Pioneers

September 5th, 2009

James Cook Amy Johnson

The Pioneers community is one of the five communities at Tong High School. As with all the communities the Pioneers contains students from Years 7 to 13 and is divided into two teams named after inspirational Yorkshire people. The Pioneers teams are named after Captain James Cook, the famous Royal Navy explorer from Whitby and Amy Johnson from Hull, the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.

The Student Progress Leader

The Student Progress Leader oversees the educational and academic progress of each and every student in the community using a variety of tracking, target setting and monitoring tools. For the Pioneers the SPL is Mr C. Hickling. A full Community Meeting, with a dual focus of silent reflection on a relevant topic or event and celebrating student achievement is held by the SPL every Wednesday.

The Team Leaders

The Team Leaders manage the pastoral welfare and attendance of all students in their team. Each team contains 6 Tutor Teams made up of students from all years. The Team Leader for Cook is Mrs E. Lumb and the Team Leader for Johnson is Ms E. Firth. Mrs C. Chaplin provides the Team Leaders and Student Progress leader with administrative support and is also Co-Tutor of PJ5.

The Team Tutors

Each Tutor Team is staffed by one or two Team Tutors. The Team Tutors meet with their tutor group for thirty minutes each day apart from Wednesday. Each tutor looks after the pastoral welfare and attendance of the students in their team and holds a regular assertive mentoring meeting with every child to discuss their academic progress and set targets to improve achievement.

The Pioneers staff team

Leadership Team Links
Ms T. Feiweles               Mr J. Armstrong
Student Progress Leader
Mr C. Hickling
Team Leaders
Mrs E. Lumb (Cook)    Ms E. Firth (Johnson)
Team Admin
Mrs C. Chaplin
Team Tutors
PC1 Ms N. Yellop PJ1 Miss A. Dawson
PC2 Miss R. Muir PJ2 Mr J. Murby
PC3 Mr N. McMahon PJ3 Miss V. Galloway-Place/Miss V. Tan
PC4 Mr R. Adams PJ4 Miss L. Peel/Miss C. Chaplin
PC5  Miss L. Parker/Mr C. Ignatowski PJ5 Mr R. Towler/Mrs C. Dudley
PC6 Mr J. Baddeley/Mrs L. Smith PJ6 Mr M. Byron/Miss K. Byrne

Student Leadership

Each Tutor Team selects a Student Leader and a Team Captain by secret ballot each autumn. They support their tutors in organising the every day activities of the class and the Student Leader also represents the views of the students at the Community Council and, if elected, the Executive Council. The Executive Council have the opportunity to stand for the post of School Ambassador and currently Aidan R of Year 11 from PC1 is one of the two students in this post.

Tutor Team Captain Student Leader
PC1 Umar Z Aidan R (Ambassador)
PC2 Kashif A Thomas W
PC3 George S Simran A
PC4 Hasan I Rebecca R
PC5 Stevie-Leigh R Stephanie C
PC6 Holly S Nathan K
PJ1 Grace B Mujtaba A
PJ2 Michaela B Abigail W (Exec member)
PJ3 Cameron B Danielle M
PJ4 Bilal B Emma G
PJ5 Mariam I Sally E
PJ6 Sana Y Rhianna P

The Pioneers Charity

Our community currently supports two charities. We are recycling old mobile phones and printer cartridges as well as collecting foreign currency to raise money for Help the Aged/Age Concern. We are also continuing to raise money to support students at our partner school, Masaka Secondary School in Uganda. We hold regular collections and fund raising events and students are encouraged to donate some of their Vivo points to the school in Uganda.

Rewards

Students can earn Vivo reward points in many ways, for example; attendance, academic progress, participation in extra curricular activities etc. All Pioneers students are encouraged to earn as many Vivo points as possible and individual students, tutor teams and the five communities are in competition to be top of the Vivo league each week. Vivo points can be exchanged online for a variety of rewards. Every Friday afternoon the Team Leaders and Headteacher reward students who have been recognised by their teachers as making an outstanding effort or producing particularly good work. Vivo points, rewards and certificates of achievement are celebrated weekly in our community meeting.