Sport National Diploma students had a chance to try out a new sport when wheelchair basketball supremo Gordon Perry visited the college this week. Gordon won the first London Wheelchair marathon in 1983 but his first love has always been basketball. He played for Great Britain from 1982 to 1991, has coached the national Junior and Women’s teams and has worked as the National Development Manager for Wheelchair Basketball.
“The sport developed in the 1940s as part of a post-WW2 rehabilitation programme in the United States,” he explains. “It really took off in the late 1970s / early 1980s with the development of lightweight materials in the aerospace industry.”
Great Britain is now 8th in the world (women’s team) and 13th (men). Great Britain is playing in the 2010 World Championships in Birmingham and gearing up for the 2012 Paralympics.
Gordon now runs a company which visits schools and colleges around the country, introducing able-bodied young people to the sport. “We’re hoping to develop more mixed teams,” he explains. “There is already a points system which grades wheelchair competitors according to their level of disability. The fewer the points, the greater the level.”
After a few nervous spins around the hall (the wheels on sporting wheelchairs are at an angle - between 8 and 13 degrees from the vertical), the students began to gain confidence. The angled wheels allow for tight turning circles, but reduced stability: fortunately there is a small wheel at the back to prevent tipping.
The day ended with basketball matches: the net is at the same height as for able-bodied basketball. All the students enjoyed an eye-opening and challenging experience, but, as Gordon commented, could look forward to some rather aching arm muscles the following morning!
Applied Science students had a chance to find out about working with animals when they visited Banham Zoo.
“We introduce our students to a wide range of scientific and technological working environments,” explains Applied Science teacher Huw Williams. “Although the students had plenty of opportunities to see the ‘cuddly’ side of animals such as snow leopards and ocelots, there was a serious message too.”
The students studied the health and safety regulations for zoo work, learnt about animal handling (including how to hold giant stick insects and snakes) and looked at conservation issues.
In complete contract, a week later the students visited Marshall Aerospace, and swapped the roar of tigers for the roar of engines.
Year 12 students on the Sport National Diploma have been benefitting from a new intiative set up by Nigel Ballard, Sport National Diploma teacher along with Sport National Diploma course team leader Lynne Little and the Cricket Development Manager for Cambridgeshire.
“For the first time we have been able to offer students the ECB Cricket Young Leader Award. Dave Ellis, ECB Coaching Development Manager, has been leading 19 of our students through this optional two-day course. Students will then be able to take up selected volunteering opportunities in schools throughout Cambridgeshire.”
During their volunteering placements, students will be introducing Primary School children to Kwik Cricket.
“This will add an additional layer to their initial coaching qualification, as well as providing excellent additional information for both university and employment applications,” adds Nigel.
“Some students will then go on to take a full coaching qualification.
“This is an excellent new opportunity for students to develop their portfolios.”
Many thousands of Year 11 students and their families attended our Open Evenings last November. Tom Pinney, who is studying AS Photography, Philosophy, History and Film Studies at the college, was commissioned to take photographs of the event. Here is a selection of his work, including our pink t-shirted Student Mentors and our white t-shirted student helpers.
Long Road students and staff performed at the annual Christmas Concert at Michaelhouse. There was both a staff and student choir, a chamber orchestra and solo performances on a range of instruments. The accompanist was Ian Dickson, who works in the Long Road Music Department, and there were readings by Julie Coulter, Performance Studies, and Jessica Hemmings, Drama Course Team Leader. Kim Jenkins, Music Course Team Leader, comments: “We are extremely lucky to be able to hold our concerts at Michaelhouse. These concerts provide our students with excellent additional experience of performing in public and have become one of the highlights of our musical year.”
Pictured above, clockwise from top left: the Chamber Orchestra performs movements from Bach’s Brandenburg Concert No. 5 with soloists Saskia Neupert (violin) and Rebecca Partridge (flute); the Student Choir sings Ave Verum by Mozart; cellist Adam Poole plays The Swan by Saint Saens; guitarist Joe Ayback performs Leyenda Asturias by Albenez; Lee Mayes (tenor horn) performs Variations on a Welsh Theme by Peter Kneal; four members of the student choir have a final rehearsal of Ding Dong Merrily on High; Gideon Hymas plays the largo from Chopin’s Cello Sonata opus 65; mince pies in the interval; soprano Kate Holdsworth, who sang How Beautiful are the Feet from Handel’s Messiah; Holly Baker, who played the French horn.
