Goffs Academy Newsletter

Dear Parents/Carers and Students,

Welcome to the December 2019 edition of our newsletter.

December is always a busy time of year at Goffs. This year has been no exception, and the past half-term has brought with it an incredible range of events in which our students have been involved. Combining these activities with the rigours of each student's academic studies takes dedication and commitment. The quality of performances, whether on the stage, field, court, debating chamber or Cadets training ground, are testament to that commitment. As well as offering my congratulations to all students, I would like to thank all members of staff who have contributed to the burgeoning range of extra-curricular activities. I truly believe this plays a vital role in supporting the personal development of all of our students.

I will let you read on to explore the details of what has been going on. The performance of 'Annie', which I witnessed on a sold-out Friday show, has been a particular highlight. Our Year 9 boys football teams (yes, both of them!) continue on their incredible Cup runs (read on for breathtaking match reports from the PE department). For the whole school, we were thrilled that our work to promote wellbeing and positive mental health was recognised when we were awarded with the Wellbeing Quality Mark by Herts for Learning - a prestigious honour for our work, in an area which we have always valued.

As ever, and particularly at this time of year, I feel an immense pride to work with the incredible group of colleagues and students that we have at Goffs. I would like to express my thanks, and very best wishes for the future, to those colleagues who are leaving Goffs at Christmas, and offer a very warm welcome to those who join our community in January.

Enjoy plenty of mince pies, time with family and friends, and a good rest over the break. I look forward to seeing all students on their return on Monday 6th January 2020.

Regards,

Mark Ellis

Principal

This year, our school production was the iconic ’Annie’. This uplifting musical was bought to life by over 60 performers and a technical team of 13 highly dedicated and organised students. The students involved ranged from Year 7 students new to our ensemble, to Ellie Orton, Year 13, who was charming in her portrayal of ‘Grace’.

From early September, the pupils have been auditioning, volunteering and rehearsing to produce bustling sequences as seen in ‘NYC’ and ‘Hard Knock Life’.

Once again, we had the privilege of performing to almost 200 primary school pupils from our local feeder primary schools. The Year 5 and 6 pupils were stunned by the set and performers alike, and many left with huge beaming faces, with ‘Sandy’ (Lottie the dog) being a firm favourite!

The shows were on the 5th and 6th December and were performed to a sell-out crowd on both evenings. On Friday, we added 60 extra seats and still had to turn people away at the door! Spearheaded by Lara Wollington as the feisty yet resilient Annie, and Alicia Hall as the unforgettable Miss Hannigan, the whole cast were charismatic and energetic, ensuring a thrilling show for their audiences.

A special mention must be made to Ellie Orton, for whom this will be the last show here at Goffs. Further mention should also be made to Ben Evans who stood in when the original Mr Warbucks had to regretfully bow out of rehearsals. We thank you for your dedication to the department and wish you luck in all your future endeavours.

Merry Christmas!

Clare Holland

Head of Drama

On Tuesday, 10th December, we had the BTEC dance show where 113 of our students performed to a fantastic audience.

We want to say a massive well done to all of them; the students made us extremely proud and performed some amazing dances, especially the Evolution themed dances that were based on the following topics:

• Evolution of a flower
• Evolution of sexuality/pride
• Evolution of social media
• Evolution of the environment

All performances are part of the students' coursework, so their hard work will contribute to their grades on the Dance course.

Emma Fleet

Teacher of P.E.

For an academy which takes pride in working tirelessly to promote positive mental health and wellbeing for all of our students, it has been an incredible half term with many successes. Students have experienced a raft of assemblies, videos, ATM sessions and more, all focused on ensuring that anybody who comes to Goffs Academy feels welcome and safe. Championing this progress has been the wonderful Mr Holding, who has led on three major updates regarding student wellbeing at Goffs.

Firstly, both Mr Holding and Mr Gill attended a day long training course run by the charity Stonewall to support our work with the LGBQT community, and the resultant accreditation shows how valued all members of our community are. Assemblies on inclusiveness then followed this training, and students were left in no doubt that, as a whole body, we are allies and champions for the message of inclusiveness. Our anti-bullying stance is a crucial ongoing part of this.

It has been vital to involve students in our wellbeing initiative. When the call went out to the Year 12 students, an overwhelmingly positive response was received. Over 30 students signed up to be part of the Senior Wellbeing Team and this positivity was simply mind blowing. Our appreciation of the generosity of the Sixth Form students who give up their time to run events, ATM activities and the management of our newly-launched Safe Space Club is profound!

