Message from the Head of Secondary - 14 May 2020

Dear Parents

Dates for the issue of end of year reports have been published and you will receive a report summarising your child's progress this year in the middle of June. Year 11 will complete their internal assessments next week. We are delighted with their application and fortitude at this difficult time. Teachers are currently busy preparing submissions and evidence for GCSE awards according to the guidelines provided by Pearson Edexcel.

On Sunday I will meet with Year 6 students preparing to transition to Secondary school after the summer. On 01 June there will be further on-line sessions for parents of Year 6 students to meet with me to discuss transition and Year 7. I am hopeful that our new Head of Year 7, Mr Julian Bennett will join us from England for those sessions.

Our final House results will be announced on line after Eid and Miss Fitzgerald is preparing a video highlighting events this year which will culminate in the announcement of this year's House Champions. I hope you will participate in the PTSA greetings, International Day and recipe initiatives. They are great ideas and help to bring our community together.

We are all very grateful for the many messages of support and for the resilience you are all showing. There is a huge team effort going on and the bravery of our children, the devotion of our parents and the dedication of our teachers and staff are what is making the difference for our school community. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Mr. Ken Haggarty

Another really good week for the Inclusion Team and those students who have been participating and contributing in our Zoom sessions. The engagement in these sessions has been gradually increasing week on week – we are looking forward to having a full complement of students attending in the very near future. Some tasks set by the class teacher are always going to be more challenging than others – all we ask is that your child tries their best, but don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself or your child to complete every single task perfectly.

Please remember, if your child has any worries, concerns or anxieties and would like to talk to someone at school please reiterate to them that they can contact our school counsellor, Mrs. Bunmi, at oluwabunmi.tobun@oryxschool.qa. She can also be contacted by giving her a call on 66011301 from Sunday to Thursday between 8:30-9:30 am and 12:30-1:30 pm. She’s always happy to listen and provide reassurance.

Mrs. Bunmi, our School Counsellor, is running a parent workshop on supporting your child to use social media safely. This is workshop is open to all parents. To join the event please click on the below Zoom invite at 08:45 am on Sunday 17^thMay.

Oluwabunmi Tobun is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Supporting your child to use social media safely.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/78928594225?pwd=UnFTRWhLRHo1QnVnWGlsZ0l5TzVBZz09

Meeting ID: 789 2859 4225
Password: 020689

It really was an amazing week for our students, they interacted extremely well during their lessons.

Our secondary student's knowledge has strengthened in many skills and standards in Arabic as well as Islamic subjects.

Our students are making impressive progress in reaching the highest levels of learning.

Thank you to our parents for their constant support to help their children succeed in their learning.

Year 7: Students will continue to develop their own abstract shapes.

Year 8: Students will continue to explore the idea of self-portrait looking at Greg Segal and Libby Beaty.

Year 9: Students will be moving onto the use of colour in their observation drawings of Architecture.

Year 10: Students will continue developing their paint skills in using acrylic paint as well as develop their abstract painting in response to Georgia O'Keeffe.

Year 11: Students are concluding their IGCSE units.

Year 10: Students will continue studying Unit 5. Students will learn about Keyzen production and Just in Time in more detail. They will further also enhance their knowledge of writing essay answers for 9 marker questions.

Year 11: Students will be finishing off their Business portfolios.

Year 7: 7A - Will be learning how to carry out arithmetic shifts and the effect of those arithmetic shifts to the computer. 7B, 7C, 7D - Will be looking at how RLE encryption works and how to use RLE encryption on an image.

Year 8: Students will learn about the dynamics of a CPU and look more into detail regarding the Von Neumann Architecture.

Year 9: Students will look at implementing arrays (1 dimensional) into their Python programs. They will explain the different pieces of code using the # symbol.

Year 10: Students will learn all about Packets in networks. Students will explore how packets are transferred over the internet. They will explain in detail the different routes packets take and how they play a huge role in the transfer of data.

Year 11: Revision will be carried out for all units ready for the assessment on the 18th May.

