Up+up+and+away

Up, up and Away!

On Wednesday 26th September we had a wonderful day, involving the whole school in the celebration of our Specialist Language College status. All students and staff were involved throughout the day in various activities, both in and out of lessons, around the theme of Internationalism and Culture. Some amazing displays were created by each subject area, and shown around the school for the evening event and for Open Evening the next day.

The Balloon Launch was a huge success, with 800 balloons filled, tagged and released by students on the school field. The Houses raised over £120.00 to go to our link school in Kenya, the Desai Memorial School. We await the results of the balloon race itself and see if any tags are returned from foreign shores.

Other activities during the day included a 'Round the World in 20 Pics' competition, where students had to identify places or monuments from around the World on pictures spread around the school. There was a food tasting event in the Hall run by the Support Staff. Students were able to taste various 'dips', produced by our own Food Tech department, and the whole event was captured on webcam. After school there were Language Taster sessions for staff, students and visitors to the school in Chinese, Japanese and Italian. These proved to be very popular and we are looking into the possibility of providing further language opportunities to the community.

In the evening, guests were able to see the day's work displayed in the Hall and take part in a wine tasting competition run by the Business department. Then they were treated to some wonderful Kiswahili singing by the Year 7 choir - who also made the audience join in! Speeches and a video followed by 6 of our students for whom English is a second language;they offered an interesting perspective on their life at Clevedon School. Our Gifted and Talented dancers, under the watchful eye of Mrs Gould, performed a spectacular Flamenco dance, complete with costumes. This paved the way for our guest speaker, Viv Edwards from the National Centre for Language and Literacy at Reading University, who gave some humourous insights into the real value of learning languages in today's globalized society. In all it was a fantastic day and we hope that all staff, students and visitors enjoyed sharing our celebrations with us. We now aim to continue our work as an 'International Learning Community ' and we hope that you will continue to support us and share in our success.