One of the successful campaigns that were run by the team was 'Odd Sock Day' during Mental Health Week, an idea created to allow students to show a little difference, but in a way that they felt comfortable with. Change starts with us; the key message that was delivered through assemblies, videos and a competition to design the best odd sock. Students who designed the best odd sock were awarded R4s and vouchers. Our winners were:

Charlotte Catarinicchia

Joley Moynihan

Mikaela Hassan

Callia Jordan

Well done to them all!

Finally, we have great reason to celebrate as we were awarded the Wellbeing Quality Mark by Herts for Learning. This superb achievement demonstrates just how hard staff and students have worked over the last few years to ensure that our community is safe, welcoming, diverse and full of students who are happy to be exactly who they wish to be.

The Wellbeing Team at Goffs thanks all the parents and students for their ongoing support.

Richard Gill

Student Wellbeing Lead

For 'Prison? Me? No Way', Year 8 students had different sessions based on which form group they were in, although everyone had the same ones overall, by the end of the day. Our group’s first session was about prison life and what prisoners do in their free time, and how they act towards prison staff. We also had a chance to tour a mobile prison cell which was very claustrophobic. However, they did have cereal and a TV, even though the beds were very uncomfortable and the toilet was very exposed.

In another session, we got to talk to a first aid expert, and watched videos explaining what to do if there was an incident of stabbing, such as putting pressure on the stab wound and learning about how to give CPR.

We also had a session on county lines and types of drugs. We learnt that some people spike drinks in order to exploit people. I was extremely shocked to learn about a girl who took drugs a single time and became paralysed for the rest of her life.

We also attended a workshop on anti-social behaviour and grooming. This was set up as a play, with different people in the year group acting out different roles. This session taught us a lot about how much trouble drugs could get people into, and how hard it can be to get out of the vicious cycle of drugs.

'Prison? Me? No Way!' has taught us how to stay safe and away from drugs, crime and grooming. It was an extremely educational day.

Forms 8E and 8Q

On 18th November, we hosted a company called Fix Up who delivered a number of workshops. This was strategically placed after the Year 11 mock exams, and the sessions covered a number of topics. Specifically:

• How to be a GCSE Champion
• Believing in yourself
• Confidence building to tackle challenges
• Goal setting
• Revision techniques
• Exam techniques
• Stress management

The students responded to the sessions very positively. Some of their feedback is included below:

“It was good to focus on exam and revision skills. For some subjects, I always revise what I am good at because that’s what I enjoy, but Fix Up made me realise that I need to focus on what I am not so good at.”

“The personal stories that Fix Up shared is what made the day extremely worth it. I felt like the presenters understood some of the hardships facing teenagers today and explained ways we can overcome barriers to revision.”

“Revision is temporary. Results are forever. I will keep remembering this until the exams.”

All Year 11 students were provided with a booklet by the company which they used on the day, and are encouraged to use to complete their revision, moving forward.

Fix Up will be visiting again on 2nd March 2020, nearer to exams.

Sophie Enstone

Assistant Principal

Ronnie Ortega in Year 10 competed in the British National Championship in Taekwondo in early November at the Manchester national cycling arena, and won the Bronze medal for his weight category (under 49kg). This category is usually made up of children from Years 7-10. The competition has around 1,000 competitors who are experienced and fight to be the best in the country. This means that Ronnie is the 3rd highest place competitor in the country. As well as maintaining 100% attendance and very good behaviour points, he is a diligent student, speaks both English and Swedish and also finds time to compete at a national level.

Well done, Ronnie! You are a credit to Goffs.

Year 10 Pastoral Team

On 8th October, amazing bakers from across Goffs Academy entered the Great Geography Bake Off, with entries ranging from Seaside Getaways to Climate Change scenes. This is the fourth year the Geography Department have run the House competition, and this year we had an amazing 28 entries from 35 students across 5 categories.

The categories included: the best tasting cake, most original cake, human geography cake, physical geography cake and the cake which best reflected geography at Goffs Academy. Winners and runners up from Year 7 to Year 10 were awarded House points, certificates and prizes.

This year, the standard of entries was amazing, and both the Geography department and staff from across the school were blown away with the amazing amount of effort students had gone to in the competition. Below are some of the amazing entries! All students coming 2nd or 3rd were awarded an R3 for their amazing entries. Winners gained R4s from our Heads of Department and won prizes. Emily Hayford was awarded the “Overall Best Cake in the Bake Off” after placing in multiple categories and blowing all of the judges away.

