Goffs Academy Newsletter

It seems amazing that I am already writing to you in the Spring Half Term newsletter. Time has certainly flown, but much has been packed into a very busy half term. Highlights for me, include the fantastic Goffs-Got-Talent competition, where many students demonstrated their brilliant, and varied, talents. I was also very pleased to hear the outcomes achieved by our Year 13 students taking part in the Brilliant Club programme, who had a great experience at Jesus College Oxford for their graduation day. There have also been many excellent sporting achievements, and a good range of activities across the school to promote Safer Internet Day and Children's Mental Health Week. You can read more about all of these events and achievements below.

It is pleasing to see the final coursework elements coming together for our students studying the various arts and technologies, and there is certainly a keen sense that all students in Years 11 to 13 are really getting themselves into the right frame of mind as they approach their upcoming exams. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the very many teachers giving up days in the holiday to offer revision sessions to students, as well as you, the parents, for supporting your children as they draw closer to their final exams.

I hope that you have an enjoyable half term.

Ben Pearce

Principal

It was a real pleasure having Jeannie Phillip, from Essex and Herts Air Ambulance (EHAA), in school during January. Jeannie presented during house assemblies about the fantastic and lifesaving work carried out by EHAA. I was extremely surprised to hear that they do have not have the resources to enable them to fly and land in the dark, so incidents such as the one on the M11 at around 6am last month, are not able to receive the rapid and vital care that EHAA can offer. One of the ways our donations support them, is to help them in their mission to raise funds for the crucial equipment and resources to allow them to operate during hours of darkness.

Below you can see the image of some of our house team presenting Jeannie with a cheque for the £3,684.18 we have raised so far for EHAA, as a school. Thank you for all of your contributions and donations. I am excited to potentially take some of the House students down to the airbase in the summer term to present the charity with our final amount (which will hopefully be at least double the current total) although as you can see below, we did have a surprise visit this week.

Ellie Myers

Head of House

On Tuesday 12th February, students were treated to an unusual sight when the Herts and Essex Air Ambulance landed on the school field! The team were on their way to an incident in Stevenage, but the clouds were too thick and low for them to continue flying, so they had to make an emergency stop. As the Herts and Essex Air Ambulance are our chosen charity for this academic year, we took some Year 9 Drama students out to see the helicopter and meet the crew, which they enjoyed immensely. Please see the photos below.

Safer Internet Day is celebrated globally in February each year to promote eSafety, and inspire a national conversation. Coordinated in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre, the celebration sees hundreds of organisations get involved to help promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology by children and young people.

Children and young people, schools, parents and carers, and organisations all across the UK are invited to make a pledge to post something positive online using the hashtag #ItStartsWithUs.

This Safer Internet Day, we encouraged everyone to play their part in building a better internet. We extended the event to run between the 4th – 8th of February, and we ran dedicated lessons in ICT and Computing for Years 7 to 9. Students started off with an introduction about what this day means and how they can support it. Students were asked to consider what influences people online, and explored the messages, comments and content they see online, as well as how to stay safe.

The main part of the lesson was based around a quiz the students took to consider how much of an influence the online world has on them and the decisions they make online. Then they used a scoring grid to see if they are easily influenced.

Online Safety Day – Monday 4th February 2019

On 4th February itself, students from all year groups attended a presentation on Online Safety led by a visiting speaker. The presentation included much information from this expansive field, relating to social media, gaming, considering your ‘digital footprint’ and also how to report any inappropriate behaviour online.

Top tips for students included:

• Behave online, as you do in the real world

• Review the privacy and security settings on any apps you do choose to use

• Consider your digital footprint; most prospective employers will now review your social media profiles before hiring

• If you encounter concerning behaviour online, report it (either in person, or via CEOP)

Related resources which may be useful for parents include:

• https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/

• https://www.net-aware.org.uk/

• https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/ (the site for children and parents run by CEOP, Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command, part of the UK’s National Crime Agency)

If you have any queries or concerns relating to online safety, please do not hesitate to contact me. Please click on the below link to view our online safety presentation and visit our school E-Safety page:

http://www.goffs.herts.sch.uk/311/esafety?search=online

Mark Ellis

Vice Principal

Promoting positive mental health is always a priority for us, and celebrating Children’s Mental Health Week has been no different. The focus was on how students keep themselves physically healthy to ensure that they can also be as mentally healthy as possible. We took students through three themes over the week which focussed on 'eating for positive mental health', sleeping and staying active.

