The SID theme this year is ‘Safer Internet Day: Together for a better internet’, encouraging everyone to think about identity online, looking at how the internet shapes how we think of ourselves and others.

To celebrate SID at Yavneh College, we ran a lunchtime SID stall and a range of activities in form time during the week, each selected from the huge bank of resources from the SID Centre (www.saferinternetday.org).

Safer Internet Day Stall
The sixth form computing prefects worked with year 10 volunteers and Mrs Alani, to run a lunchtime SID stall. Learners and staff participated in engaging games and activities for a chance to win a prize in the draw. The main attraction was the ‘SID tweet frame’, in which learners and staff could pose with their SID message to complete the phrase ‘let’s create an Internet where everyone is #free to be…’

Year 7 and 8 form time
Learners watched the video from BBC Own it, which is all about owning your online identity and doing the things you love to do online, then designed speech bubbles with emojis or phrases around the them, ‘free to be me’ online.

Year 9 and 10 form time
Learners each completed an online identity snapshot and engaged in discussions on key questions such as impressions and assumptions derived from a user’s online identity.

Year 11 form time
During the session, learners were encouraged to think about how the authenticity of our online accounts is measured on our identities, and whether this has an impact on our ability to curate, adopt and change our identities.

From January 2018 the departments of Vocational Education, Economics, Computing and Digital media are combining to form one larger Faculty of Enterprise and Digital Technology. It is exciting to put together what will be a department filled with enrichment opportunities and one that builds on the achievements of the last few years.

This year the department has been joined by Ms Hood who is teaching Business, and Mr Lightman who is our new media teacher. Yavneh College’s vocational subjects are developing well with the summer of 2017 results being very impressive, and we were very proud of our first cohort of BTEC students. The year 13 students gained, on average at least one and a half grades above their targets, with the majority of double award students achieving at least D*D and several gaining D*D*.  Out of the three students who worked hard to achieve the triple award both Ben Rosen and Ilan Shiradski achieved D*D*D* which was a phenomenal achievement.  The level 2 BTEC students did just as well with a 98% pass rate, the majority of students also gaining D* and D grade passes. This summer will see the first cohort of Digital media students finish their level 2 course, and so far the results look to be very promising with 98% of students passing their examined unit last summer. This year we have also started teaching the level 3 media award, having equipped the department with all the new technology needed.

Computer Science

The last year has illustrated the industriousness and involvement of the students in many different activities. The Computing Department was lucky enough to be granted some funding to buy some mBots, little robots which can be programmed by the pupils to navigate mazes and avoid obstacles.  We hope that this will add a new element to learning to code in Key Stage 3 and we aim to run a competition in class in order to challenge the pupils to think of new and creative ways to get the robots to carry out tasks.

Twitter Coding Trips       

This year we are going to send 15 more Year 8 girls to Twitter HQ in London as part of an interfaith project which aims to get girls coding and to break down barriers across faiths.  Last year girls met up with their Muslim and Christian counterparts to build websites and experience the inspirational environment enjoyed by those who work for Twitter.

Enterprise

Last year a group of students entered the Hertsmere Community Dragons Apprentice Challenge. This meant that a team of students were mentored by a business adviser and a charity fundraiser to raise as much money as possible for a chosen charity. Our team, named ‘Elegantly Enterprising’ raised nearly £1200 for the charity ‘Carers in Herts’ through numerous activities including non-school shoes day, a car wash and a carer’s day where they helped staff and sold various goods to students in order to raise the profile of the charity. The team won the regional finals and presented their cheque to Linda Cudmore of Carers in Herts in a school assembly. Jonathan Lipitch, the business advisor was also present at the awards ceremony. Both Jonathan and Linda gave a huge amount of support to the students who gained a lot from the programme.

Young Enterprise

This year we have decided to enter a Young Enterprise team into the National Young Enterprise competition. With thanks to Councillor Rabbi Alan Plancey for his support in funding the team, the students have now elected their Directors and are currently carrying out their market research into the product that they are creating to sell. Over the next few weeks you will see some marketing material for the product that they are making and hopefully many of you will invest in the company either through purchasing shares or by purchasing the end result.