Thank you to all of the amazing parents and siblings at home who supported students in this year’s competition and sacrificed entire evenings making geographical figurines, icing cakes and cleaning flour and eggs from every household surface!

We look forward to running the ‘The Great Geography Bake Off’ again next year.

Katie Avril

Teacher of Geography

On Wednesday 20th November, the House Team and English Department ran an extremely successful Spelling Bee. All Year 7 to 10 students were entered for the competition by sitting spelling tests in their English lessons. The winner from each class was then automatically entered for the final. The final saw 28 of our top spellers battle it out for the top prize of a £50 voucher and the title of ‘Goffs Spelling Bee Champion 2019’. A range of extremely challenging spellings were selected and delivered to the finalists by Ms Hawkridge and after a number of tense knockout rounds, our winner was Caitlin O’Brien and our runners up: Mollie Wright-Rancine, John Mamo, Lakshya Chowdhary.

Well done to all of the participants and congratulations to our winners!

“What day is today? Wednesday 4th December – nothing special right? Well it’s going to be…” Meryem Tutuman, 2019.

She was right. On Wednesday, 4th December 2019, eight schools from the Hertfordshire borough met to present their arguments in the annual Mayoral Debate. The students at Goffs Academy were assigned the task to argue that Broxbourne’s greenbelt should be used for development (namely, the increase in housing, retail and entertainment). Last year we lost our winning place to St Mary’s High School, and so our (notably all female) team turned up to the evening with copious amounts of determination, passion and more sass than has probably ever been witnessed in the Broxbourne Council Chambers. They were in it to win it.

And win it they did.

Meryem Tutuman, Livvie Simson, Aleksandra Kolenda, Elliese Brown, Rowan Wilkinson and Josie Lewis made up our winning team. Elliese’s creativity and determination, Meryem’s confidence and passion, Livvie’s eloquent expression, Rowan’s attitude and Aleksandra’s tough talking made up a truly emotive and powerful speech. Special mention must also be made to Josie (who stood in for Elliese who unfortunately lost her voice to laryngitis the week of the final) and, with only 24 hours to prepare, gave an excellent performance on the night. A final mention should also be made to Miss King who gave up much of her time to help out with rehearsals and coach the girls on their delivery.

The night of the event, Miss King and I made our way to the back of the chamber (it was Goffs Academy’s turn to deliver) and, after a truly excellent delivery by Goffs-Churchgate, we were, to say the least, a little nervous. However, our students spoke with confidence and passion, essentially telling off the Mayor (and anyone on the opposition), and were crowned the overall winners. It is finally worth noting that despite all the sass, attitude and passion, the best thing about their public speaking is that it was clear to see just how much each member of the team were enjoying themselves – and, personally, I have never been more proud.

Here’s to a year of glory!

Eleanor Wakeling

Joint Head of Literacy

Over this half term, we hosted two more in our series of ‘Super Speakers’ lectures. In October, Ms Hawkridge, teacher of English, delivered her talk on the best methods of presenting a speech or talk using PowerPoint. The students really enjoyed her engaging presentation with one Year 7 commenting, ‘I didn’t know if this would be for me, but I’m so pleased I went – I’ve learnt so much!’

Our final lecture of the term was hosted by Trevor Savidge, a mechanical engineer from Imperial College London who worked at CERN, Switzerland. He delivered his lecture on his role in constructing the Large Hadron Collider, and then hosted a small seminar for Sixth Form students to demonstrate the software. We were extremely pleased to host a speaker working in such a fascinating field, and student feedback was excellent.

Year 12 Art students have been exploring clay in recent weeks. We began by drawing a piece of scrunched up paper from direct observation, in charcoal and white chalk. Students took up the challenge of working on A1 paper.

Following on from this, we extracted shapes and imagined these as sculptural forms. We then realised them in paper sculptural form, to create organic and fluid pieces. All of our students have now nearly completed their clay pieces based on these paper sculptures. These will be fired in our kiln in the New Year.

On December 17th, we will be visiting Grayson Perry’s exhibition ‘Super Rich Interior Decoration’ in London, to gather inspiration for the surface decoration of our sculptures, specifically focusing on the context behind his pieces.

Tiff Brown

Head of Art

On Tuesday, 19th November, a small group of students from Year 8 went to London to take part in the Amazon Web Service Boot Camp. These students are involved in a competition run by Amazon Web Service called 'AWS Get IT', which is an initiative set up to get more students into IT by encouraging them to develop an idea for an app, during their lunchtime club, that will address a community issue.

