Gosling Magazine: Issue 42

www.gosh.camden.sch.uk

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fo the Headteache

Welcome to our latest magazine which celebrates the experiences and achievements of the pupils attending our school during their admission at Great Ormond Street. You will see very quickly how many diferent curriculum opportunities are on ofer and the way our pupils and teachers work together to make the most of learning during lessons. Our whole school projects such as Film Week allow everyone to learn new skills whatever their starting points might be and in this case we saw some incredible outcomes that we celebrated at the end of last term. I am sure we have helped encourage future careers in production, sound, animation, journalists and design to name just a few!

Many people that meet us describe our School as a ‘School without walls’. With very limited space our staf manage to reach hundreds of families and pupils every year across many wards whilst also keeping them connected to their ‘home schools’ and communities across the country. We have never let space limit what we can achieve but knowing that our designs for a new School, being featured on the ground the new Children’s Cancer Centre, are well under way is incredibly exciting. New and innovative School spaces will help the school to flourish and to allow more inpatients to access learning in a variety of ways. We are really leading the way nationally in designing a bespoke Hospital School within Great Ormond Street that can meet the needs of future generations needing access to learning.

So as you can tell we are as busy as ever, we hope you enjoy sitting down and taking a moment out of your busy day to read our magazine and enjoy the wonderful work of our pupils.

MATHS

Throughout the advent period in December, pupils from across GOSH and UCH took part in daily maths puzzles and challenges around a Christmas theme. Have a look at some of the pictures to see what they got up to!

In Science lessons we have been learning about mixtures. We learnt a number of diferent separation techniques and which mixtures each could separate. Here are the techniques we used.

SCIENCE

Fancy a challenge?

See how many you can name below!!!

The answers are with the BUGS so keep reading!

COMPUTING

In Computing this term, pupils started by learning about online safety, digital footprints, and online bullying. As part of this pupils have created animations and posters about staying safe online.

We were also keen to create real media products through lessons on t-shirt design and screen printing. Here are some fabulous tshirts that were designed for the GOSH Games (Sports Day).

MUSIC

The MCU secondary students worked alongside players at the Royal Academy of Music to compose a series of short pieces of music to accompany the stop-frame animated film they created in Film Week. The music produced was of such a high quality that it ended up being used as library music for many of the other film projects within the school. The students enjoyed working with a harpist, violinist and percussionist and learning the mechanics of the instruments themselves.

MUSICAL FRIDAYS

with Kamini

I have been using a variety of Kodaly* songs and chants to enable our young children to fully experience pulse and rhythm through the body in our music lessons. In lessons, I use music and singing to explore sensory stories and intensive interaction with instruments and props. We have been exploring various themes and favourite props using call and response songs, rhythmic patterns and simple pitch intervals. I have been introducing basic musicianship skills such as tapping to a steady pulse, recognising and playing simple rhythm patterns and developing the inner ear with singing and listening.

*The Kodaly approach is a method developed by Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly. It uses techniques involving singing and movement to develop musical listening skills.

ART

Cardboard Art using the theme

‘What Inspires Artists? What Inspires Me?’

Secondary Students sketched out their ideas before transferring them into 3D painted cardboard sculptures.

Art using Laminator Pouches

Large images of animals were the focus for developing images inside and on the surface of laminator pouches using Sharpie pens and acrylic paint.

Optical Art

Looking at selected works by the British artist Bridget Riley, students made their own Op Art (optical art) starting with a Post-It note.

Pixelated Collages

For Film Week, Secondary students cut up two diferent images by Lottie Reiniger and Georges Mélièstwo creators from the earliest days of cinema. The collages led them onto making further artwork.

CREATIVE RESIDENCY

We are working in partnership with GOSH Arts on a Creative Residency at the hospital school focused on engaging pupils in the co-creation of artwork that will form a part of the temporary hospital entrance that will open later this year. The entrance to the hospital has to move temporarily when building for the new Children’s Cancer Centre begins.

Our creative residents, artists Usman Haque and Ling Tan who work together as Umbrellium https://umbrellium.co.uk, have a background in transforming urban environments and working meaningfully with local communities on collaborative projects. Their approach is both ambitiously creative and grounded in an understanding of the unique needs of our setting.

As well as working with pupils at the hospital school, they will be engaging children from the local primary school St George The Martyr. The work created will form part of the temporary entrance on Guildford Street and also the hoarding that will cover the building site on Great Ormond Street.

