News
PTA News
[Friday 18 January 2008]
The PTA exists to support and enhance College activities. This is done by volunteer parents helping at school events such as serving refreshments at drama productions or helping organise aspects of events. The PTA also organises fund-raising events.
Next meeting of the PTA is on Tuesday 1st July 2008 at 7.00 in the College library.
The agenda will include:
1. To coordinate volunteers to serve refreshments foe the upcoming new students and parents evening (Wed 9th July).
2. To fix a date for a fund-raising quiz night in the autumn term.
3. To look at the draft school calendar for the year ahead in order to map out how the PTA can assist in events.
All parents / teachers are invited to attend.
If you can’t make the meeting but would be prepared to offer help at a College activity, please contact Alison Rushton in the school office (01729 822451) or by e-mail to admin@settlecollege.n-yorks.sch.uk
VACANCIES
[Friday 18 January 2008]
OPENING EVENING SUCCESS
[Friday 29 June 2007]
Traffic was almost brought to a standstill on Thursday evening when Settle College held its Open Evening. The Principal, William Bancroft’s whistle-stop tour of primary and middle schools clearly paid off when over 400 prospective parents and students turned up to view what the College has to offer. This was not just a “look and see” but a hands-on experience with a plethora of workshops.
After an introductory talk from the Principal and some students, parents were invited to wander and enjoy.
There was a heart-stopping performance from students who attend Helen Howard’s School of Dance. Hot on the heels of their Sadlers Wells success they performed Dick Vosburghs “Sing Sing Sing”, a polished and professional routine which left the audience exhausted!
A visit to the Science department proved a hair-raising and gooey experience and Modern Foreign Languages could go into the catering business after the huge success of the Café de la Rivière.
In Design and Technology, time stood still as the Tardis rejuvenated and Zombies appeared on computer screens. The diversity of the art on display ranged from observational in the style of the expressionists and Dalis surrealism to African and Aboriginal, 
as well as the animal models to be used in the upcoming Malham Safari. There were riddles to be solved and poems to digest in the English department along with weird Maths Magic! Performing Arts threw down the gauntlet, “Dare you spend a night in Darkwood Manor”? If all of this proved just too much, you could test you abilities in the Sports department or relax in the Library with the SENCO team.
as well as the animal models to be used in the upcoming Malham Safari. There were riddles to be solved and poems to digest in the English department along with weird Maths Magic! Performing Arts threw down the gauntlet, “Dare you spend a night in Darkwood Manor”? If all of this proved just too much, you could test you abilities in the Sports department or relax in the Library with the SENCO team.Everything on show this evening demonstrated the highest standards and commitment in every area. Students’ hard work, and unfailing support from inspirational staff, paid off. This is new and challenging Settle College – watch this space!
Open Day!
[Wednesday 19 September 2007]
Settle College Open Day
For parents and students in Years 4 to 8
Prospective parents and students are invited to visit the College during lesson time where you will have an opportunity to meet with students, teachers and Governors.
Guided tours are available during the following times:
9:00 am—10:15 am
11:00 am—12:00 noon
1:45 pm—3:00 pm
Should you wish to join us on the day, please contact Mrs K Mullett, Principal’s PA, on 01729 822451 to book a convenient time to join the tours.
If you are interested in finding out more about the exciting opportunities available at Settle College, but cannot join us at the Open Day, please
contact the College to arrange a tour at another time. For more information, visit our website at: www.settlecollege.org.uk
POST-16 CALENDAR OF EVENTS 2006/7
[Thursday 02 November 2006]
Settle College – Post-16 Calendar of Events 2006-2007
To date: Arrive Alive (Driving Standards Agency); Worldwide Volunteers; Millennium Volunteers. Completion of student feedback sheet.
6-10 November
- GCSE resits (English, Maths and Science)
21 November
- Newcastle University Ambassadors – HE: the basics
8 January
- Launch of Work Experience
1 February
- Modular examinations
- Review fortnight
20 February
- GAP year speaker
March
- Y12 trial exams
- Maximise your potential
- Careers (HE/employment) Programme
- Refugee family
22 March
- Student Review Evening
24 March
- Civitas speaker
April
- Newcastle University Ambassadors.