We travelled into by train and London Underground, which was a good experience for some of the students who do not travel very often on public transport. The students found the area around the venue fascinating as they saw many artistic works, which some may call graffiti, as well as the towering city buildings.

Once we reached the venue, we were met by an Amazon representative, who gave us a short tour of the floor we were going to be on. The representative showed us some doors painted by local artists, which looked amazing and colourful. We joined 19 other schools also taking part in this competition for an introduction. We were shown a video on how having followers is very important to help to spread ideas - like Greta Thunberg who started the climate change campaigns.

There were many sessions throughout the day. One of the sessions involved looking at how to plan out the app development. We had to write down our ideas and explain how it would help the target audience. The walls were all whiteboards, so it was interesting scribbling our ideas literally on the wall! We created storyboards to show how our app would work.

The last part of the day involved us working again with other schools to create a presentation, where each person had to say something in front of everybody in the room about what they have learnt from the day. We left Amazon head office feeling motivated and enthusiastic about designing our app now that we had a better understanding of the stages in its development.

Year 8 Computing Students

On Thursday 28th November, 45 GCSE Drama pupils were taken to the Fortune Theatre to see a production of the terrifying 'Woman In Black'. As part of their GCSE written exam, the pupils are required to write about a piece of live theatre they have seen; with such a clear style and genre, this performance seemed perfect and was voted for by the Year 11 cohort.

Excitedly, we left school just before lunch and headed to London and the theatre. Since it was a matinee, we had secured great seats in the stalls. This afforded us a much better theatrical experience as we were directly next to the 'Woman In Black' as she walked down the aisle seats before leaping horrifyingly onto the stage.

Students (and some staff) had many jumps and some small screams, and overall the performance was a success. Year 11 students are now working through mock questions in preparation for their summer exam.

Clare Holland

Head of Drama

This term, the English department have had numerous theatre workshops and experiences on offer for Goffs students to develop their appreciation of their set English Literature texts. Our array of trips commenced with a visit for Year 10 and 11 students to the Towngate Theatre for a showing of and director’s workshop on ‘A Christmas Carol’ - and there was not a ‘Bah Humbug’ in sight! This trip proved to be a fantastic afternoon of discussion and performance, improving students’ knowledge of the plot, helping them with retaining quotations and allowing for a fun-filled, festive afternoon with friends and their English teachers.

Dickens’ most famous Christmas ghost story has been inspiring the world for 175 years. The Globe Players (theatre company) will be bringing Dickens’ tale to life on 19th December. This unique adaptation of Dickens’ classic novella will enable students to have a clearer understanding of the character and characterisation of Ebenezer Scrooge and the three ghosts. Additionally, this performance will be interspersed with lively narration giving context and insight into Dickens’ masterpiece.

Ephie Petrou

Head of English

The Sports Academy students have made an excellent contribution to our extra-curricular opportunities so far this term. All leaders have been volunteering at clubs and hosting House competitions, demonstrating the leadership skills they have learnt so far. In particular, Lucy Bester, Zoe Townley, Ivy Wright, Dylan Gray and Tommy Harris have been committed students to their sport teams, being fantastic role models.

The U14 Girls football team have made it to the County quarter finals. The team are striving to succeed and improve on their success from last year.

On the 14th November, the Year 9 team were crowned winners of the District 6-a-side tournament. Many of the goals were scored by Chloe Ions, with a clean sheet for the goalkeeper Josie Lewis. It was a well-deserved win and great team effort throughout.

On Monday 25th November, the U14 and U16 Girls took part in the Herts Girls Futsal finals. The teams were successful in achieving a place at the finals. The final provided an excellent opportunity for the girls to take part against different schools from the County and play against new teams. Both teams were hugely successful throughout the day, with many games scoring double figures. Both teams won their group stages and made it into the finals. Unfortunately, both teams lost. However, they came second overall which is an amazing achievement.

County Cup

The Year 7 boys football team have had an excellent start to their County Cup campaign by reaching the quarter finals, which will be held just before breaking up for Christmas at Goffs. The team have performed exceptionally well so far, beating a very strong St Clement Danes team 4-2 in the third round, who were seen as favourites to progress in the competition. This competition has seen some fantastic defensive displays from Reece Aslett and Max Dedman, and also a master-class in midfield from the skipper Tommy Woodward.

