Community News
BOOK LAUNCH 12-11-07
Wednesday 7 November 2007, Alec Hunter hosted the launch of the book; ‘Cycle of Events’, The Story of Lake & Elliot by David Possee & Bernie Godfrey. The event was a great success for the authors, College and community. The evening was well attended by members of the Community, Councillors, Staff and Governors, people from local businesses and past employers of Lake & Elliot and has had a positive feedback.
Rememberance Week 12-11-07
On Monday 5 November 2007, three Veterans from The Royal British Legion; Bert Hayward, Ken Kippin and James Nelson, joined Citizenship and Humanities classes throughout the day, to discuss their experiences of War and childhood. Furthermore, staff and students from the History club attended a lunch, which allowed the History students to gain further knowledge and understanding of the War and how people lived 50 or 60 years ago to the present day.
In addition to this, we have been hosting a number of events in the Media Suite; Poetry Workshops, post a message on the Poppy, Poppy selling and researching past ancestors on The War Crimes Commission website, which has been very successful and appreciated.
INTERVIEW WITH TOM CHURCH – the Face of the Community
In June 2007, Tom Church visited Alec Hunter Humanities College.
Mr Church has been working as a Community Warden for Braintree District Council for a while, but has actually been working with the Community altogether for over 20 years. His job, at the moment, involves dealing with anti-social behaviour, litter, and graffiti and, if he catches someone with alcohol or cigarettes under the legal age, he has the power to confiscate it! Tom’s job also allows him to be in contact with Essex Police! Although this is his job at the moment, Mr Church hasn’t always worked with Braintree District Council. Before, he was an Ambulance Paramedic, where he came across a lot of scary incidents and also a Police Officer!
All of the jobs are involved with the community. It was an interesting experience talking to Mr Church and learning about his job.
Culzean Tate and Natalie Gypps
Local Hairdresser wins award
Perry Orrin, a former student of Alec Hunter Humanities College has been awarded the “Hairdresser of the Year” award at Feathers Hairdressers in Braintree. It wasn’t easy for her to become the Hairdresser of the Year. “I had to go to a ‘Hair Camp’, where we worked with the Paul Mitchell Artistic team to style a unique and interesting hairstyle. Then the judges went round and chose the right one. We had to also copy the style that hairdressers on stage made, and the closest one got the highest points”. When she was awarded Hairdresser of the Year, she was given a bottle of Champagne, £200 and an official Trophy Certificate. Perry’s ambitions are having her own Salon in the future, and also being on stage in Vegas. “One of my friends in London has one, I’d like to have that too. And also, we’ve been to see many shows, and being on stage in Vegas, styling someone’s hair, would be my ultimate dream”. She also gave us some advice too, if either of us wanted to become hairdressers. “You can easily get a Saturday job; that’s the first step and you can learn many things on the way. Also, Feathers holds a club night every weekend where many young people can come to learn and experiment making hairstyles by themselves. That’s a good start for future hairdressers”.
Perry Orrin is a prime example of what people can achieve when they really try and keep determined. Anyone can succeed in his or her dream career; you just have to try and believe you can do it.
Rosemary Lemon
Beckers Green develops links with Braintree, Massachusetts
Braintree, Essex has a shared history with Braintree, Massachusetts, which extends back to the 17th century. In 1632 on 2nd June, a ship called the ‘Lyon’ sailed from London to New England carrying 123 passengers. Most of the passengers were from Essex. They arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, on 16th September, 1632. Essex people made a tremendous impact in New England – evidence can be seen in the naming of settlements: Braintree, Colchester, Dedham, Coggeshall, Maldon, Wickford and others.
Beckers Green Primary School has recently developed a link with the Mary E. Flaherty School in Braintree, Massachusetts. Year 6 pupils at Beckers Green now have pen pals at the Flaherty School and are exchanging information about themselves and their respective localities. Year 1 pupils at Beckers Green have just started corresponding with a Grade 1 class in the same school. We are hoping to extend this link to other classes in the future. The children really enjoy reading their letters and it gives a real purpose to writing. There was huge excitement recently when they received photographs of their penpals.
