The new Tallis 50th birthday celebration banners are now installed in reception. Thank you to the lovely Sarah from Social Fabric and our talented Year 8 artists for the designs which explore aspects of our shared history with the local area, the previous school site, the world heritage site in Greenwich and Thomas Tallis himself.
In this newsletter
(Click View this email in your browser top right to activate Menu links)
Dear Tallis family We are managing to get a lot of activity into these last weeks of term! Year 10 practical assessments continue, we have had a day with our new year sevens and a day with our new teachers for September. Sports Days are coming along next. We had a wonderful Community Day last week on gender relations, and will carry on working on that, and our anti-racist work, as well as everything else, this year and next. We try very hard to keep our promises at Tallis and whatever we have started this year, though it might be delayed because of Covid, will be picked up again from September.
I put a little bit into the parents’ email about how we are thinking about covid-related changes for September. Do respond if you can. We have attached a link below to the Prime Minister’s announcement on Step 4 of the road map, and some more information from the Department for Education.
Despite all, we carry on with our day-to-day community life. A few year groups are experimenting with skipping ropes, which is nice to see!
Don't forget to read the latest blog post in Mrs Roberts writes, a regular column about school life.
This half term we evaluate all the Tallis Habits, reflecting on those habits of mind we have exercised this year and which might need further strengthening through deliberate practice.
Jon Nicholls, Director of Arts & Creativity Fiona Lumsden, Head of Year 13
Year 12 BTEC Art & Design Our Year 12 Art and Design students visited the Goldsmiths Centre For Contemporary Art last week to see the Mohamed Bourouissa exhibition.
The students were thoroughly engaged in the learning and enjoyed discussing the work on display with a member of the gallery's education department. The exhibition included photography, film and installations. I was very impressed with the group's attitude to learning, their inquisitiveness and disciplined visual note taking.
Dianne Minnicucci, Head of Photography
Tallis Words for July Promoting the importance of students’ vocabulary has been a whole school focus for the past few years, as research shows that explicit teaching can have a huge impact on student confidence and progression. In order to support this further, we have been promoting four whole school Words of the Month.
For July, our four words are:
Fore - a prefix meaning ‘previous’ ‘earlier’ ‘in front of.’ Perpetuate - to cause something to continue. Futile - pointless, achieving no result Sacrosanct - something too important or special to be changed or criticised.
Please encourage your child to use these four Words of the Month in their lessons and beyond!
Tallis Reads Thank you to Ms. Lymer for a fantastic reading of the opening to I Am Malala. You can listen again here. It is our final Tallis Reads of the year this Tuesday 13th July, with a performance by Ms. McAndrews. You can watch here, as long as you are logged on with a Tallis email account. Oxford Dictionary Parent Discount
We wanted to let you know that Oxford University Press are offering many dictionaries at a 50% discount. You can order via the OUP website and enter the discount code, shown on the flyer, at checkout.
Foyles Poetry Competition
We would love to see lots of students from Tallis entering the Foyles Young Poetry competition. The deadline is Friday 31st July and you can enter directly here, or email your poem to Ms. Church at echurch@thomastallis.org.uk.
Young City Poet Performance
A huge well done to Skye Jones, Damilola Akano, Isabel Penny and Eva Zamboni from 7HB, who performed their poems live to an audience of other young poets and professional poets at a celebratory poetry festival on Zoom on Friday. Their rhyming couplet poems were inspired by real and abstract art at the Guildhall Art Gallery. This was part of our involvement with the Young City Poets project run by the National Literary Trust.
The students received amazing comments from the professional poets in attendance:
“Short but oh so sweet”
“Wonderful opening poem!”
“Great use of rhyme and so emotive”
“Such fantastic lines and powerful emotions
“Wow”
“Incredible incredible imagery and the rhyme scheme!”
“Thomas Tallis, you absolutely smashed these imagery couplets, so proud!”
Shakespeare Extended Enquiries
Well done to 7HB for the imagination and discipline they displayed while working on their Shakespeare extended enquiries. Students needed to present their knowledge of Shakespeare in a creative way and it was impressive so see how they interpreted the task: models, drama performances and even podcast episodes were produced. Special well done to:
Nathan Bennett
Nikita Grobler
Benjamin Kampjes
Meryl Ham
Alec Mallory
Jared Marcelene
Isabel Penny
Reading over the Summer Break
Summer is a good time to read and we would like to encourage our students to continue their reading journey. Here are some options for students :
Students can borrow up to 5 books from the school library. If your child would like to do so, please email us atlibrary@thomastallis.org.uk or click here for a permission slip.
Tallis subscribes to eBooks and audiobooks which are available on the Sora app.
Summer Reading Challenge
The library is running a Summer Reading Challenge for Year 7 and Year 8 students. Students who successfully finish the challenge will be invited to a party in the library in September. Please encourage your children to take part and if you would like more details please contact us at library@thomastallis.org.uk or click here.
Greenwich Literature Quiz
The Royal Borough of Greenwich Literature Quiz was held on Monday 5th July. 17 teams from 5 schools across the borough took part. Congratulations to The Book Butterflys [Isabel Penny (7HB), Beatrice Graham (7KB), Louis Breckon (7KB) and Caitlyn Wright (7KB)] who won 3rd place. Well done to
all the other very enthusiastic Year 7s and Year 8s who represented Tallis.
Year 7
Makeda De Freitas
Flora Richardson
Charlotte Noakes
Andaru Jensen
Eva Zamboni
Nikita Grobler
Meryl Ham
Eloise Keigan
Sam Dobson
Leia Joyce
Vanessa Lilonde
Alex Barron
Jared Marcelene
Year 8
Alex Page
Nima Ebadi
Mateusz Bazan
Noah Carvalho Donovan
Polly Ward
Jennifer Lewis
Amelia Duong
Shade Earl
Ms Viegas and Mr Harvey, Librarians
Young Creatives Young Creatives is open to all 15-18 year olds, living or studying in the Greenwich borough. During this summer weeklong residency, you will work with artists, Bhavesh Hindocha and Geoff Johnston to rethink the museum. Alongside each other you will devise new questions for future museum visitors and create a new collaborative artwork that will be showcased in the museum. This is a fantastic opportunity to meet new people, work collectively and gain invaluable experience working critically in a museum setting. To register please follow the link to the online registration.