District

Although we have only played one district game, it resulted in a 12-1 win away to Sele School. Goals came from Josh Warmerdam, Lenny Brown, Billy Hickman and Reece Aslett. Even though the game was very one sided, I would like to applaud Sele with their attitude and determination to never give up, and also the sportsmanship that the boys showed at the end of the game.

Furthermore, the Year 7 boys last week were entered into the district 6-a-side tournament at Haileybury-Turnford. Seven schools entered, which gave the Goffs boys a chance to demonstrate their intricate football and technical ability that they have shown in a full-sided game. The tournament resulted in Goffs not losing a single game, which just goes to show all of the hard work that they have put in, in training and competitive games, did not go amiss! Subsequently, Goffs won the tournament, which has boosted the squad’s confidence for the next round of the County Cup.

I would personally like to thank all of the parents for all the hard work, support and positive comments given to the team over the last couple of months. It really has been a pleasure to manage them!

Jude Bell

Teacher of P.E.

National Cup

The Year 8 boys football team made a huge improvement this year by reaching the 4th round of the national cup competition. Throughout the competition the boys developed upon their skills by beating teams who they had previously lost to. For example, they beat Monks Walk 4-1 in the first round with a MOM performance from Nathan Smith. Later in the competition we had a 3 hour round trip to Kempston in which the boys narrowly missed out, the final score being 2-1.

County Cup

The County Cup competition has also been a huge success so far as the team have reached the quarter finals, where they will play title favourite Beaumont just before the Christmas break. It really has been a joy to coach these boys. They are continuing to grow and develop as a team, showing excellent resilience and determination to win games. The team have played some excellent schools so far. The 3rd round was an absolute cracker, with Freddie Norman saving the last penalty kick of the game to send Goffs through to the quarters! Credit to Longdean School who gave absolutely everything on the day and showed excellent sportsmanship by congratulating Goffs immediately on the win, which could have gone either way.

As it has been an exciting but tiring season so far for the Year 8s, I would personally like to thank all of the parents for being so supportive and going that extra mile to ensure all of the boys are prepared on each game day!

Jude Bell

Teacher of P.E.

Once again it’s been a brilliant start to the football season for Year 9 football, with both the first and second team performing excellently in all competitions. We have had more fixtures than normal at this time of the year due to the fact that both teams are doing so well in the County and National competitions and both teams are going into the Christmas break full of confidence and in fine form.

National Cup

The first XI have picked up from where they left off last season, playing exciting football alongside a grit and determination to exceed their expectations from last year. The boys were awarded a bye in the first round due to their excellent run in the previous year and started off their National Cup campaign at home to Kingsford Community School in the 2nd round where they were comfortable 3-0 winners, which saw Anwar convert from the penalty spot and inform striker Lemachi net a brace which saw Goffs win comfortably.

The 3rd round draw saw Mr Spaul’s side travel to Fullbrook school in Woking which was always going to be a tough test from the start, as the boys had to play on a smaller key stage 3 pitch which didn’t play to our strength at all. The game was scrappy from the off, and saw the boys go 1-0 down at half time. After a stern half time team talk from Mr Spaul, the boys were much better in the second half and took on board specific instructions which allowed Goffs to play much better football. Time was running out for Goffs and, with 7 minutes to go Zain launched a long throw into the box which was cleared onto the edge of box, which found Anwar who set himself perfectly to hit a half volley into the top right hand corner. 1-1. The boys were piling on the pressure and some excellent work from Riley in central midfield released Ediz down the right hand side, who struck the ball sweetly from 20 yards into the top left hand corner. Two pieces of quality saw Goffs progress into the 3rd round of the National cup and a happy journey home.

The 4th round was a home tie against Latymer School which saw another hard test, but once again the boys stepped up to the challenge and played some patient football, until a great pass from Hayden set Lemachi on his way to calmly put the ball into the corner of the net. 1-0 HT. It was Lemachi once again with a fantastic solo goal who put Goffs into a commanding lead. However, Latymer pulled a late goal back in the final few minutes to make it a nervy end for Goffs, but the boys held on for the win and progressed into the 5th round.