As a school we feel it is vital that these three components of personal health don’t fall by the wayside, in a world of modern challenges where looking after yourself can sometimes seem to be the least important thing. Students were shown the link between personal health and mental health and we would encourage all students to keep this in mind daily, as this has a great impact on how much a person can truly achieve.

The message is simple:

If you want to be mentally healthy, you need to also manage your physical health. Sleep well, eat well and stay active are our three pieces of advice. One of the most challenging aspects of this is students managing their digital usage as the day draws to a close. We would ask parents and carers to be mindful of how students engage with social media and their digital habits in the evening. Students across the years were quite candid about how late they stayed up on their phones – something which current research suggests impacts greatly on sleep and general mental health.

Students will have future sessions on how to manage their lives to minimise the stress and strains of academic life, but in the meantime we could all benefit from a little personal focus on ourselves.

Richard Gill

Student Wellbeing Lead

Current Attendance Rates:

•Year 7 - 96.6%

•Year 8 - 95.8%

•Year 9 - 94.9%

•Year 10 - 95.2%

•Year 11 - 96.6%

•Average - 95.7%

CONGRATULATIONS to Year 7 & 11 for being the best attendees this half term!

We fully appreciate your efforts in ensuring your child attends school every day on time, and are only kept at home for serious illness. The reward trip to Thorpe Park and Colchester Zoo will be going ahead later on this year; we really do hope to be able to reward most of our students for their attendance and good behaviour!

Francoise Grote

Attendance and Parent Support Officer

As a part of our ongoing belief that students should experience the highest academic levels, 13 Year 13 students were enrolled in the Scholars Programme and began a 20 week schedule designed to test them against some of the highest levels of work provided by a PhD tutor. Students were given a research task and met their tutor on a weekly basis, and were required to submit a final piece of work that was graded against university standards. Our students achieved excellent results with 7 students achieving a 1st Class award, and 6 students achieving a 2:1. Students have shown their commitment to the programme which has taken a lot of personal study time to achieve.

The final part of the project included a graduation trip to Jesus College Oxford where students dined inside the college. They were then taken on a tour which included sights such as the Bodleian Library and other colleges of Oxford University. It was a great day out celebrating our students' achievements, and they were warmly applauded as they received their certificates. Many congratulations to the following students for their successes:

James Allen

Thomas Avril

Antonio Constantinou

Alex Edgecombe

Marc Harvey-Hill

Sean Maguire

Nicholas Mannan

Mitch Massiah

Joshua Morris

Katernia Sofroniou

Max Sheridan

Zack Spence

Yahya Umar

Richard Gill

So far this year, students have been exploring the theme of 'portrait'. They have recently finished a selection of intaglio dry point prints, exploring a range of different colours and papers. They have beautifully presented them on portfolio sheets making an excellent contribution to their coursework. Students are now working on further print making techniques – Lino and Mono printing to develop their skills further, with Ms Brew, Mr Moules and Miss Brown. Watch out for these in the next edition!

Here are a selection of Year 10’s portfolio sheets...

On 7th February we were visited by Amy, Jerome and Jonny from Broxbourne Wildlife Park, as part of an introduction to our participation in the HEART Project (Helping Endangered Animals by Recycling Trash), alongside other schools in the region. This year’s focus is on African animals. Our designated animal is the Painted Dog, as shown on David Attenborough’s series Dynasties. Over the next few months we will be designing and making pieces. All art work will be displayed in a special public exhibition at Paradise from 25th – 27th May 2019.

Tiffany Brown

Head of Art

On Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th February, Year 11 Food & Nutrition students created a variety of dishes as they prepare for their GCSE. Below are some photographs to give you a flavour of how incredibly well they performed! Well done to all the students for their fantastic looking and tasting pieces!

