Golden Book Nominees for February 2018Year 7 Francis Andrews (7T) for improved resilience.

Year 8 Daisy Saunders (8B) and Ana-Beatriz Ponte (8B) for assistance in the library.

Year 9 Esme Morray-Jones (9B), Louisa McPherson (9B), Gemma Tucker (9M) and Christina Green (9T) for helping with our new students and making them feel extremely welcome.

Year 10 Joseph Inman (10F) for consistently high standards of excellence in College.

Year 11 Leonard York (11B) for winning the Frank Martin Award in the Young Musician of the Year competition.

I was delighted to receive a letter from Sue Williamson, Chief Executive SSAT, congratulating us on our excellent examination results in 2017. We were placed among the best performing secondary schools in the country, and have received two awards for being in the top 10% of non-selective schools nationally for attainment and the top 20% for progress, based our students’ best 8 average point scores at key stage 4 data from the Department of Education and Ofsted. We will be presented with our awards in the summer term at a ceremony attended by winners from across the region. Sue Williamson said: “I am delighted that St Augustine’s Catholic College has won two Educational Outcomes Awards. This recognises an important aspect of the school’s work, but, as we know, there is much more to recognise in a good school like St Augustine’s Catholic College. SSAT is pleased to recognise the quality of leadership and the hard work of all staff to ensure the success of every child. A big thank you and well done to pupils, parents, staff and governors.”

Despite the disruption due to the severe weather, the school remained very busy this term with services of reconciliation, Lenten campaigns, visiting students from Hang Zhou China, tag rugby festival, Safer Internet Day, class Masses at St John’s, A Level Economics trip, World Cinema Club, Drama and Dance performances, World Book Day activities, National School Badminton S W Regional Championships in Bournemouth, Young Musician of the Year auditions and Grand Final, Mid Somerset Festival, Women in Engineering event, Young Voice of Trowbridge competition, Duke of Edinburgh events, Samaritans mental health talk to Year 12, Year 10 cancer awareness talk, CyberFest in Manchester, Spanish trip to Malaga, CAFOD Young Leaders’ charity staff dodge-ball match, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde Trip, STEM and DT Big Bang Fair, Performing Arts exam, Battlefields trip, Primary Schools High 5 Netball Festival, Sixth Form The Orchard Tree theatre trip, sixth form CAFOD training, GLOW Youth Group, Year 12 Careers Fair at Birmingham NEC, West Wilts Netball tournament, WSSG Spring Games, Year 11 taster days at Bath University, House assemblies, and our normal offering of sports clubs, fixtures and tournaments. I am, as ever, grateful to all staff and volunteers for enabling the students to access such a breadth of opportunity.

The students have done a great job raising money during Lent to support the CAFOD campaign and have engaged beautifully in all our Lenten activities.

Please keep those students who are sitting public examinations this summer in your prayers. I wish you all a very happy Easter.

Joe AlsopHead Teacher

From the Head Teacher

Term 4 — 2018

OUR ONLINE NEWSLETTER

College News

CongratulationsCongratulations to Ethan Alford (9B) who has been awarded his Taekwondo black belt. Well done.

Silver Medal WinnerCongratulations to Rory Howorth (Yr 11) who won a silver medal at the English National Under 17 men’s combined events championships which were held in Sheffield in March. Rory was also confirmed as the Midlands champion. Rory achieved a total of 4738 points which puts him 6th in the UK All time rankings, 2nd in the current UK rankings.

St Augustine’s National Award for Excellent Results

St Augustine’s Catholic College has been recognised nationally for its excellent results in 2017 based on data from the Department of Education and Ofsted, analysed by SSAT (the Schools, Students and Teachers network). St Augustine’s Catholic College was found to be among the best performing secondary schools in the country, receiving two awards for being in the top 10% of non-selective schools nationally for attainment and the top 20% for progress. Sue Williamson, Chief Executive of SSAT said: “I am delighted that St Augustine’s Catholic College has won two Educational Outcomes Awards. This recognises an important aspect of the school’s work, but, as we know, there is much more to recognise in a good school like St Augustine’s Catholic College. SSAT is pleased to recognise the quality of leadership and the hard work of all staff to ensure the success of every child. A big thank you and well done to pupils, parents, staff and governors.”

