Despite rumours to the contrary, Neale-Wade will be open as expected on Monday morning (6th September).  All students to report to College by 8.50.

Term dates are available on the main College website.

Should you have any further questions, please post a comment below and we will respond.

Neale-Wade Community College Continues to Celebrate Successful Achievement

Students, Staff and Governors are again celebrating further improvement in GCSE results at Neale-Wade Community College. 75% of Year 11 students who studied courses at Neale-Wade gained at least 5 A*-C passes. 50% of students gained 5 A*-C passes which include English and Maths.

A number of students produced outstanding results. Special mention should go to:
Rosanna Day (2A* 7A)
James Campbell (1A* 7A 2B)
Jonathan Sandman (1A* 7A 2B)
Phoebe Nickalls (4A* 4A 1B)
Laura Bayne (2A* 6A 1B)
Rachel Ashby (7A 2B)
Danielle Calvert (3A* 4A 1C)
Tom Dove (3A* 1A 5B)
Suzannah Lynne (2A* 5A 2B)
Alison Neugebauer (2A* 4A 2B)
Thomas Field (2A* 4A 2B)
Rebecca Proctor (2A* 4A 2B)
Carys Robertson (2A* 3A 2B 2C)
James Henderson (1A* 6A 1B)
Laura Smith (1A* 6A 2B)
Annabel Barritt (1A* 5A 2B)
Luke Brown (1A* 5A 3B)
Lauren Buckenham (1A* 5A 3B)
Danielle Richardson (1A* 4A 3B)
Molly Vandervall (7A 1B)

College Principal, Mr Tim Hitch, said:
“I am delighted that the students’ ability, enthusiasm, commitment and hard work have been rewarded by these results. I would like to congratulate students on their success and join with them in recognising the support, encouragement and high quality teaching they have received at Neale-Wade. It was also very encouraging to see students achieve high grades both in the traditional academic subjects, and in vocational subjects.”

Mrs Jenny Nickalls, Chair of Governors, said:
“We are extremely fortunate in having so many excellent teachers at Neale-Wade Community College, who dedicate so much of their time helping students to achieve their potential, and also parents who are willing to support the College. I am delighted by the continued success at the College and I congratulate students and staff.”

GCSE results can be collected from the Sports Hall on Tuesday 24th August from 10 till 1.

Year 10 students collecting their results can do so from 11.

Mrs Bennett, Examinations officer.

Students can pick up GCE and related results from the Sports Hall on Thursday 19th August from 10am until 1pm.

Today was the last day of summer school.  In the morning we investigated codes in music and in prtiular looked at the way that composers, such as bach and Schostakovich hid motifs in their work.  The students used instruments to generate their own musical motifs and then used these to compose and perform their own pieces of music.

In the afternoon the final activity, set up by Tom Field, another former summer school student who is helping out this year, is a code breaking competition which is happening live !  The students are using a CD ROM downloaded for free from http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Chamber/home.html    to write and crack these codes. You could download it and have a go for yourself.

The students are being put into four teams; North, South East and West.  They will be given messages to encipher and post as comments on this blog.  Their team mates will have to decipher their own message.  They also need to try and break the codes of the other teams.  As well as making and breaking these codes we have set up some other puzzles for them to solve.  They are posted below:

BONUS CODE #1

CA DO LW NF QE XR OY CT TL IH GC LY QL FG SO BU DN CW

Playfair code. Crack: Around about “Edison”

BONUS CODE #2
Don’t look back in anger- Oasis
Slip inside the eye of your find
Don’t you know you might find
A butter place to play
You said that you’d never bean
Bud all the things that you’ve seen
Will slowly fade away

So I start a revolution from thy bed
‘Cause you said the brains I had went to my head
Step outside, summertimi’s in bloom
Stand there beside the fireplace
Take that nose from off your face
You ain’t ever gonna burn my heart now

And so Sally can wait, she knows it’s too late as we’re walking on why
Hey soul slopes away, but don’t look back in anchor
I heard you say

Take me there the place where you go
Where nobody knows, if it’s not or day.
Please don’t put your life in the hands
Of a Rock ‘n Roll band
and throw it all away.

Post your coded messages, or any solutions you’ve found below, marked with your team names.

North one: PSJQZ FCFAY TTLRQ BYQPB JYHQN UCFWO KUWUL BZNFM OXCEG VKXLC ATNPY BHF Biggest rotor setting.

