March Newsletter

Headteacher’s Message

We have had a very busy term since we returned in the new year! The pupils have been exploring the theme of ‘Feast for the Senses” discovering what our senses are and how we use them. We have used a wide range of books with sensory stories, and different activities to support this learning in school. Whilst out on our community visits, pupils have been discovering what senses to use to keep ourselves safe.

Sadly, I still do not have any more of an update about the building works. However, we are carrying out some refurbishment work over the Easter break. This will provide us with some improvements to the play areas and the whole school environment. We are also hoping for some additional classroom space to be installed over the summer. As ever, I will keep you updated with any news I have.

I am hoping to see many of you at Parents Evening on Thursday 21^st March 2024 and hope that it proves to be a useful evening for you all.  As always, I would like to thank you all for your continued support this term.

Finally, please be aware that school will be closed from 3pm Thursday 28^th March 2024 for the Easter holiday. Pupils return to school on Tuesday 16^thApril 2024.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a lovely Easter break.

Geoff Cherrill
Headteacher

Safeguarding and Participation Team

Grooming

Grooming is when someone builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them.

Children and young people who are groomed can be sexually abused, exploited or trafficked.

Signs of Grooming

It can be difficult to tell if a child is being groomed - the signs aren't always obvious and may be hidden. Older children might behave in a way that seems to be "normal" teenage behaviour, masking underlying problems.

Some of the signs you might see include:

• Being very secretive about how they're spending their time, including when online;
• Having an older boyfriend or girlfriend;
• Having money or new things like clothes and mobile phones that they can't or won't explain;
• Underage drinking or drug taking;
• Spending more or less time online or on their devices;
• Being upset, withdrawn or distressed;
• Sexualised language or an understanding of sex that's not appropriate for their age;
• Spending more time away from home or going missing for periods of time.

A child is unlikely to know they've been groomed. They might be worried or confused and less likely to speak to an adult they trust.

More information about grooming can be found following the link below.

Social Media

Social networking is hugely popular. Many young people are sophisticated in the way they use social media apps and websites, tailoring their communication for different audiences, and accessing them from a range of devices including smartphones, tablets, and games consoles.

But social media, like all forms of public communication, comes with some risks. Not all of these risks turn into actual problems; and if children never face any risks, they never learn how to deal with them. By helping your child understand what the risks are, you can play a big part in preventing them from turning into problems.

Please see the link below for a practical guide for parents and carers whose children are using social media.

Further information about social media sites can be found on the National College.

Signing up to the platform is simple. Just follow https://nationalcollege.com/enrol/winchelsea-school and complete your details. Once you are set up, you will be able to choose ‘Parent/Carer’ as your user type and get instant access to all training and resources.

Vaping Amongst Children

The supply of disposable vapes has exploded over recent months. The designs of the packaging and the fruity flavours have made vaping more appealing to children.

The knock-on effect of the popularity of vaping amongst children is that perpetrators of Child Sexual or Criminal Exploitation and abuse are giving vapes to individuals as part of their grooming tactics. If you know of any local businesses selling vapes to underage children, please report this to the Police.

To find out more information about vaping and the impact it has on young people please see the link below.

Mental Health and Wellbeing

The importance of talking to your child.

Giving our children and young people opportunities to open up is one of the biggest things we can do as parents and carers to support their wellbeing. It can be easy to forget the simple power of sharing what we’re going through and feeling heard. But even though you can’t fix everything when your child is struggling, you can make them feel seen and understood - and this in itself can make them feel more able to cope.

Talking about how they are, how their day has been and what’s on their mind as part of everyday family life shows your child that you're interested in them and want to listen. It also supports them to practise thinking and talking about their feelings, helping them to get to know themselves and what they need.

But talking isn't always easy. You might feel like you don’t know where to start, when a ‘good time’ is, or how your young person will react. Or, you might be worried about making things worse or saying the wrong thing. If this is the case, try to remember that your child doesn't need you to always get it right - they just need to know you're there.

On the Young Minds website, you can find lots of ideas, conversation starters and advice for making talking easier. 

As always, if you need support with visuals to support these conversation’s please reach out to us.

Online wellbeing support for young people

Kooth is a free, safe, anonymous online emotional wellbeing community that is accessible 24/7, 365 days of the year and provides access to chat sessions with BACP-accredited counsellors and qualified emotional wellbeing practitioners. Kooth is for young people aged 11 - 25 years old.

Kooth is accessible from any device that connects to Wi-Fi, allowing young people to seek support at a time and location that is suitable for them. Kooth can be found at 

Best Wishes,
Adam, Jo, Abi, Kelly, Lois and Nicki

Every Day in School Matters

Attendance

We continue to monitor attendance following guidance from the Local Authority. Winchelsea School maintains high expectations with regards to pupils’ attendance. This is because the link between pupils’ attendance levels and their school performance is very clear.

It is our ambition that all pupils benefit from an attendance rate of at least 95%. Whilst we recognise that there can be a number of reasons behind a pupil’s absence, it is important that we have a clear understanding of your circumstances in order that pupils have the right support in place to enable them to engage fully in their education.

Requests for Absence during Term Time and Fixed Penalty Notice

Headteachers are only allowed to grant leave of absence from school in exceptional circumstances. In considering whether or not to authorise a request for exceptional leave of absence in term time, the Headteacher will look at each individual case and only grant authorisation if the circumstances are truly exceptional. Additionally, any request should be made prior to the leave of absence and should be submitted to the school using the Request for Leave of Absence form (available from the school website or from the main school site reception). Parents/Carers may be asked to provide additional information/evidence or meet with the school to discuss the circumstances.

The fundamental principles for defining ‘exceptional’ are rare, significant, unavoidable, and short. 'Unavoidable' should be taken to mean an event that could not reasonably be scheduled at another time.

Generally, the following scenarios cannot be considered ‘exceptional’:

• Annual family holidays;
• Educational visits arranged by family members during school time;
• Family birthdays or other events;
• Parents’ profession or place of work making it difficult to coincide school and work holidays.

Following an application for term time absence, Parents/Carers will be notified of the Headteacher’s decision at the earliest opportunity. If the circumstances are not considered to be exceptional, then the absence cannot be authorised and the school may need to request that the Local Authority issues a Fixed Penalty Notice.

Medical Appointments

We request that, where possible, routine medical and dentist appointments are arranged outside school hours as these appointments will affect your child’s percentage attendance. We do understand that some appointments, such as hospital consultations, are not always possible to arrange outside of school hours. However, if your appointment time allows your child to come to school for registration and then leave, this will have a positive impact on their attendance figure. Likewise, if they are able to be back in school for afternoon registration (1pm), this will also have a positive impact.

What should I do if my child needs to be absent from school? 

You should contact school as early as possible to explain why your child needs to be absent, for instance if they are too ill to attend school.  

If no contact is made from Parents/Carers, school will contact you on the first morning of their absence to find out why. If we are unable to make contact with you, we will try further emergency contacts, if contact cannot be made a home visit may be carried out to check all is ok and there are no concerns for welfare. Where no explanation for absence is provided the school absence will be marked as unauthorised.

Best wishes
Adam Bradford

Curriculum

This half term our curriculum theme ‘Feast for the Senses’ is a science topic.  Pupils have been finding out about the five senses and how they help us to navigate our lives in a variety of ways - from the objects we will be willing to touch and smell, to how the senses keep us safe in the world around us.  Pupils have also been learning about their body parts and how bodies change as they grow.