MINECRAFT Fro

With the excitement around the design of the new Children’s Cancer Centre, which will result in a brand-new design of the hospital’s front entrance, pupils have been using Minecraft for Education to design their own hospital front entrances. about the design features and facilities that they would like to see as they enter the hospital, built their designs in Minecraft for Education and then filmed video walkthroughs of their creations.

MESSY PLAY

At The Hospital School we aim to give the children the same opportunities they would have in their home schools.

One way to do this is through messy play. This helps children to develop coordination and motor skills. The sensory experience helps them to understand their senses. They like to explore how things feel, look and smell and how they can change this.

Elodie loved diving through the water beads to search for objects, she could then match these to the initial sounds she was learning. She found it funny watching the beads bounce everywhere when she pushed her hands into the pots.

Jake found it hilarious to mix disgusting combinations of food together. He noticed how the colours and smell changed. Each time he made a erent combination he said “YUCK!” and stuck his tongue out whilst giggling.

Florentina was fascinated when mixing cornflour with water. She said “my hands feel rubbery now. The flour’s all gone, I can’t even feel it now. When you squish it together it feels like water”. She then added ducks and decided that she needed to add more water too, to make them float.

Niamh enjoyed creating di erent potions. The first one we made by adding water to silver paint. Niamh dropped spooky creatures into the potions and was amazed as they disappeared when they sank. Niamh also liked to add various colours to baking powder and vinegar and watch them explode!

Florence retold ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ using small world characters. Here you can see her taking the family through the ‘Splish Splash river’. She also liked digging for treasure in cloud dough.

SENSORY EXPLORATION

This term, Askin has enjoyed having a sensory room right here in his room on Leopard ward! He has been exploring diferent colour lights around the room and has explored tapping on top of the projection to see what happens.

YOGA

Some of the children and young people at GOSH have been taking part in regular Yoga sessions on the wards. They have taken part in exercises such as body tapping, hand and feet massage, coherent deep breathing, chanting, Singing Bowl and relaxation. Michael, Ammar and Zakariya have all worked hard to take part and find new ways to relax and develop awareness of their body and breath. Well done everyone!

BEEKEEPING

We have been working in partnership with the hospital Sustainability Team and urban beekeeping company Alveole Buzz to install and establish a working bee hive on the roof of the Morgan Stanley Clinical Building at GOSH.

The hive arrived in the spring of 2022 and thrived throughout the summer. Pupils designed and hand-painted a cover for the hive and a ‘Beecam’ was installed so that pupils could watch activity around the hive at any time.

Come autumn time, the honey was ready to be harvested. Friendly beekeeper Gus brought honeycomb into school so that pupils could experience the process from beginning to end. First, they removed the wax from the comb, then they span it which requires a good amount of muscle power! Once spun, they jarred and labelled their honey and, of course, took some away for their nurses and families.

The bees are staying warm in the hive for winter now and we’ll look forward to seeing them get to work again once the flowers return in the spring.

THE SHEEP PIG

Aditi enjoyed reading Dick King-Smith’s The Sheep Pig, as part of her home school work. She particularly enjoyed re-enacting key moments of each chapter using the toy animals. Aditi wrote about each of the main characters, describing their appearance. At the end of the story, she then wrote a book review to send to her class.

& THE BEES

In the autumn term, Juliet developed her skills in mark making and explored contrasting materials. Juliet began adding to a concertina sketchbook, using bees as her inspiration. At the end of the term, Juliet combined images of her artwork to make a film reel in iMovie, as part of the school’s Film Week. Juliet’s confidence in her own ideas has developed through her artwork.

SELF PORTRAITS

Have you seen the book ‘Super Duper You’ by Sophie Henn? It is a great book for helping children to understand what is special about themselves and to build confidence. The book follows two siblings, with the older one explaining the wonderfully complex character of their younger sibling. The book explores feeling angry, silly or frustrated when things just aren’t quite right. We asked our younger children to look at themselves and draw selfportraits, whilst talking about how wonderful they are and what makes them unique. As the book says “Be bold, be proud, be brilliant”.

We ran a whole-school Bug Week last summer, with many diferent learning activities ofered to pupils of all ages. Younger learners had the chance to share ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ with older pupils, which brought back fond memories of a much-loved book. We thought about how we could rewrite the book with food that we like. Elsie in Year 6 created a fantastic book for younger children and read over Zoom to share it.

