Arsenal Player on Eastwood Grounds

Shakeela, in year 8, has just had a life changing piece of news for her sporting career and The Student Press caught up with her to find out what happened and how it happened.

So tell us your news?

I got selected for the Arsenal Centre for Excellence!

How did this happen?

First of all, I play for Essex FA and have been doing so for the last two years. From there, I got a 25 week set of trials from Arsenal. I had to send off information and do a performance interview. This involved dribbling through cones and all sorts of things. I find I can play in any position but I prefer midfield as you get to play a bit of everything and I had to show them this. Then today I got a letter through. It came to my dad and he called the school up and told me. I’m so excited!
So I have been accepted to the Arsenal Centre for Excellence. I get to train in a professional setting and after a length of time and a certain age, I can get a contract and from there a profession as a full time footballer.

Was it a big leap? Is this something you’ve always want?

Yeah, I have dreamt that maybe one day I’d be in the Olympics. I love athletics and it’s something I’ve always been interested in. I’ve only really been interested in football from the last two years. It all started because one day I was with friends and playing around kicking a ball and a friend’s father saw me. He spoke to my dad and was like ‘you know Shakeela can really play’. It all went from there. At school, I am on the football team and recently me and Billie (pictured below) and the rest of the team won the league. It was the Essex School Championship. It was quite cool because I scored the opening goal at the game.

How did you feel when your dad called reception today?

Shocked and a bit of relief because I have been waiting all week.

How many got picked from the trials?

15 from 100s and 100s of people. I feel really proud, it was quite an achievement.
It was a two hour trial and just one day in London to impress them. You had to show them everything you have learnt . It was my one shot. I could have come back again if I didn’t get in. I knew some from my Essex FA. I got a chance to watch some my friends- some don’t know if they’ve gotten through yet. I hope they have.

Do you think that girls deserve get more attention for football?

Yeah, I want to write to EA sports and have a video game of the Women and Men’s’ team for FIFA 14 or even 15. Women should get as much recognition as the men. I think that women are great players sometimes even better. In fact I prefer the Arsenal women’s team to the men. They’re better, they’ve won the league like 11 times already!

Well done Shakeela.

Written by Lauren and Abbey

An Interview with Mrs Vickers, Deputy Child Protection Officer

Katie and Abbey have been talking about the issues of bullying and how they affect people. As part of Anti-Bullying Day on 22nd of July, the Student Press have interviewed various people to ask about their experiences of bullying and how it shaped their lives.
To the start the programme, we decided to interview Mrs Vickers, the Deputy CPO (Child Protection Officer). She speaks to many people of varying ages about their problems and experiences with bullying.
Check out the video for more information. Stay tuned for more up to date videos, interviews and clips.

HDV 0173 from Eastwood Academy on Vimeo.

Interview by Abbey. Camera work by Katie.

The Famous Southend Air show

The Southend on sea air show is one of the things that completes the people of Southend summer. But when this time of year occurred there seemed to be no occurrence of the red arrows!

The Southend on Sea council decided that in 2013 there would not be any sign of the Red Arrows. This happened because they could not support the funding of the event, so of course the people who run the stalls weren’t the happiest of people!

The good news is that the air show will be back 2014! So not long to wait for our summer to be back to normal.

By Emily and Tegan

Sports Day at Eastwood

Whether you love to run or hate it, every year we have a day dedicated to sports. This year, Eastwood is adding a new event, the Teacher’s Race. Stay connected to the blog for up to date coverage of the events.

HDV 0170 from Eastwood Academy on Vimeo.

Future Head Pupils

By Tegan and Emily

At this time of year at The Eastwood Academy, the year 11 students have taken all their exams and most of them have left the school for the summer. The current year 10 students are in the process of being nominated for the role of Senior Prefects. If a student is doing well in class and showing commitment, determination and effort through academic work and team work, then the teachers that see potential will nominate them for the roles of senior prefects.
After the nominees are confirmed, they must write a letter to the current Head Boy, Declan and the current Head Girl, Emily and say why they think they have the strengths for the position and what they think they can bring to the school to make it better.
Ultimately the decision lies with Senior teachers and the senior prefects.

