Category: Latest News

High School Musical on Stage is a Sell-Out Success!

Once again, Churston pulled out all the stops to present a wonderful performance of High School Musical on Stage. Featuring a cast of over 105 students, a live band and crew, there was about 140 students involved from across all year groups. For some of these students it was their very first chance to ‘tread the boards’ and what a superb opportunity it turned out to be.

Every night was a sell-out success and the students did not disappoint; they succeeded in putting on an accomplished show.

The entire cast sang, danced and acted like professionals, treating the audience to a spectacular display. The Drama and Music Faculty worked tirelessly to make this show as bright and colourful as we have come to expect with magnificent costumes, scenery and special effects. The principal cast was made up of Year 9s, GCSE and A-level students who carried this huge responsibility brilliantly, and with confidence.

Well done to all those who took part, all the staff who have worked relentlessly to support the students and thank you to the audience who came and watched our show!

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The Author’s Apprentice Project

The Author’s Apprentice is an online program that allows school students to work with author Stephen Hunt in producing a novel in real-time. The Author’s Apprentice is a virtual author-in-residence program and a social network with a dedicated purpose: involving and engaging students in the process of creating an original novel across the time period of one year.

Thirty-three Churston Ferrers students from Key Stage 3 have volunteered to be part of this project and there has been much activity on the Author’s Apprentice forum. During the planning stage, readers will vote on such facets of the novel as character names and chapter titles. We are also encouraging ideas and opinions to be shared in school at lunchtime meetings and via Google Classroom. The novel is going to be released in three or four serialised instalments, with voting on future plot developments. A selection of titles will be proposed and again student feedback will be welcomed.

This is an interactive process with each instalment taking on board reader feedback. Towards the end of the process, readers will vote on the final cover design. This is an interesting opportunity for keen writers to offer their thoughts and opinions and understand better how a professional writer undertakes the writing process. It is hoped that at some point in the year Stephen Hunt will have time to visit the school and speak to some of the students involved.

Toby Goatman and Jasper Hopwood Selected for U16 County Rugby Squad

Churston’s Year 11s Toby Goatman and Jasper Hopwood were both selected, after training at Sandy Park, for the Devon B squad playing last weekend against Somerset.

The successful county B team ran in five tries to claim a 29-24 victory over their Somerset counterparts, one of the tries from Toby!

At Churston we are extremely proud of the boys being selected. Dan Greaves, Head or Year 10 and 11 said “In my experience, representation at County level in Rugby is one of the most difficult sports to gain representative honours in as the standard is so high. A fantastic achievement.”

Connor Myers Wins Sailing Sponsorship from Rockfish

Local eatery Rockfish are big supporters of our local sailing and watersports communities, including Churston’s own Year 10, Connor Myers from Brixham Junior Sailing Club.

Connor approached Rockfish with an articulate and impassioned plan asking them to support his aim to represent Team GB at Tokyo 2020. Rockfish described him as “A young man with absolute determination and drive, who has shown great resolve and ingenuity working with very limited resources”. Rockfish wanted to be part of helping him make a success of his bid and have promised to buy him a boat to start on that bid and support him along his way.

You can find out more about Connor’s journey and progress through the Rockfish website, blog and his own Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Connor begin sailing at Brixham Junior Sailing Club at the beginning of 2013. In Brixham he trains twice a week with the club but when he gets his new boat he will be joining The Royal Torquay Yacht Club and will be sailing most days during both the week and weekends. Off the water he enjoys going to the gym, running and tae-kwon-do where he is a black belt.

In the next year he hopes to place well in the European championships and other races to get some competing experience before moving on to the next level, which would be joining the National squad and then the British Sailing team. Ultimately he hopes to be in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Connor said, “I am extremely grateful for Rockfish giving me this opportunity and words aren’t enough to express how I feel and for my family for the sacrifices they are making for me to take me around both the country and the world for both competitions and training. I am really excited about the future, I will work hard, I am fully committed to my sailing, it is something I love. I am looking forward to being part of The Rockfish Red Sailing Team and the Rockfish Family.”

For the full interview go to http://www.therockfish.co.uk/features/rockfish-and-sailing/

Ex-Churston Student, Dan Wolf, Named Devon Young Player of the Year 2016

PAIGNTON batsman Dan Wolf was named Young Player of the Year at the Tolchards Devon Cricket League annual meeting and awards night.

The Bob Bridges Trophy goes to the outstanding youth player in any division of the league over the season. Previous winners have included Chris Read (Paignton) and Mark Lathwell (Braunton), both of whom went on to play for England.

