Weekly Newsletters

They wish me to make it very clear that high energy drinks such as “Red Bull” “Monster” and other brands, including Tesco own brand, which contain high levels of sugar and caffeine, will be restricted to students under the age of 16. 


They have made a pledge that the attempted purchase of these products will be challenged and age verification required, if the customer looks to be under the age of 25.

The evidence is quite clear that these types of drinks have a very harmful effect on students learning and they will be confiscated if the student attempts to drink them in school. Furthermore, I will be sending out additional guidance on the school’s policy on fizzy drinks and limiting these, due the effect that they have on concentration.  Please see the infographic below which clearly explains the impact of high energy drinks

Year 11 students – eight weeks and counting down

Year 11 students have an examination calendar in their email inbox.  Next week a personalised examination calendar will be provided for them and we will endeavour to ensure that this will go home with their end of spring term report, due out the week beginning 26 March.  On the Year 11 Subject evening, to be held on 20 March, we aim to provide strategies for students to close any gap between their current predicted performance and target grade, but also strategies to cope with revision and potential stress.  I look forward to seeing as many parents as possible at this final progress evening.  If you have not been able to book an appointment with your child’s subject teacher then you can do this by clicking here

Best wishes

Bryan Erwin
Principal

Below is an example of the questions students faced.

A list of 5 positive integers has mean 5, mode 5, median 5 and range 5. How many such lists of 5 positive integers are there?

A 1     B 2     C 3     D 4     E 5 

As the mode of the list is 5, at least two of the integers in the list are 5. The median of the list is 5, so when the list is written in ascending order the third integer is 5. So, since the range of the list is 5, the two possible lists, in ascending order, are or , where and are positive integers and . The mean of the integers is 5, so their sum is , for each possible list. Therefore . So . The positive integer solutions of this Diophantine equation are (1, 8), (2, 6), (3, 4), (4, 2).

Note that neither nor equals 5, so there are exactly two 5s in the list. Of the solutions, neither (1, 8) nor (4, 2) satisfy the condition . x, y, 5, 5, x + 5 x, 5, 5, y, x + 5 x y x ≤ y ≤ x + 5 5 × 5 = 25 x + y + 5 + 5 + x + 5 = 25 2x + y = 10 x y x ≤ y ≤ x + 5 So the only two possible lists are 2, 5, 5, 6, 7 and 3, 4, 5, 5, 8.

Therefore the answer is B

Students who sat the challenge were:

Year 11

Harry Barnes (Gold) best in year, best in school.

Marc Humphrys (Silver)

Jay Davitt (Bronze)

Danny Li (Bronze)

Maxim Grimshaw (Bronze)

Ahmed Dafalla (Bronze) 

Adam Hurl (Bronze) 

Deryn Williams

Roberto Scilli-Cooper

Year 10

Thomas Fox (Gold) - Best in year

Lewis Turnball (Bronze) 

Soraia Santos

Jemma Thompson 

Aimee Robbins

Nathan Williamson

Year 9 

Jalal Zamel (Bronze) best in year

Patrikas Dzirka (Bronze) 

Michael Balasal

Krisha Kukaneswaren

Further congratulations to Harry Barnes and Tom Fox whose result has gained them entry to a further challenge.

Len Donnelly
Second in Mathematics/Numeracy across the curriculum Co-ordinator

Students in middle school tutor groups were offered the opportunity to participate in a competition to help promote digital well-being in school. Students were asked to create a leaflet, poster or banner to explain digital well-being and how students could improve their digital well-being by showing positivity online.  This would be then used as part of the school’s e-safety display

Congratulations go out to the following students who were picked by a group of students and Mr Boothman as the top 3 entries for all of middle school.

• Luca Scialla-Cooper
• Jessica Smith & Emily Keating
• Melody Broomfield & Georgina Harris

Mr Boothman
Computing

Though the event was meant to take place on 1^st March, we had to postpone it until Wednesday and Thursday this week due to the unexpected weather conditions.

Following a very successful event last year when all the students in years 7, 8 and 9 got a free book to take and read in their free time, I approached Waterstones Peterborough to support us in making this possible to happen again. Thanks to their kindness and willingness to support young readers, as a school, we managed once again to get enough copies to give a free book to every student in year 7 and 8. All the students really enjoyed the event and appreciated the opportunity to choose something they would like to read.

The English Faculty hopes they have a lot of fun reading the books provided and find reading to be one of their favourite past times.

Please encourage your child to show you their book and share the reading experience with them.

