Our Academy Music Department are always keen to take any opportunity to welcome live musicians into our school, so welcoming members from the Band of His Majesty’s Royal Marines to perform was certainly no exception! Arriving back after a week in New York supporting the Naval Attaché, these fabulous service musicians took to the stage to entertain students from across all year groups. Along with members of our Academy Stage Band, our Lead Music Ambassador, Sienna Brown was then invited to join the professional musicians in a superb rendition of ‘Summertime’ by Gershwin.
Formed in 1664, the history and origin of the Royal Marines is well known. With five Royal Marines Bands located strategically throughout the country, RM Bands continue to provide musical support to the Royal Navy, both ashore and afloat, along with delivering medical capability to 3 Commando Brigade in the time of war.
Students at Newark Academy were keen to learn of the career available as an RM Band musician.
In June, our Year 10 GCSE Music course seized a new and exciting opportunity to enjoy a day’s DJ training at the world-renowned DJSchoolUK in Leeds. DJ’ing or Turntablism has become an accredited skill within the GCSE framework, attracting up to 30% of the overall mark available to a submitting student. In this picture, Charlotte is actively ‘beatmatching’ two tracks together to ensure they are both the same tempo, prior to then adding some additional ‘hot key drumming’ and loops to personalise her set.
Now a recognised skill and music output, students now enjoy preparing a set list much like an instrumentalist or vocalist prepares their pieces. Enjoy this new article which outlines the emergence of DJ’ing.
The DJSchoolUK has done much to facilitate and encourage the art of DJing in the music classroom, meaning many more aspiring musical students are now able to access music at Key Stage 4.
Follow this link If you would like to know more about DJ’ing.
Our musical capability in ensembles and other musical groups is driven from the roots of our exciting and enriching classroom curriculum. Arriving in year 7, our new music students are quickly encouraged to begin understanding what music looked and sounded like during the Middle Ages. This progressive course travels right through to post modernistic themes and 20th Century concepts. Interspersed in our history studies are frequent opportunities for students to hone their keyboard and singing skills.
Each lesson aims to be action-packed leaving ‘nothing behind’. Weekly music theory sees students continually deepen their understanding around notation, dynamics, time signatures and other musical fundamentals. This term, students have enjoyed experiencing Bandlab (for Education) software, which provides a high-quality, professional-styled platform in which our trainee music producers can create the next big hit!
As part of our plan to welcome perspective year 7 students, as Head of Expressive Arts and Academy Music Lead, I was delighted to be welcomed back to Barnby Road Primary to meet young musicians and perform in their wonderful orchestra. I was able to join in performances of Star Wars, Waterloo and even the Bare Necessities! As usual, I was thoroughly struck by the high levels of attendance and musical capability across this fabulous Key Stage 2 setting! Well done everyone, brilliant!
Music students joining the Newark Academy are routinely invited to join our Orchestra, Stage Band and Choir; enrichment for all! To support ongoing personal development, instrumental lessons are also provided for those wishing to subscribe and continue on their own improvement journey.
Continuing to strengthen the relationship between our Academy and our surrounding Key Stage 2 primary schools is both exciting and encouraging!
30 year 9 students all passed their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award and made Newark Academy extremely proud.
Students walked 12 hours over 2 days, set up camp, cooked their own food, washed their dishes and carried around 15kg on their back each day.
Each group worked as a team over the 2 days and the external providers said “they are one of the best, most polite groups they’d ever worked with”.
Y7/8 mathematicians participated in the Intermediate Mathematical Challenge in April – 25 multiple-choice questions that encourage mathematical reasoning and precision of thought. From the challenge, we achieved 13 Bronze, 4 Silver and 3 Gold awards. We had two students from the challenge who participated in the next round Junior Kangaroo, Callum Nixon and Casper Kitchen, with both again performing extremely well with Casper achieving a certificate of Merit. Well done to all students involved.
Gold award: Callum Nixon, Casper Kitchen, Emily Arnold
Silver award: Harvey Allsop, Alfie-Jay Whittaker, Lewis Blackman, Ethan Cooper
Bronze award: Maxwell Anstey, Jasper Tucker, Kieran Stocks, Emily Hopkinson, Eden Blake, Edward Phillips, Thomas Gibson, Jasmine King, Lucas Maughan, Georgia Trueblood, Eli De Angelis, Grace Fenton, Isaac Evans, Benjamin Thacker, Sophie Derbyshire, Lilianna Kicinska, Harriet Watson, Ava Linsey, Oliver Melady, Jenson Allman-Wright, Kaelan Bagdonas, Isabelle Burrows, Lewis Judge and Charlie Osborne
Can you answer this question from the Junior Maths challenge?