Year 7: Students will continue the Board Game project. Students will be developing a range of design ideas, considering what the game will look like, how it will be played and the rules. They will start to produce initial design ideas for the appearance and aim of the game. They will be required to use their research to inform their design ideas.

Year 8: Students will continue following their series of tutorials about 3D printing and Computer-Aided Design. Via online videos and presentations, students will learn how to create 3D products using different computer software (tinkercad, onshape, freecad). Students have started to create a headphone wrap design in tinkercad which they will complete during this lesson.

Year 9: Students will continue the ‘Product in a Tin’ unit of work. Students have been challenged to design a product to fit into a tubular tin. Next week students will begin to develop some initial design ideas, using the research they have carried out about existing products.

Year 10: Students will begin to follow a series of tutorials about 3D printing and Computer-Aided Design. Via online videos and presentations, students will learn how to create 3D products using different computer software (tinkercad, onshape, freecad).

Year 11: Students will continue to work on the Design and Technology theory content and revision materials in preparation for their exam.

Year 7: Are completing their Shakespeare Summer Projects. They have been doing a variety of home activities such as interpreting a script for a performance as an actor, director and designer, developing their scriptwriting skills, editing and formatting parts of a script, and recording monologues. All of the activities are based around the play A Midsummer's Night Dream.

Year 8: are working on a Live Theatre Project. They will be using the musical Aladdin as their inspiration. They will work as a performer and/or a set and costume designer to complete a variety of tasks around the production. The students will develop an appreciation of live theatre and gain knowledge on the performance and design elements that make a production successful for an audience.

Year 9: Will complete a theatre evaluation after watching a digital theatre performance to develop their critical writing skills. They will then be researching the theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht and be exploring some of his theories in Epic Theatre. This will contrast against last term's Naturalism style of performance.

Year 11: Have completed all their practical GCSE work and are now revising for their written paper and practicing past papers.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. And judging by some of the conversations we have had this week on Zoom, our students really are missing school. Just because there is no school, however, does not mean the learning has stopped.

In English, the classes are making steady and sure progress through the poetry unit. Our Year 7 cohort continued their poem The Lesson by Roger McGough and are moving onto In Mrs. Tilscher's Class, by Carol Duffy. She explores the theme of childhood and growing up in this poem. She describes the joys of primary school before the children are exposed to a more frightening adult world. I’m sure our Y7’s can relate to that.

Our Year 8 cohort have been analysing Search for my Tongue by Sujata Bhatt. The poet explores deep questions about culture, identity and emigration. Some of the themes in this poem resonated with several of our students who like Bhatt, are living in a foreign country and understand the challenges that brings.

Our effervescent Year 9’s have been looking at What Were They Like. This is a poem by Denise Levertov written as a protest against the Vietnam War, a future where nothing is known of Vietnam or its culture. Major themes within the poem include war, culture and anger.

Meanwhile, in Secondary school English at KS4 IGCSE level, some of Year 10 looked at the unseen poetry question in English Literature as well as completing work on the poem What Were They Like from the IGCSE English Anthology.

Year 11 practised basic spelling, punctuation, grammar and proofreading skills from the new options available on BBC Bitesize website. They also used Frank Skinner’s new podcast to analyse the poems of famous British poet Philip Larkin.

Year 7: Students will be introduced to the countries in the Horn of Africa.

Year 8: Students will learn about Russia’s largest region, the Sakha Republic, and its importance to Russia’s economy.

Year 9:

9-1 – Students will learn about the history of China.

9-2/3 – Students will learn about the effects of deforestation on the rainforest ecosystem.

Year 10: Students will learn about the abiotic and biotic components to an ecosystem and about the conflict caused in coastal areas

Year 11: Students will be completing research tasks to prepare for A level

Year 7: Students will continue to learn about Elizabeth I through the paintings of her as queen and why image was so important.

Year 8: To identify and describe factors, using evidence to support your answers., to explain and analyse factors, by considering the significance of different individuals and developments especially Joseph Bazalgette and to evaluate which factor or individual was most significant from all the people we have looked at in the last three classes.