In the last few weeks there has been a wide range of visitors to the college - and students have been out and about too, both carrying out coursework and fundraising.
Clockwise from top left:
Andrew Lansley, MP for Cambridgeshire South and Shadow Secretary of State for Health, visited the college to talk to students from the Society, Health & Development Advanced Diploma and A level Politics;
Napp Pharmaceuticals gave Chemistry students an opportunity to experience the pain and mobility difficulties of people suffering from arthritis and related diseases by wearing special ‘prickly’ gloves;
Debbie Florence (second left) and Rob Major (second right, in the orange boiler suit) from Magpas were invited by our Student Supervisors Fiona Longwill (left) and Dawn Masters (right) to talk to students about being a First Responder;
At Open Evening thousands of visitors had a chance to see Biology students dissecting a sheep’s heart;
Travel & Tourism students in a sponsored pj / Pudsey Bear outfit before setting off for Peterborough Ice Rink;
Andrew Styling, from the Department of Radiography at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, visited the college to talk about his work;
Members of the Student Community Committee Casey Mitchell-Casey and Emma-Jane Elsom raising money for Children in Need.
Long Road project members with Tim Smit. From left to right: Andrew Edwards, our horticultural consultant, with our Rolls-Royce Science Prize trophy, Gary Woolley, our Estates Manager, Tim Smit of the Eden Project, Dr Judy Fox, Cambridge Botanic Gardens, with the Eden Project model, and Chris Graham, one of our Biology teachers and the Long Road Rolls-Royce project leader
We are delighted to announce that Long Road Sixth Form College was runner up in the 2008-09 Rolls-Royce Science. Our prize was £10,000 to use to continue our work on the links between the sciences and other topics.
As one of nine national finalists, we received £5,000 to start work on our project. This culminated in a major science exhibition at the college (see separate news item for details), and it was on the planning and execution of this exhibition that we were judged.
We received our runner’s up prize at a special event at the Science Museum in London on Wednesday 7 October. At the same time, we received a second award: we won the special Eden Project prize for the project with the environmental ethos most similar to the Eden Project. Tim Smit of the Eden Project presented us with a model of the design for a new roof at the Eden Project. This represents both a sunflower seed and the fibonacci sequence. Our prize also includes a visit to the Eden Project in Cornwall.
For more information about these two prizes, and to view the video of our project, please visit:
There were lots of whoops of joy as students opened their envelopes on Thursday 20 August, exam results day.
97% of A level exams were at Grade A-E, 71% at Grade A-C and there was an excellent 28% at Grade A (compared with 27% last year). National Diploma students also had lots to smile about, with a 95% pass rate for 12-unit courses and a 97% pass rate for the 18-unit courses. Almost 50% of our 18-unit students achieved an overall Distinction.
There will be full details of our results in our Examination Results leaflet, available towards the end of September, and more information about our students and their destinations in the autumn college newsletter, which will be available at Open Evening on 11 and 12 November. It will also be possible to download the newsletter from this website.
Here are just some of our many happy students.
Grade As and Distinctions all round: these students are among the many who achieved 3 or 4 Grade As at A level or overall Distinction in the National Diploma. Top row: Kirsty Judge, Charlotte Taylor, Alex Fraser and Kirsty Leslie. Middle row: Harriet Hughes, Alys Webb, Matthew James, Dominic Chapman, Shawn Cohen, Hayley Symons and Emma Siragher. Bottom row: Peter Croucher, Yasmine Najib, Emma Holden and Lucy Topping
Laura Hunneyball (left) and Sameer Ahmed (centre) celebrate their straight As, while Amanda Human (right) and Emma Futter (far right) were both delighted to have got into their first choice of university.
Left-hand photo: Sports National Diploma students (left to right) Benjamin Benson (Distinction), Tom Champness (Distinction), Nicola Geoghan (Merit) and Adam Hodgkinson (Pass) are no strangers to celebration. Benjamin and Tom are members of our cricket team, Nicola plays for our top class girls' football team. Right-hand photo: Iain Brett has the grades he needs to study Philosophy at UEA, and William Harris is now off to study Animation and Illustration at Bolton.
