Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Their Finest Creative Media trip

  Fri 29 Dec 2017

  On Tuesday 21st November both year 12 and 13 Creative Media students took a trip to the cinema for the ‘Into Film Festival’.

  We went to see the film ‘Their Finest’ at Maidstone cinema. The trip was free and gave pupils a chance to analyse a war time film depicting the creation of media but in a different era. The film wasn’t necessarily a first choice for our students to go and see, which made it all the more exciting as no one had watched it before! The film, set in the 1940’s, highlighted how gender roles were different and how a young female writer immersed herself in the creation of a film to try and boost morale among the people of England.

   

  Our pupils demonstrated exemplary behavior, were able to critique the film in terms of how it delivered a purposeful and effective production while also suggesting how they felt the film could been improved.

  Although our year 13’s have already had a taste of film making, it was a pleasure to watch them analyse how the film was structured with the experience from an earlier work unit. For our year 12’s, their film production journey is just beginning and we are sure they’ll have lots of creative idea to think about.

  Miss Newman – ICT

  

• Children in Need

  Fri 15 Dec 2017

  Children in Need night was an evening to remember!

  The 17^th November marked Stocky’s annual evening to raise money for Children in Need, and this year the Prefect team pulled out all the stops to put on a murder mystery night.

  The decided plot was ‘Who Killed the Headmaster?’ where a star studded cast, comprised of Mr Williams, Mrs Broadhurst, Mr Doig and Miss McNamee, as well as some fantastic prefects, acted out the story and the audience worked hard to piece together clues to work out who was the murderer and the accomplice! On the night, there was a full production with a tuck shop and a raffle with amazing prizes ranging from Pandora jewellery to cookbooks! Not only was the murder mystery night a huge success, the prefects also ran a cake sale in the morning and all students were encouraged to wear spots.

  We are proud to announce that the total raised for Children in Need was £1421.63. Miss Lockett said ‘I wish to thank everyone who supported the fund-raising, whether it was by attending or even starring in the Murder Mystery evening, donating money or gifts or contributing to the cake-sale.’

  Overall, a great success and for a fantastic cause!

   

  By Katie Daly

• Kent Fire and Rescue Service – Y8, Y10 & Y11

  Thu 14 Dec 2017

  On Tuesday 21^st November, Firefighter Dan Morley from Kent Fire and Rescue Service came in to present to Y11, Y10 and Y8 students.

  For Year 11, the focus of the talk was awareness to road safety and, in particular, being a good passenger. This conveniently coincided with Road Safety week where students have been looking at road safety in their citizenship tasks throughout the school.

  Students were fully engaged throughout and in particular emotions rose high at the concluding video where sadly a car collision caused a new mother to lose her life on her way to bring her new born baby home from the hospital. Year 10 and Year 8 had a different focus whereby Dan explained a series of cases he has been involved in with young people committing arson attacks. Dan provided anecdotes from the local area which seemed to really drive the message home to our students.

  Overall, KFRS delivered a very emotional but important message for our students and I am sure they will take on board his words of advice.

  

• ADAD Theatre Company – Y10 – Relationships

  Wed 13 Dec 2017

  On Wednesday 15^th November, TheatreADAD came in to perform a play and run workshops with year 10 students on the topic of relationships.

  Throughout the morning, students looked at what should be included in a healthy relationship and how this may differ to abusive relationships. Furthermore, students also investigated the double standards of society – when men can get away with some things and women can get away with others.

  Students really enjoyed the performance which featured the story of four 15 year olds embarking on new relationships. The morning was a great success with both staff and students commenting on how interesting they found the content.

   

  More information for the ADAD Theatre company can be found at: https://www.theatreadad.co.uk/

  

• PiXL Conference Guest Speaker

  Tue 12 Dec 2017

  Jon Malone, Vice Principal at St Simon Stock Catholic School, recently presented from the main stage of the Central Hall, Westminster (pictured), to an audience of History teachers and leaders from across the country. Jon’s presentation in this national conference was about how he and his colleagues in the History department at St Simon Stock use new technologies in their History teaching, such as Prezi, which is an alternative to PowerPoint, and on-line quizzing. Jon also has his own You Tube channel, to which he uploads video-casts, in which he walks-and-talks students through his modelled A Level and GCSE answers. The channel (J Malone) currently has nearly 40,000 views, with more than 200 subscribers.

