New gaz 606 compressed

Issue 606 - 10th November 2017

C7 MLA Day Page 4

C8 Shoe Boxes Page 10

Mock United Nations Page 7

www.honywoodschool.com | Tel : 01376 561231

Headlines

By Simon Mason

Our Core Beliefs We often find that when people first come into contact with our school they quickly appreciate that it is different from others they have encountered.

However, we also continue to find that people can’t always identify why it is that our school feels different.

Our school is different by design and the reason why people sense that difference is because the deeply held beliefs that inform the design of our school are not as widely or deeply felt in other organisations. So what does influence the design of our school?

The four things I feel everyone sending their youngsters to Honywood and everyone coming to work at the school needs to commit to are as follows: • Learners, and those working with them, should respect themselves, other people and the world around them.

• Learners, and those working with them, can get better at everything through purposeful endeavour.

• The best learning is achieved when teaching responds to learning and learners not when learners have to fit in with the teaching on offer (a personalised approach rather than a one-size-fits-all model).

• Becoming well qualified is extremely important and the qualifications learners gain need to be useful to them for the rest of their lives.

It is because we believe these things that, for example, relationships are so important to education at our school. Equally we want youngsters to become increasingly aware of their personal strengths and areas of concern, after all, how can you benefit from a personalised approach to education when you have not got clarity about what works for you?

Sadly, much of what is currently occurring in the world of education is not about focusing on the best provision for individual youngsters, it is about making things look like they are going well for the schools and colleges youngsters attend. After all, how is it that apparently schools are all getting better and youngsters are becoming more qualified as a result, and yet productivity in our economy is falling? Wouldn’t we expect the exact opposite to be occurring if schools really were improving and youngsters really were getting better qualified?

Trying to get things right for every individual is certainly not easy, but that is what we believe our mission to be. If you are unclear as to how this is working for your youngster, or have any concerns about the way in which we are providing for them please do make sure that you contact us so that we can look further into tailoring the provision we offer.

Inclement Weather Procedure In the past we have had to interrupt our young people’s education on a small number of occasions as a consequence of severe weather conditions.

However, in spite of some really challenging weather conditions at times, we have been able to continue offering access to learning to our young people throughout the winter months by following procedures we have developed over the years. As we move into that part of the year where poor weather is increasingly likely to affect us, I’d like to take this opportunity of reminding our community of the procedures we adopt when weather conditions are especially inclement.

The procedure in light of bad weather this winter will, therefore, be as follows:

1).From 7:00am on any day where weather looks like it could prevent us from opening, our website, Facebook page and Twitter feed will state one of three things: • School Open • School Closed • Inclement weather procedure in place If the third option has been adopted, by clicking on the appropriate text, families will

see a detailed reminder of what the procedure involves. We will also send a group call message to families, confirming as to whether the school is open, closed or following our inclement weather procedure.

2).If the “inclement weather procedure” is in place, learners should delay their journey into school, aiming to arrive for 9:45. School buses will be informed and will collect learners one hour later than usual (please note that buses operating a service available to the public, such as the number 70 from Braintree, will not be influenced by any decision we take about school opening and would need to be contacted directly by families to ascertain the service they would be offering during inclement weather).

3).The day will then run as follows: 9:50 Registration 9:55 Learning Session 1 11:15 Break 11:30 Learning Session 2 12:50 Break 1:05 Registration / Learning Session 3 1:15 Learning Session 4 2:35 Close If we are concerned about break time safety, learners will be instructed to remain in the building through these two fifteen minute sessions, with staff on duty to ensure the safety of our young people is maintained. Should this bad weather procedure be adopted, learners are encouraged to bring a packed lunch to school as catering arrangements will be limited during the available time. Buses will be organised to take learners home at 2:35.

In the last few years we have developed an approach on days when it simply is not safe to open the school by using our school computer network to ensure learning is provided for our youngsters to complete electronically in the safety of their own homes – this has been made even more possible by us issuing each learner with their own iPad. On any day where we do have to shut this winter, we will operate an e-learning day. By 10:00am on the day, learners will find that specific learning tasks for their classes will have been emailed to them in the usual way. These should be completed in the same way as our current independent study tasks are undertaken. Should we be running an e-learning day, details will be placed on our website by 7:00am. Should any family

be concerned that they will not be in a position to support an e-learning day, please write to me so that we can try to find a solution in advance of any poor weather affecting learning this winter.

It may, of course, now be the case that we do not have a situation where inclement weather causes us concern this winter. However, should you need further clarification as to our procedures, please contact us.