STEAM learning has provided lots of great opportunities for practical experiments to experience the senses and the impact of not having senses.

Classes have used a variety of books to develop pupils understanding of the different senses.  Some of which are sensory stories that provide a fully immersive experience. Our Discoverers classes thoroughly enjoyed a visit from ‘The Storybox Company’ which took them on a ‘Bear Hunt’ providing a ‘Feast for their Senses’.

It has been great for pupils to take part in the Intra-schools P.E. competitions with Sea Turtles and Sea Lions enjoying some healthy competition against Canford Heath Junior School.

Classes have also used the opportunity to develop their awareness of their senses in the community. Developing awareness of traffic and crossing roads, understanding that our senses help to keep us safe. Pupils have also experienced a variety of places, particularly in Forest Schools, to explore and help them understand more about the world around them.

The School Council have been busy preparing ideas to support the school’s local nominated Charity - High Mead Farm. Pupils have an exciting itinerary of activities to help raise money, more information will be sent out soon on how you can support these ideas.

Hannah Parry
Curriculum Lead

Medical

Temperatures

New government guidance has recently been updated regarding what constitutes a high temperature. A high temperature is now classified as 38 degrees and above.

Should your child have a temperature of 38 degrees or above, please do not send them to school as it will be highly likely we will need to send them home as we cannot administer paracetamol products in school without being prescribed. A high temperature may indicate an infection so medical advice should be sought from your GP. Please see link for further information.

Sickness/Diarrhoea

Government guidance and our school policy stipulates children should not be in school for 48hrs following the last bout of sickness or diarrhoea. Please see link for further information:

Head lice

Head lice and nits are very common in young children and their families. They are picked up by head-to-head contact and are not to do with dirty hair.

Head lice can make your head feel:

• Itchy
• Like something is moving in your hair

The only way to be sure someone has head lice is by finding live lice. You can do this by combing their hair with a special fine-toothed comb (detection comb). You can buy these from pharmacies.

How to get rid of head lice:

Treat them as soon as you spot them.

Check all members of the household and treat anyone who has lice the same day.

For further information on different treatment methods:

Medical Email

Please use our medical email address [email protected] if you would like to discuss the following:

Request referrals - School Paediatrician, ID-CAMHS, Continence Team, Sleep Clinic, Community Dietician, Dental Service.

General enquiry inbox - to be used for any other medical related issue other than listed above.

We aim to respond to all email enquiries the same day.

Prescribed Medications

If your child requires medications during school time for a medical condition you must complete an M2 form, this is available in reception or on the school website to download.

Medication can only be accepted if it is in the prescribed box clearly labelled with the child’s name, dose, expiry date and lot number.

Paracetamol - please be advised that we have a Medication Policy in place that states we can only administer prescribed medications which includes Paracetamol.

As always if the medical team can offer any support or advice, please contact us.

Therapy Team

Speech and Language Therapy

In Spring 1, we were busy making new communication aids for pupils who are ready to progress from PECS, either through providing new communication books or developing the Total Communication environments in classes with using more Let’s Chat boards. These new communication books are known as PODD (Pragmatic Organisation Dynamic Display) communication books. The way we teach pupils how to use these supports is through natural language stimulation, where visual (symbol) language is modelled by adults alongside their spoken language. SaLT time in Spring term has and will be to model this approach in class so pupils can be supported with their communication throughout their day in school.

Swallowing Awareness

Dysphagia (eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties) can be supported by Speech and Language Therapists. Here is some more information about dysphagia, including the signs to be aware of, if you feel that your child has any of these, then please flag them to Winchelsea’s SaLT team who can facilitate a referral to NHS Speech and Language Therapy.

Occupational Therapy

Active8 is continuing to go well, we have had the first rotation of Active8 boxes, so the pupils have received new fine motor resources to explore for the duration of the Spring Term.

The Therapy Team have started to offer more one-to-one pupil interventions working on Interception. Interception is an internal sensory system in which the physical and emotional states of the person are consciously or unconsciously noticed, recognised and responded to. For example: a person notices their stomach is rumbling and recognises this as signalling hunger, a person recognises goosebumps on their arms and recognises this as signalling feeling cold.

The SaLT Team

Physiotherapy

It’s been a busy physio term!

All our students receive physio intervention delivered through the curriculum which means we work on developing and improving motor skills in PE, in wake and shake, and throughout the day in many of the activities that are planned.

Highlights so far this year include the following:

• The students at Canford Heath have all been working hard at getting stronger, working on body awareness and coordination as well as balance skills in their morning wake and shake time. I have devised a programme of exercises for strength and yoga to continue their skill development.
• The students at Magna Academy have worked hard throughout the autumn term on a specific motor skill development programme, and this Spring they are working though specific and targeted movement breaks throughout their day which build on last term.
• Students in Starfish class have started copying some yoga poses with the staff modelling, supported with pictures on the whiteboard.
• We are 5 weeks into working on a weekly foundation movement skills programme with Shells and the therapy/PE team and we will continue for the rest of term.

We are getting ready to roll out Mr Hamilton’s desk drumming to the whole school in Spring 2!  He is an American teacher who has injected some fun into getting out of breath in the classroom with desk drumming, we will be using short swimming noodles as drumsticks.  He uses pop music to inspire us! I’ve already done this with Puffin class, and they loved it so much they asked for more!

Jane Reynolds MCSP

Ocean

What an amazing first term back Ocean class had. One of the highlights was watching some early interactions between the children. For some this was taking notice of what the children are doing, for others it was working alongside each other sharing a central set of resources, and for a few it was some positive physical interactions. These were a joy to watch.

We used ‘We’re Going on A Bear Hunt’ as our central story and the basis of all our activities. We looked at a different aspect each week and explored water, mud, grass, the forest, and very excitingly snow and ice (albeit pretend snow!). The children enjoyed mark making in flour, icing sugar, paint, mud and seed. They also loved exploring some foods including; custard, mousse, yoghurt, ice cream, and cereal, cooking activities are becoming a firm favourite with some of the class.

Sadly, due to the very wet weather we have experienced, we have not been able to access the local community as much as we would have liked. However, we did manage to go to the park a few times and also enjoyed and explored the woodland area within the school grounds. Ocean also experienced a fire alarm practice, and we were so proud of how every child participated appropriately in this. 

The children enjoyed a visiting storyteller!  This was a complete sensory experience as ‘We’re Going on A Bear Hunt’ was retold with the support of some amazing resources.  We had some very excited children engaging with musical instruments, lights, different textures, and repetitive movements and songs. 

We would like to thank everyone for your continued support. 

The Ocean Class Team

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Harbour

As we wrap up an enriching half term in Harbour class, we’re excited to share the wonderful sensory experiences and explorations the children have enjoyed linking to our topic all about the senses. Our story for Spring 1 was ‘We’re Going on A Bear Hunt’ which took us on a sensory journey through grassy fields, flowing water, muddy puddles, dense forests and icy landscapes. The children have explored various textures as we have introduced the delights of grass, hay and green noodles for the children to touch, smell, taste and look at.