  PiXL (Partners in Excellence) is a national organisation, which many KCSP schools belong to, which facilitates the sharing of excellent practice between member schools. The excellent History results at St Simon Stock have attracted the interest of PiXL, for whom Jon supports as a ‘PiXL History Associate’. For the last two years more than 40% of GCSE students have achieved the highest grades of A* and A, and at Advanced Level in 2017 the results were graded by ALPS (the A Level Performance System) as Grade One, which place the school’s value-added in the top 1% of schools nationally.

  

• License 2 Kill? Year 12

  Tue 12 Dec 2017

  Before the event: A group of our sixth form students, plus the mayors of Tonbridge and Maidstone

  On the 8th November Year 12 visited the annual License 2 Kill event.

  Each year, all schools in the district are invited for a very special presentation about road safety for new drivers. As year 12 begin their own driving lessons, it’s important that they understand the responsibility they have when getting behind the wheel. They don’t have to necessarily be a bad driver, but lack of experience causes injuries and deaths each year in Kent.

  A reconstructed short-film (filmed in Maidstone) shows the different emergency services that are involved with any sort of road collision, with speakers on stage to talk about their roles and experiences – from the police first on scene, to counsellors who support many years later. There are also brave speakers from the victims of serious accidents, family members who have lost loved ones and those who have been prosecuted for dangerous driving, some of whom are serving sentences.

  This year was a special year for the License 2 Kill team, which the school has now run for 10 years. VIP’s of the community were invited including the Mayors of both Maidstone and Tonbridge (see image above).

  

• The S Factor

  Tue 12 Dec 2017

  Once again, the Performance Studies team has organised a Dance and Music S Factor.  This was open to students in Years 7 – 10.

  We had a great variety of acts, displaying different dance styles and music.  As a result of the auditions, the following students were selected to perform at the final:

  • Ben Hart, Harrison Holmes, Lillie Howsam, Natalia Sharp Martin, and Emily McCarthy from yr 7
  • Katherine Gore, Royna Gurung, and Natalie Valete from yr 9
  • Ellie Wilcox, Alicia Stacey, from yr 10

  In front of an audience of two hundred students, the performances went so well with everyone responding positively to the occasion.

  Ms Jodie Moorby, who has offered dance workshops on enrichment days, was the adjudicator.  She had a difficult job selecting the winners but she decided to award two first places: Royna Gurung (who “blew her away with her singing”) accompanied by her friend Natalie Valete and Natalia Sharp Martin, and Emily McCarthy (who “executed this difficult style of dance brilliantly”).

  Well done to everyone who took part.  I really enjoyed the event and thank you for your support.

  Miss Kingdom

  Subject Leader of Performing Arts

• GCSE Drama and Music Performance Evening

  Thu 07 Dec 2017

  On the Evening of 14^th November, we welcomed the families of the Year 11 GCSE Drama and Music students to the Drama Studio, to enjoy a range of interesting and diverse performances. The Drama students had been working on their Devised Performances since September and this assessment formed part of their GCSE examination. The first group had devised a piece based on the Suffragette movement. They used narration, monologues and movement to communicate historical facts and personal responses. Caitlin Pope gave a moving monologue as Emily Wilding Davison, the woman who famously threw herself in front of the King’s horse, during the 1913 Derby and Sam Sebastian gave a rousing speech as the Prime Minister.

  The second piece told the story of Queen Elizabeth I and her relationship with Robert Dudley. Ruby Batchelor, as the Queen, looked back over her life and reflected on her identity as Queen and woman. The group worked extremely well together and created an interesting, thought-provoking and moving drama.

  In total contrast, the third group created an episodic comedy, looking at youth culture through the generations. This all male group gave hilarious performances as hippies, teddy boys, punks, dads and with the help of a couple of wigs and a handbag, they bravely became the mums too.

  Group three created a piece that told the story of the women during World War Two. This group cleverly incorporated the music and dance of the era, to create atmosphere and evoke an historical time. With the use of factual information and personal stories, they managed to emotionally engage the audience and make them reflect.

  The final piece, Creation, featured Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. She looked back over her life, recalling her husband and how she came to write her novel. Alice Daniel gave a mature and believable performance as Mary and the group used lights and music to create an authentic Gothic atmosphere.

  Three GCSE Music students provided musical interludes between the Drama performances.  The three students, Anya Flaherty (piano), Caitlin Pope (singing) and Kemi Whiting (piano) all performed individually and demonstrated very different musical styles.  As part of their exam, they have to perform 3 minutes of music.  This gave them a wonderful opportunity to select their own music and show off their talent to parents and friends.

  It was a really lovely evening.  Well done and thank you, to everyone involved!

  Miss Kingdom and Mrs Reader