Alec Hunter’s Facelift
Over the past three years, Alec Hunter Humanities College has changed greatly. From a plain old school with bleak appearances, to a modern College with outstanding changes. Alec Hunter has changed a lot, and we’re here to show you that all the changes are for the better. First off, when we were only in year 7 and everything was new, the Sports hall and G block, were being renovated. The final result was exceedingly better, with new changing rooms, music rooms and equipment, and disabled access to the building. The new Drama rooms are good too. Next to change was A block, or the citizenship rooms. These two rooms were old science classrooms, far apart from the others in use. So they were renovated into new Citizenship rooms, with computers and new RM Interactive whiteboards. The next renovation was A5, which was used for Drama, and the Expressive Arts office. It is now Alec Hunter’s media suite, packed with new computers, video cameras, journalistic equipment, and much more. It is one of the best rooms in the College, and one of the most presentable. The recent renovation meant new accessories to help our learning and exceed our revision and coursework and projects. Mathew Green, from Year nine, mentioned that he enjoyed using the new technology. He said, “it’s much better than the old computers we had”.
The subject of school trips has also been changed, with trips to more exciting and interesting locations such as Krakow, Poland. The City was heavily affected by the Holocaust, with thousands of Jews being sent to the nearby Auschwitz-Birkeneau Death-Camp, the worst of its kind. We also explored the rest of the city, including its many churches and its famous market square. Year nine students also visited Arras in France, and one student said,” It was an interesting school trip, looking around the memorials and walking across No Mans Land. I enjoyed going underground and seeing all the old war-time graffiti, as if they were all new. People graffitied them as well!”
We visited three sites, Vimy Ridge, a Canadian site where the Canadians broke through the German lines. Next we visited Newfoundland Park, where hundreds of people from the small island of Newfoundland died trying to dislodge the Germans there. Other trips include to Alklowa, an Africa-styled village, Hampton Court, Berlin for a few days and many more.
The standard isn’t the only thing rising in Alec Hunter. So is the performance of the sports teams. The netball teams, of most years, have successfully reached the semi-finals. They all played extremely well, and Hayley Childs, the year 9 captain had this to say. “I feel like I have a purpose, something important to be called. Being captain means a lot to me, I feel really proud that we’ve done so well.” Many people are joining sport teams now in Alec Hunter. Students are also attending a lot more after school clubs. The new media clubs, history clubs, sports clubs and library clubs means a lot of pupils have more to do, and they feel secure going and working with other students. Stephen Lemon, year 7, is proud that he’s a member of Media Club.
More and more people are attending Alec Hunter Humanities College as well, with the amount of students attending each year growing steadily.
Rosemary Lemon and Alex Stanford-Eyre
Witchcraft Storytellers Come To Alec Hunter Humanities College
Three storytellers came to Alec Hunter to tell Year 8 stories about Essex witches! It lasted for one hour and then afterwards we were allowed to ask questions, for example, were all witches women? A lot of people were surprised at the answer, because we believed that there were only women witches, but as you may or may not know, Matthew Hopkins, Witch Finder General, was once accused of witchcraft himself! The storytellers told separate stories and some were more intriguing than others, and a lot of that was to do with the way that they told them! One of the men, Andy, expressed himself by using hand gestures and all of them shouted some of the words, which shocked a lot of people and made them jump. Some of the stories were gorier than others, like in the Elizabeth Clarke story, she had one leg and she was hung until strangled and DEAD!!! Everyone enjoyed it and it is something we won’t forget soon!
Thank you to Miss Depper for organising it and other teachers for letting us hear all the exciting stories that the storytellers had to tell, even the gory parts!!!
Culzean Tate, Natalie Gypps, Hayley Adams and Hannah Prior
