Latest News – Page 2 – Churston Ferrers Grammar School

Lily’s international essay achievement

Posted on 16th August 2022 by Paul Radmore

A massive congratulations to Year 12’s Lily, who is now set to attend an awards ceremony at Oxford University come September!

Having entered the John Locke Institute Essay Competition in June, Lily’s response to the question “Why Would God be so Coy?” had her shortlisted from over 500 international entries.

The response given was cogent, captivating and insightful.

Well-done Lily!

Cambridge Chemistry Challenge 2022

Posted on 5th August 20224th August 2022 by Paul Radmore

A group of dedicated students from Year 12 recently formed the Curious Chemists’ Club, with the aim of sharing their enthusiasm for the subject and extending their chemical knowledge. The team have now been extremely successful in the Cambridge Chemistry Challenge. This competition is designed to stretch the best Chemistry students in the country and is so difficult that certificates are only awarded to the top two thirds of entrants. Despite the odds, all of our students were successful. Copper awards were achieved by Owen, Hannah and Jake. The top quarter of candidates nationally received a silver certificate and this included Lottie, Sophie, James and Heather. Special congratulations go to Hannah and Riley who were rewarded with gold certificates for being in the top 8% of students in the UK.

The questions were particularly tricky this year, requiring our students to understand the structure of some really complex molecules. These included the deadly poison digitalis (from foxgloves) and a human-like molecule called “Dame Bond 008”. Many congratulations to all our students for their fantastic performance.

Dr Hall

Ambra’s scholarship success!

Posted on 4th August 2022 by Paul Radmore

A Sixth Form student at Churston Ferrers Grammar School has been rewarded with a scholarship for her outstanding effort and achievement during her A Levels.

Ambra received the award, granted by The Reading List Foundation, which provides a grant to cover the costs of books for her university studies.

She was chosen for the award based not only on her outstanding results, but on the challenges that she overcame to achieve those results

Ambra is awaiting her A Levels results in Geography, French, Sociology and Italian, and has an offer of a place to read Modern Languages at the University of Exeter.

Head of Sixth Form, Adam Killeya, said “We are very proud of what all of our students have achieved this year, but Ambra particularly stood out for this award for her outstanding attitude and achievement. She is an extremely worthy winner, and we are very appreciative to the Reading List Foundation for offering this award”

DofE Gold Success

Posted on 26th July 2022 by Paul Radmore

A massive congratulations to Charlotte and Abi, both of whom completed their whole Gold DofE Award by finishing with their expedition in Wales last week. This means that they’ve done a total of two years worth of Volunteering, Skills and Physical, as well as a Residential. Abi went on a tall ship training voyage in January, and has since been recruited as a young leader for future trips. Charlotte did a respite holiday week with the organisation Go Beyond, and is also planning to return and work with them again later in the year.

Completing their Gold by the end of Sixth Form, having both done Bronze and Silver as well (and had much of their Silver interrupted by the pandemic) is an incredible achievement. They’re both such dedicated and motivated young people, and we are very proud of them! They’ll be off to the Palace sometime in 2023 to be presented with their Gold awards.

Mrs Lewis – DofE Leader

DofE – Snowdonia 2022

Posted on 21st July 2022 by Paul Radmore

Photos of an utterly fabulous Gold DofE week in Snowdonia, with an awesome bunch of humans. 30 Golds in 5 teams, 1 heatwave, 3 days of re-re-routing below the mountains for water drops and shade availability, 1 day of cooler scenery and mountains for many, lots of smiles, hugs and tears, and bucket loads of effort and achievement. Everyone completed their expeditions in fine style yesterday, and enjoyed a lot of pizza at YHA Kings, tucked away under the mountains. Just soul-liftingly ace.

This could not happen without an incredible team of adults – thankyou is never ever enough for the 18hr days, endless checkpoint lingering (in 35c 🥵), bracken bashing, tricky route reccying, cattle management and all the other things, with good humour (bad humour at times!), always saying yes to whatever is needed, and whatever time of day or night it needs to happen. Staff team, you are all just ace, now please go home and have a massive sleep!