Mid-Somerset Festival SuccessLAMDA students from St Augustine’s competed in the Mid-Somerset Festival last week with enormous success.They competed against many other students from different schools in the area and all of our students scored very highly with excellent commentary and recognition from the adjudicators.Year 9 Solo Acting saw Inseo Jung taking 1st place with an ‘Outstanding’. Elizabeth Shirley came second in this competition, with joint third place awarded to Catherine Westley and Gemma Tucker.Harriet Lemay-Lamb took part in a group-devised piece that achieved 1st place.Anabella Fairgrieve came third in the Classic Monologues and returned the following day to pick up 1st place in the Solo Acting Year 11 Competition and the Repertoire Class, as well as the award for Best Senior Actor, not to mention the highest mark awarded in the entire festival!Congratulations to all students who participated and thank you to Lou Cox who tutored all of the entrants.

Sri Lanka Cricket TourCongratulations to Dominic Shearn (10F) who has been selected as part of the playing squad from Wiltshire cricket to go to Sri Lanka on the overseas tour in 2019. The team will play 5 matches: 2 at club or school grounds, 2 at First Class grounds and 1 at an international stadium. The tour also involves helping local children in to improve their cricket skills.

UKMT Maths ChallengeThis term some of our Year 10 students sat the UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge. Congratulations to the following students who achieved either a silver or bronze certificate: Tawana Nhamo, Andrew Hunt, Zackary Llewellyn, Wikoria Wrona, Isaac Wain, Orla Dunne, Thomas Sherborne, Arthur Farthing, Edward Bruce, Dominic Shearn, Yasmin Mahey and Madeleine McMahon.

STEM TripsThere are have been numerous STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Maths) trips in February and March organised by Mrs Bindon, the STEM Co-ordinator. One was on Friday the 23rd of February when 7 Students in Year 10 went to Wiltshire College in Chippenham to learn more about the role women play in the world of engineering. The day began with an inspirational speech from Alessandra Scholl Sternberg, a worker from Siemens, a rail automation and signalling company. After splitting up into different groups the students went around various workshops run by many different engineers including Royal Air Force, Avon Rubber, Zircon Software, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and many more. They did various activities from wiring a helicopter engine to building railways out of straws and making figures out of Lego! A fun, educational day was had by all and it was a chance for students’ to learn, think of the future and build on friendships through team building activities.

CyberFirst Girls Competition 2018Four students from St Augustine’s, Niamh Ward, Charlotte Henley, Rachel Dela Ysla and Grace Dickens reached the grand final of the CyberFirst Girls’ Competition 2018. 4,500 girls from around the UK entered this year’s competition from 399 different schools. The aim of the competition was to encourage more girls to look at careers in Cybersecurity.The competition started with each team of 4 girls aged 12-13 having to complete various different cyber related tasks over the course of a week. These challenges tested their problem solving and technological skills. Only ten teams of girls (the top 1% in the country) made it in to the grand final which was held at Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester. There they faced a wide variety of different cyber security challenges whilst working for a company called B1ink. They needed to track down a cyber-criminal, decrypt the files of a vlogging ransomware victim and find hidden clues in the room for points.Our team of girls worked extremely hard to get to the final. Over the two days in Manchester they impressively

represented the school and were even crowned the “best liars” in the competition after a social experiment was conducted over the first day. Along with their prizes in recognition of their incredible efforts from the day they also were surprised with an invitation to Buckingham Palace for a prize giving from the Duke of York in May. A fantastic experience from our wonderful team of upcoming cyberists!

Book Week Many teachers shared their love of reading with their favourite books with English classes during the shortened, snowy Book Week. Students added their favourite book suggestions to the tree on display in the library.The Year 7 library Book Quiz was delayed by a week. The library was filled with eager Year 7 book lovers. Well done to all who took part and congratulations to the winners the U.R.Os (Unidentified Reading Objects)Thank you to Mr Spicer who acted as Quizmaster and the library prefects who ably assisted.The U.R.O.’s won with the amazing score of 23 out of 24 points: Theodore Spaliviero-Shaw 7T; Rhys Longford 7T; Matthew Yuill 7T; James Gore 7T. They were closely followed by the Sweenies: Martha Attwell 7F; Amelie Horton 7B; Libby Stewart 7B; Grace Wills 7F. In third place were the Little Woman team who also won the Best Team name, chosen by the library prefects: Niamh O’Driscoll 7F; Grace Lillywhite 7F; Maisie O’ Mara 7T and Natalia Witkowska 7T Bronze, Silver, Gold challenge for Years 7 -9: It has been wonderful that so many students have discovered new titles to enjoy reading. Favourites have been the historical novels Between Shades of Gray, and Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepety; science fiction Railhead and the sequel Black Light Express by Phillip Reeve; the contemporary Bone

Sparrow by Zana Frillon and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. The dramatic climbing survival story Touching the Void by Joe Simpson has proved a success.Could we please ask that students remember to renew/return their library books.