From looking at the gentle river at Kinson Common to our sensory water play within the classroom, the children have discovered the wonders of water, enhancing their tactile and auditory senses. Our visits to Kinson Common have also included stomping in mud which has allowed the children to engage in messy play while developing their gross motor skills. We’ve even brought mud into the classroom to explore! and brought the forest indoors for some hands-on sensory exploration with natural resources including; sticks, leaves and bark which has encouraged their curiosity and a love for nature. Ice exploration provided a chilly, tactile experience which introduced the concept of different temperatures in a fun and safe way.

In Art, we have been exploring our sense of touch by painting onto different textures, using our sense of smell to smell hot chocolate scented playdough and also creating forest collages using natural resources. In our food sensory sessions, we have explored food textures related to our senses theme where we have stomped in crunchy cereal and splashed in blue jelly rivers. We have been on musical journeys as we have listened to ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ being told with musical instruments and have listened to nature sounds and enhanced our listening skills with mud and water shakers.

The story of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ has definitely been a big hit with the children and it has helped them develop their attention skills and interest in books. We also had a special treat with a visit from Musical Storybox to round off the story which captivated the children with a sensory-rich storytelling experience! We have also been looking at a variety of other interactive story books from the Musical Storybox collection where the children can press buttons to listen to sounds in the books, as well as touch and feel different textures.

Well done Harbour Class!

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Oyster

Doesn’t Christmas seem an age away now? Here’s a little something to share how we have been getting on in Oysters with our theme ‘Feast for the Senses.’

We have been focussed on all aspects of the senses; it has been at the centre of everything we have done. Our adapted story of ‘I Hear a Pickle’ written by Rachel Isadora has taken us through the senses, and overlapped into several other areas of the curriculum.

Thinking about ‘sight’ we have played looking games; finding and labelling items in pictures, books and out on community visits in Poole. This includes modelling of vocabulary and extending sentences with the phrases “It’s a… (point at item)” “I see a…” and when extending sentences, we model them such as “I see a red bus” “(Child’s name) say “I see a red bus”. We have also played a variety of sound games too for example; “I hear a…” whilst out and about and walking around school. Maybe you could try some of these activities at home.

Other senses have been met with a sensory approach and exposure to texture, taste and smells. This has been through hands on exploration as well as making food such as sandwiches and pastries. In our creative sessions we have been adding cotton wool to make smelly flower paintings while following modelling and instructions in conjunction with open creative exploration of Art and Music.

We have introduced a new active trail as part of our morning routine which has been independently accessed by a wide variety of the children as part of their morning settling and regulation time.

Mr Alex who delivers PE has also added the gross motor skills focus looking at key hand eye coordination skills including; throwing, catching and kicking balls at a target.

If you have managed to explore any of the senses we experience, touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste at home we would love for you to add this to your evidence for learning profile.

Just a quick reminder, you may wish to send in creative arts or sensory spare clothing as we are happy to support wearing this as our exploration is very immersive and hands on!

Oyster Team

Starfish

Starfish have had a lovely time looking at ‘A Feast for the Senses.’  The children have explored a range of different sensory activities, learning about likes and dislikes, experiencing new smells, textures, sounds and visuals.

We have been enjoying going out on lots of local community walks, using our senses to experience the world around us.  The children are walking for longer than ever before and are able to tolerate longer distances and different routes with more ease.

Forest school has been a huge success, with some of the children getting to go off site to forest school. This has been great for building independence and life skills, as well as learning about different environments.

We have been continuing to work on our communication skills and using the Let’s Chat boards to talk about what we can see and hear. It has been really interesting learning about the children’s understanding of the different senses and working on being able to tell us what they can feel or see or hear and whether they like it or not. 

There has been a big focus on life skills, with high expectations that the children are able to put their things away in the morning and pack their bags at home time with increasing independence.  It has been lovely watching the children becoming more independent every day and taking ownership of their belongings.

It has been a lovely start to the year. Well done Starfish Class!

Jellyfish

Hello and Happy New Year from the Jellyfish Class Team! I am not sure when is too late to stop saying that but as this is the first Newsletter of 2024, I am still going to write my well wishes! 2024 has already brought lots of challenge alongside lots of success for the Jellyfish pupils.

The theme for Spring 1 was ‘Feast for the Senses’ and we enjoyed exploring our 5 senses; taste, smell, sight, sound and touch. During the first week, we started to recognise each sense and then the pupils furthered their learning by focussing on a different one of their senses each week. Alongside this, in My Communication, we have been learning our own class version of ‘My 5 Senses with Pete the Cat’. The pupils have learnt to tell this story using Moving Pictures and learning which body part is used for which sense. The class have made amazing progress with this and even adapted the story individually to add in their likes and dislikes for each sense. Much to the amusement of the pupils, we discussed farts being a bad smell and Jellyfish Class (sometimes) being a loud noise! Throughout all of their learning, the class have practiced waiting, using ‘wait’ cards, and turn taking when sharing with their friends. We have focussed on Group Play in our Social Interaction sessions. This has created opportunities for practicing patience, communication and sharing - something we can all find tricky at times! In PSHE, we have been educating ourselves on our different body parts.

Pupils have also enjoyed the weekly Winchelsea Café run by Lobster Class every Friday. This has been a great opportunity to practice queuing, waiting and ordering food as well as practicing our Social Interaction skills in a different context.

As well as exploring our 5 senses at school, we have also been exploring these out in the community on our weekly Community Visits. We have been lucky enough to go out further afield on the school minibus a few times to Poole Park and Upton Country Park. We have also practiced our Road Safety skills when walking down to Bourne Valley Park from school. The Class Team have been most impressed with the good listening the pupils have shown when out on these visits. On these trips, Jellyfish Class have smelt different smells using their noses, listened for different sounds using their ears, looked at a variety of different objects and scenes using their eyes for sight and touched lots of different textures. Therefore, hopefully furthering their interest and understanding of each sense! During Jellyfish Food Therapy, the pupils (and staff!) have been exploring a range of different foods and textures. Some pupils have discovered they like soup and/or pâté! They have all been practicing making toast independently and been brave when tasting new foods. We have also celebrated Safer Internet Day and Children’s Mental Health Week by focussing on “being kind”.

On the final day of the half term, we celebrated Chinese New Year - the year of the Dragon - with lanterns, new foods and dancing dragons!

We look forward to warmer and sunnier weather to enjoy our outdoor learning in as well as looking ahead towards Easter!

The Class Team and myself really do appreciate your ongoing communication and support and we look forward to seeing what the rest of this academic year in 2024 brings!

Miss Naomi and the Jellyfish Class Team, Miss Jo and Miss Hayley    

Dolphin

What a great start to the Spring term we have had in Dolphins Class and it’s fair to say that the topic of ‘Feast for the Senses’ provided many great learning opportunities that the pupils really enjoyed.

In My Problem Solving we focused on texture concepts, money skills and developing healthy routines. Dolphin class have spent much time and effort this term on developing their personal care and hygiene skills. They have worked exceptionally hard on this and are now in a position where they can begin to take responsibility for these important life skills. Pupils now each have their own wash bag which they can access throughout the school day. Each morning and afternoon, pupils are given time for a ‘check in’, where they use their personal checklist to practice healthy routines around personal care. This includes; checking themselves in the mirror, washing face, blowing nose, brushing hair, spot cleaning clothes, washing hands and brushing teeth. Tyler has been leading by example and is always the first to remember to refer to his checklist each morning. Meanwhile, Shyla is also setting the standard by always brushing her hair and reminding her classmates about the importance of doing this as well!