Answer = C 18
Reece and Luke have been busy creating scripts in English and have produced puppets and props in art to put on a play of Goldilocks and the three bears.
Students in year 7 and 8 enjoyed creating and eating fish goujons and wedges following on for their trip to the beach.
All year 12 students attended a UCAS Exhibition at the University of Lincoln. This was an opportunity for them to talk to HE institutions and gain valuable information, to help them with their post18 planning. It was a really insightful visit, with over 200 universities in attendance.
We recently took a small group of year 10 students to attend a taster day at Brackenhurst College. It was a fantastic day and the students were able to get a good insight into courses that are on offer. We run this visit each year for our year 10 cohort, so year 9’s – keep an eye out for the email to sign up for next year!
This half term, we’ve had 100% of year 12 students completing a work experience placement. We’ve had students in some amazing placements, spending time observing surgeries at QMC and shadowing Barristers at Derby Crown Court. The feedback from employers has been fantastic and we could not be prouder!!
On Monday and Tuesday 10/11th July Year 10 geographers took a trip to Skegness to investigate coastal management strategies as part of their GCSE Geography course. They spent time collecting data and talking to members of the public about the environmental impacts on tourism on the town
Well done to all our amazing Year 10 Business students on our Enterprise and Marketing course, who have done an exceptional job in creating a new product as part of their coursework unit this year. They have worked incredibly hard in conducting market research and designing a bag to meet the needs of their customer profile.
Please take a look at some of our students brilliant work - Eli Jex, Olivia Sayers, Phoenix-Jade and Jay Charles.
Students have shown our Newark Academy GREAT values throughout the learning journey in creating their bags and this has been evident both in their work in and outside the classroom. We are so proud of how hard that they have worked and the enthusiasm that they have shown throughout this project.
As part of their year 11 learning journey students will take this further by designing branding for their creations and will be pitching to investors to buy their products. We are very much looking forward to seeing these ideas come to life! Well done to all our year 10 business studies students.
A huge congratulations to all the Y9 and Y10 sports leaders who lead a fantastic sports day at Newark Academy. John Hunt and Sir Donald Bailey arrived with all their Y5 students who took part in a variety of activities.
Well done to all the 66 leaders for your hard work and commitment! Looking forward to future events.
Our academy celebrated our first ever Pride festival on the 11th July. We had an incredible turn out of students who partied the night away with a silent disco, candy floss machine, sumo wrestling, gladiator podium and an inflatable assault course. The event was electric and concluded with a big confetti canon! Our wonderful student leadership team helped set up and run the event, we are so grateful to them. We are so proud of our young students who want to celebrate diversity, love and equality. We can’t wait for next year’s event!
Our year 10 RS students went to the GMG Gurdwara in Slough earlier this week to see faith in action. Students were able to see Sikhs worship, take part in worship themselves and also eat at the Langer hall. Students learnt about the importance of Simran (pray) and have took part in two workshops looking at the power of connection and meditation. In addition, we viewed their art exhibition on the history of Sikhism. The volunteers were incredibly complimentary of our students and we were very proud of their respectful and caring attitude.
Mrs Horner has been working hard on a wellbeing project in the library to ensure that the library is a safe and welcoming place for all students and a place where students can learn about wellbeing and how to support others and their own. Mrs Horner has put together a display where students can do further research, learn about others such as Marcus Rashford or get lost in a fiction novel.
The following students have been selected to be anti-bullying ambassadors next academic year. Following an application form and selection process they have been selected to help lead our anti-bullying programme next year. We are very proud of them for taking this opportunity to help and support others.
Please join us in congratulating the following;
Bailey Pearson, Carols Cunha. Faith Hudson, Freddie Smith, Geoffrey Dawkins, Jack Martin, Joshua Hewlett, Jynx Radcliffe, Kai Scott, Kye Hughes, Lewis Blackman, Lily Asher, Lucas Peel, Mai Stokes, Maisie Jarvis, Maisie Kirk, Mollie Hickman, Olivia Edlin, Robyn Flanagan, Skye Rose, Tommy Stor, Leon Winnett and Alfie Gee
Year 9 Reading
Year 9 have successfully completed their first round of internal assessments in recent weeks. Students rose to the challenge of sitting their first formally run assessments in English that took place within the Sports Hall, within exam conditions. Although many were apprehensive before they sat the assessment, the English teachers were so pleased to see the positivity students felt once they had completed the Powerful knowledge quiz and Unseen Poetry question.
