Witchford Village College students had a break from their normal school day this Friday as they participated in a ‘House Games Day’. Students in all years have been competing in teams to try and win for their house. Some students in year 9 and 10, have been doing various experiments in science to try and raise awareness for diabetes.

Steve Redgrave a 5 Olympic medal winner, doesn’t let his diabetes stop him from succeeding in what he loves. Biology, Chemistry and Physics are all individually studying different aspects of how diabetes can affect your health when it comes to fitness and diet. One student in year 10 describe the lessons as ‘fun and interesting’.

Meanwhile in other parts of the school, other students are participating in other subjects such as Catering, where they’ve been competing to cook the best curry meal, myself and Maisie even got a taste of the curries and they were delicious!

By Amy-Jo Heyworth and Maisie Peckham

On Friday 24^th February 2012, students at Witchford Village College were given a day on based activities around the Olympics. These events were put into teams which we call houses they were called: Wimbledon, Wembley, Lords and Twickenham. Most of the college was involved in this.  In the morning Year 7&8 did a sport activity for 2 hours which was Dance mats, football, Netball, Table Tennis and many more. In Period 3&4 they did a curriculum lesson such as, Maths (making a catapult), Cooking (Making curries from around the world), Science (Rowing machines), and even more.

One of the exciting events that stood out to us was music. In music they were writing songs for the Olympics. They were using many instruments like Electric Guitars, Drums, Piano, Microphone and Computers (On ‘Song Acid’). A student called Aaliyah Plattern said ‘I have enjoyed the day so far, it has been really exciting and interesting’.

Another Lesson that stood out to us was RE. In RE they were making a display on Olympic truce! The people in RE are talking about the Olympic truce and making posters for a display here are some quotes from people we spoke too. “The Theme for Re was Olympic truce – The time when there has to be peace 7 days before and after the Olympics. The house teams have embraced the concepts of peace, equality and the Olympics to create an amazing truce display in the Humanities corridor.” -Mrs Watts (teacher). Also a student said to us, “The work was better than I expected it to be.”

–Savannah Curtis

However Witchford Village College’s countdown is underway already!

At Witchford Village College on Friday 24^th February an Olympic inspired games day took place. This included curricular and sports themed activities. Year groups taking part were from year 7- year 10 and they were split up into their house teams: Lords, Wembley, Twickenham and Wimbledon. These have been the sports houses for many years.

The sporting activities ranged from netball, football, dodge ball and even orienteering. Curricular activities involved science, history, English, catering, art & design, languages and media. As a member of the media curriculum we interviewed some students to see how they thought the day was going.

In the history block the students were researching the history of their team houses. The teams were instructed to create a poster on why they should be proud to be in their houses, the best poster would win. We asked Wimbledon what they thought of their team, Kelly Outing, a year 10 student said “We don’t always win, but we always have a fighting spirit!”

We then moved down to the football pitch to talk to the football players. The group was lead by Mr. Tatham. After speaking to a group of boys, their leader Chris Weaving, a year 7 student, was very positive his team would win. We moved over to talk to the girls group led by Miss Coates. The Lords team of girls consisted of years 7s and 8s all of them eager to win the matches.

After that we went to go and see Mr. Synge’s cooking class. They made three divine dishes which were Vegetable Curry, Chana Masala (chickpea curry) and Onion Bhaji’s. They were truly mouth watering and the smell was mesmerizing. James, a year 10 student from Twickenham said “We are going to win obviously, there is no competition here, and we are just too good!” However Lisa Marshall, a year10 from Lords disagreed: “We are amazing cooks!” They believed they were going to win for sure.

Last but definitely not least, we went to see Mr. Mappledoram, the organizer of the successful day. He was very pleased with how the day was going, “Today has been excellent, everything is going well and this will be the first of many!”

By Nikita Baker and Alice Wales

Over Christmas 2011 Witchford Village College ran a lottery designed to raise funds for outdoor education projects. It had three prizes;

1st  prize wins 15% of the final “pot”.
2nd prize wins 10% of the final “pot”.
3rd prize wins 5% of the final “pot”.

Congratulations to

Ms Gardner, who won first prize.
Ms Brown who won second prize.
Ms Higginson who won third prize.

And many thanks to everyone who participated, as we made a fantastic start of £133 profit to put towards outdoor education projects within the college. We hope to have a new offering second half of the spring term and hope you can join us then.