As part of My Communication, ‘Here Comes Frankie’ by Tim Hopgood provided the perfect text for the term as it linked so well to our senses theme. Our sensory story was packed with beautifully vibrant images, jazz music from famous trumpet players and a range of strong-smelling scents such as coffee, lemons and pickled onions! These really brought the story to life and inspired some beautiful artwork and sentences when recreating our own versions of this text. Pupils especially enjoyed recreating their own pages from the book, using scented colouring pens and pencils, which really added another dimension to their work. Sabrina in particular produced some fantastic writing and beautiful artwork, which looked stunning and smelt delicious!

One of the highlights of the term has to be our Dolphins Class Health Spa, where Dolphin classroom was transformed into a health and wellbeing spa! Initially this was part of our My World learning around what makes a healthy lifestyle and the importance of rest and relaxation. But this was so well-received, that it quickly became our Fab Finish at the end of the term and provided some of our older pupils with the opportunity to gain some valuable in-house work experience. Pupils loved the relaxing music, spa scents, hand massages, lemon water, foot spa and reading magazines in the waiting area! Rocco engaged brilliantly with this activity and was something of a ‘spa expert’ when it came to reading magazines, wearing cucumbers on his eyes and feeding back to Miss Tina that the foot spa temperature needed adjusting! Overall, this spa experience linked beautifully to our ‘Feast for the Senses’ topic and allowed pupils and staff to really unwind and reset.

After much time and effort working on our road safety skills throughout the year, Dolphin class were ready to begin practicing catching the local bus to Poole Town. It has been a great success and everyone represented Winchelsea School beautifully. Yashfi and Amelie were especially good at modelling responsible behaviours whilst out and about and engaging with the public. We will continue to build on these important travel skills and look forward to extending this further by accessing the local community.

To round off the end of term, we celebrated Chinese New Year. In Dolphins class we experienced Chinese music and dance, created Chinese art and of course tried some delicious traditional Chinese foods. We all had great fun learning about Chinese New Year and we were particularly impressed with how well Charlie and Azra were able to use their chopsticks to eat noodles!

Dolphin Team

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Octopus

Coming back to school after the winter holidays can sometimes be quite daunting. With the return to routines, darkening days and cold drizzly weather, the New Year can be a bit of a shock. So, in Octopus Class, we’ve worked hard to create a really positive learning environment of fun and friendship, to get our pupils excited to be back in school and focussed on reaching their learning goals.

This environment of positivity and high expectations is working well, with our pupils actively engaging in our theme ‘A Feast for the Senses.’ From the very first week, our exploration of the different senses was very popular. We delved into diverse flavours and tried new tastes in our sensory exploration sessions.

Exploring our senses also helped pupils gain a greater scientific understanding of their own bodies. This will help them identify their bodily functions and pinpoint any potential illnesses along with other essential life skills.

Pupils particularly enjoyed exploring sound, which we encountered through audio clips, sound buttons, music sessions and listening walks. This helped with our communication skills, as we learnt to listen closely and identify sounds (using ‘let’s chat’ boards) and then take it one step further by attempting to replicate these sounds verbally when appropriate. 

In our cooking lessons, we have seen pupils make great progress with specific skills such as chopping, mixing and using essential equipment such as microwaves to melt chocolate and make popcorn pop. It is also a fantastic opportunity to work on our fine motor skills, we’ve seen pupils cracking eggs to make pancake batter, and chop and construct colourful layers of fruit to make healthy rainbow pots. 

A big success in class, has been in encouraging independent skills in a range of tasks, for example in our class snack café; we have been encouraging pupils not to wait for their name (which they do brilliantly) but to initiate their own choices. To help with this, we’ve been lining up on chalk lines and learning how to queue as you would need to in most shops and eateries.

In My Communication this term, we have been exploring our sensory story ‘Hello Ocean’, with some learners beginning to read the book with support, and we have all explored our comprehension around the senses in the story. We had a fantastic finish to the term with a community visit to the beach to explore all the senses from the book in real life. The cold weather and closed ice cream kiosks couldn’t stop Octopus class from having a super sensory trip to see the seaside.

In My Problem Solving, we have continued to utilise our number skills in different scenarios, such as in our class toy shop, where we have been buying preferred items to play with. Also, at the Winchelsea Café we regularly buy our own snacks from the menu, a skill we will continue this next term when we visit local shops to purchase ingredients to use in our cooking lessons.

In our life skills sessions, we have explored the importance of effectively identifying the weather in order to make independent and appropriate clothing choices. We then extended this learning in utilising zips, buttons and fastenings to help us stay warm.

In ICT, we began using the iPads to explore different apps. This involved navigating stories, using icons and arrows and hitting cause and effect buttons to discover different technology.

We have seen continued success in our social interaction sessions this term with pupils continuing to play alongside each other and with pupils they may not have interacted much with before. It’s fantastic to see these friendships start to grow and this feeds into our group activities where the whole class work together as a team. This is all guided by new social interaction targets agreed with the SaLT team to help benefit their development in areas such as turn taking.

Other areas that we have seen a marked improvement is in our writing sessions, with pupils following instructions to complete mark making activities. The class have been utilising pencils of differing thickness to follow dots to complete increasingly complex letters and drawings.

Please see our weekly newsletter ‘The Octopus News’ as the term progresses.

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Shells

Shells had a fantastic and very busy start to Spring term learning all about our senses through our theme, ‘A Feast for the Senses’. Our class story has been ‘I Hear a Pickle’ written by Rachel Isadora, and we have focused on a different sense each week, using our senses to explore and expand our vocabulary to label and describe these experiences. The children have really enjoyed playing instruments to explore; loud, quiet, fast and slow, smelling different items to see if they smell good or bad, looking at photos of themselves and describing what they see, and touching different textures to label soft, hard, rough, smooth along with other textures.

Our problem-solving lessons have all linked to the skills we will need when going to a café. We have been working on our 1:1 correspondence with money, we have practiced every afternoon in our classroom café, sitting at a table, looking at a menu, queueing, asking for what we would like and exchanging money for our requested items. It has been amazing to see their independence in all of these skills develop. During the past few weeks, we have also been accessing the Winchelsea café on a Friday to further practice these skills in a different context. We are really looking forward to visiting more cafés during community visits to apply these skills in the real world!

Our focus in life skills has been on making toast. The children have really grown in their ability to do this independently, especially their resilience with spreading and cutting which can be very tricky! We will continue with this skill and introduce sabotaging the activity to see if they can ask for help or solve the problem by themselves.

We have started our physio sessions on a Thursday with Mr Alex and the Therapy team. We have been working really hard on different exercises to develop our shoulder and core strength, as well as other foundational motor skills. The children have engaged brilliantly with these sessions, and we have already seen some progress - we can’t wait to see how their progress continues!

Shells Class Team

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Penguins

What a wonderful start to the Spring term we have had. Our school theme has been ‘Feast for the Senses’. Penguin class have showed amazing engagement in this topic. We can name our five senses and link them to the different parts of our body. The ‘Feast for the Senses’ became an excellent vocabulary topic, as we explored ways to express opinions on texture and tastes that we liked or disliked. For our fab finish, we had a class spa!