Sleep OutOn Thursday 15th March a group of 6th Form students who took part in our December ‘Sleep Out’ travelled up to Chippenham to visit the homeless charity Doorway. The students were keen to meet with volunteers and hear about the work that they’ve been supporting through their great fundraising efforts. Whilst they were visiting the students presented Doorway with cheques to the sum of almost £1500 raised through their sleepout, and also welfare bags to be distributed to the county’s homeless community.

Students from Yu Hung High School at their leaving presentation. The students’ were presented with certificates, pictures, postcards and presents from the College and Trowbridge Town and were given an explanation and demonstration of

N.B.: All older newsletters can be found at: http://sta.cc/newsletters

FORTHCOMING EVENTSApril2nd Easter Monday16th Start of Term 518th 12 x Yr 12 Students - Young Leaders

CAFOD Training Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award24th AQA Drama Examination25th Whole School Photograph - Tempest Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award Young Voice of Trowbridge 201826th AQA Drama Examination Year 8 Parents Evening30th Year 10 Reports issued this week

May7th Bank Holiday11th Year 10 Geography Field Trip14th GCSE Examinations Start15th Y10 Young Volunteers – CAFOD Training17th Year 8 HPV2 Vaccinations21st Year 7 Reports issued this week25th End of Term 5 Founder’s Day - Feast of St Augustine of

Canterbury28th Spring Bank Holiday

June4th Start of Term 6 Year 12 Mock Examinations

Supporting your child with their revision: What is Spaced Repetitive Learning?“Spaced Repetitive Learning is significant because it deploys neuroscientific research.”As the summer exams draw nearer, Year 11 students should be increasing their weekly revision, especially over the Easter break, and Year 10 students should be going over work covered in class. Using spaced repetitive learning, a method of embedding information in our long-term memory through repetition, students will enhance the effectiveness of their revision. Fundamentally, this method is no different from how we learn all the time. When we hear, see or do something once, it can be stored in our short-term memory. If we hear, see, or do it repeatedly, it enters our long-term memory. Spaced Learning can be used for revision when highly condensed learning content is repeated three times, with two 10-minute+ breaks during which distractor activities such as physical activities (ideally) are performed by the students. Students should cover the same content, perhaps in different ways each time, i.e. textbooks, flash cards, revision guides, mind maps, GCSEpod, SAMLearning.com etc.Supporting students with revision is essential for their success. Some teachers have been settingspaced learning homework as a way to embed this technique.

Because a significant amount of learning is lost within 24 hours, remind your child to use the spacedlearning method to revise the same topic on consecutive days for best results and then at increasing intervals to flatten out the forgetting curve as demonstrated in the image below.

A video explanation of spaced repetitive learning can be found here: http://bit.ly/2o9akJ3

Malaga TripDuring February half term, Mrs Sykes, Mr Kenrick and Miss Sutton accompanied 19 students from Years 10-13 to Malaga. Leaving the snow behind at Bristol airport, they arrived to sun, sand and were excited to try traditional Spanish life for four days with their fantastic guide, Monica. The visit unexpectedly coincided with the Malaga carnival and the students thoroughly enjoyed being immersed in the city’s cultural highlights. Visiting its Arab fortress (the Alcazaba), its Roman amphitheatre and Málaga cathedral, as well as the Picasso Museum, el Centro de Arte Contemporeano, the Pompidou Design Centre and much more their appetites for Spanish food were filled on many occasions with a lunch at a traditional restaurant offering a seemingly never-ending choice of tapas, a chocolate con churros tasting, lunch from the local market, tea at a traditional Moorish tetería and a visit to an ice cream parlour. A highlight was the Alhambra in Granada, an exquisite Arab palace whose architecture made the long but breath-taking drive through the mountains worthwhile. Students also spent a relaxing and enjoyable time at the Malagueta beach. Also evening entertainment was laid on, in the form of increasingly competitive card games and on one memorable evening a flamenco-dancing workshop. The time in Malaga was incredible and all returned to gloomy Britain with brilliant memories and improved confidence in their Spanish speaking skills. Finalmente, muchísimas gracias a Señora Sykes, Señorita Sutton y Señor Kenrick por su organización, sus charlas, su apoyo y sus habilidades de cartas – fue un viaje inolvidable. (Finally, many thanks to Mrs Sykes, Miss Sutton and Mr Kenrick for their organisation, their chats, their support and their card skills – it was an unforgettable trip).

The College photograph which will involve all students and staff will be taking place on Wednesday, 25 April, 2018.

St Augustine’s Catholic College • Wingfield Road • Trowbridge • Wiltshire • BA14 9EN