Bryn Jones, Economics teacher and Head of Business & Maths, with his students Nabeel Baksh, Assad Chowdhury, Hannah Chelkowski-Gione and (bottom right), English, Media and Psychology student Umara Chowdhury.
Sabrina Purser (left, now off to study Economics at Warwick) and Meghan Turner (second right, now off to Southampton to study Sociology), with their proud parents.
Students past, present and future, their parents, and staff of the college made the most of a wonderful summer evening to enjoy the first ever Long Road Science Exhibition.
The exhibition was made possible by the £5,000 awarded to Long Road Sixth Form College by Rolls-Royce for reaching the final of its annual schools and colleges science competition.
The initial plan was to celebrate the role of plants in art, history and science, but this brief soon grew.
“We planted special beds highlighting the importance of plants in these areas,” explains college Biology teacher and project leader Dr Chris Graham, “but departments from all around the college came forward with more and more ideas to celebrate the part science plays in all our lives.”
How to make paper from elephant dung; how the aurora borealis forms; how to make a litmus test from cabbage juice; how cuttlefish change colour; how to make a thunderball: these were just a few of the many dozens of displays around the college.
A particular favourite was the ‘whodunnit’, complete with chalked outline of the corpse, an alarming array of possible murder weapons and a cunning selection of clues for would-be sleuths to ponder. Even better was the ‘live’ demonstration of the way that forensic scientists establish the time of death: a piece of pork with bullet holes and maggots.
A key part of the evening was the award ceremony during which top-performing Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Electronics, Computing and ICT students received prizes for their achievements.
“We all thoroughly enjoyed the evening,” Chris adds. “We will know in the autumn if we are overall winners in the sixth form category, and are very much hoping to make this exhibition an annual event. I would like to thank Dr Judy Fox of the Cambridge Botanic Gardens and Andrew Edwards, who works with us as a freelance horticulturalist for their invaluable input. I would also like to thank in particular the Science and Technology, Visual Arts and History departments at the college, and the Estates department for their interest and support.”
Large photo (left): Inset: Laura Swingler. Harriet Cox, Jenny Watson and Ollie Drake celebrate their awards. Top right photo: Jenny Drake with Long Road Sixth Form College Principal Sandra Hamilton-Fox and Tutor Chris Childs. Centre right photo: Harriet Cox with Sandra and Tutor Ben Hudson. Bottom right photo: Ollie Drake with Sandra and Tutor Lynne Little
Long Road Sixth Form College students are encouraged to pursue a wide range of additional activities during their time at the college. These include additional subject workshops, membership of a college music group or sports team, learning a new language or skill, fund-raising or working for a charity, taking part in concerts, sport or drama outside college, leading Scout or Guide groups and coaching young people.
For every activity pursued each week, students are awarded enrichment credits by the college. These are totalled at the end of the year, and the students with the largest number presented with a prize by the Principal of the College, Sandra Hamilton-Fox.
This year four, out of many outstanding students, received the top award.
Laura Swingler took part in the Lessons from Auschwitz project featured in the Summer 2009 college newsletter. She has also studied for the Spanish ASSET qualification, played netball, regularly attended subject workshops and found time to pursue her love of dancing.
Jenny Watson has taken the Duke of Edinburgh award, studied for the Spanish ASSET qualification at college, attended subject workshops and still finds time to play the flute.
Ollie Drake has taken part in team sports at the college. He has been a member of both the first cricket and football teams. He took his National Pool Lifeguard Qualification recently, attended his course team-building event at Edale in Yorkshire and has attended subject workshops.
Harriet Cox has both coached and competed in athletics events: she specialises in the 200- and 400-metre sprint. She has coached young people at Coleridge Community College (Parkside Federation). She also attends Stagecoach Theatre School and has taken part in productions.
Sandra Hamilton-Fox comments: “It is wonderful to see how involved our students are in the local community and how they have made the most of all the opportunities offered to them. Harriet, Ollie and Jenny are an outstanding example of how studies and enrichment activities can complement each other to help develop well-rounded young people.”