Onto the 5th round, where Goffs faced another away trip to St Bonaventure’s in central London. National cup fixtures are always tough games, but when you get deeper into the competition you can really tell the difference in opposition. The conditions were tough to play our expansive football in and it was a very nervy start to the game. The opposition were a physical team, but the boys battled well to match their physicality throughout the game and showed great desire to not be bullied by the opposing team. The game was very scrappy throughout with minimal chances for both teams. Both teams hit the post and each keeper made a couple of easy saves, and the game fizzled out to a 0-0 draw. The game then went into extra time with both teams lacking quality in the final thirds of the pitch, which saw the game go to penalties after extra time. Five boys volunteered to step up and take a penalty, which saw Reef, Joby, Ediz, Reece and Anwar (three defenders by the way) have the courage to try and keep their cool for the long walk the penalty spot. St Bonaventure’s stepped up first to make it 1-0, but, shortly after, Reef calmly placed the ball into the bottom left hand corner. The second penalty taker for St Bons, put his kick wide with Joby stepping up to make it 2-1 Goffs. Nick then made an excellent stop down to his right hand side to allow Ediz to increase the lead to 3-1. Nick “the cat” then made another great stop to his bottom left to allow Goffs to progress into the 6th round for the 2nd time in three years, which is a huge achievement.

The Second X1 started their National Cup campaign with a 1st round away trip to Monks Walk. This is the first year we have had two teams entered into a National competition which shows how strong our Year 9 cohort is. The boys were excited about the prospect of their first game within the competition and they didn’t disappoint, with an excellent 10-0 win with starring performances from the likes of Diego and Reece.

Goffs were drawn at home in the second round to St Challoner’s Grammar School which was a good opportunity for some of the first team and parents to come and support the boys. The boys' initial pace was a bit slow, with some early nerves, but they started to play the Goffs way with some fast, exciting football going forward, which led to the boys putting on a excellent display, running out 5-2 winners, with Ben as the star performer with a second half hatrick.

Onto the third round which saw us face a long trip to Hampton to play a private independent all boys school, and with the boys thinking we had turned up at Hogwarts, we started our 3rd round tie. The boys were brilliant in the first 20 minutes of the game, with two excellent goals from Ben once again and some great link up play from Henry down the left hand side. However, some poor defending in the last 5 minutes of the first half saw the boys go into half time at 2-2. The second half was very scrappy with both teams feeling the nerves, but 10 minutes before the end of the game, Ben popped up with a fantastic strike into the bottom left hand corner to relieve some pressure. Right at the death, Reece made sure the game was put out of sight with an excellent half volley inside the box. 4-2 full time score. It made the 3 and a half hour journey home slightly bearable. The boys are now waiting for the 4th round draw to be made to see who we face next.

County Cup

The first X1 have had another great run in the county cup so far this season. With a bye in the first round we then had the opportunity to progress into the 3rd round, with a win against Bushey Mead, where we ended up comfortable winners with some great creative football. 9-3 FT.

The third round saw a local derby emerge against a big rival within the area - Chancellors. The boys dominated the first half with lots of possession, but couldn’t break down the defensive unit of Chancellors (they must have been spying on our training sessions). Eventually we broke the deadlock with a great passing move, which saw Lemachi once again score another fabulous goal. The second half became very scrappy and very feisty, with both teams determined to win the game, Chancellors scored from a set piece which levelled the game up. However, once again this team doesn’t give up, they keep going, and our star striker popped up with the winner after an excellent ball through from Kaya. 2-1 FT.

The quarter final saw Goffs play Parmiters, another school which we have always had good competitive football matches against down the years, and this one was no different. In hard conditions with the pitch very bumpy and the wind swirling, the boys conceded a very early goal within 3 minutes, which was a wake-up call. Once the boys had settled down, they started to find their rhythm, and with a great forward ball, Mason put his striking partner Lemachi in to equalise for the blues. The rest of the game was then dominated by Goffs, with 2 more excellently taken goals from Lemachi to put Goffs in touching distance of the semi-finals. A late Parmiters goal saw the game end 3-2 to Goffs and into the semi-final for the third year running!

I would like to once again thank the parents for their constant support in allowing the boys to participate within the football team,. It has been a crazy term with lots of fixtures being played and some very long away journeys. I look forward to hearing how the boys get on in the second part of the season with a lot of exciting football still to be played, with a County cup semi-final and a sixth round tie in the National Cup, which the boys fully deserve. I wish the boys all the best of luck in the second part of the season, and am extremely proud of what they have accomplished already this year; they are a credit to themselves and the school.

See you in September!

Ben Spaul

Teacher of P.E.

When I first started at Goffs, Rugby was not one of our major sports. Fixtures were non-existent, and there were few opportunities for students to develop their skills. However, the state of Goffs Rugby is now certainly on the rise!

