This newsletter from Dawlish Community College provides updates on various school events from March 2011. It describes an Impact Day focused on healthy living activities, a successful Maths day hosted by Exeter City football club, the hosting of a handball festival involving local primary schools, and upcoming dates. It also shares news about partnerships with local teacher training programs and primary schools, as well as updates on sports, libraries, and other school activities.

1. Partnerships
Latest news from Dawlish Community College
edition March 2011
WELCOME
to the first e-­edition of Partnerships circulated to parents and carers via Parentmail.
We hope to send you regular news every half term.
Please tell us what you think of this edition and the way we are circulating it. This will help to ensure the
information is useful and interesting for you and your family.
Mr A Davis, Principal You can tell us what you think by emailing: suggestions@dawlish.devon.sch.uk
IMPACT DAY 3 MARCH MATHS DAY AT EXETER CITY IS A WINNER
-­ BEING HEALTHY -­ Twenty two Year 9 students from Dawlish Community College attended an intensive
A flavour of the Maths day hosted by Exeter City and Devon Education Partnership.
many activities
from Yoga to Plate Spinning points that Exeter and their rivals had accumulated through the season, as well as
and Food Tasting to estimating the number of seats in the ground and costing various items in the club shop.
Ready, Steady, Cook! The students were treated to a tour of the
ground including visits to the VIP boxes
and players dugouts.
The highlight of the day was when club
players Ben Watson and Scott Bennett
held a question and answer session on
what it is like to be a professional
footballer, then posed for photos with
some very excited students.
HANDBALL FESTIVAL
This term Dawlish Learning Community primary school staff were invited by the South
Dartmoor School Sport Partnership to attend a handball teacher training session run by
Great Britain handball player Scott Harrington.
Staff went back into schools to teach handball in PE lessons supported in some schools
by School Sport Coordinator, Martin Vizor.
Selected Year 10 Sports Leaders from Dawlish Community College (DCC) attended
handball training at South Dartmoor.
The remaining Sports Leaders attended handball training at DCC to prepare them for
running our Primary School Handball Festival. This was attended by around 140 children
with 20 Year 10 Sports Leaders running the activities and matches.
Primary school staff were very positive about the enthusiasm of the DCC Sports Leaders
and their ability to motivate all children to take part.
The next stage is a primary school handball tournament due to take place towards the
end of March where DCC Sports Leaders will act as match officials.
The winners and runners up in this competition will be invited to the South Dartmoor
School Sport Partnership Handball Finals where they will compete against teams from
other Learning Communities.
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
Spring Term ends: Thursday 7 April Non-­student day: Friday 8 April
Summer Term starts: Tuesday 26 April
Summer Term Holidays: Friday 29 April
Monday 2 May
Monday 30 May-­Friday 3 June
Summer Term ends: Friday 22 July
tel: 01626 862318 Dawlish Community College www.dawlish.devon.sch.uk

2. EARLY LEARNERS ASPIRE TO SUCCEED COLLEGE STUDENTS CONTRIBUTE TO
TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMMES
A group of Year 11 GCSE Drama students have recently
worked with trainee teachers from Exeter and Plymouth
The two sessions involved the students providing
opportunities for the trainee teachers to experience life in
a classroom using a technique called Forum Theatre.
This gave the trainees a unique opportunity to role-­play
Twenty four year 6 students from a range of schools different scenarios with our Year 11 students and try out a
across the Dawlish Learning Partnership are taking part in variety of teaching techniques. Students then gave
a special project designed to raise aspirations for the feedback to the new teachers about their developing skills.
future, boost their self confidence, and encourage team The sessions, led by Drama teachers Conor Magee and
working and other life skills. Lisa Hudson, focused on the elements of SEAL Social and
The project is staffed by specialists from Devon Careers Emotional Aspects of Learning, and offered all participants
Education , Connexions and staff from the Primary schools the opportunity to discuss issues such as emotional literacy
and Dawlish Community College. as well as trying out new teaching approaches.
The students have experienced events designed to
develop their creativity and problem solving skills, 11s were fantastic. They were so relaxed in front of
complimented by introductory careers education and
vocational tasters.
DAWLISH ON SOUTH DEVON CUP RUN
Our Year 9 boys football team have
progressed through to the semi final of
the South Devon Cup beating Newton
Abbot College 3-­1 in the 1/4 final.
They will now face Kingsbridge in the
ACCELERATED READING semi final due to be played in the next
two weeks.
In January Dawlish Community College began using the
Accelerated Reading scheme with a pilot group of students
in Year 7.
Visitors to the Library will have noticed that many of the JOINT SCHOOL COUNCIL FIRST MEETING
fiction books have been re-­arranged and re-­labelled to WITH RATCLIFFE AND OAKLANDS PARK
accommodate this new scheme.
Accelerated Reading is a software based programme from
Renaissance Learning which has been proven to motivate On Thursday 3rd February, Dawlish Community College,
students to read. Ratcliffe School and Oaklands Park School held their first
joint School Council meeting.
It does this by:
The meeting had been instigated by the Chair of the
Providing data that helps monitor and personalise Ratcliffe School Council, a Year 11 student called Josh.
reading practice.
The agenda for the meeting was to find out more about
Encourages substantial amounts of practice according to how each others schools and school councils operated and
guidelines based on research findings. to explore different opportunities for the School Councils to
Makes reading practice fun for students by work collaboratively in the future.
facilitating successful encounters with text. Initially, we agreed to take back some ideas for future
Support at home as well as at College is vital and the fund raising events to our own councils and then have
College invited parents of the pilot group students to Open another joint meeting in a month or so to see how each
Afternoon sessions in the Library to meet staff and other's plans were progressing.
informally discuss the new scheme. These were very well Congratulations to the students from key stage 3 who took
attended. part;; they were great ambassadors for the College and
The pilot group of students got off to a great start and showed a great deal of maturity and interest in what the
were supported by the AR team of: other students had to say.
Mrs George, Assistant Principal, SENCO We are all looking forward to how this new and quite
unique partnership between our schools will progress for
Mrs Hillyard, Learning Support Manager for Literacy
the benefit of students.
T.A.s: Mr Trengove, Miss Seymour and Mrs Hudson, HLTA
for ICT and Librarians Mrs Van Spyk and Mrs Di Giuseppe
tel: 01626 862318 Dawlish Community College www.dawlish.devon.sch.uk