Spanning schemes of learning from across the last year, students' ability to recall key information was tested through a quiz that covered Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 from the first term, Shakespeare's historical play Richard III from the spring term and more recently how to explore and analyse unseen poetry. Students completed the quiz and a longer, extended writing response answering a question on an unseen poem.
The results from these assessments, have impressed teachers, with a clear improvement being made in the quality of critical reading, evaluation and the exploration of the writer's intent and subsequent impact on the reader. Four of our top students who achieved Emerging + or Autonomous – showing they are GCSE ready are Mady Dawson, Charlie Ashley, Jess Chambers, Evie Baker and Adam Asher. Well done!
The revision skills used to prepare for these assessments and experience overall will not only help prepare students for the future demands examinations will have on them, but also enable staff to ensure future schemes of learning address identified misconceptions quickly, making the start to Key Stage 4 and their GCSE studies as impactful as possible.
Well done Year 9! You are well on the way on your Journey towards Autonomy and success at GCSE!
Mady, Adam, Evie and Jess produced full responses in exam conditions.
Year 9 writing
English use Comparative marking (where the work of our students is compared to 20,000 students across the country to generate a “writing age”. Recent data shows Y9 smashing it out of the park and achieving well above the comparative mark average – 14yrs + 1 month (NA) V 13yrs + 6 months (other schools).
Being “writing articulate” is so important if our students are to have a voice and Year 9 have shown they have really “pushed their pens”.
This year has been another ambitious year for Enrichment activities in the English Department. A new student journalism and photography club ‘NA News’ was started by Mr Deller and led by two superb NA6 Student Leaders - Kai Brown and Elizabeth Nicholson. They taught the students who attended the after-school club key skills in News Journalism, journalistic story writing and they also tried their hand at photography using state of the art cameras and equipment! Remember to look out for Enrichment opportunities across the school next September and sign up to clubs with Enrichment @ Newark Academy! #somethingforeveryone
New English Rewards
This term has seen the English team trial new rewards for our students. Each week class teachers from a selected set of classes choose a student who has embodied the school’s GREAT values in lessons. These students receive a small treat and a postcard from the English team to say ‘well done’. Last week we rewarded students who have been ‘pushing the pen’ every lesson. Congratulations to everyone who managed to get a reward!
Joel McDavid - very excited to receive his queue jump reward.
KS3 Book Club
This term we have been enjoying The Other Lives of Miss Emily White which is a ghostly supernatural read set at a boarding school in the Victorian era which intrigued us all with its plot twists. This has provided light relief after we completed The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas which did cause mixed emotions amongst the group - we were all surprised by the ending (no spoilers!) and enabled rich discussions on the accuracy of the historical novel.
This year, 47 students across all school years joined together to bring the whole school production of High School Musical Jr. to Newark Academy. The process of producing this years musical began in January with auditions being held, since then students have worked non-stop in enrichment for two after school sessions a week on what was a phenomenal two evening’s of entertainment. Students mastered several lines and harmonies to songs, as well as a number of dance routines - choreographed by Head Student Tommy Storr (who also played the lead role of Troy Bolton!)
Congratulations to all involved, from cast to crew, band and staff.
The Y9 Boys football team had a brilliant year! They reached the semi-final of the County Cup and quarter final of the South Notts Cup, narrowly losing these fixtures after very convincing wins in the earlier rounds. Defensively, the boys were absolutely superb this year and never conceded more than twice in a game across all competitions!
The Y10 Boys football team again saw the later rounds of both cup competitions this year – reaching the quarter final of the County Cup and the semi final of the South Notts Cup. Lots of goals and strong performances were recorded across the fixtures and showed our deserved place amongst the best schools in Nottinghamshire.
After a very long wait and months of training the Year 7 Netball team finally got their CVL competition underway in May of this year, the last team to do so. With a fairly inexperienced team and with different combinations of positions happening every match, they worked together well and adapted play against some tough opposition. The CVL's (Central Venue League) are two weeks of local competitions with around 6 - 8 matches. Our girls shone in those rounds coming top and being undefeated. So, onto the finals we went. It was a very wet Finals competition with the top teams across the county playing. Doing an amazing job and securing some excellent results the girls were delighted to bring home Bronze medals.