Penguins looked at two books for English. Our first text was ‘Here comes Frankie’ by Tim Hopgood, a wonderful story of a boy’s musical journey and his discovery of his love of the trumpet. Penguins were able to identify the different senses being used in this story and we also created our own descriptive words to help create sentences to describe this book. We have also read the story ‘I Hear a Pickle’ written by Rachel Isadora, which explores all of the different sounds, smells, tastes and textures that we see in our everyday world.

In Maths, Penguins have continued to amaze us with their number skills. Pupils have shown an excellent aptitude for their bonds to 10, and have been able to play games that involve adding to 10! Some of our Penguins have even worked on adding to 20. In order to learn how to add numbers, pupils learned how to add on by counting along on a number line or a 100 square. Penguins quickly understood that if we are adding or finding ‘more than’ our answer will be bigger, and that ‘less than’ meant we were taking away. We have been working on finding 1, 10 or 100 more or less than a number. It has been wonderful to see pupils make links between more or less and how they can use their place value knowledge to help them.

In RE, we have been learning about artefacts from different religions. Penguins have been looking at Hinduism. We have made colourful rangoli patterns, and listened to stories associated with the religion. Penguins have created some amazing art work based on the work of Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Giuseppe Arcimboldo created realistic portraits of people using fruit or vegetables. Penguins showed amazing creativity when creating their own fruit and vegetable portraits.

Penguins have loved forest school, where they have continued to use their senses to explore the natural world around them. We have explored the texture and colour of plants and animal life, as well as experience the hammocks. Many of the pupils found the hammock to be a relaxing experience. Penguins were able to go on excellent walks in our local community to be able to explore the different sounds, smells and textures in our environment. Class were beautifully behaved and staff were very proud of them for their excellent engagement.

Penguins have continued to show excellent team work in lessons such as PE and Lego therapy. Pupils have supported each other’s communication when building new structures in Lego, and really cheered for their team when they have learnt to make a new model on their own!

Thank you for your continued support.

The Penguins Team

Sea Lions

Wow! What a magnificent start to the new year! The pupils returned from the holidays raring to go! They were keen and enthusiastic to start our new topic “Feast for the Senses”, and what a topic it has been!

We have been blown away with how brave and willing Sea Lions have been to taste the unknown, such as pineapple and blueberries. Some of the pupils have surprised themselves and have now decided they like certain fruits after giving them a taste during our home cooking sessions.

Sea Lions have also enjoyed exploring their sense of touch, putting their hands into ‘feely boxes’ containing different textures such as jelly and beans. This sensory activity sparked lots of wonderful adjectives and produced a rich language environment within our STEAM session.

The pupils in Sea Lions love a good book! The pupils are engrossed and totally absorbed by the story of ‘The Midnight Gang’ by David Walliams! This has enabled us to produce some outstanding drama, and some fantastic descriptive writing!

Another aspect which has impressed me is the pupil’s resilience in Maths. We have been covering measure in Maths and as a class the pupils have found it challenging to measure using non-standard and standard units. However, the children gave it a go, as well as providing me with an opportunity to reflect on my teaching and deliver the lesson in another way so the pupils understood. I am happy to say that all Sea Lions can measure using non-standard units and we have had a lot of giggles along the way! The main message, we as a team, have been trying to instil is, its always ok not to understand something- as that’s why you come to school! 

Thank you, as always for your continued support.

Kind Regards

Miss Nic, Mr Saunders, Miss Katie, Miss Paris and Miss Lois

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Sea Turtles

Sea Turtles have thoroughly enjoyed our first topic of 2024: ‘Feast for the Senses!’ All pupils have been engaged, interested and genuinely excited to explore their senses across the entire curriculum with some sensational learning opportunities!

The pupils have enhanced and developed their prior knowledge about senses. In addition, they have explored the heightened senses of animals, learning all about how some animals experience the world differently to us.  This was absolutely fascinating!

During our exciting STEAM lessons, pupils enthusiastically used their bare feet or hands to explore and describe a wide range of textures, including: powdery flour, noisy bubble wrap, smooth water beads, crunchy leaves, slimy liquid soap, soapy warm water and oozing paint! 

Our English text, ‘The Black Book of Colours’ written by Menena Cottin provided a fascinating insight into how the world is experienced by a blind child and allowed the pupils to explore colours using senses other than sight. For example, what might yellow taste like? How does red smell? And if you could hear blue, what might it sound like?

Many of the pupils have tasted new food and touched materials they would not previously have chosen to touch; the class team are so proud of them! One of our favourite moments is when the pupils daringly put their hands into ‘mystery boxes’ to feel and describe what was inside! (Jelly and baked beans!)

Quotes from the pupils:

DT – ‘I really liked Forest School and learning about all the different things around us. I like spotting different shapes in the clouds.’
JM – ‘I’ve really enjoyed music and making my own music on the computer.’
AB – ‘I really like STEAM. I liked when we learnt about touch and touched different things with our feet. We walked on different things and it felt a bit funny!’
ASP – ‘I like playing with my friends at break time.’

Thank you for your continued support.

The Sea Turtles team (Miss Lisa, Miss Alanna and Miss Sarah)

Puffin

We have had a great time in Puffin class learning all about our topic “Feast for the Senses”.

All pupils have worked so hard and we are so proud of them!

In English, we have been using a film from the ‘Literacy Shed’ to write our own books.  We talked about characters and described what we thought of them and made predictions around what we thought would happen. Some of us explored describing words and some of us learnt how to use adverbs and adverbials to add interest and detail to our stories. All the pupils worked super hard to write their own stories and publish their books.  We are so proud of how the pupils used their phonics and visual aids to help them.

We hope you enjoyed sharing these with your children.

In My World, we learnt about our different senses and body parts.  We had great fun doing blind folded tests to guess what the smells and textures were.  Baked beans were not so popular but everyone got involved with enthusiasm and it sparked some fantastic use of language!

We linked the theme to ICT and used this to capture images of the different sights, smells, sounds and textures we found at Arne Nature Reserve.  We then used these images to create a poster about it.  With all this wet and windy weather, we were so fortunate to have a wonderfully sunny and warm day!

In Maths, we have continued developing our problem solving and reasoning skills around numbers and using number facts to apply to larger numbers.  We investigated doubles and halves of numbers up to 20 using different resources to help us visualise.  We chose appropriate tools to measure different lengths and recorded our findings using centimetres and metres.  We predicted and ordered the weight of objects and then used scales to check our estimates and justified our reasons.

We have become excellent chefs in Puffin, following recipes, preparing food safely and cooking it, the smells are amazing and we even take care to clean up independently after ourselves. We often vote for what we would like to cook and always work as part of a team to create something yummy!

In RE, we have been learning about artefacts from different religions and made a cross using sticks and string, colourful rangoli patterns with rainbow rice and lotus flowers using origami - which really tested our fine motor skills!!!

We were very lucky to have Poole Museum come and visit us, where we learnt about the Iron Age and explored real life artefacts from thousands of years ago.  We were really surprised to learn that they had vases and pottery like we do and enjoyed making jewellery all that time ago.

As always, we have been celebrating each other’s successes and had a big emphasis on teamwork and resilience in all areas of our learning.