Former Churston Ferrers student Dan won the award for an impressive season with the bat for Paignton in the A Division. He made 590 runs at an average of 45.38 in the promotion-winning side. The only English-qualified batsman to make more runs in the A Division last season was Bradninch captain Gary Chappell – and he was named player of the year!

Wolf – 19 in June – finished the season in Devon’s Minor Counties side. Dan left Churston in July 2016, and is now at the University of Surrey studying Criminology.

Chemistry Success for Churston

A team of Churston Sixth Form students has been awarded 3^rd prize in a prestigious national competition organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry. The Schools’ Analyst competition gave Oliver Biggs, Hannah Nolan and George Bamford the chance to work with state of the art equipment at the Plymouth University laboratories, competing against teams from the whole of the South West.

The 3 team-mates, who had been selected from a strong cohort of A-level Chemistry students, solved complex practical problems using advanced skills practised with their mentor Dr. Chris Hall. The experiments were particularly difficult this year, with a number of teams failing to finish. In fact, the Churston team completed the 4-hour challenge with seconds to spare!

Headteacher, Mr Owers, congratulated the students on their outstanding achievement, commenting that their success reflects the high standard of Chemistry at Churston.

 

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Young Chef Competition Success!

Following an in-house competition Flo Spooner, Adrienne Knight and Grace Robson took part in the Rotary’s Young Chef Competition on Wed the 23rd of Nov at Ivybridge Academy.

They all cooked amazing 3-course meals from scratch, which were presented beautifully and delicious. It was a close call and Flo Spooner came second in the competition so was then invited to represent the school for the second stage ‘District Final’. Also, Grace Robson was only two marks from becoming third in the competition.

The Young Chef District Final took place on Tuesday January 17th at Petroc College, Barnstaple. Unfortunately, Flo didn’t win this time but we look forward to seeing what the future holds for this promising young chef!

 

 

Students Take Part in Music Workshops

The music department have recently held 2 music workshops which were attended by a selection of Year 8 and 9 students:

VOCAL GLOBAL November 2016

This duo including French beatboxer DavidX and singer-songwriter Noga Ritter presented a musical journey around the world from the Caribbean to the Middle-East with vocals and ethnic beat box. In their music they mix influences from both of their origins (the Middle East and French-Caribbean) with other music they love such as African music, Brazilian, Jazz and more…

Students were able to try out beatboxing, mix and loop sounds using music technology and create new pieces of music using their voices in a number of fun and imaginative ways.

PAPER HORSE February 2017

Brothers Zeb and Sam Haynes are Paper Horse, an explosive mix of alternative rock and power pop. Both are accomplished singer-songwriters, with an emphasis on vocal harmony and a range of instrumentation – they bring guitar, bass guitar and djembe as well as making music literally on anything that comes to hand!

Students were involved in a number of activities including rhythm and vocal warm ups. They were also given the opportunity to listen to performances from the duo and join in discussions about songwriting and how to further their own musical interests.

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Students Compete in Cross Country Race at Stover!

On Thursday 10th November we took 6 teams to Stover School where they competed in the South West Cross Country Championships. Despite the bad weather and muddy conditions, there were outstanding performances from all of the teams, especially from our Year 7’s who have never competed in anything like this before!

Well done to all those who took part and especially the individuals who came in the top 15 of their race and have qualified to the Devon Championships in 2017:
Boys – Alex Wilson Year 7 5th
Girls – Ruby Schwinge Year 7 12th, Katie Harman Year 9 14th, Josie Ratcliff Year 8 9th, Astrid Thomas Year 10 5th and Lina Okihara Year 10 11th

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Ocean Radio visits Churston 

On Monday 7th November Ocean Radio held a workshop recording Year 9’s reflections and understandings around bullying, the effects of bullying, peer support mechanisms that might help and ultimately preparing a song composed by the group of Churston students.

Phoebe Preisnell, Ricardo Burt and Jack Thompson, did brilliantly interviewing the Year 9 pathways group on their views on bullying and the process of song writing. The workshop group then took inspiration for lyrics for their recording from the questionnaire sent out to KS3 students about bullying. The song is coming together well and Ocean Radio are returning on 25th November to record the final version. The song will be edited down into a feature to be broadcast and uploaded on Ocean Youth Radio and will also be broadcast as part of a live talk show to take place at Devon Studio School.

We also hope to perform the song and show the presentation in assemblies. This project was funded by the South Devon and Torbay CCG as a way of consulting with young people and raising awareness about self-care for Self-care week which was 14th-18th November.

The live show will go out on the link below:
https://www.spreaker.com/user/parkfieldxtremeradio

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