On Tuesday 21 March, 54 students and 6 members of staff from Ørestad Skole in Copenhagen visited Tallis. Students from 8BD worked alongside them in the Main Hall, undertaking a Tallis Habits challenge, and guided them around the building. It was lovely to see both sets of students working well together. Thanks to 8BD for being great hosts and to our visitors for their interest, creativity and excellent English! We learned on Friday that our visitors were caught up in the terrorist attack on Parliament. None were hurt but we wish them well as they travel back home to Denmark.
Jon Nicholls, Director of Arts and Creativity
In this newsletter (Click View this email in your browser top right to activate Menu links)
A very exciting week! Our trip to Norway came back happy and successful, Danes visited us from our partner school and the year 13 band ‘Streamlined’ headlined their own gig. Win Let from year 10 won the Jack Petchey Speak Out Greenwich heat, and we had a visiting civil servant from the Department. As a break from thinking only about budgets, I’m leading a bit of work for the school leaders’ professional association ASCL on Ethical Leadership, so we’ll add some blogs I’m doing for that to my usual letting-off-steaming. Year 11 are emerging from their mock exams and everyone’s looking forward to Easter. Well done and thank you for your support!
Carolyn Roberts, Head
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Monday
Year 7/9/10 Cote D'Azur Trip (Ms Robinson/ Mr Dean - all week)
Year 9 Residential Trip to Spain (Mr Man/ Ms Peaquin)
Year 12 Chemisty Workshop UCL ( Mr Smythe/ Ms Flis/ Mr Kisnay)
Year 13 Trip (Ms Corbin/ Mr Wardell)
15.10-16.10 Creative Writing Club
15.15-16.15 Debating Club
Tuesday
Year 9 Residential Trip to Spain (Mr Man/ Ms Peaquin)
15.15-16.15 Mock trail Team - Years 10-13
Wednesday
Year 9 Residential Trip to Spain (Mr Man/ Ms Peaquin)
15.15-16.25 Ninja School Tallis Students
15.30 - 20.30 Year 9 Parent Evening
15.30-17.30 Basketball Club- Titans/PE
Thursday
Year 9 Residential Trip to Spain (Mr Man/ Ms Peaquin)
All Years English National Ballet Trip (Ms Rider/ Ms Thompson)
Friday
15.15-17.15 Basketball Club - Titans/PE
End of Term
On Thursday 23rd March Thomas Tallis hosted the annual Jack Petchey Speak Out Competition. This competition is aimed at training year 10 students in the art of public speaking and representatives from all Greenwich Schools attend. The students who are selected to represent each school must deliver a 2-3 minute speech to an audience of their peers, dignatories, parents, carers, teachers and other adults. It is a huge and scary undertaking for them! We had not only our two speakers, but also a wonderful musical line-up and superb year 10 helpers. A huge thank you to the students;
Our speakers
Win Let and Tyler Vassallo
Petar Kaszas (reserve and on microphones)
Our musicians
Brad Wilmot on guitar, Jacob Baines-Vosper on guitar and Liam Lauro on piano and singing
Our helpers
Nina Gomes (host and microphones), Courtney Jeffries and Chelsea Morse (hosts and time-keepers), and Maddie Page, Lin Let and Megan Wilford (hosts)
It was an amazing night. The quality from all schools was so impressive, the event was slick and all of our students, including those in the audience, really did us credit. The compliments from the various dignitaries for both of our speakers, the school and the musicians said it all – and quite a list! Our guests included MP Clive Efford, ex-mayor Mick Hayes, Director of Greenwich Children’s Services Florence Kroll, Borough Commander Fire Service Matt Herrington, and CEO of the Speakers Trust Julie Holness. Liam, Brad and Jacob were also astounding – the MP singled them out as being something special.
Both Win and Tyler spoke incredibly, with passion, insight and clarity. When Win actually won the competition, you could hear the cheers from Tallis and beyond which said something about how much she genuinely deserved it – much of the audience were close to tears when she spoke. Both of our students were authentic, spoke beautifully and showed Tallis at its very best. Congratulations to all the students across the borough who were involved.
Thank you to everyone involved in making the Year 13 BTEC band's farewell concert a real success! Here are a few pictures from the event which featured a fantastic set of songs, expertly performed to an appreciative audience in the Main Hall. The room has rarely looked so good, thanks to the black, white and gold decorations. The Year 13 students were ably supported by the Year 12 band. They will be missed.
The following Year 7 8 and 9 students enjoyed Afternoon Tea (at break!) with Mrs Roberts and their Head of Year on Wednesday and Friday this week. They were selected by their tutors for their hard work and effort. They were treated to hot chocolate, cakes and biscuits and a congratulations from the Head and their Head of Year. It’s the turn of Years 10 and 11 on Monday, names will be in next week’s Newsletter.
