Recent News

Staffing Update

Mrs McLean has now left after covering for Mrs Vali who is back from maternity leave. She has done an excellent job supporting English over the last 12 months and we wish her all the very best for the future. Mrs Vali will be working part time, splitting her time between the English and Drama departments. Miss Saville is moving on to Hazel Grove High School to cover a maternity leave there. Earlier this week we appointed a new Deputy Head teacher, Miss Sheley Ward.

Year 8 Interim grade sheets

Year 8 interim Grade sheets will have been given to your child to bring home last week. Please contact your child’s form tutor if you have not received a copy.

Calendar dates

To help parents plan holidays for next year so that students do not miss school please note the following term dates for the remainder of the 2011-2012 academic year:

1st November 2011 Dear Parent/Carer

Enrichment Days

The first of our enrichment days takes place on Friday, 4th November. There will be a variety of activities to enhance the learning experience for our students, details of which are in the grid below.

Welcome back!

Year 7 students have settled in well and I would like to thank all Year 8-11 students in school for making their first couple of weeks an enjoyable one. There is a really nice atmosphere in school and everyone looks smart and ready for learning.

Attendance letter

I have enclosed an important letter about attendance – in future most of my communications will be sent home with your child. You will be notified by text. Please keep school informed of any changes to phone numbers.

On Thursday 14th July, students who had successfully completed a City in the Community project during their English lessons, received an OCR qualification at The Etihad Stadium. They were presented with their certificate by former Manchester City ‘legend’ Paul Lake. Alder had the highest number of people representing the school out of 13 schools across Greater Manchester. As a result, we were awarded a signed match ball which will take pride of place in our English trophy cabinet!

Message from the Chair of Governors

The Governing Body is pleased to announce that Richard O'Regan has been appointed as the Head teacher of Alder Community High School with effect from 1st September 2011 after having been Acting Head teacher since Easter 2010. The Governors would like to congratulate Richard on his appointment and believe he has the vision and ability to lead the school over the coming years.

Also we would also like to take this opportunity to thank the staff for its continued support and dedication.

Adrian Brooks
Chair of the Governing Body

15 female members of staff from Alder Community High School ran the Race for Life on the 10th July 2011. The ladies had a brilliant day and are hoping to raise a lot of money for cancer Research. The elite runners were Miss Hill, Mrs Parker, Mrs Greenhalgh, Miss Davies, Mrs White, Mrs Brunt, Mrs Maden and ex pupil Ciara Graham and averaged an amazingly fast time of 30mins. The rest of the ladies walked the 5k around Heaton Park with thousands of other women in memory of loved ones.

Congratulation to the Year 8 Tennis Team, made up of Mathew Cartwright, Joshua Kiefer, Charlotte Monte and Darcey Clay who recently won both the boys and girls Tameside Competitions at the Priory Tennis Club in Stalybridge. Both teams were undefeated though the whole competition to make sure that they retained the title that last year’s Tennis team won.

The team now go on to represent Tameside at the Greater Manchester School Games on Wednesday 6th July at the Regional Tennis Centre at Sportcity in Manchester.

On Wednesday 25th May a small group of year 7 and year 8 students visited the BBC studios in Manchester. The purpose of the visit was to look at how the BBC uses ICT, and the visit was all the more poignant as this was to be the last ever tour of the historic studios before moving out to Media City in Salford Quays later this year.

Alder’s Year 10 boys Basketball team finished third place in the England Basketball Under 15’s Conference this year, representing the North of England.

After beating Danum Technology College from Doncaster in the quarter finals 81 – 72, they took part in the Final Fours event at Nottingham Wildcats Arena on Saturday 14th May. Unfortunately the Year 10’s lost their semi-final 63 – 70 in the last 90 seconds of the game against the eventual winners, Holy Trinity Church of England School from Crawley.

Manchester Music - Volume 1

In this feature are The Smiths and The Chameleons, two Manchester acts from the 1980s. Thanks to Isaac Whitehead (Year 11) and James Hancock (Year 10) for their contributions. James sings The Smiths' 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' and The Chameleons' 'All Around.'

Click here to listen

More great Manchester music to follow...

Spring Term newsletter online

The Spring Term newsletter is now available on the school website. This enables us to cut down on paper and, also, the quality of photographs will be far higher than photocopied ones. If you would still like a paper copy, please telephone school and we will send one home with your child.

Hovis have been helping students at Alder Community High School to develop enterprise skills.

Thanks to generous funding from Hovis, Bright Futures, a national company, ran an Enterprise event for Year 9 students. The workshop covered those key employability skills needed for success in the workplace, such as effective communication, risk taking, team work and problem solving: all skills needed in “can-do” people who can “make things happen”.

The Tameside P.E. Association Cup Finals took place at Alder Community High School on Saturday 16th April. All five of Alder’s boys teams had reached the final of their age group which was an amazing achievement. There was a big crowd to support all of the schools involved. Alder dominated the day, winning four out of five finals, whilst Audenshaw beat our Year 9’s for the second year running to retain their title in the Under 14’s final.

Under 12’s

Alder (12) v Copley High School (10)

The Tameside Association Cup Basketball Finals 2011 will be taking place at Alder on Saturday 16th April from 12.00 p.m. onwards. All five of Alder’s Basketball teams have made it to the finals, which is a massive accomplishment.

Spring Term newsletter online

The Spring Term newsletter and all future newsletters will be posted on the school website and should available just after Easter. This will enable us to cut down on paper and the quality of photographs will be far higher than photocopied ones. If you would still like a paper copy, please telephone school and we will send one home with your child. We will text in the usual way to let you know when the newsletter is available. Please ensure we have up-to-date contact details.

On Weds 16th March a group of Year 10 students visited University Campus Oldham for a Video Games Design taster session organised by Aimhigher.

“We went to the Oldham University to look at Video Games Design. We looked at how they created game characters and the art behind making characters and cars. We were shown simple animations of the characters. The equipment they had was hi-tech and impressive. The only bad things about it was that it wasn’t long enough; we couldn’t fit everything in. But it was good fun and we learnt a lot from it.”

Year 7

1st Place – 7CG

Runners up – 7MD

3rd place – 7SS

Year 8

1st Place – 8CO

Runners up – 8CE

3rd place – 8AC & 8AY