Dr Stuart Wood from ‘Meet the Beasts’ joined us online to show us many diferent kinds of insects and reptiles. We also raised caterpillars in school, watching as they went through their life-cycle until we finally released them as butterflies. Children enjoyed learning about the diferent ways insects eat and drink and many other interesting facts. Some children designed their own super insects. We loved learning about insects together.

During Bug Week, pupils also had the chance to create their own Top Trumps cards. Pupils used their imagination to create their own mythical creatures based on what they had learned about insects:

Distillation

Chromatography

Sieving

Magnetism

Filtration

Evaporation

A VISIT TO

During the Autumn Term, Safiya and Adila in our primary schoolroom were learning about London. They read several stories set in London, including ‘Katie in London’ and ‘Paddington Bear’. They learnt about famous landmarks and created a collage map featuring some of these.

During Film Week, they took the opportunity to base their own film on ‘A visit to London’ featuring themselves, our schoolroom team and Paddington Bear.

FILM WEEK

Just before the Christmas break, we ran a first ever ‘Film Week’ at the hospital school. Pupils developed their active viewing skills by watching a series of five short films, practised reviewing films in a variety of ways and then experimented with making their own short films using iMovie and Stop Motion Studio software.

The short films pupils watched were available through film charity Into Film, whose work promotes the use of film in schools to improve engagement and achievement across the curriculum. The selected films dealt with the topics of climate change, friendship, family, illness and disability.

Pupils focused their own film-making on the themes of ‘friendship and determination’ (our school values) and also ‘heroes’. They created their own sets, wrote dialogue, made props, learnt how to record and edit film, with a focus on the process of stop-frame animation. Some even made and recorded their own sound efects and musical scores.

FILM AWARDS CEREMONY

The pupils’ creativity and hard work was acknowledged and celebrated in an end of term awards ceremony.

Certificates and mini oscar statuettes were presented to pupils in categories that covered storytelling and range, such as ‘Best Comedy’, ‘Best Original Film’, ‘Best Documentary’ and ‘Rising Star’ through to specific film-making skills, such as ‘Best Director’ and ‘Producer of the Year’ and also sound and music in film, such as ‘Best Musical Score’ and ‘Best Song Performance’.

We were joined for the event by Jim Linthicum, head of Spiritual Care at GOSH, who spoke about the importance of storytelling at Christmastime and also showed us his very special Marvel advent calendar that contains a new marvel story for each day of advent.

VISIT FROM METRO FILM CRITIC

Pupils from the Mildred Creak Unit took part in a Q&A session with Metro Film Critic, Larushka Ivan-Zadeh as part of their work on film. They were able to find out who her favourite and least favourite interviewee was - Benedict Cumberbatch was apparently very charming and polite! - and also discuss with her what makes a good film and what makes a good film review.

When the group completed their own collaborative short film ‘Cut and Run’ we sent it to Larushka. She replied with an incredibly positive review of their work, which you can read over the page.

Cut and Run

Reviewed by Larushka Ivan- Zadeh

Critic at the Metro

15 December 2022

WOW! I am genuinely impressed. And I say this as someone who has served on the jury of numerous short film awards. I was hugely entertained and inspired by Cut And Run (great title) and I just watched it three times in a row - purely because I enjoyed it so much!

A huge amount of patient, painstaking work goes into creating any and every animated film. What I loved about Cut And Run was how it wears that efort with such lightness and assurance. It was ambitious and authoritative. Throughout the storytelling and what was at stake were clear. As a viewer you always knew where you were. The characterisation was distinctive - both the modelling and the voice work. The ensemble cast had coherent chemistry. The music - I'm assuming an original score - was expertly edited to the narration. The collage set design/ scenery was striking and efective with the photo backdrop of trees giving a depth of field and I don't even know how you did the animated real sea! Altogether a terrific group efort that was very well directed. It was both playful and professional.

I had to review the new Avatar movie, Avatar: The Way Of Water this week and I can honestly say that I far preferred Cut And Run.

During the school’s Film Week, pupils and staf participated in a wholeschool Makaton project, learning the signs to perform the well-known song We Don’t Talk About Bruno from Disney’s popular film Encanto. The final performance was then enjoyed at the end-ofterm celebration. Congratulations to all of those who participated.

WE DON’T TALK ABOUT… B

SINGING HANDS

Hello, I’m Tracy from Singing Hands!

