prior, Will Hemus, Will Green, Owen Woodcock.

Rounders

On Monday night the year 8 girls went across to KEVICC for a rounders CVL fixture. Led by the captain Lily Rogers the team got the season off with a narrow defeat at the hands of Stover losing by only one rounder which was a fantastic score as the opposition’s batting was second to none. The second game we narrowly lost again this time to STCM. After an inspirational team talk the girls started to motivate each other and our final game was against KEVICC which we went on to win 4 and a half rounders to 1 and a half, which was well deserved they played amazing as a team. Hopefully the start of what will be a great season for these girls, well done.

Taekwondo

On Sunday the 12th May,  Kacy and Antonia took part in the south west Taekwondo championships at Paignton Leisure Centre. Both girls worked extremely hard and did amazingly well. Kacy won a Bronze in sparing and Antonia won a Bronze in patterns. There were clubs from all over the UK and south west.

Ten Tors update will appear next week

Sparx Maths

Level 1

Aleasha Dunford, Joe Lawrence, Riley Isaac, Megan Dorling, Layla Batten, Abigail Taylor, Milly Watt, Lilly-Ella Ross, Isabel Blamey, Evie Heron, Sophie Denison, Harrison Clarke, Kiela Weaver-Snarey, Ed Fogarty, Skye Warner, Darcy Thomson-Wade, William Hilton, Matilda Bindon, Emily Phillips, Jamie Dyer, Stevie Wright, Leo Murray, Heidi Wright, Ava Sams, Nadia Wisnik, Ella Breheny, Owen Woodcock, Jessica Hutchinson, Aidan Bovey, Kole Gjikolaj, Harrison Shaw, Owen Greenwood, Craig Mintern, Summer Mansell, Rose Bradley, Joel Copping, Thomas Beazley, Lily-Rae Hooper, Erin Pound, Hailie Windsor, Danny Dryden, Lily Unsworth, Joshua Robinson, Hayden Gibson-Roche, Millie Randall, Ellie Denby, Josh Thompson

Level 2

Lacee Kiff, Alana Mitchell, Mai Bewers, Melissa Arscott, Jack Alcock, Sophie Bastow, Shelby Astley-Rubin, Lauren Major, Jazz Povey, Dylan White, Bobbie Royal, Jasper Dommett, William Reed, Freya Davies, Grace Povey, Fin Gaisford, James Scrimgeour

Star Readers

Today we awarded our latest Star Reader certificates to the students who have read enough books during their English reading lessons to earn them their Bronze, Silver, Gold or Super Star Reader certificates. In order to reach each of these achievements students must read and show an understanding of what they are reading, through the writing of a book review.    Here at Torquay Academy we understand the value of reading, and the importance of literacy as a key to helping our students access the wider school curriculum, the achievements of these students today will help them with this understanding. Well done to them all.

Photographed receiving their awards are –
Bronze – Andre Derdiyok, Baily Moore, Taylor-Ann Floyd, Phoebe Lown, Ellie Holloway, Charlotte Long, Olivia Kenyon
Silver – A J Sims, Jess Bamsey, Katie Harris
Super Star Reader (100 books) – Niamh Dolan

Students of the Week

Students of the week this week are: Madelyn Palmer-Kerslake, Alice Reshad, Shelby Astley-Rubin, Amelia Bastow, Charlotte Sweet and Kayleigh Perrow

Principal Certificates

Principal’s Bronze: (not in order) Freya Tripp , Steve Fitzpatrick,Andre Derdiyok, Harley Stevens, Chayden Talbot, Keira Davies , Leoni Bailey, Ellis Kendall, Frankie Cuss, Aaliyah Harford-Brown, Isaac Caddick, Alfie Fenn, Graham Mitchell, George Cowell,  Emily Stentiford-Crook, Archie Bindon, Poppy Hodgson, Harry Watkins

Principal’s Silver : (not in order) Erin Loader, Bradlee Tarrant, Anna Brailsford-Dunn, Richard Wynd, Tommy Aldous, Erin Pound, Phoebe Parker, Courtney Dowen, Charlie Pope, Joshua Nagy, Georgia Smith, Oakley Pearce, Jazz Povery, Pierce Gerring, Kiela Weaver-Snarey, Freya Davies, Dakota Robinson, Umeiko Melodious, Holly Roberts, Emily Harris, Lydia Ladd, Corbyn Gardner, Mckenzie Horrell, Sophie Kelly, Benjamin Pieterse, Tilly Skeffington, Finn Beer, Jack Thorpe, Paige Godwin, Zak Treleaven, Corey Darke, Will Makinson, Reece Shaw, Molly Farley

Principal’s Gold : (not in order) Karolina Lagodzinska, Leo Murray, Joel Copping, Bradley Russ, Callum Edwards, Evie Heron, Madison Lovegrove, Coral Rogers, Bobbie Royal, Jessica Breach, Summer Bayliss, Elisha Perrow, Emilie Cartwright-Lomax, Rebecca Lovegrove, Teah Gaisford, Clayton Gagg, Charlie Trapp, Toby Leaver, Taylor Ford, Lucas Macfie-Jones, Felix Houghton

Governor’s Bronze : (not in order) Gabriella Fouche, Tilly Watson, Joshua Furze, Maddy Brewe, Ena Brett-Wilson, William Bevan

Governor’s Silver : (not in order) Melissa Arscott, Oriana McCaul, Ellie Mae Mitchell, Benjamin Gosnell, Josh Thompson, Sophie George, William Reed, Sophie Cato, Rose Bradley, Cameron Sengupta,Karl McMahon, Riccardo Iordache

Governor’s Gold : Boris Pugh, Harley Sneap

House Stars of the Week

Year 7

Brunel – Hayden Gibson Roche

Christie – Steve Fitzpatrick

Darwin –

Fawcett – Aidan Stapleton

Harrison – Ellie Mae Mitchell

Kitson – Evie Heron

Nearne – Ben Wooley

Pengelly – Grace Povey

Year 8

Brunel – Jasmine Brown

Christie – Freddie Kingdon

Darwin –

Fawcett – Libby-Marie Marshall

Harrison – Adam Nelson

Kitson – Fox Toghill

Nearne – Toby Clark

Pengelly – Cody Mack

Year 9

Brunel – Briana Charge

Christie – Dylan Glancy

Darwin –

Fawcett – Olivia Foster

Harrison – Weronika Pogorzelska

Kitson – Nelly Fieldhouse

Nearne – Sian Burton

Pengelly – Grace Hallett

Building Update