I would like to say a huge thank you to Mr McKay and Mr Lewis who have really driven Rugby this year with engaging training sessions and aiding the students with their understanding of the game.

Richard Ashdown

Head of P.E.

Year 7 Boys Rugby

Our Year 7 students competed in their first festival at Cheshunt RFC on the 7th November, and had their first tournament on Friday 22nd November at Hertford RFC, with a full 12 a side game on the cards against St Georges. Things really are moving forward for our young stars, many of whom had never played before.

Year 8 Boys Rugby

Our Year 8s have had two festivals so far and played exceptionally well in both. The spirit they show as a team is fantastic and it is great to see some students from last year really progressing and improving on their tackling and rucking. Their first tournament took place on Friday 6th December at Hertford RFC. The numbers are growing and we are extremely close to fielding a full 13 a side game against other schools.

Year 9 Boys Rugby

Our Year 9 team have also competed in two festivals, and although the numbers haven’t been as high, they are still improving leading to 10 students being selected for the festival on Thursday 21st November. The previous festival saw our boys win all of their games, which was a fantastic achievement considering some boys do not play outside of school.

Year 10 Boys Rugby

Our Year 10 boys have had one festival so far, but it has generated plenty of enjoyment and led to one Goffs student joining Cheshunt RFC which is brilliant for our link. Ben, pictured posing below, even scored his first try for Cheshunt RFC by his third game.

Netball this year has got off to a positive start with over 50 girls attending netball club. We are really pleased with the number of Year 7 girls who have attended, and we have enough numbers for our 3 new teams: Panthers, Jaguars and Cheetahs. All teams have made an excellent, determined start at training and have demonstrated excellent team spirit, which reflects the focus on sportsmanship within Year 7 P.E. lessons this year.

So far, the Year 7 Panthers and Jaguars have only played against Chauncy. The Panthers worked hard and well as a team, considering it was their first game and they narrowly lost 11-7. Even though they lost, the team showed great potential and are excited for their upcoming games. The Jaguars team won 4-0 against Chauncy and, for their first game, they have already established a team connection; their encouragement towards each other was outstanding.

Players nominated for players' player and coaches' player were:

Leila Abid, Jessica Taylor, Emily Edgecombe and Hannah Danso.

Lynsey Hague

2nd I/C of P.E.

I really enjoy netball at school, especially as captain, because I feel responsible for the team. Training is always fun and enjoyable and we always have a laugh, but we are also always learning something new. During matches, we work as a team and fight our way to victory. So far this season, we are unbeaten. Our winning streak is the result of hard work and working as a team.

Goffs Vs Simon Balle = 13-13

Goffs Vs Chauncy = 17-10

Goffs Vs Presdales = 18-17

We hope to continue with this excellent start and look forward to the many fun but challenging games ahead.

As the days get shorter and winter approaches, our wonderful cadets have spent the Autumn term gaining a whole host of new skills and are preparing for a range of exciting activities to come in the new year. The dedication of the senior cadets is always to be expected, as cadets who have been through the routine before. However, their care and attentiveness to our new cohort of students is wonderful to see. Guiding our new cadets is not just the role of the supervising staff (2nd Lt Scripps and UAO Gill), but also that of the senior cadets looking for coveted promotions.

Our new Year 9s have settled in extremely well, shining during cold parades, first aid training, camouflage methods, setting up a basha and of course during method of instruction for rifle training. Our cadets have been demonstrating how our ethos of cooperation and excellence has made us a CCF contingent that enjoys the discipline and high skill level that it takes to be at our best.

Our cadets have of course been supported most ably by our contingent staff at St Edmunds, and our seniors and staff were treated to a most excellent dinner in honour of the work done in the contingent. This was new territory for many of us and waiting for the top table to be seated, no rising from the table during dinner for any reason and not being able to take a bite of the sumptuous food until the top table began eating, led to a most entertaining of evenings. The food was delicious and the mix of staff and senior cadets led to some very engaging conversation. Attendance by Goffs Principal Mark Ellis and Assistant Principal Sophie Enstone, meant that the cadets had all the more reason to shine. A good time was had by all!

Of course the students have been moving forward with their cadet training but in addition, our staff this year have been improving their qualifications, with UAO Gill completing his OPC and gaining his weapons handling training, passing both on a weekend of training. 2nd Lt Scripps has now begun to deliver sessions for the CCF solo, a great privilege and a testament to the amount of hard work that has gone into her training and attendance at a range of courses.

