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December 2017
Schools
O Credit: Becky Ward Media
Fireworks raise £4,000 for mayor’s charities THIS YEAR’S Bradley Stoke Town Council fireworks display was again a great success. Numbers attending the free event were up on last year and this was reflected in a healthy increase in voluntary charity donations. This year, a total of £4,119 was raised for the mayor’s charities through donations, with £3,629 of the total coming from bucket collections and the remaining £490 coming from on-site
traders (donut and burger vans). The charities being supported by this year’s mayor, Andy Ward, are Cardiomyopathy UK and Freewheelers Emergency Voluntary Service. Speaking at a recent council meeting, Cllr Ward gave thanks for the “outstanding support” from the volunteer marshal and bucket collectors who came from a range of local groups, as well as council members and staff.
ne of the first cohort of students to attend Bradley Stoke Community School (BSCS) has found that she now has her former headteacher as ‘boss’ after taking on her first full-time job since completing her A-levels at the school. Amelia Newport, who started at BSCS in 2005 and progressed to be amongst the first entrants into the school’s brand new Post-16 centre in 2010, is now a fully qualified teacher on the staff of Charborough Road Primary School. The Filton primary, like BSCS, is a member of the Olympus Academy Trust (OAT), which means that Amelia is now on first name terms with her ultimate boss, OAT chief executive officer Dave Baker, who was her headteacher during her early years at BSCS. Her new job is the latest in a series of educational ‘firsts’ for Amelia, which began when she started at Bradley Stoke’s Wheatfield Primary School when it first opened its doors in 1998. Speaking to the Journal, Amelia explained how she believes learning in brand new environments inspired her to make the most of the educational opportunities on offer and eventually take up teaching as a profession: “Growing up I always liked school and a massive part of that was the teachers who dedicated their time to giving me the best possible education I could have received. I was lucky enough to go to not only one, but two brand new schools built in the Bradley Stoke area.”
“At BSCS, I was fortunate to enjoy a purpose built building with a team who had created a unique and fun learning environment. It was there that I was able to begin to looking into the possibility of becoming a teacher, the career I’d wanted since I turned 7 after having a string of fantastic and enthusiastic teachers at Wheatfield Primary School.” After finishing her GCSEs, Amelia studied English Language, History and Geography in the BSCS sixth form. This was followed by a three-year undergraduate degree course at the University of the West of England where she studied Education, Learning and Development. Amelia continued: “My degree focused on the importance of student voice in teaching and how to work with children to build the best learning environments for them using their ideas and understanding. During my dissertation work I actually went back to Wheatfield and used its fantastic parental engagement skills for the basis of my thesis. It was surreal to go back and be sat across from Mrs (Lois) Haydon, one of the women who had made me want to teach in the first place nearly fifteen years previously.” Her first degree was followed by an Early Years PGCE (also taken at UWE), incorporating placements at two local primary schools, which she successfully completed in 2016. Initially working as a supply teacher, Amelia spent some time at Charborough Road and says
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