- HE: choosing a course; personal statements
- Lancaster University – HE: Finance
- Centigrade programme
10 April
- Year in Industry
May/June
- AS examination period
June
- HE Fair at Harrogate
- Year 13 Induction programme
July
- Selected group to go to Oxford for two-day residential
- Work Experience placement
- Induction Day (3rd July)
August
- GCSE Results (23rd August)
- AS Enrolment (24th August)
FINANCE
- Universities and colleges in the UK can charge new full time undergraduate fees of up to £3,070 per year
- A student loan is available for tuition fees. This loan is not means tested. All eligible students can claim a loan of up to £3,070
- Students only have to pay back their student loan when they have left their course and are earning over £15,000
- Students from low income families can apply for a new non-repayable maintenance grant worth up to £2,765 a year. Eligible students with a household income of less than £17,910 could get a full grant and those with a household income of less than £38,330 could get a partial grant
- Many colleges and universities are offering non-repayable bursaries. Students need to find out what their preferred universities or colleges are offering
- There are additional grants for students with specific costs.
USEFUL WEBSITES:
www.tqi.ac.uk (Teaching Quality Information). Choices about what and where to study: (the site is supported by Government and the National Union of Students)
www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onelife Information on options at 18+, funding, exams (stress busters/revision), university listings in the UK, accommodation and gap year information.
www.yfyf.co.uk aimed at 16-18 year olds who are considering going to work or university (finance site)
SIXTH FORM INTERVIEWS
[Friday 23 February 2007]
SIXTH FORM INTERVIEWS
Sixth Form interviews are being held on Wednesday 28th February. If you have not yet made an appointment and require one please contact Joanne Howarth at Settle College 01729 822451
SETTLE COLLEGE STUDENTS IN CERN
[Friday 23 February 2007]
On Tuesday 30 January 2007, at 4.15 am we boarded the coach to Leeds Bradford Airport. Our purpose was to visit Geneva, home of CERN, the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. The AS and A2 Physics group from Settle College were aiming to find out more about the work done by the particle collision experiments that take place there, 100 m below the Jura mountains.
Geneva is a very multicultural city, in part due to the many different nationalities that work at a facility like CERN but mainly due to the neutrality that Switzerland has maintained for many years and also because it is home to the second largest United Nations complex in the world.
On Wednesday, we visited the UN Palais des Nations, where we learnt how the UN was set up after the First World War. We were shown around conference rooms and during our visit saw a small conference departing its morning session: the room was set out with all the name plates of the participating nations and the delegates congregated in the corridor for their informal chats outside of the official conference.
The UN site is fascinating. The old building on the complex was originally built by the League of Nations, around 1936 and is a marvellous piece of Art Deco architecture, featuring some of the finest building materials from those original member states. Geneva is the home to many of the important UN committees and associated bodies such as the World Health Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Thursday saw us visiting CERN, the main purpose of the trip to Geneva. We caught the bus across Geneva (the public transport system here is fantastic and efficient) and arrived in the morning for a visit to Microcosm, the hands-on visitor centre attached to CERN. Here we encountered a great display of experiments charting the history of atomic experiments including Thompson’s electron beam deflection and Rutherford’s alpha particle scattering. Early advances from CERN were on display including information about the World Wide Web, born at CERN and then given to the public.
Many nations work together at CERN despite its European origins and the CERN philosophy is altruistic: anybody may come to work at CERN, whatever their nationality but whatever they discover they must publish their work and make it widely available to the world so that further advancements may be made. Many people will not feel that looking into the smallest particles of matter and using these ideas to theorise about the origins of the Universe has any relevance to their lives but the scientific advances in general that are made in a facility like CERN (for example, superconducting materials required for the colliders) may then end up in industrial applications and may find their way via technological applications in household appliances.
After a fascinating lunch at the CERN restaurant, where every table seemed to be speaking a different language (some of the students shared a table with a man from Bolivia and his colleague; Mrs Dewhurst had lunch with a Polish man, a Bulgarian lady and a man from the Czech Republic), we started our guided tour of the facility.
Our guide was a retired German engineer/physicist, he was extremely knowledgeable and managed to explain very complex ideas in a very simple way. We then went to ATLAS, which is to be one of the biggest particle experiment on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is still under construction. Its aim is to take large particles like protons and smash them together at very high speeds (close to the speed of light) to find out more about the particles which make up the Universe, in particular the search is on for the elusive Higgs Boson which could help to unify the 4 fundamental forces of the Universe, something Einstein believed in but failed to do.
The scale is huge! We were taken down a shaft to about 100 m below the surface of the Earth and in front of us was a feat of engineering on a massive scale. On a platform approximately 15-20 metres above the ground, we were less than halfway up the chamber were particles less than the size of an atom are to be collided.
The construction of the chamber was described in detail and we saw work being undertaken on site by huge numbers of Russian engineers who have lived on site for some years to construct the project.
On return from the project some of the group spent a little more time at Microcosm before finally returning for our last night in Geneva. The whole trip was very enjoyable and educational and really demonstrated how amazing a feat it is to study these particles. Hopefully on a future visit the LHC will be up and running and we will already know more about the fundamental nature of the Universe around us.
J Dewhurst 2 February 2007