Antoinette Crabbe

Food Technology Teacher

This half term, students in Year 7 were asked to research the environmental impact of the Fashion & Textiles industry and tasked with presenting this in a creative way. Below are some excellent examples from 2 of our students:

Students in Years 11-13 have been designing and creating a variety of incredible garments in Fashion & Textiles this term and you can see some snapshots of their work below. Stay tuned to see their finished pieces!

Laura Jane Abazi

Head of Fashion & Textiles

On 25th January 2019, the Digital Leaders visited the BETT show. We found new technologies for learning that could be seamlessly integrated into the school environment. We found Teacher’s Gaming Desk which has over 100 pre planned lessons in the form of video games (including Universe Simulator). DELL and Windows Pro have provided us with information on a VR headset that could immerse us into our lessons and allow us to better visualise the environment; this could really be of use to the History and Geography departments. We also spoke to Doddle and discussed their new app which was released in October and is working very well. We strongly advise that you download this. We were amazed by the number of people there, and the friendliness of all of the people who were running the stands and showing off their tech. We really enjoyed the day and we hope that some of the fantastic resources that we found there can be fully utilised by the school.

Digital Leaders

Goffs presents our summer dance show: All Around the World. The girls and boys involved have been working extremely hard learning choreography during Dance Club and in Motiv8 and BTEC dance lessons. The first half of the show will be a showcase of dance routines set against various songs, and the second half will be a trip around the world with a variety of dances from countries such as America, Ireland and Russia. The dance show will be on the 6th & 7th of June, and tickets will be available after half term from the PE office. The charity we have chosen to donate money raised to this year is the Helen Rollason Cancer Charity – a charity enabling a better quality of life whilst living with cancer; the charity provides support for cancer patients and their families.

Emma Fleet

PE Teacher

Year 8 Girls

Year 8 girls' football have secured yet another amazing achievement; they successfully won the District 6-a-side tournament, without any goals conceded. A special mention for Chloe Ions who scored all the goals!

The U13s Girls Team

The team have had the best year so far; they have overcome many challenges and have welcomed new Year 7 girls into the team. The team’s successes are built on resilience, companionship, passion and a desire to succeed. They progressed further in the National Schools' Cup this year, reaching Round 5; unfortunately they lost 1-0 in their game to Bassingbourn School. The girls did not let this hinder their determination to succeed and fought back in the Schools' County Cup, reaching the Semi Finals against Chancellors. This game was a clear example of their ability to work well as a team. The game ended in a 1-1 stalemate which then took the game into extra time, where both teams battled hard and the game ended with penalties. Unfortunately, the girls lost on penalties. This was their first experience of penalties and each girl gave their all. The girls proudly represented their school with their individual and team performances.

The girls were:

Chloe Ions, Chloe Dwyer, Ellie Young, Summer Young, Josie Lewis,

Elle Hatherley, Laci Hawkins, Maddy Moore, Cristina Blundell, Freya Brown, Sundai Santine-Amele, Tia Nicholoson and Dolly Jane Sambrook.

The U14s Girls Team

The U14s girls are into the semi-finals of the Schools' County Cup on Monday 11th February. The girls won their quarter final 2-0 against Queenswood school. They are determined to win the game and ensure they get their deserved place in the final.

Lynsey Hague

PE Teacher

The Year 9 Rugby team travelled to Cheshunt RFC to play in their third festival, run in connection with the RFU. The festivals are a perfect chance for our boys to get some competitive Rugby in against other schools, especially when we haven’t quite got the numbers yet for a full 15-a-side game. Goffs had 5 students in attendance, and teamed up with John Warner to play a 13-a-side game against Monks Walk. After sorting out positions with John Warner, we were able to commence in a very fair and competitive game. Frankie Gould powered through tackles, Gregor Danbury side stepped and passed efficiently, Ben Lashmore had a great range of passing and excellent decision making, Alfie Lawrence tackled boys twice his size, and Year 8 Taite Williams outclassed many students in the year above, to provide the combined side with victory. The boys played excellently together, and demonstrated a fantastic team spirit, despite being thrown together on the day.

Thanks as always to Tom Mowbray from the RFU for organising and running the tournament, as well as to Cheshunt RFC for hosting with their amazing facilities.