Year 9: To understand the ways in which food shortages and illness contributed to the final defeat of Germany, to understand the ways in which political turmoil contributed to the final defeat of Germany and the reasons for the military defeat of Germany.

Year 10:

Lesson 1

Understand why Hungary was important to the USSR.

Understand why Nagy’s reforms were seen as a threat to the USSR.

Understand how Hungary affected relations between East and West.

Lesson 2

Understand why there was a crisis over Berlin by 1960

Understand how Khrushchev tried to deal with the crisis

Year 11: Students will learn introductions about the History A level course and what it is all about

Year 7 Lesson 1:

- Written Methods of Dividing Decimals

- 14c-pg266

- Divide 3-digit by 2-digit whole numbers (L5)

- Extend to dividing decimals with 1 or 2 places by single-digit whole numbers (L5) Key

Year 7 Lesson 2:

- Interpreting a Calculator Display

- 14d-pg268

- Carry out calculations with more than one step using brackets (L5)

- Use the square root key (L5)

- Enter numbers and interpret the display in different contexts (L5) Key

Year 7 Lesson 3:

- Revision Chapter 14 A-D

Year 8 Lesson 1:

- 15b - Division in a given ratio

- pg270

- Simplify and use ratios including dividing a quantity in a given ratio. L5

Year 8 Lesson 2:

- 15c - Direct proportion

- pg272

- Solve Problems involving direct proportion. L6

Year 8 Lesson 3:

- 15d - Ratio and proportion

- pg274

- Understand and use the relationship between ration and proportion. L6

Year 9 Lesson 1: Consolidate learning on distance-time graphs

Year 9 Lesson 2: Introduction to Speed-time graphs

Year 9 Lesson 3: Solving problems involving speed-time graphs

Year 10 Lesson 1: To be able to find a general formula for the nth term

Year 10 Lesson 2: Determine whether a particular number is a term of a given arithmetic sequence

Year 10 Lesson 3: Find the sum of an arithmetic series

Year 11: Year 11 will be doing Exams in Maths.

- Sunday 17^Th May: Paper 1 - 11:00 am to 13:00 pm

- Tuesday 19^Th May: Paper 2 - 9:00 am to 11:00 am

You will need a calculator, Maths set and a tracing paper.

Students, who are collecting papers from the school, will have a tracing paper inside.

MFL we will be conducting an Assessment week all week.

Year 7-9: Putting research and preparation into action! Researchers will use their DR T SMITH knowledge to describe their areas of focus. Creators will build and develop their melodic and rhythmic ideas.

Year 11: Revision for assessments

Greetings from the PE Department! I hope everyone has had a great week staying active and on the move.

This week in secondary PE students have been learning about the difference in resting heart rate and heart rate after exercise. Students have been experimenting with different activities to understand how our heart rate rises after different levels of physical activity. Students completed Miss Fitzgerald's 10X4 workout to see which medal they could achieve, well done to those who completed Gold!

Our Year 10 GCSE PE students have been continuing to develop their fitness levels by completing the 100-rep challenge which will help them enhance components of fitness for their chosen sports and our Year 11 GCSE class have been busy working on mastering exam questions and maximising the marks available.

Mr. Parmar and Miss Fitzgerald have been working hard to ensure your PE lessons have a variety of different tasks and you get a chance to develop new skills each week. As some of our students are fasting throughout the month of Ramadan, we are including tasks that do not involve physical activities but allow you to learn about health and the human body. We encourage all of our students to give them tasks a go.

We are extremely pleased with how hard everyone has been working and we look forward to seeing more of you in action next week.

Year 7:

Set 1 - Key topics Review

Set 2 - Force review

Set 3 - Sound

Set 4 - Key Topic review

Year 8 All: Rocks review

Year 9:

Set 1 - Molecular transport

Set 2 - Molecular transport

Set 3 - Introduction to chemistry

Year 10:

Set C & E Biology - Excretion

Chemistry - Exam practice for section 2

Physics Set C - We will be studying Pressure and Specific heat capacity

Physics Set E -We will be studying the Gas Laws and specific heat capacity

Year 11

We will be practicing past questions and mock