Year 7
7HO - Valeria Visan, Jason Sunnasse
7HY - Harry Gaines, Senay Yusuf
7CB - Max Blake, Macy McIntyre
7RJ - Lucy Zubair, Amy James
7TR - Louis Waters-Bleach, Samuel Yeshulat
7HW - Theo Bird, Samira Yahye
7PY - Kathleen Carter, Madeline Plaskitt
7RZ - Ellery Mattewson, Harrison Harley
Year 8
8CE - Callie Morre, Robyn Fitzgibbon
8AB - Zoe Duffy, Taylor Busby
8AC - Thuruban Sathi, Bethany Attridge
8AM - Rebecca Verona, Lee Brown
8BD - Sola Odunewu, Maya Holmes
8KI - Joseph Peterson, Elizabeth Oyeniran
8SA - Niha Ahmed, Ambra Lisi
8TO - Alland Kawany, Xueen Li
8ZS - Dovile Zagorskaite, Viktorija Virbauskaite
8DB - RUby Nguyen, Henriques Rodrigues
Year 9
9AP - Kiski Fowle, Lucy Hudson
9BL- Ridwan Ahmad, Emma Hunter
9BN - Jacob O'Flynn, Eva Pacuraru
9CG - Sabina Stanca, Jamie Watkins
9CT - Dahiana Acevedo Betancurt, Milita Ainaite, Sina Sedighi
9FS - Ruby Asplin, John Oladosu
9GR - Morgan Pritchard, Christine Umping
9KA - Anders Bach, Perline Walsh
9RB - Emilia Karpaviciute, Charles Newman
The short list has been released for the prestigious Carnegie Medal, which recognises the best written books for students aged 10-14. A small group of Year 7 and 8 students are taking on the challenge to read all 8 books on the list and will be shadowing the judging process right up to the final announcement of the winner on Monday 19th June. Our first book, chosen by the group, is Railhead by Phillip Reeve. Our first official meeting is Tuesday 18th April where we will be discussing what everyone thought of the book. You can see the full shortlist here.
On Wednesday 22nd March, Year 7 were treated to a visit from popular author Edward Trayer (pen name Billy Bob Buttons). He spoke to students about his inspiration for writing and took them through the process of writing an action story, using his best-selling novel, I Think I Murdered Miss, as a template. Students were really engaged throughout the talk and there were lots of opportunities for participation. Hopefully Year 7 will be inspired in their own creative writing!
Year 10 Maths Feast
On Friday 10 March, Thomas Tallis hosted the annual South East London Maths Feast for the 3rd year running. This is a challenging team competition testing maths, teamwork and communication skills. The Thomas Tallis teams comprised eight of our highest achieving Year 10 students, who competed against teams from ten other schools. The rounds consisted of various types of problems, including comprehension tests (reading and understanding a new area of maths), problem solving and Countdown-style questions. The Thomas Tallis team did very well, winning one round and coming third in another. Our thanks for a successful and enjoyable day go to all participating students and the staff of the schools involved.had a few things going on last term, here are some of the highlights. Photos are below the text.
Pi day
For the 2nd year in a row we celebrated Pi day on 3.14 (March 14th). We built up to the event with heats, then on the day itself a student from each year group recalled Pi to as many decimal places as they could on the concourse during lunch. Last year's runner up, 8TO's Xueen Li, managed to go one step further this year and win. Last year Tom McTurk won with an amazing 110 decimal places, however Xueen had upped his game and recited it to an unbelievable 138 decimal places! Photos below.
Coming soon
The results of a Maths history competition for years 7 to 10 and the annual revision poster competition for year 11.
In last week’s newsletter we published two tricky problems for you to think about. At last, the wait is over, and we can finally reveal the solutions!
The solutions provided come from Horia Pacuraru (11AR) and Tom McTurk (11TM). A massive well done to both students who have shown creativity, discipline and rigour to produce excellent pieces of mathematics.
Chris Hordern, Head of Maths
Opening up the roof to look through the BIG telescope!
The green/blue dot is Uranus!
A short time ago in an observatory quite close to home……
A selection of our Year 9 students have been studying astronomy GCSE this year with a view to taking the GCSE exam in 2018. They have been studying the stars and completing their GCSE controlled assessment on ‘The Brightness and Colours of stars in three different constellations’. The quality of the analysis from a number of the students has been excellent. To supplement the formal academic work in lessons we have organised a series of trips to the Royal Observatory this year to a selection of lectures presented by professional astronomers, engineers and space scientists.
The lectures have been on:
* Space Engineering
* The formation of impact craters
* Exploring Mercury
* X-rays and the exotic universe
* Secret lives of galaxies
The students have really enjoyed themselves and have learnt how space equipment like the Mars Rover is designed and built, the geology of Mercury, the nature of the supermassive black hole in the centre of our galaxy and so much more…… We hope to have encouraged some of our most able scientists to consider choosing a scientific career!
We’ve also been invited up to view the planets Mars, Venus and Uranus and the surface of the Moon using the giant reflecting telescope in the roof of the observatory. It was a very nostalgic experience and reminded me of watching Patrick Moore as a child presenting the ‘sky at night’. The students enjoyed taking their turns to gaze through a telescope similar to the one Edwin Hubble would have gazed through….
I’ve tried to capture a few shots of some of the bits of fun we’ve had. Well done to Year 9 for their enthusiasm for space!
I took some Year 9 students along to an event called Surplus Feast being run by Good Food in Greenwich. It was a reward for the students bringing in food for the food bank. The feast was cooked by volunteers and the food was provided by the organisation fair share.