Richard Ashdown

Head of PE

The Year 7 football team are in high spirits after reaching the semi-finals of the District Cup. The team beat Simon Balle (A) 4-1 in a thrilling tie to secure a place in the last 8. This meant that the team have scored 16 goals in their last three competitive games in which they have only conceded one goal. Well done boys.

Mr Ball

PE Teacher

This is the first time that this year group has participated in the County Cup, and they have done extremely well so far. The first game within this competition saw the Year 8s face an away trip to Sir John Lawes, which saw them comfortably beating their opposition in the first round. The second fixture was another away trip against a school with whom the boys and Mr Spaul were unfamiliar. This game was much closer, but eventually a last minute winner from Alfie Smith sent the boys into the 3rd round. The 3rd round saw Goffs face one of their closest and oldest rivals, in Richard Hale, on a freezing cold day in January. The game was very tense throughout, with not many clear cut opportunities; however, Goffs did break the deadlock 15 minutes into the second half, when a excellent set piece delivery found Anwar Moutawfiq at the back post to prod home and seal a 1-0 win.

The Quarter Finals beckoned with another away fixture against Parmiter's school; with the weather close to freezing, a delayed kick off wasn't the best preparation for the boys, whilst waiting for a lost Referee. However, the boys started the game tremendously well and threatened every time they went forward, but in this funny old game, one long ball from the opposing team caught the defensive unit astray and the boys went 1-0 down. Two minutes before the end of the first half, Goffs were awarded a free kick 20 yards from goal, and once again Alfie Smith delivered an unbelievable free kick which saw the boys head in at half time level. The second half performance from the boys was the best they had delivered all year, playing some excellent slick attacking football which brought another 4 goals. The midfield maestros of Hayden Gray and Riley Warmerdam were sensational throughout the game and deserve special mentions. The boys now await the draw for the semi finals, which will be played shortly. They have been excellent throughout and hopefully they can pick up some silverware at the end of the season.

Ben Spaul

PE Teacher

The Year 9 football team are currently having an excellent season, already winning 2 out of 2 of their District Cup games, which saw wins against Sele school 10-1, and 6-1 against John Warner. The boys still have one more game remaining against Robert Barclay which, if they win, will see them comfortably win the group and progress through into the knockout stages of the competition.

The National Cup came to a hard fought end this year, with the boys reaching the 5th round, 2 rounds shorter than the previous year. However, they worked extremely hard and lost to a very good Brentwood side, who were more clinical in front of goal and progressed through with a 1-0 win.

Ben Spaul

PE Teacher

The Year 10 Football team have made it through to the District semi final after two wins and a loss this season. Their last two games were a 3-1 loss to John Warner on a bobbly, muddy pitch with Freddie getting our goal from the penalty spot. Jaheim picked up the MoM award after another battling display at left back. Jaheim has really progressed his game this season and is one of the first names on the team sheet.

Our next game was a 9-1 victory against Sele School with a large squad, to try and provide a little more competition for the regular players. Goals from Dylan (x3), Stef, Stathi, Harry, Louis and Charlie (x2) secured an easy victory, although it was the manner in the way the boys played which was the most pleasing. They didn’t try to over-play, and kept the ball moving from side to side to create openings. In fairness, the score could have been more, but it was nice to allow players who don’t always get a chance to represent the school, minutes on the pitch. This was demonstrated perfectly with Charlie, who bagged himself two very good goals with powerful strikes.

We have a friendly against Churchgate on Wednesday 13th February which will give a few of the fringe players a chance to stake a claim for a shirt for the District semi final.

Richard Ashdown

Head of PE

A mixed 11-18 comprehensive Academy with approximately 1450 students on roll, including a thriving and successful Sixth Form. Our Academy is extremely popular in the local area, with an average of over 800 applications annually for the 240 places available, and significant waiting lists for places across the year groups.

Email: admin@goffs.herts.sch.uk
Website: http://www.goffs.herts.sch.uk/
Location: Goffs Academy, Goff's Lane, Cheshunt, Waltham Cross, UK
Phone: 01992424200
Twitter: @GoffsAcademy