Silvia, Sammy and Emily.

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Lobsters

Although Spring 1 was a short half term, Lobsters class have crammed it full of amazing work.

In English, we have been learning how to use ‘Helpful listening notes’ to support the recapping of events and information. We have used this in a range of ways; noting down directions, shopping lists and planning conversations. By using Helpful Listening Notes, the class have been able to watch videos on how to make shortbread and then use their notes to make it. We have also been using these to note down information we would like to share so that we are able to discuss our likes and dislikes with each other.

In Maths, we have been looking at telling the time using digital and analogue clocks. We have also been learning how to convert between 24-hour times and 12-hour times, and using this to read and understand timetables.  Using online journey planners, Lobsters have been identifying which trains and buses they would need to catch, in order to get to different places for different times.

In Law and Order, Lobsters class have been learning how laws are made and who enforces the law. We were very lucky to have a local magistrate come in and talk to us about her job and how she helps to enforce law. Lobsters class asked a lot of great questions and showed a good understanding. A number of the class (pupils and staff) commented that they would like to be a magistrate when they are older.

During our home cooking lessons, Lobsters class have been thinking about healthy foods. We have talked about how ‘fast food’ doesn’t have to be unhealthy and learnt how to make quick and filling pasta dishes. Experimenting how a simple tomato sauce can be changed by adding cupboard staples.  

To embrace the colder weather we have had, during Forest school we have enjoyed some camp fires. This has allowed us to try cooking on an open fire. Although the S’mores are still a clear favourite, it has been great to see the class trying toast, baked apples and bananas. We are still working on the timings to ensure that they are not too……shall we call it ‘caramelised’.

Through our PSHE lessons, Lobster class have been thinking about how to keep themselves safe when out and about. We have focussed on developing our skills to cross a road, both with and without designated crossings. We have also been thinking about what we need to look out for when out. During our internet safety lessons, we have looked at a number of headlines and tried to identify which are real or fake.

Lobsters’ café has continued to grow in popularity. Lobsters have taken on new roles and have, as always, risen to the challenge. We have also been expanding the treats that we are making to sell in the café, adding cheese scones, sausage and cheese toasties and shortbread to our repertoire. We have also been increasing the responsibilities given to the class, including creating shopping lists as well as looking at cost and profit.

To finish our topic on the senses, Lobster class enjoyed a trip to Laser Quest. Although this was a new experience for some the class embraced this and all thoroughly enjoyed it. On the coach trip home, it was great to hear the class talk about how much they enjoyed it and how they would love to do it again.

I think it is incredible what we have been able to squeeze into 6 weeks and look forward to seeing what other amazing work Lobsters Class will do.

Laura, Paula, Ellie and Jane.

Seahorses

Welcome to Seahorses newsletter. What an amazing half term the pupils had with our topic “Feast for the Senses”. This involved concentrating our learning around the 5 senses and how our body works. 

Seahorses class hosted an assembly for the rest of the Enquirers peers and researched all the facts on their own. “We told facts about the senses in a game in assembly,” said Archie. Class decided to play a true or false game, which got the others moving around the room to guess. Pupils read fantastically and we were given positive feedback from the other classes.

In English we read ‘Birdsong’ written by Katya Balen, which is about a girl involved in a car accident and had her whole life turned upside down. This book links together lots of senses. Pupils also looked at synonyms (words that are different but mean the same i.e., great and big,) and Onomatopoeia – (Sound words i.e., Bang, crash, slam) which pupils will hopefully begin to start using in their writing.

In Maths we have been learning different maths skills towards our functional skills exams, but we also had some fun maths lessons linked with our senses. We completed a maths lesson only using our hearing “I won 2 games of bingo,” said Emily. In another game we only used our sight to enlarge pictures using squares and everybody was silent for the whole lesson, including the adults - so that was difficult trying to learn a new skill visually. “I found it challenging and hard,” said James. Also, we had a lesson using just our taste, this time playing a game with jellybeans where it might be a nice flavour ... or not so nice, you couldn’t tell by looking at them! This game provided us with data to create a table and to look at fractions linked with the number of pupils who guessed correctly. We have also looked at fact families, helping the students with ways to check addition and subtraction sums.

In R.E. we have explored different aspects of religions that use the senses i.e., in Holy Communion they eat wafers that represent the body of Christ, Incense is burnt by Hindus and Buddhists as an offering to their god, different religions use symbols which we can see i.e., Christians have the cross, Buddhists have the lotus flower. We had a lot of fun making flowers using origami linked to Buddhism and tasted Indian food linked to Islam.

In Forest School we went on a walk around Bourne Valley nature reserve then came back to our on-site Forest School area to make food. We enjoyed veggie skewers, pizza wraps, toasted marshmallows and s’mores. “I enjoy roasting marshmallows on the firepit” and “we learn how to make fires with Vaseline, cotton wool and flint and steel lighter” said Lola and Lexi.

In cooking we have been working towards our accreditation learning about how to store different types of food like frozen food, dried food and fresh food, we have also cooked calzone and sausage rolls which were delicious!

We had a workshop with the SAMEE charity where we got to consider different outdoor job roles linking with our career's education. “It was alright because we got to do different things” and “I got to learn about different workplaces and what to do at them” said Harry and Ava.

We really enjoyed a trip to Laser Quest, which linked in well with our theme, but was also a reward for the hard work that pupils have been putting in towards their exams or on their accreditation work. Pupils loved this and had a great time playing games as a class team.

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Magna Seals

Wow, what a chilly, yet wonderful start to the new year! It has been jam-packed with learning about our senses! With the theme, ‘Feast for the Senses’ My World entailed exploring our senses and understanding how our bodies work. We developed our awareness of what the possible challenges are if we didn’t have a sense, such as sight. We used our STEAM sessions as an opportunity to find out in more depth how these senses work, such as reading braille and making heart pumps.

In English, Magna read their class books “I Talk Like a River” by Jordan Scott and “Birdsong” by Katya Balen. We used these texts to help us create predictions, discuss the story plot as well as develop our descriptive writing through the use of similes, metaphors, adjectives and personification. As a satellite, both groups worked particularly hard on using these strategies in their writing and created beautiful descriptions of a secret garden or writing about their own experience of a setting.

In Maths, we have been developing our addition and subtraction fluency as well as beginning to problem solve using these skills taught. We have also begun to explore fractions and split quantities into a range of amounts, including halves, quarters and thirds. We have been developing our multiplication and division skills through sharing and grouping amounts, and extending to using this fluency in problem solving scenarios.

In PSHE, we have been working on our E-Safety awareness and managing online information effectively, such as identifying reliable and unreliable websites when looking for information as well as understanding how voice-activated software, such as Alexa, Google and Siri work. We have also been looking at healthy habits that can be linked to our technology usage as well as unhealthy habits such as how prolonged screen time can make us feel.

The Magna Team

Manta

Manta Class have made a brilliant start to 2024 and they have thoroughly enjoyed the topic “Feast for the Senses”.  They have explored each of the senses and have enthusiastically engaged in a variety of activities in STEAM ranging from a smell test, guessing the smells in each container, a blindfold taste test and guessing what animal sounds they could hear. To finish off the topic Manta explored what it would be like if we didn’t have our sight, completing an assault course in pairs with one person blindfolded and their partner giving instructions to guide them both over obstacles safely. We also researched facts about the senses and created our own multiple-choice quiz with a variety of interesting facts!