We look forward to our spring and summer activities, which will include a range of adventurous trips and activities, including for our new cadets, their first range day and of course the famous Summer Camp where cadets get to demonstrate how far they have moved in their training, and attempt to earn that most coveted of rewards, their beret and cap badge.

Richard Gill

Combined CADET Force Supervisor

School Charity
At the start of this half term, Karen Olden and Josh Rands, from the CLIC Sargent charity, came in to talk to the students about the charity and how our donations will support them this year. By the end of the Autumn term, we will have donated almost £4,000 to them! Karen, the fundraising manager for Hertfordshire, explained to the students that research shows parents spend an average of £600 more every month when their child has cancer. Examples of these costs are travel for treatment, hotels and extra heating costs at home. It soon adds up, causing further anxiety and worry for families. The money we raise this academic year will support CLIC Sargent in giving various grants, right from the moment of diagnosis, to help young people and families cope financially.

Hygiene Bank Collection

Towards the end of this half term the house team have co-ordinated a Hygiene Bank collection, where students kindly donated hygiene items for the Hygiene Bank charity that collects for people living in poverty. The generosity of our students was overwhelming, with students bringing in over 3229 items over the collection period. The charity has expressed how grateful they are for our successful collection and the difference it will make to the lives of so many over this festive period.

The winning tutor groups collecting the most amount of items in their year groups are 7U,8A,9I,10Y,11Y,12I and13E. Well done to these tutor groups for making such a difference in our charity collection. The House donating the most items collectively is Phoenix House

winning the 50,000 House point prize!

A special thank you must go to Ridhi Makwana and her family for their generous donation of over 1800 items. The House team were overwhelmed with your contribution which accounts for over half of the final total!

Candy Cane Event

On the last week of term, students had the opportunity to buy and send candy canes to their peers. The event spread immense amounts of festive cheer around the school and students were very excited when our Sixth Form House team hand delivered the candy canes and messages to their classes on the last day of term! All the proceeds went to our school charity, CLIC Sargent.

Keep your eyes peeled for more House events and exciting competitions coming up in the New Year!

Ellie Myers

Director of the House System

On the 17th December 2019, we hosted our annual party for local senior citizens. Astonishingly, we had over 80 attendees from a range of local care homes. Upon arrival, our guests were welcomed by a variety of students and teachers. As everybody was settling down and getting into their seats, Alfie Dewson and Mitch Massiah played the piano beautifully. Once settled, we had a few people lined up as entertainment. First we had the incredibly talented Carlos Cabriga play “Don’t stop me now” on the piano, followed by the guitarist Daniel Janeway and a variety of amazing solo singers, including Sharon Hood, Elliese Brown, Lara Wollington and Ellie Orton. We also had three bands play. The first one consisted of Sharon Hood (singer), Soraya Carletto (drummer) and Michaella Boakye (singer); the second band consisted of Aleks Kolenda, Soraya Carletto, Wictor Kolenda and Tommy Wrate. Our third and final band, ‘Generation 3’, made up of Owen Marshall, Jack Ellery, Nathan Doody, Freddie Wright and Emre Hasakeleden, closed the night.

After some entertainment, we treated our wonderful visitors to a delicious Christmas dinner, which was beautifully cooked by Chartwells and consisted of turkey, roast potatoes, brussel sprouts, stuffing, gravy and much more! For pudding, we served mince pies to each table, as well as some cake and custard. During their meals, our guests popped their Christmas crackers and had a lovely time.

After dinner, we gave out bingo cards and pens to everybody, and Georgie and I called out the numbers for 1 and 2 lines. We had three lucky winners, who won a bottle of prosecco each. We then moved on to our raffle, where we had a large variety of lovely prizes supplied by The Navigation Inn and Tesco.

After this, we served out tea and coffee to everyone and had the band Generation 3 play Christmas songs, as students, staff members and senior citizens danced. It was a wonderful night, and at around 7:30pm, we saw our guests out and wished them a wonderful Christmas. Each one of them received a handwritten Christmas card (written by the Student Parliament) and some gingerbread men (baked by our technology technicians).

Overall, the staff, students and senior citizens had a lovely evening filled with laughs, fun and lots of dancing. A comment from one of the guests really touched me: “This shows that young people with a bad reputation these days are just a small percentage. Your students are lovely”.

Lucia Angelides

Year 12 Head of House

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: goffs.herts.sch.uk
Location: Goffs Academy, Goff's Lane, Cheshunt, Waltham Cross, UK
Phone: 01992424200