The Vice Principal’s Blog

Mr Dobson, Ms Langworthy and four 6^th form students Lauren Scoltock, Georgia Stanley, Daniel Rands and Cevdet Karapinar travelled to Swaziland to visit our link schools and see how our Advent Charity appeal money had been spent.

We travelled overnight on the 30 June arriving at Manzini at 3.30pm the following afternoon. We were met by Sizwe Ndlangamandia the Swaziland CharitableTrust field worker. Who ably looked after us for our stay.

Our first venue was St Francis Secondary School where we spent two days. Students stayed with host families and attended school with them, spoke in assembly on both mornings. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves and got on well with all the students.

The photos show them in assembly and in lessons. Assembly is outside and it is winter in Swaziland – which is why Lauren looks cold!

Next up was Hho Hho AME Primary School which is in the north of the country and in a rural area. Following the Bacon’s trip last year we had provided the money for them to build a kitchen to feed their children. We were pleased to see that it had been built and was in use. We were able to paint the inside and outside over the weekend and then ‘see it in action’ on the Monday feeding the 512 children with bean soup.

Before:

During:

After:

We also did a ‘make over’ on the Grade 7 classroom. Our students in year 9 textiles had made bags for each child based on the theme ‘urban London’. These were placed one on each desk and filled with a Swazi pencil, pen, rubber, pencil sharpener, magnifying glass, ruler, balloon, bookmark (designed by Daniel Rands), packet coloured pencils and a Swazi badge.

We had posters to put up on the walls and Mr Dobson painted a typical English scene in the corner of the back wall.

We had visited Redriff Primary school earlier in the year to find out what teaching aids would be most useful to take and we purchased these with some of the appeal money. These were left on the teacher’s desk.

The students and teachers were thrilled with the room and resources.

Mavis Mazibuko (the Headteacher) took the time to explain to all the teachers how to use the resources and even had us copying some of the posters so they could go up in other classrooms!

We found time to play, read and generally enjoy ourselves.

Bacon’s College is delighted to announce that 9 ducklings have hatched in the central atrium garden, all 9 and Mum are doing very well indeed.

The Science department have set up a makeshift pond (paddling pool) and have put the old Science text books to excellent use, acting as steps for the babies to enter and leave their aquatic facility.

Unfortunately when the ducklings become old enough to fly, they will be unable to leave to the garden due to the height of the walls and their aerobatic inexperience. For this reason The Swan Sanctuary http://www.swanuk.org.uk/ in Shepperton will be moving the whole family to a new nesting site in a secret location somewhere suitable once the ducklings are old enough to travel. In the meantime they are quite the attraction for staff, student and visitors who are able to view them clearly from the upper atrium balcony in the yellow wing.

The duck is a regular visitor to Bacon’s and has had several broods in previous years. She has become quite adept at knocking on the office door which leads out to the atrium to ask for her breakfast or mid morning snacks. She is a welcome visitor and we hope to see her or her children again in the future. 

The Hardback Book ‘The Story of Bacon’s College’ is available for £10 from Ann Nuckley.

Cheques should be made payable to ‘Bacon’s College’. 

Bacon’s College, Timber Pond Road, London SE16 6AT

Gadget mad Jason Bradbury!

Four of our Year 7 English classes had a special treat yesterday. Jason Bradbury, the gadget mad presenter of The Gadget Show visited the College to promote his first book, Dot.Robot. It’s about Jackson Farley, a digital genius, who is lured by Dot.com billionaire Devlin Lear to join the top secret defence force MeX to help stop the criminial heist of the century. Are Jackson and the MeX recruits as good as Lear thinks? And how does Jackson know quite who to trust when they can never meet face-to-face? You’ll have to read the book to find out! Copies available in the library!

Jason also talked about what robots are, treated the students to demonstrations of some amazing robots he bought along, and organised a robot race. First, he set up an obstacle course using the students bags, chose 3 students who were then told they had to control one of the robots around the obstacles. The winner was the student who could do it in the fastest time. Deborah Odubade of 7C was the winner and received a free signed copy of Dot.Robot. Well done Deborah.

The winner was the student who could do it in the fastest time. Our Year 7s had a great time and Jason rounded off the visit with a reading from his book and a Question and Answer session.

More information about Jason Bradbury, The Gadget Show and his book Dot.Robot can been found on his website www.jasonbradbury.com <http://www.jasonbradbury.com>

If anyone is interested in buying a copy of Dot.Robot, please come to the library, we have some spare copies at £5.99 each.

As you all know Ryan was under the spotlight as a student profile in the last issue of Xtra time in January. Following two selection weekends Ryan has achieved his dream -he has been asked to join the England (adult) training squad for Blind Cricket. There are 20 in the Squad ranging from 14, Ryan who is 15, up to a totally blind player in his 40s!!  Most are 20-30 though! This squad will train together monthly (he is going again this weekend to Southampton -Sport England pay for Hotels and travel!!). It will be from this squad that the team to play against Pakistan in a test in England later this summer will be chosen. Ryan played cricket in Northampton on Saturday for his adult team and is in Surrey this morning for Surrey junior training. Ryan is being taken out by our PDM Mike Darragh on Wed to help coach in primary schools, and he is playing for the school on Thursday. 

Rest asssured though -his course work is up to date- he was told he is on course to get an A in Business studies course work and he will revise this afternoon for his mock maths paper tomorrow!

So everyone, you CAN be a top class sports person and also look to keep up with your studies!

Well done Ryan, you deserve this success, keep up the hard work in sport and with your studies!

Submitted by Ms Ponulak.

The Bacons College Schools Sports Partnership is now on Facebook. If you are part of this social network then please search for us and join. You will be able to see all the coming events as well as participate in discussions, see photos and videos of events, look at current resources and even book into competitions, festivals etc.

The page will be closely monitored and people will only be able to join once they have been given access by the SSP team.

Please check it out. Search for ‘Bacons Sports Partnership’

Mike Darragh
Partnership Development Manager
Bacons College
School Sports Partnership

On the 23rd and 24th of May our librarian is cycling from London to Amsterdam. The trip is a fundraiser for the Motor Neurone Disease Association which funds research into Motor Neurone Disease and provides assistance to sufferers and their families. The ride is organised by Duncan Bayly who is a 30 year old suffering from Motor Neurone Disease who was diagnosed with the disease 18 months ago. The disease is currently incurable and general prognosis is 18 months to 5 years. It’s a worthy cause and a fantastic and challenging 140 mile ride over 2 days. For anyone interested in the ride have a look at the website www.rideformnd.com and anyone interested in donating can do so online at www.justgiving.co.uk/librariansonbikes .

Bacon’s Apprentice is coming! Check the Work Related Learning blog for details!

http://wiki.baconsctc.co.uk/groups/workrelatedlearning/