Mr Charko
English

The BBC has produced a new series called ‘Civilisations’ and one of the presenters is Mary Beard; Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and well-known for her television programmes about ancient Rome.

The ‘Civilisations’ series explores thousands of years of visual culture and this event was an opportunity to attend a panel discussion featuring Professor Beard and the artist Matt Smith, who has curated a new display at the Fitzwilliam.  The discussion covered issues such as the use and significance of the term ‘civilisations’ and the way in which we view and appreciate works of art.  At times, the discussion was controversial- especially on the subject of the destruction of works of art, but also fascinating.  The students enjoyed Mary Beard’s forthright style and gained an interesting perspective on areas of historical debate.

Three members of Dynasty, the Young Enterprise group, were also able to present Professor Beard with a copy of their ‘Raging Romans’ children’s activity book, which has been produced to engage primary school pupils with history.  Professor Beard kindly signed a copy of the book, posed for a photograph and wished the team all the best with their business venture.  Later that evening, Mr Abbott tweeted Mary Beard to thank her for her talk and support of the team.

The next morning there was a further development for Dynasty when Professor Beard tweeted a personal recommendation of the students’ book to her 188,000 Twitter followers.  She tweeted “Great little quiz book produced by students @ks_school as part of young enterprise scheme. The Raging Romans.”  What a superb endorsement and boost to the team’s efforts to promote their range of books.

For more info & on this year’s Young Enterprise team, (and the opportunity to purchase their books!) please see their website http://www.dynasty-ye.co.uk, follow them on Twitter @DynastyYE_AA or follow them on Instagram http://dynasty.ye

Mrs Hackett & Mr Abbott
Head of Faculty: History / Assistant Principal)

Please find attached week 4 of the countdown along with 2 and 3 again in case students didn't check connect or there emails.  I have managed to source some new resources that look at the key topics for the crossover between foundation and higher tier. If students have not already started using the resources now is a perfect time to start. Every week I will be sending out resources students can start using at home called the final countdown, their are only 46 teaching days to the first maths exam on the 24th of May and revising gradually is much more effective. Using the countdown alongside Hegarty and other revision resources will really make the difference to closing the gap on areas students still have issues with. Please find attached the 3 weeks of the new extra questions students can do at home with the support of parents as mark schemes and examiners reports are also attached.  Also attached is a Personal Learning Checklist so students can track what they feel they have mastered and what they need more help on. This can be used alongside Hegarty maths which has video tutorials to help students understand topics. 

If you would like access to more look back at previous weeks on the old resources as these are equally as useful, please feel free to email me personally for advice and more resources to help Year 11s revise at l.donnelly@kscs.org.uk .

Revision guides are also available in school at cost price saving you more than 50% on the RRP. There are 3 books at £2.50 each and an answer book for £1. Please see your class teacher or Mr Hussain or Mr Donnelly if you wish to purchase these. Alternatively you could pay on the schools parent pay system.

Mr Donnelly
Maths

This was to inspire the exam project they are currently undertaking. The work we saw was certainly eye opening and unique. We even had time to explore the other exhibits based on the history of Peterborough and the Cathedral before returning to lessons in the afternoon. It was a very enjoyable morning and will contribute greatly to the students project development.

Mrs Bamber
Head of Faculty, Art and Design

As many may already know, social networks like Facebook have privacy settings. In order to make sure only people who you wish to see your information can – a good idea is to look at the “Privacy Shortcuts” that is available in the menu with a Question Mark. This can help give you advice on how to set up different privacy settings such as who can see your profile, who can message you and how you can stop people from bothering you.

For those who use the messaging app, “WhatsApp” a new feature has been introduced to allow you to ensure that nobody can gain access to your account even if they have managed to gain access to your text messages. You can enable this by opening the “Settings” in WhatsApp, tapping on “Account” and “Two-Step Verification”. From there follow the instructions to enable the PIN on your account!

In addition to this, other social networks offer two-factor authentication modes which sends a code via SMS to your phone before it allows you to access your account. This is very helpful as even the strongest password can be broken – two-factor authentication allows you to have an extra layer of security to ensure nobody can gain access to your account without your permission.

KSCS Digital Leaders

We are keen to continually review the provision we offer at Ken Stimpson in relation to online and internet safety. We would very much appreciate it parents/carers could complete the short survey on the link below:

https://goo.gl/forms/2rkEJuyoXFo1Wy1r1

Thank you.

Mr P Swift
Assistant Principal