Author: Paul Radmore

It has been a week of great sporting events; the start of The Hundred was on Wednesday, the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics is on Friday; but wedged between them was perhaps the greatest sporting contest of all. A true clash of titans, a battle of wills, a contest for victory, glory and bragging rights: the Sixth Form – Staff Rounders match.

The weather was glorious, the atmosphere one of friendly competition, but the desire to win was undoubted and for 40 minutes in the sunshine, in front of an enthusiastic and supportive crowd, the two teams battled it out for supremacy.

Great catches were taken, bases stolen, and reputations forged in the heat of sporting battle. And, when the dust settled, it was the staff who emerged victorious 9 ½ to 7 ½. Nevertheless, as the teams left the field, there was great mutual respect and a keen anticipation of a future rematch.

Sixth Form President Charlie Singh said “What occurred this day on the field can only be described as a battle. Two strong teams fought tooth and nail to win arguably the largest sporting event the UK has ever seen, with fortune (or as we know him, Mr Skelly) ultimately favouring the staff team. Despite this robbery, spirits were high all around – a great end to an unusual year.”

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At this years Devon County Swimming Championships, 9 Churston pupils represented Paignton Swimming Club over 4 weekends in January and February. 
Medallists were Junior Club Captain Nathan Apps with 7 gold, 7 silver and 2 bronze from 17 finals, Junior Club Captain Flo Hadley with 4 gold, 4 silver and 2 bronze from 13 finals, Club Captain Harry Joiner with 1 silver and 2 bronze from 5 finals, Club Captain Isobel Brown with 1 gold from a total of 4 finals, Ed Brown with 1 gold and 1 bronze from 8 finals, Amy Best with 1 bronze from 2 finals and Alice Brown with 1 gold from a total of 3 finals. 
The following swimmers also produced excellent swims including Personal Bests and swims in finals: Finnegan Hadley and Izzy Dover. Many of these swimmers will now be going forward to the South West Regional Championships to be held in Plymouth, in Bristol and at Millfield School during April and May. 

Three teams of Y10s from Churston recently flew to London to take part in NESTA’s Longitude Explorer Prize semi final event.  

The challenge is to create or improve a product, app or service that uses AI technology to make the world a better place.  Based on the premise that we would all like to live in a world where people can live longer, live better, live together, and live greener, and that technology has a positive part to play in this optimistic future.

The event was held at the Olympic Park in East London where the students attended a series of workshops run by industry leading experts.  Topics such as pitching and presenting, robotics, app development, ethical issues, security concerns and the potential of AI were covered in a series of inspiring inputs.

The students have now developed their ideas based on their experiences at the event and have a nervous wait until the end of March when the finalists will be announced.  Churston have had at least one team in every national final so far and their ideas were warmly received by staff from NESTA. The finalists get to pitch their idea at the Dragon’s Den studio in Manchester in July, with the prospect of a £25,000 prize on offer, watch this space!

In July Jaimee Luscombe (10T) attended the British Transplant Games in Newport and represented Bristol Children’s Hospital, Jaimee won a Gold medal in her 3km Cycling Time Trial and Bronze Medals in Ball Throw, Long Jump and Table Tennis. Following her results from last Years Games she has been selected to represent Team GB & NI in the World Transplant Games in Newcastle in August. Jaimee did extremely well winning a Gold Medal in her 5km Time Trial with a time of 14.08 mins in difficult weather conditions, Gold in Long Jump with her longest jump at 3.49m and a Gold Medal in Ball Throw. Congratulations Jaimee!

Tom Nuttall has returned from the World Age Group Underwater Hockey Championships with a Silver Medal!

The U19 GB team played 2 International matches a day for 6 days during the round robin stage of the competition, finishing 2nd in the league table. 

Then onto the knock-out stages and Team GB beat Canada comfortably to go on to face South Africa in the semi-finals. 

The team achieved a significant victory over South Africa. The game finished 5-4 after GB were 2 down at half time and Tom scored the decisive goal with only a minute to spare!

This then led to a final against the favourites New Zealand.  Despite fighting hard, Team GB were unable to beat the New Zealand side who had been dominant throughout the competition and Tom and the rest of the team brought home a Silver medal. 

A phenomenal experience for all competitors and supporters. 

Over the last few months year 8 students Maliha Khan, Nina Keen and India Wyman along with the Art department have been working during lunchtimes on this piece of art to be exhibited in the Paignton Zoo exhibition ‘Making The Right Choices’. This exhibition is about promoting the use of sustainable palm oil. Well done to India, Nina and Maliha for their outstanding commitment and brilliant painting skills and for coming 3rd in the Competition. The canvas will be on display in the indoor picnic area by the education center 22nd-30th August if you would like to see it.

Well done to our year 7 gardening club for producing some fantastic crops. At the beginning of the summer term each form in year 7 was given an empty bed in the school garden. All students filled their area with a variety of wonderful fruit and vegetables, which they then used to cook up some fabulous dishes.

Cooking In The School Canteen

Congratulations to the following students from Year 9D and 9C Food and Nutrition classes for winning ‘ The Food from Around the World Competition’ Rhianna Waller, Millie Feasey, Harry Morey, Isobel Brownen, Scarlett Shaw and Jess Mayoh. These students with the help of our chef Stephen Boxall and his team, had the chance to make their menu on a large scale in the school canteen and serve it to everyone.

This year Emma Hutchins (Yr8) and Hollie Pugh (Yr11) competed in the Dance World Cup Finals again and were delighted to receive a gold medal in the senior song and dance section.

2019 is the international year of the periodic table, celebrating 150 years since the publication of Dmitri Mendeleev’s ground breaking work. To mark the occasion, Cambridge University set a challenge to Year 12 students to decipher the Chemistry of some unusual elements, including indium which is used to manufacture touch screens for computers and smartphones.
Over 9000 of the best Chemistry students from across the UK entered the competition, which proved so difficult that certificates were only awarded to the top 63% of entrants. However, all 6 of our students were successful. Copper awards were achieved by Lenard Hernandez and Costanza Pennaforti. The top quarter of candidates received a silver certificate, including Charley Warren and Tara Fielden. Special congratulations go to Tom Nuttall and Jacob Lynn who were rewarded with gold certificates for being in the top 9% of students. Many congratulations to all the students for their fantastic performance.
Dr Hall