Mrs Lewis – DofE Leader

Churston students make national finalists

Posted on 27th May 202227th May 2022 by Paul Radmore

Churston students honing their entrepreneurial skills with a sell out trade fair worthy of Lord Sugar’s approval. Selling pop posters, pamper packages, and stylish bandanas for pooches, Year 9 and Year 10 Business Studies students showcased a variety of key employability skills that bode well for their future careers and prospects.

The Tenner Challenge is a four week UK-wide Young Enterprise initiative that challenges young people aged 11-19 to take a £10 pledge to get their business ideas off the ground and make as much profit as they can. Churston’s thirty eight fledgling companies starting with just £380 between them made a collective revenue in excess of £2000. But, to quote Jessie J, “it ain’t just about the ch ching ch ching”; the competition also celebrates creativity, team work and resilience.

Year 9 team Tranquilitea, made up of the collective skills of Charlie, Joseph, Sam & Samuel have been awarded national winners for their logo, winning £300 for themselves and our school, whilst Year 10 team My Little Rocks (Archie, Beau, Joshua & Reuben) are amongst the national finalists for Sales Pitch. The Business Studies students continue to work on their submissions for the final awards including Best Overall Business, Most Inspiring Individual and Sustainable and Community Focused Business.

‘Students embraced the challenge far beyond and was a huge success, well done! ‘

– Mr M Glew

Dance and Musical Theatre Showcase

Posted on 23rd May 2022 by Paul Radmore

On Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th of April, over 75 students across all year groups took to the stage for this year’s Dance and Musical Theatre Showcase. Rehearsals for “Rhythm is A Dancer” began in January and students worked incredibly hard, learning new material and creating some of their own choreography. A range of dance genres included ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary and street dance, with the audience also treated to the fantastic vocals of our musical theatre clubs and soloists.

Both experienced and novice performers took to the stage to perform some uplifting and energised dance numbers, showcasing some phenomenal talent. As usual, Churston students pulled together, with stage management, technical support and interval entertainment all provided by our incredible students.

‘I am incredibly proud of all those involved for bringing such joy to our audiences! ‘

– Mrs C Cowell

Student audition success

Posted on 16th May 2022 by Paul Radmore

Olivia has been successful in becoming a member of the National Youth Theatre following a recent audition.

‘Thank you so much for supporting me and being so kind.’

– Liv

‘Such an amazing achievement, well done!’

– Mrs K Chatfield (Head of Drama)

READY STEADY NAVY

Posted on 8th April 20228th April 2022 by Sharon Fitzpatrick

On Thursday 7th April fifteen of our Year 10 Food Preparation and Nutrition students were visited by two members of personnel from the Royal Navy; LCS Emmanuel Craig and CS Matt Forfar. They began their visit by explaining a bit about the role of the Royal Navy and in particular their role as Chefs. This was followed by a Cooking Challenge, Ready Steady Cook style where students cooked a two course meal of Lasagne and Chocolate Brownie from the ingredients and instructions provided in 45 minutes. Students had a great time creating their meals and proudly showed them off at the end to the judging panel, which included Mr Earley.

After much deliberation the winning team of; Aaliyah, Charlotte and Darcy was announced. This was a really fun and engaging event that students took a lot away from. I would like to thank the Royal Navy Careers team for putting on this event for our students and opening their eyes to future possible careers in the food industry.

Sarah Mires
Acting Head of Food Preparation and Nutrition

Chemistry Olympiad

Posted on 16th March 202216th March 2022 by Paul Radmore

Organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Olympiad is a challenge open to the top A-level students in the UK. Churston Ferrers Grammar School chemists, Alysha and Sam attained bronze awards, with Dom scoring in the top third of participants to achieve a silver certificate. Special congratulations to Luis who was awarded a Gold certificate for finishing in the top 8% nationally.

Luis remarked “The Olympiad was very demanding, but I really enjoyed preparing for the competition and using my knowledge of Chemistry to solve complex problems”.

Did you know that lateral flow tests contain nanoparticles of gold? When you add two drops of sample to the testing strip, how many virus particles do you think are required to give a positive test? This was one of the fiendish problems solved by our Year 13 Chemistry students in the Chemistry Olympiad competition (the answer is nearly half a million in case you were wondering).

Dr Hall
Head of Chemistry