3. KENTON BUDDING CHEFS! -­ -­
Seventeen Year 6 budding chefs have been STUDENTS IN A FLYBE FLY-­OFF
discovered at Kenton Primary School who AT EXETER COLLEGE
designed and made some fantastic savoury rice
Seventeen pupils from Dawlish Community College enjoyed a taste
dishes when they visited Dawlish Community
of what it is like to be an aerospace engineer during a recent visit to
programme.
The group of 14-­year-­olds not only learned from some existing high-­
flying students at the College about the exciting careers they could
one day enjoy, but also about the different kinds of apprenticeships
and engineering courses available to study at Exeter College, includ-­
ing those run in partnership with Flybe.
The day started with a presentation on the Theory of Flight which
led to their challenge of designing and building a model aircraft. The
teams whose aircraft flew the furthest won the Top Achievers Award
and were given certificates and prizes for recognition of their effort
and enthusiasm.
Their task for the Active Kids Get Cooking ready studying towards their BTEC Level 2 in Engineering here in
Primary Award was to research into choices for Dawlish, so for them to have the opportunity to actually meet stu-­
healthy packed lunches. The pupils conducted a dents already on the Flybe course and to be able to ask them ques-­
survey at school to find out what their lunch tions really sparked their enthusiasm, as did the practical exercise.
boxes contained. We discovered that the pupils
mostly had a good diet with fruit & vegetables,
yoghurt and salad being top of the list. Some specialist areas they could go into if they choose to continue their
reductions had to be made for crisps and studies in this subject. As we left, some of them were already talk-­
chocolate, but overall, the message of eating for ing about how focused they now are on securing a place on the
a healthy lifestyle had been followed. Well done
Kenton! Their task now was to design a tasty,
colourful & healthy new dish.
The budding chefs watched a demonstration,
and then chose the ingredients that they wanted
in their own rice dish. The results were amazing,
not one dish was the same, and all looked very
Speaking after the event, The Flybe Training Academy Operations
sure that they were as tasty as they could be
and every one received a thumbs up! Plans were lege enjoyed a day of aerospace engineering which, we hope, en-­
even being made on the way back to Kenton to
make the dishes at home.
Graham Wilson, who heads up the Aerospace team at Exeter Col-­
We are looking forward to more excellent dishes
being made to promote a healthy lifestyle well the greatest engineers in history, but the number of students choos-­
done chefs!! ing engineering as a career has been in decline for some time. At
Exeter College, the Flybe Fly-­off programme is our way of encourag-­
ing children in our secondary schools to look at the exciting possibili-­
Of the eight second-­year students on the Flybe Diploma in Engineer-­
ing programme who gave support and guidance to the Year 10 pu-­
hope their enthusiasm for aviation will have inspired the visiting
pupils to view engineering in a positive light and that, recognising it
as an extremely worthwhile career option, one day they may decide
Contributed by Exeter College PR Team
tel: 01626 862318 Dawlish Community College www.dawlish.devon.sch.uk