During the Easter holidays four netball teams took to the road to travel to Paris for an amazing opportunity. An International Netball tournament along with two very special trips to Disneyland Paris.
We had a very long journey due to delays in the port of Dover but the girls were impeccable in every way possible. They took it all in their stride and the 25 hours on the bus didn't really feel that long.
After such a long journey we did have a little extra time in Disney as we couldn't do our netball coaching sessions (the England Netball coaches were still stuck at Dover). On the third day we were delighted to start the tournament. The competition is spilt into tiered groups - the 'Showdown competition (highest tier) and the Challenger competition. All girls across all of the teams and age groups played some amazing netball and the progress was amazing.
The results were:
U12 5th Showdown Cup
U14a 3rd Challenger Plate
U14b 8th Challenger Plate
U16 2nd Challenger Shield
Joshua Blant in Crew 10 has been awarded a place on the Hybrid training programme from September 2023, U17 age group for the EFL (English Football League) for next season at Lincoln Football Club.
This outstanding opportunity has led to the offer of a scholarship once Joshua has completed his GCSE’s, something which Joshua’s family and we are very proud of. Well done Josh!
Jack Byrne Crew 9 CWI
Jack won this trophy for ‘Clubman of the Year’ at his Warriors Barbarians under 15’s FC. Jack is a very determined young player who enthuses passion for his club and game. Jack was also awarded by his team ‘Players Player’ and ‘Parents Player’ of the year.
Jack has been playing for the FC for 2 years, previously playing for RHP under 14’s. Jack is taking sport as a GCSE option moving into year 10.
A huge congratulations to this young player.
This year, along with her outstanding performances inside of the classroom, Lucy Beardsmore (Y7) has been working hard preparing and competing in the National School's Biathlon Championships in Dorset. In the final championship event Lucy was required to run, swim and then run again alongside an extremely strong field of young athletes. Lucy's goal was a top six finish, which she just missed out on coming a highly respectable 9th place. Her unwavering determination and dedication to training is outstanding as she is already back preparing for the next event.
Well done Lucy!
The end of a very successful year in Modern Languages, one which has seen the return of language trips with the Year 10 & 11 Trip to the Aachen Weihnachtsmarkt in December.
Students had the opportunity to visit the town centre, head to the Media Museum and take panoramic photos from above the town centre – as well as Mr. Maxwell discovering a new career as a tour guide!
Despite nearly two days of travelling, the students were a credit to the Academy and took full advantage of the opportunity to use their German language skills in a real life situation.
Other stories coming from within the department include:
•The success of Día de los Muertos – culturally celebrated at the beginning of November
•The return of the hugely popular Japanese club, run by Ms. C. Williams
•This year, for the first time under the current staff, has seen the return of French GCSE as an option subject – again this has proved very popular amongst staff, students and parents alike!
•The opportunity for students to sit GCSEs in their home languages has also proved successful, with amazing results for those students taking Polish, Portuguese, Arabic, Italian and Russian over the last year.
The MFL Team continue to have ambitious plans and looks forward to bringing them to our community in the coming year!!
Lewis Bradley, Billy Warriner, Sam McAleese,Lewis Feeney, Jess Peck, Keira Dixon, Grace Cooper, Alfie Warriner, Alina Selepova have all successfully completed their Asdan Key Steps Certificate.
Key Steps is a comprehensive programme of activities in a range of topic areas covering Citizenship, PSE, Environment Education, Personal Finance Education, Enterprise and Internationalism.
In the last two years we have visited the MRF recycling plant in Mansfield as part of the environmental topic, taken part in First aid training delivered by Newark Community First Aid, learnt the art of making butter and felt making with the help of LEAF and had a visit from the Bank of England as part of the Finance topic. Their final challenge of the summer term was ‘The Great Battery Hunt’ in which a number of our students presented a teams assembly to the whole school which enhanced their oracy skills, teamwork and confidence. These personal challenges have encouraged students to develop their personal skills and take responsibility for their own learning.
Along with playing this year as part of our amazing student orchestra, Crew 8 student, Tayla Keetley-Young was invited on stage by a resident Elvis tribute artist whilst on holiday to play along with him as part of his set. Tayla was able to perform magnificently and will take these memories away with her forever. Playing to a room full of people can be daunting, but Tayla took this all in her stride.
Well done Tayla!
Newark Academy
Train to teach with the Nottinghamshire Torch SCITT