Another Great Year at Westgate in 2017!

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1 Another Great Year at Westgate in 2017! We would like to share just some of the key events and news stories from what has been a fantastic year for our students and staff! Values The Autumn term saw the launch of our Westgate Values which run through everything that we do at school. There are include nine core areas all of which are underpinned by Respect: Kindness, Pride, Resilience, Responsiblility, Honesty, Reflection, Positivity, Reflection and Ambition. We believe that these are all extremely important qualities that will help our students to take their place in society. Each half term we focused on one or two of these areas and through a range of activities ensured that they became a key part of Westgate life. We started with Kindness where a number of students and staff received a kindness and then paid it forward by performing random acts of kindness for others which were then, in turn, also paid forward. Students and staff were able to record instances of when they saw kindness being displayed and wrote these onto our Values Wall for all to see. Kindness was also displayed by the huge response of our students to the Save the Children Shoe Box Appeal in December. We were overwhelmed with both the number and quality of boxes and the kindness displayed by our families in sending some much-needed donations to children in war torn and poor countries. The whole school Resilience challenge saw us facing regular challenges which were posted on our Values Wall and launched in assemblies. Students and staff were given a number of problems to solve which could all be achieved with some determination and effort. Our Ambition challenge in the summer term has involved staff and students setting themselves a six week personal goal. People have committed to achieving their targets and displayed them on the Values Wall for all to see. These have included school based targets, participation in clubs and activities and a large number of sporting goals. Examinations We are very proud of all of our students that have worked so hard this year in order to do their very best in their GCSEs and sixth form courses. Year 11 have been particularly impressive in the level of commitment they have shown and we are looking forward to seeing their results in August. We are hearing superb news of several students having been offered an apprenticeship, of university courses being secured as well as a number of our former students achieving amazing results and rewards at the end of their Degree courses.

2 The School Building If you drive past the school or have visited us recently you will have noticed quite a lot of scaffolding on our site. Some of our buildings date back to when the school first opened in 1958 and are now in much need of some TLC. We have been very fortunate in securing a grant which will enable us to replace the roof on three buildings, including the main hall. This work began in May half term and is due to be completed by September As you may be aware, the school is due to expand from September 2018 with an extra 60 Year 7 students joining us each year. We are very proud that The Westgate School is a community school and we hope that having 240 places in Year 7 will increase the opportunity for all children in Cippenham to attend their local school if they wish to do so. In order to cater for these extra students, we are very excited that building is beginning this week on two brand new teaching blocks. This work is due to be completed by next summer and the photos show an artist s impression of how the school will look once the work is complete. The project will create a brand new double storey multi-purpose hall, a new sixth form work area and common room, three new art rooms, a new media classroom and seven multi-purpose classrooms. We also have a number of other projects taking place over the summer including work on our car park and bike sheds, improvements to the canteen and the creation of a new support area where students can work with our pastoral team. We are also very fortunate that Mars are sending in a team of volunteers to paint our corridors and communal areas which will give them a much needed face lift.

3 Inevitably, with such a big building project going on, there will be some disruption. We have sought to minimise this wherever possible, however, there will some areas of school where access will be reduced during the year and this will include our car park. Therefore, for health and safety reasons, from 1 st September 2017, access to the car park between the hours of 8am and 3.45pm will be restricted to staff and authorised visitors only. As the vast majority of our students live in close proximity to the school, we ask for your support in encouraging them to walk or cycle to school. If they do need to arrive by car then we ask that you find a safe place to drop them off, away from the school entrance and pedestrian crossings as you will not be able to enter the school grounds by car. Business Support Our corporate sponsors have been highly visible throughout the school this past year: Mars has been as supportive as ever with the Creativity Westgate6 entry day in January. Year 7 students were tasked with pitching their ideas for a new healthy lunchbox snack. They learned about product design, packaging and marketing. Clare Moulder and her team wrote and delivered the whole day, which was a great success. Scott Green, (Display Executive) worked with the Year 10 Graphics GCSE students over a period of 6 weeks to design and build product display units for a new variant of the big Mars brands. The students spent two of the sessions over at Mars where they learned all about the regulations and restrictions on branding and displays. In addition, Mars has supported Year 12 Work Experience and we are looking forward to their wonderful painting skills in the summer holidays to refresh our miles of corridors! Telefonica has been a big presence at Westgate this year. As part of the Think Big School, we have attended a wide range of workshops at 02 s HQ, on the Bath Road, and we have been overwhelmed with the support from their team with over 100 volunteers working in school with our students. kindly gave us the opportunity to take anything we wanted from the Unilever building, which backed onto our school, after it closed down, and before it was demolished. Our Science team were beside themselves with all the wonderful items we retrieved on our three visits to the site! The donated equipment has saved us a huge amount of money as well as providing equipment that we would have been unable to purchase ourselves.

4 Creative Arts Our Music and Drama faculties have excelled themselves this year both with the wide range of events and some fantastic successes. The Westgate Chorus won the Maidenhead Secondary Schools Choir competition and has both taken part and been successful in competitions across the South East of England. There have been a number of new music clubs established this year including a Ukulele group, a Samba band, Rock School and African Drumming. There have also been numerous opportunities for students to showcase their talents and get used to performing and we really hope that we will see even more of these in the next academic year. The Samba band collaborated with Western House Primary school by helping to lead a workshop and their Year 6 students performed with Westgate both at their own concert and at our Creative Arts Awards ceremony. February saw the Westgate production of Alice in Wonderland where students from across Key Stage 3 performed with great enthusiasm. Balfour Beatty supported us by building our sets which were then painted by a number of staff under the watchful eye of the Art department. The show itself was a wonderful, uplifting experience with great songs and some real stand out performances. This was the first show for quite some time at Westgate but, thankfully, the Music and Drama departments are already planning the next one which we are all very much looking forward to seeing. We ended a very successful year in these areas with our Creative Arts Awards which allowed us to recognize talent in four key areas of school. The audience were treated to a number of musical and

5 dramatic performances, guest speakers from the world of television and music and some tasty treats designed and produced by our Catering and Hospitality students. Activities Week 2017 With the end of the school year looming, the whole school collapsed its timetable for three days during the week beginning the 10 th July. At a time when many other schools would be winding down, Ms Gray took the lead in organizing the whole event which included two overseas trips, 19 trips in the UK and 26 other school based activities. Students signed up for their chosen favourites after being given a varied menu of trips and activities. The list was extensive and included trips to various museums, the theatre, Belgian battlefields, a Jubilee river walk, Geocaching, mountain biking, Wembley Stadium, Bush craft camping, Gothia (Sweden) International football tournament, a Buddhist temple and Cadbury s World. In school, there were several opportunities including Archery, Lacrosse, Judo, First Aid, Bake-off, Go-Kart making, Special Effects Make-up, Innovation through Technology, the Army, CSI Forensic Science and Survival Skills. Students enjoyed learning new skills and the whole week was an overriding success. Well done Miss Gray! Please copy and paste the link below into your browser to view video and photo gallery: Prom 2017 This year s Year 11 Prom was one of the best we have ever had. Held at The Copthorne Hotel, the students amazed us with their various methods of arrival and looked absolutely fantastic in all their finery. It was a very tough choice, given some of the great outfits on display, but this year s Prom Queen and King were Sumedha Sharma and Harvey Townsend. The students all really enjoyed the night and wowed the staff with their dance moves until late. It has been such an amazing year that it has not been possible to capture everything that has happened in but we hope this gives you a flavour of life at The Westgate School. Thank you to everyone who has been part of our community and we look forward to an equally exciting new academic year!