In My World we have been looking at our bodies in particular the skeleton learning about its four functions. We explored a life-sized model skeleton in class, and we looked at each of the bones and labelled them and looked at how the bones facilitate movement. Manta class were fascinated by the skeleton and they decided, after a vote, to name him ‘Francisco Bones’. They each created a ‘life story’ for the skeleton and decided he had been a soldier in Medieval times. This then led on to exploring facts about what his life would have been like, where he would have lived and how much money he might have been paid. They also considered how he might have died. Francisco accompanied the students to some of their lessons and even completed ‘his own work’! 

We have considered the job of muscles to help with movement and how exercise affects our muscles, as well as the effect of exercise on our mental health and wellbeing.

We have also investigated the purpose of the digestive system and its key organs. We finished our topic by completing an ‘Escape Room’ where pupils had to answer a series of questions about their bodies, vertebrates and invertebrates to crack the code!

Manta Class have had some fabulous woodland learning lessons which have continued the theme of ‘Feast for the Senses,’ completing a senses treasure hunt, and cooking a variety of dishes on the campfire exploring all the smells, taste and sights on offer. Their favourite dish to make was pizza, along with S’mores and vegetable kebabs. 

We have continued our Laser Qualifications. In Careers we improved our presentation skills; in PSHE we learnt about stress management; in Home Cooking we focussed on pastry, making calzone pizza and sausage rolls; and in ICT we practised using emails and revised E-Safety.

Manta have continued to work towards their Functional Skills in Maths and English, celebrating with an end of term trip to Laser Quest in recognition of tremendous success in their Functional Skills exams in November.

What some Manta students have to say:

“I have enjoyed learning about measurements in Maths!” William H

“I have learnt about mime and improv. in drama and I feel more confident now.” Millie K

“I like doing the printing - it feels like proper art.” Sam C

“In mechanics I am learning new things I haven’t done before - like how to fix cars” Ben G

“We played handball in PE. It was fun to score a goal without using my feet!” Izzy C-B

“At Forest School we made some S’mores and they were very delicious.” Owen P

“I enjoyed making a song in Creative Arts - it’s about what school is like.” Tyler M

“We made short crust Calzone pizzas. They were really good!” Lex L

Thank you for your continued support. 

Miss Paula, Miss Sarah & Miss Ruth 

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Orca

Throughout the topic ‘Feast for the Senses’, we enjoyed exploring how our senses help us and how they adapt in different situations.

In My World, we took a scientific approach to the topic and learnt about the eye and how we see. The class were interested to learn about the different parts of the eye and how we see colour. We also explored what it would be like to have a sight impairment and had a look at how brail works. In our My World lessons, we also learnt about how we hear and conducted an experiment to see if you can hear the difference between hot and cold water. It turns out that we can hear the difference between hot and cold water and this is because of the molecules in the water. Why not try this at home and see if you can hear the difference?

In English, we studied the book ‘Birdsong’ By Katya Balen which tells the story of a young girl involved in a car accident who sustained an injury on her arm. Because of her injury, she stopped playing the flute becoming angry and frustrated with the world. The book tells of her recovery with the help of a new friend. We explored the character of Annie and how the accident affected her life. We have been developing our thinking skills by using different thinking frames to explore the characters and this has been working really well in class.

In Careers, the class have been learning about what makes a good employee and the qualities that they require. We also spent some time learning about customer service and customer complaints. The pupils learnt about different complaints, who to make complaints to and how to make a complaint confidently but also politely: a brilliant life skill.

In Cooking, we made a range of recipes, our favourite being Calzone which involved making the dough as well as the filling. We experimented with different herbs and spices to ensure the flavours were really tasty. We also made some delicious sausage rolls, experimenting with different ways of flavouring the sausage meat. These recipes have also made up part of the accreditation that the students are working towards.

Some of our students received their Functional Skills results in English and Maths and we are really pleased to report that we had some fantastic results.

Congratulations to Korrie for passing her Functional Skills Level 1 in English Reading.

Congratulations to Josh on passing his Functional Skills Level 2 in English Reading, English Writing and his Maths.

In our RE lessons, we were lucky enough to visit St Andrew’s Church in Boscombe where we were allowed to explore the church and the important items in there. The pupils all spotted the amazing stained-glass windows throughout the church and really enjoyed giving speeches from the lectern at the front. The church had a really interesting font with a pulley system to remove the lid, so we had a go at lifting the lid and seeing where the holy water would be and how the font would be used in a baptism. We were even allowed to ring the church bell which was very exciting. The pupils were all interested in exploring the church and the items and did so with great respect which was fantastic. Back in school, we also learnt about Holy Communion and Miss Jennifer showed class what happens during the communion at her local church. We were all invited to taste the ‘bread’ that they would have been offered.

We were treated to an end of term trip to Laser Quest as a reward for all the students’ hard work. It was great to see the students in Orca all working together as a team to defeat the other classes. For some pupils it was their first time, for others it was a fun experience to be visiting with their classmates. Each class took part in four ‘battles’, it was lovely to see pupils engaging with each other and discussing tactics.

The end of the half term came to a conclusion by celebrating Chinese New Year together. We began the day with some relaxing Tai Chi and then learning about Chinese culture. It was interesting to learn about the Chinese horoscopes and the pupils enjoyed comparing themselves to the traits of the animal from their birth year. As it was the year of the dragon this year, we were set the challenge to create a class dragon and we even had a go at some Chinese writing. We couldn’t celebrate Chinese New Year without trying some Chinese food, so in the afternoon we tried noodles, spring rolls and other Chinese snacks!

Well done Orca.

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Post 16 Academic

The students settled back into routine of school really quickly and eager to learn. They have come back with a real positive attitude and a happy persona.  The weather may be dull at the moment outside but there is never a dull moment in class! The students are engaging well with their lessons, working well on their targets and there is a real positive vibe.

Our theme for last half term was ‘Feast for the Senses’ One of the areas that we have been looking at are out listening skills, which has helped develop our communication, understanding and confidence.

In our cooking lessons we have been exploring different tastes and textures. The students choose a recipe from a poll that they have created and then decide what they will cook over a two week period. They have to follow the recipe, creating an appetizing, enjoyable flavoursome dish. The first week they will get help creating the dish, but the second week they have to go it alone, in a group, following the recipe independently. This helps with their reading skills, measuring skills and their team building.  

Our big success has been launching the café at Bourne Hub on a Friday morning. The students’ confidence has grown over the weeks, and the independence they have shown has been remarkable, even when we ask them to change their job roles some weeks, which takes them out of their comfort zone. Students have all accepted the challenge and are working really hard! So come on down on a Friday morning between 10.00- 1.00pm we would love to see you.

Travel training is a focus we are working on over the next few months. Getting the students as independent as we can, catching a bus, paying their own fare, knowing where and when to catch the bus. This will help grow their independence into adult life.

One of the highlights for most of our students was “Laser Quest” at Bournemouth, what a day they had! Such good fun! It was great to see them working in teams, interacting well with each other and seeing who was winning each game.  We had one student in the class that kept winning most of the games that they played, great effort by all. 

Keep up the great amazing work Post 16 and the positive attitude to learning!