We spoke to Mrs Lilywhite, the Head of Pastoral, who said that the decision was still being considered and will be confirmed in two weeks.

Harry Potter

On Monday 27th May, I went to Harry Potter’s world. It took an hour and a half to get there by car from Southend. As I pulled up, there were massive pictures of The Harry Potter films and the original chess pieces from the first film.
When I first walked in there, they had canvases hanging on the wall of the main actors. To the right was the gift shop. They had nearly everything from the films.

They had different flavour sweets from candy floss to vomit flavour. When the tour began they showed us a few clips and told us that it was animal week, they had never done that before. They had brought in all of the animals that were in the films, like Hedwig the owl and Fang the dog.

First of all you get a Magical Passport. At every stop you have to stamp it. You also have to look for the golden snitches in certain places. You first go to the Dining Hall were you look at some of the costumes worn. You see life size models of all the teachers and their pets.
You then move on to a hall, you have the Boys’ dormitory, the broom riding, the common room, the death eaters and the Ministry of Magic. In the common room I saw Hermione’s cat Crookshanks, Trevor the toad who’s Neville’s and Pigwidgon who’s Ron’s adopted owl! In that hall there is a broom riding room. There is a green screen and a broom; you also get to pick a cloak that you want. They also had the flying car so you could go on that as well. You have 3 pictures with different backgrounds and a video.

Next is outside, you can go on the nigh bus, which has been made out of three buses, put into one, Hagrids motor bike and the Weasly’s car that was crashed in the second film. You can also have butterbear, (which is from Hogsmede in the books) which is really cream soda. They have Privet Drive and Harry’s old house. They also have the bridge from the movies.

After that you go into another building, which is where they made the goblins masks, Dobby, and all of the creatures in the films. They showed how they did it and what type of paint they used. They made models that were exactly the same as the originals.

Next was Diagonally, they had all of the shops that were named in the books and had real owls outside. They had Olivanders wand shop, The Weaslys joke shop and Flourish and Blotts uniform.
The last part of the tour was the models; they had made a 40 days model of Hogwarts. They had built tiny models of everything and had done drawings. They showed you all of the cartoons and drawings of the planning. This part had taken the longest as it was creating the ideas. The model of Hogwarts is massive. It has every class room and part of the Hogwarts ground. After that part, they had everyone names of who helped into tiny wand boxes!

By Lauren

Year 8 Options

Recently we have been interviewing fellow pupils, and asking them questions about the option blocks and subjects. This year the academy ha=s decided that the options will now be taking there options one year earlier so this means that year 9 and year 8 will be taking them at the same time.
How do they work?
The options are split in to 4 different blocks: Humanities, Languages, Arts and Technology we then have to choose 4 of these that we choose and then 7 core subjects. The subjects we get to choose out of are:
Humanities:
French, Geography and History
Languages:
French, Geography and History
Technology:
ICT, Business studies, Graphic design, Computer science and PE
Arts:
Drama, Dance, Music, Statistics and Art
The 7 core subjects are: English literature, English language, maths, science, additional science, citizenship and RE.
Interviews
One of the people we interviewed was Saffron she is in Year 8 and is taking her options this year. Her opinion on the blocks is that she doesn’t like the blocks because she wanted to take music and drama however they were in the same block. She thinks it is the right time to take her options because she knows what she wants to do in the future. Her final options she is taking include: History French PE and Music.
The second person we interviewed about the options was Connor, he is also Year 8. He likes the blocks because all the subjects he wants to take are in the right blocks for him. He thinks it is too early to choose his options because he doesn’t know what he wants to do for his career, this is one of the problems that some people have encountered when choosing their options. His final choices are Geography History PE and Dance.

By Chanelle