I work with the children and young people at GOSH school every Tuesday, bringing singing and Makaton signing to lessons on the ward.

We sing, sign, play instruments, explore props and use Makaton symbols. Sometimes we chat about our favourite toys, animals, families etc and maybe how we feel (incorporating signs/ symbols and objects of reference where we can). Quite naturally, our communications lead to songs and almost always smiles, fun and laughter.

I love that every day is diferent at GOSH and relish the challenge of creating bespoke Singing Hands sessions for individual children. I am very lucky; I have the most rewarding job. Being part of the Great Ormond Street Hospital School is both a pleasure and a privilege … and the children and young people are just fantastic!

https://singinghands.co.uk/ email – info@singinghands.co.uk

YouTube - SingingHandsUK

SPORTS DAY

Our first Sports Day since the onset of the pandemic was a hybrid event involving an Opening Ceremony on Zoom and a combination of traditional and modern sporting events in the school garden and at the bedside on wards.

Pupils designed their own GOSH Games logos and mascots and prepared dance routines to teach each other at the Opening Ceremony as part of the warm-up before the games began.

In the school garden, pupils took part in long-standing Sports Day favourites such as the egg and spoon race and squirting teachers with water pistols but also got to programme a Sphero to navigate a table-top obstacle course.

Bats, balls and hoops were taken up to wards for throwing, catching and target practice activities and iPads were used to test reaction times on the Active Arcade app.

Pupils achieved either bronze, silver or gold in each event and kept track of their achievements in a special Sports Day passport. Medals and trophies were awarded for achievement in the events as well as for good sportsmanship, friendship and determination.

PRIZEGIVING 2022

A Celebratio of Friendship

We marked the end of the summer term in 2022 with another school Prizegiving ceremony. Our guest of honour was Paralympian Olivia Breen, who had joined us in person for our first ever summer Prizegiving in 2019. This time Olivia joined us on Zoom from her base at the training centre where she was preparing for the Commonwealth Games.

Olivia talked to staf and pupils about her incredible journey to becoming a paralympic champion and the importance of friendship to her success. She spoke about the very unusual experiences she had in Japan for the paralympics that took place under strict covid measures. Despite the lack of crowds and atmosphere in the venues, Olivia felt that the teams in the athletes’ village were closer and more supportive than ever.

Olivia was selected to be Team Leader of the Wales Team for the 2022 Commonwealth Games and the games turned out to be an enormous success for her. She won gold in the women’s T37/38 100m - a personal first - and then went on to receive the BBC Cymru Wales Sports Personality of the Year award.

Olivia has cerebral palsy and a hearing impairment and came to GOSH as a child. She feels strongly about sharing her story with other young people who live with long-term illness or disability and it was a pleasure for us that she could give awards to our pupils to mark their own achievements in our school Sports’ Day.

AQA UNIT AWARDS

Many of our secondary students have been working to achieve AQA Unit Awards.

AQA is one of the major exam boards and their Unit Award Scheme recognises students’ skills and achievements in mini academic and creative projects.

So far, our students have gained 58 awards across a broad range of subjects including: Maths; English; Science; Computing; Life Skills; STEM; Art; Film making/reviewing; and Sensory Stories.

Hiba on Pelican ward was able to achieve awards in English, Science and 3D Printing during her admission last term. Our MCU students have worked on a number of awards such as creating a photograph from a pinhole camera in STEM and watching, reviewing and making a stop-motion animation.

CREST AWARDS

In STEM, both Ryan and Edgar worked extremely hard last term to complete their investigations on Bioplastics. They were trying to find out which of 5 substrates (plant or animal material) would make the best bioplastic for a piece of cutlery.

They have both achieved a Bronze Crest Award so should be very proud!

ARTS AWARD

A huge congratulations to secondary students- Daisy, Josanna, Alex and Finley- who achieved their Bronze Arts Awards last term! Lots of amazing work went into their portfolios, from taking part in arts activities to reviewing arts events, and even sharing their own skills.

We also had our first ever Silver Arts Award achievement! Meera worked really hard, setting herself a personal arts challenge as well as a leadership challenge, and researching careers in the arts.

We are able to ofer both in-person and online lessons to long-stay inpatients.

To discuss arranging teaching for your child during their admission you can:

Call the school from within the hospital on Ext. 8269

Call the school from an external line on 020 7813 8269

E-mail us at hospitalschool@gosh.camden.sch.uk

We look forward to hearing from you.