Some student quotes:

NF - “I love the teachers in Post 16 and I love helping out in Dolphins with the younger ones!”
KB - “The café has made me more confident in talking”
HG - “Super-smashing-great”
TY - “The café has raised my confidence not to be shy and to talk to people more”
EA - “The Broadstone Hub: is fun! You learn whilst being there”.
MF - “It makes me focus”
LR - “I love the café”

Creative Arts

MARVELOUS MUSIC AND DRAMATIC DRAMA!

It was a busy first term back in music again!  

Our Explore and Bronze Arts Award students have been looking at film music. They started by listening to different types of film music to see if they recognised any of the soundtracks (they did!), and thinking about how important music is in films. This led us to researching into composer John Williams, finding out about his life and work as a film composer. Students made some fantastic posters and PowerPoints about him, that will be used for their Arts Award accreditation. The students were then set a challenge - can you write your own film music? For this they looked into the term - leitmotif - a phrase of music that is repeated through the film that often represents setting, characters or emotion. After listening to some of the most famous music, students were given a stimulus to help them create their own leitmotif. For our Explore students this meant using their knowledge of TA/TETE/TIKITIKI and colourful music notes, to create their own short motif, which was then recorded into GarageBand - they composed some great work! Our Bronze students started to learn about music notation to create their motifs. This meant having to learn how to write and read music notes on a stave - this has been challenging work but the students have really risen to the challenge and produced some absolutely brilliant pieces of music! We hope to be able to share them with parents and carers soon.

“It’s been great doing something new and learning writing the music notes out properly!” - Josh

“John Williams is great composer! I love Star Wars!” - Harvey

“TA/TETE/TIKITIKI is fun to do!” - Theo

Our Discovers students have been exploring different ways to play in music. They have been looking into shaking/waving, banging and scraping instruments and hearing the sounds they make.  To explore shaking/waving, they explored maracas, egg shakers, scarves and did a variety of dancing, singing and playing. To explore banging, they created a drum circle, first of all listening to some African drumming being played before having a go themselves. They thought about dynamics including loud and quiet, fast and slow. To explore scraping, they explored a whole variety of scrapers - including wood block frogs as when you scrape these, they sound like a frog ribbit! 

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We have been lucky enough to have musician Jamie back with us for the Spring! The students have been working on creating a piece of music from objects that they found in the classroom. From pencils to pieces of fruit, no object was left out of the bit of music they composed! They then added lyrics to music they had made - a song about school of all things!

“Making music out of things around the classroom was clever. I used the pencil!” - Darcie

“I really liked all the technology Jamie bought with him. Using the MacBook and keyboard was good.” - Tristian

Dolphin Class have had a new visiting musician, Jake, in their class. Jake will be starting an across school project in connection with SoundStorm, to produce a bit of music. We are looking forward to seeing what Dolphin class come up with and seeing what the outcome of this project will be. 

Post 16 were lucky enough to have visiting musician Ricky for an all-day workshop. The workshop included learning how to beat box and use a looping station. After creating their beats, the class then added chords and lyrics to the song they created - including some rather funny lyrics about their bad habits! In the afternoon, the group made a music video to go alongside the song they had created. They had great fun learning and creating different camera shots to show what they had written in the lyrics earlier.

“It was awesome doing some music because I miss doing it all the time!” - Hayden

“I liked singing as part of the video and then making the video afterwards was fun!” - Louise

The KS4 Drama options group have been exploring physical theatre. Students have been looking at the different elements involved in creating this type of theatre, with a particular focus on mime and improvisation. This has led to the idea of creating their own piece of physical theatre. The group are going to continue this into the new term, where (hopefully) they will finish their piece! Watch this space for an invite to see the performance!  

“At first it was hard to get perform in front of people, but I’m starting to feel much more confident!” - Millie

“I love drama! The games we play are very fun and help me to be on a stage!” – William

AMAZING ART

Sugar and Spice and All Things Pop Art

We have been looking at pop artist Wayne Thiebaud in Starfish class. We have been planning our very own ice cream sundaes! Our next step is to buy and make our designs come to life! Here are some pictures of Starfish, they are getting so good at concentrating for longer periods of time!

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Printing Professionals

Art KS4 group have been using food to practise printing. We asked Debbie in the Kitchen to collect cabbage leaves and we used them to print some interesting pictures. This is all part of our student-led Art projects which focus on things they like. We are really looking forward to seeing the individual contributions over the next few weeks.

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Veggie Vision

Magna students have been budding photographers! Using their knowledge of the famous painter, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, pupils recreated their own photographs based on his work. The lovely knitted fruit, veg and cakes were made by a pupil’s very talented Granny! Thanks so much!

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Pastel Perfection

Lobster class have produced some impressive work by British artist Rachel Jones. They have been working on ‘steps’ and following instructions. They are getting much better at making helpful listening notes.

Paper Plea!

We are collecting:

• Newspapers
• Pringle style tubes
• Gravy granule tubs

Knitters Needed!

We are looking for kind folks to knit some fruit, veg and cakes for us. Please let us know if you can spare a few hours knitting from the comfort of your own home!

Miss Tash and Miss Jenny

Forest School

The weather has given us lots of fantastic variety and magical sights to share with our pupils, muddy puddles to splash in, glistening frost on the fallen leaves and glorious golden sunshine beaming through the trees. There have been slabs of ice in the students’ mud kitchen which has given them great joy in smashing, crunching and of course it is the perfect ingredient for those delicious imaginary smoothies and pies they love to make!

In keeping with our theme, ‘Feast for the Senses’, we have been exploring our senses at Forest School across the whole school. Students have been looking, listening, smelling and touching lots of interesting items that have been provided by nature including; ice, pinecones, mud, grass and leaves along with much more. Students have used their fire lighting skills to build a campfire, and cooked their chosen foods. Using their taste sense students have also made lots of discoveries including a crunchy bitter apple becomes soft and sweet when baked on the fire. It really has been a feast for the senses!

PE

We have been busy in the PE department! We have had some fantastic lessons ranging from handball and boccia to basketball and football.

Our Discoverers pupils have been working on their ball skills and hand eye coordination. This has included; throwing and kicking to a target.

Penguin class have been working on their foot control.

Our Enquirers pupils have experienced lots of different activities, with some getting to play table cricket.

Some pupils took part in an intra competition against Canford Heath Junior School. A great time was had by all and they showed real determination and a team spirit. One of our groups finished in the top 3. Well done to all involved and a thank you from us to the CHJS pupils that also led some of the activities with their young leaders from Year 6. Our pupils clearly enjoyed it and said lots of positive things about the event.

“I loved throwing the bean bags - it was fun” - Erin
“I like kicking the ball” - Ryan
“I was good at curling” - Brody
“I liked the running ladder” - Dean
“I like rolling the ball” - Bailey

Our accreditation groups have been continuing with sports including handball and boccia. The pupils were particularly chuffed with our two new goals we have bought to play handball with. Their leadership skills are constantly growing and some have led their teams as captains. For me personally it has been a pleasure to continue to watch our pupils grow and become young leaders in sport.

We have also had Shells class taking part in a physio programme written by our School Physiotherapist, Jane Reynolds, and delivered by the PE and Therapy team. Beth a teaching assistant from Shells has been very impressed with how they are doing “The pupils have been so engaged and are really excited to get involved.”