Our team shines in tournament

Eight students represented WFC in the annual basketball tournament hosted by Enfield College.

Leading up to the event we had held trials at Forest Road YMCA and were, to be perfectly honest, rather disappointed with the turn out. Fortunately, of those who did attend, we had a rich mix of talent and were reasonably confident of making a good showing of ourselves.

The format for the tournament meant that the nine Colleges present were pooled into three groups of three. The league phase was played over 1 period of 10mins, rolling clock.

Our first game was against B6 Brookhouse who play out of Hackney. The early exchanges were, as expected, fraught with turnovers and missed opportunities as both sides tried to settle. B6 were first to get into their rhythm and took up a 9-2 lead on 5mins.

However we didn’t panic and with some good accurate passing from Michael and Andrius and some excellent aggressive defence from Mamomi (“Golde”), we cut into the deficit and with 1min of the game left trailed by 15-12.

Iain then picked up the ball on halfway and we all felt assured that we could keep our hopes alive, even though time was running out. But as he made a desperate attempt to drive towards the basketball he was alleged to have fouled the opposition centre and we turned the ball over with only 15secs remaining on the clock.

Playing a full court press, all players dug in, to deny Brookhouse time and space. Under this pressure their number 10 misplaced an easy lay-up and Seb Pardo rebounded the ball deep in his own half. Dribbling up to just in side halfway and, with the clock showing 1sec, Seb released a shot which flew straight into the basket for three miraculous points………..UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!

After some celebration involving the majority of those present we went into 1min of overtime and managed to hold off Brookhouse, finally winning the game 17pts to 15pts. A very enjoyable and some would say memorable game.

Our second contest was against Carshalton College and it was clear from the “tip” that we had the upper hand on offence and defence. Michael used his physical attributes to dominate the boards and collect a nine point personal tally.

Javin, Malik and Jeffrey also had strong contributions and we ended the game victorious wining 17pts to 10pts.

Two from two and we were through to the semi finals against Sir George Monoux College.

The last four matches were scheduled for two 7min periods but as the tournament had overrun officials were forced to reduce game times down to a one period of eight minutes.

SGM had been the form side of the tournament showing fluid and well drilled patterns of play during their two qualifying games. We were not intimidated with what we had seen and started confidently matching scores early on. But as the game developed their experience showed and we ended up going down 20pts – 12pts.
A very promising start for WFC Basketball Team, well done lads.

The players:
Andrius and Iain (ESOL New Start), Javin and Malik (Intermediate Business + ICT), Jeffrey (Btec National Sports), Michael (Btec 1st Diploma Sport) and Captain Mamomi (Access to Buisness).

If you are interested in playing competitive basketball for the College please contact Mark Jarvis – Sports & Student Activities Manager: mjarvis@waltham.ac.uk
Tel: 020 8501 8173

Mysterious ray zaps students at airport

Could it be that what you are seeing is the final moments before students were zapped by a death ray?

Or is it before they were dematerialised by some transporter beam?

Nope.

It's just the BTEC First Diploma travel and tourism students wearing extremely flattering refective jackets.

We recently visited London City Airport, and were able to see airport and airline operations in action.

We had the opportunity to go both landside and air side (for which normal access is for departing and arriving air passengers only).

It was a very enjoyable and informative trip and one which lots of information could be gathered so as to complete many courseworks.

Lochness Monster scared by WFC students

Nessie, the Lochness Monster, decided to avoid students from Waltham Forest College despite us searching for her. We popped in to look for her during our trip to Inverness, but nothing.

We went to Inverness to undertake research for the BTEC 1st Diploma Travel and Tourism course.

We visited the Inverness College where the travel and tourism students did a presentation on the Highlands and Invernesshire.

Then it was our turn and we did a presentation on London and England as a tourist destination.

Afterwards we were served up Venison, Haggis and Shortcake in the form of a traditional Scottish meal.

It was served to us by the catering and hospitality students of Inverness college.

Then, before coming back to England, we managed to see more of the sights and take in a little of the evening life.

An Italian rival for the Mallinson

Can you believe it? Is this really a rival to the Mallinson Restaurant?

Well, it's very similar, just nearly two thousand kilometres away in Italy.

We discovered it when the BTEC 1st Diploma Travel and Tourism class recently paid a visit to Ancona, Italy. We went over to visit a college in Senigallia, a seaside resort, in the North of Ancona.

The college specialises in catering, hospitality and tourism.
When we first arrived we were introduced to the Principal of the college and the two Head Tourism teachers.

We did presentations on English food, lifestyle, culture and tourism issues and then the Italian students also did their presentations on similar matters.

After the presentations the catering students at the Instituto Panzini served us freshly cooked Italian food in their catering training restaurant - the one that looks a bit like the Mallinson.

We learnt a lot about Italian education systems and made some very good friends as well as getting to experience first hand, the Italian food and culture. All of this gave us some invaluable material for our assignments too.