Oriel Specialist Mathematics and Computing College subject of history received an enlightening experience when year 9’s, and some year 11’s, participated in a talk about the WWII holocaust.

The talk was a great first hand experience of what it was like to have had to live during the holocaust and being sent to concentration and death camps; such as the well-known Auschwitz/Birkenau, which is located in Poland. Learning about the holocaust is nothing compared to being lucky enough to hear a first hand account of one family’s struggle to survive.

We were told all about the survivors family, and how they were split up and sent to the camps on open air trains, made for cattle, with hundreds of dying and starving people crammed into the one tiny space, sometimes for 3 weeks (or more!) continuously. The survivor herself, was born at the very end of the holocaust, her mother had been on one of the open air trains for 3 weeks and, weighing only 5 stone, had to give birth to her whilst being pulled up a hill on a cart! Luckily, the camp they had been sent to was liberated by American soldiers a few days later, or they would have both been sent to the gas chambers to receive the same fate as millions of people before them.

I think the talk really made people realise that it’s not just something you learn about in history but something that has really happened to real people. I also think that there are many lessons to be learnt from the talk, such as the effects of any kind of racism in society and how they can spiral out of control.

Written by Tanya Catchpole (Year 11)

The Year 8 Oriel Athletics Team competed brilliantly on 14th May in the district Athletics meeting and came away with some amazing results both personally and for the college.

Exceptional performances were put in, especially by Jay Webster who came 1st in the 200m and 2nd in the javelin. The following students also gave great performances and came 2nd in their various events Connor Reeve, Adam Knight, Michael Lee, Megan Newman, Claire Nobbs and Hannah Austin, followed closely by Ryan Michael (twice), Chloe Anderson, Shaun Macleod and Jason Davies who all picked up highly creditable 3rd place finishes which scored valuable points for the squad.

The squad need to practice their relay change overs for future events but still managed a fantastic 3rd place finish overall. The athletes were a real credit to the college and should be very proud of their achievements, if they train hard at their chosen events they could have a bright future in athletics.

The squad would like to thank Ms Clarke for organising the event.

After checking the archives a number of students had broken Year 8 athletics records at Oriel:

Individual

Michael Lee – 100m – 13.81 sec

Bradley Simm – 1000m – 3.29 mins

Ryan Michael – 200m – 29.62 sec

Jay Webster – Javelin – 25.29 metres

Chloe Anderson – 1000m – 3.58 mins

Chloe Anderson – Shot Put – 6.26metres

Both the 4 x 100m Teams

Adam Knights, Jay Webster, Ryan Michael, Jason Davies – 58.43 sec

Hannah Boniface, Chante A, Teresa C, Maria Angusto – 1.03min

These students have made Oriel history – Big Congratulations!

During the Easter holidays three Oriel students, Nathan Brown, Raymond Lillie and Nadine Simmons, gave up some of their valuable time to attend a 4 day Electronic Engineering course organized by the Smallpiece Trust. They loved the experience and had the following to say:

This course was definitely worth the effort as we learnt a great deal over the four days and we know it will contribute to anything we do in the future due to the variety of new skills we obtained.

We enjoyed the course mainly due to the fact that it was well organised and the challenges were, let’s say, challenging.

They involved a great deal of teamwork and communication skills and were also beneficial in many ways.

Upon our arrival at the University we were given a useful insight into the challenges and tasks we would be facing throughout the course.

For example, our first assignment was to design and make a simple traffic light circuit using micro controllers to decide the sequence of three coloured LEDs. We were informed on the basic functions of breadboards and their functions in a seminar prior to the design stage.

We definitely found this useful as we had no previous knowledge of how to use them.

After we gained the necessary skills, we began the main project. This involved a short briefing on the product in which we were given the required equipment.

We needed to design and make a circuit that would guide a small motor-operated buggy over a black strip while maintaining constant speed. It relied solely on infra-red sensors to guide it over its path.

We learned a great many new skills and techniques used in industry and how and when components were used.

On the last day, the buggies were tested (ours worked, I hasten to add) and the outcome of our efforts was both surprising and rewarding as we did not expect instant success!

Nadine commented:

‘It was also very inspirational and helped me to decide which career path to take – I will definitely be pursuing a career in industry’.

At Oriel in Year 10 we have many options, one of them being Animal Care!

Animal Care is very enjoyable but can be hard work, we have 6 guinea pigs and they are called Bob, Bazza, Bubbles, Bert, Ant and Dec. These guinea pigs are loving and cared for so much, they all have different personalities and are great fun to look after.

We have rotas to come in before and after college and in the holidays we each take it in turn to feed and look after them. The guinea pigs all have to have health checks and this includes checking their teeth, eyes, feet, fur and eyes, we even weigh them! Treats are bought in for them from home to help them stay healthy and strong, hutches are cleaned regularly and they are all groomed and cuddled.

This course is really helping us as a team, there are a few of us that would love to work with animals in the future and this gives us ideas of what our responsibilities are going to be and the sort of things we will have to do.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsor’s Su Bridge of Watton who kindly supplies all of the feed and bedding.

This article was written by the Year 10 Animal Care Students.

Monday 9th June

YR 10 Art Trip to Greshams 08:40 – 13:00