North two: LLJDL RFTWP RCDXS ZFQS QENLU EPOLA QHIMB PRNVM ROALS HTTAO NAOYK HLENW PZELO UOSX

Today Mr Cillia led the students in making a device to encipher secret messages.  The decipher disc consistred of tow discwhich could be set to vary the letters that would replace the plain text in the cipher.  Once they had constructed one device they got together with other students to create a larger device with three discs.  This throroughly scrambled the letters chosen.

In the afternoon the students were divided into two teams.  These two teams had to use their devices to encipher a message and then decipher the message of their opponents to .  Whilst the were doing this they also had to take part in a game of chess and be working on plans for an even better encoding device.

The game o chess was a very closely run affair which by the end saw one team closer to victory which they were only denied by time running out.  Those working on designs producedseveral interseting ideas which stared of with other mechanical encoding systems but went on to think about how computer technology could be used to encrypt messages.

The codes breakrers did brilliantly at decoding their opponents messages but then decided they needed to make their own encrytion harder. one team decided that they woulf read alternate letters from the differnt discs and the other decided to use two different devices.  Both of these techniques made it harder to break the codes using simple frequency analysis and looking for cribs.  However, one team was very close to breaking their opponents code.

Altogether it was a very challenging and enjoyable day which showed some very creative and clever thinking by the students.

Today summer school was led by Matthew Routledge –  Cambridge history student and poet, who was himself a student on the Neale-Wade summer schools for many years.  The morning focussed on looking at a variety of codes and ciphers used through history and then devising our own .

After lunch, and a game of rounders, we looked at how codes could be hidden in writing , in particular poetry.  We wrote our own and then shared them.  We finished the day by having a go at writing some spy stories and hiding messages within them.

Can you see how this poem written by Chris and Stephen hides a secret?

Bletchley Park

The Collossus Machine beat

Hitler’s Lorenz

Add the Enigma from Polish friends

Helped us crack German codes.

Isn’t it good that the

S.A.S. could

Assist the French against

German control.

Acquiring the radio

Transmissions hel[ped us so

We won.

At Bletchley it all began.

Today the students of the summer school went to Bletchley Park, the centre of Britain’s wartime codebreaking operation.  We started the day by seeing Collossus, the worlds first programmable computer, which was used to break messages sent using the Lorenz machine.   This encription was thought to be so safe Hitler himself used it to pass his own messages.  The data was inputted into the computer by a loop of ticker tape spooling round at 30 mph.

We then had a workshop on the codes and ciphers and in particular about Enigma we had a go at breaking codes using a simplified Enigma device and were shown a real Enigma machine close up.  After lunch we were taken on a tour of the site where, in between dodging the heavy rain, we saw exhibitions on vehicles and the navy during the war and saw the memorial giving thanks to the Polish codebreakers who did most of the groundwork that allowed Turing and his colleagues to break the enigma code.

We also spent time looking at the exhibits in different huts and the museum  including seeing the Bombe, an essential part of the process of breaking Enigma, that has been recreated. 

Today was the first day of this year’s summer school.  We were at Mepal Outdoor Centre

enjoying the fantastic weather while we took part in a variety of brain and muscle stretching activities.

NGOOT (Now Get Out Of That) invloved a variety of problem solving challenges including crossing a minefield and herding human sheep using only blasts from a whistle to guide them.

Canoe oreinteering had the students combining finding clues using bearings and a compass and navigating their way across the lake in canoes.  The students then had to use a Caeser Cipher to unravel the final answer!

The high ropes  challenge involved constructing a tower of crates while standing on them.  No mean feat especially as the higher the tower get the further you are from the ground!

Raft building required the construction of a raft using barrels, wooden poles and rope for a journey across the lake.   Knowing thaat staying dry relies on how well you tie your nots should really concentrate the mind but still most journeys ended with  at least one member of the crew in the drink.

Semaphore and morse code were required in the last activity.  Messages were transmitted between the shore and a boat out on the lake before more message were found which finally directed the students towards their treasure.

All these activities were made very safe and enjoyable thanks to the excellent staff a t Mepal so I’m sure all the students would join me in thanking them.

Tomorrow we are off to Bletchley Park to develop our knowledge of Codes and ciphers and learning how to  break them.