Thanks To Robyn Collison (10MGr) and Shanti SimonelliNurthen (9SLo) for helping out at our very successful Curry and Quiz night organised by Spirit of Honywood last week. If you’d like to get involved in Spirit (a group which links staff and parents to support the school) please contact Scott Caygill at scaygill@honywoodschool.com or Stacey Lockett at slockett@honywoodschool.com.

To Andy Wood (7MHa) for his thoughtfulness in returning some very valuable property that he found in school this week.

Congratulations To Will Brassington (10HBr), Catherine Burr (10MRa), Rhiannon Ellis (10KHo), Connie Sarti (10HTr), Esme Scott (10HBr) and Lily Vickers (10MWo) who, last weekend, travelled to Richard Hale School in Hertford to participate in a Mock United Nations debate with other learners, most of whom attend sixth forms across the region. Our youngsters found this a little intimidating at first, but grew in confidence throughout the day, contributing superbly to the debate. Rhiannon went on to win the Peacekeeper award for her work in the Ecology and Environment committee! All of them deserve our special congratulations for showing such maturity and engagement.

Parents’ Time Members of the Leadership Team will be available to see parents without appointment: Monday 9.00am—9.45am Tuesday 7.15am—8.00am Wednesday 3.00pm—3.45pm Thursday 5.00pm—6.00pm Friday 7.15am—8.00am

Cohort 7 MLA Day On Tuesday 7th September Cohort 7 learners took part in their second MLA Day. The challenge each group was given was to produce a documentary in response to the question; How do we change or challenge people's mindsets about minority groups? Why is it important to challenge people's mindsets?

The minority groups that were investigated were; Immigrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers, Travellers, People with a physical disability, People with a learning difficulty and The Homeless.

The learners registered in the main hall and then departed to their bases for the day, awaiting them were a number of carefully designed experiences to give them a real insight as to what it would be like to be a member of a minority group. The activities included having to sift through the bin to find food for the day (nice!), experiencing what it would be like to be homeless.

After the initial activities the learning group had the opportunity to come together to share their initial thoughts and feelings as to how they felt when they experienced each minority group challenge.

The learners were then introduced to the challenge and had to decide which of the minority groups they felt most curious about to produce a short documentary to challenge people's mind-sets about that group. The documentaries produced included a range of different styles, such as a debate, news reports, songs, a few raps and many interesting role plays.

Each learning group at a mid-way point was given the opportunity to share their thinking with another learning group who would offer constructive guidance.

Armed with this constructive guidance the groups spent the final part of the study period reworking and then filming the final version ready to be uploaded to Google Drive.

Following MLA Day 2 time will be allocated during Learning Session 3’s so that the Learning Groups will be able to view each other’s documentaries assessing how the criteria has been met and identify which short film had been the most successful in challenging or changing people's mindsets about a particular minority group.

Learners were so thoughtful in the way in which they tackled these difficult topics, and I am very proud in the way that they engaged with the day.

Well done Cohort 7!

Mr Smith Cohort Leader I think this day has been really fun I loved doing all of the activities and I would love more and more of days like this. P.S thanks for making me homeless!

Tom Birks 7RPh I have enjoyed it but it has also made me think about everything and made me want to help.

Lana Woodward 7RPh Today was really fun as we spent the morning planning a documentary. We decided to do it as a video and it was really fun. We were given improvements for how to make it better and it turned out quite good. Overall it was an enjoyable day and I’m excited for the next one.

Millie Greenaway 7RFl

I think that today was a really good day but also very hard hitting and made me think about a lot. It has been fun and educational. Also it’s been really good to learn about the wider world and what we can do to help others.

Oscar Meadows 7RPh I liked it when we got in groups and we had to do challenges and write a PowerPoint then demonstrate our things to the class.

Daisy Thomas 7CTh Today has been amazing; it has made us more aware of things going on in the world. We have all had so much fun creating a movie to address problems.

Marcia Swain 7DPe Today was so much fun spending the day with my Learning Group. One of my favourite parts was when we had to make a video about Immigrants, Homelessness and a few other things. Also I liked it when we went into HU3 and watched a group of girls rap about Homelessness. Altogether I had a really good day with the rest of my class and I can’t wait to do it again.

Thomas Last 7DPe Our second MLA day was really fun and I enjoyed the subject - which was about Minority Groups. Each person had to imagine they were either: homeless, had a learning disability, physical disability, immigrants and refugees. I was thinking what it would be like to be someone with a learning disability and I found that the day made me understand what it is like to be Autistic. We learnt in a fun environment and I was put in a group with people that I wouldn’t usually work with.

Xanthe Goodman 7JLa I really enjoyed the whole day and the idea of it I think it was a great opportunity to work with your form and learn about different things not to do with our lesson. I learnt a lot from it and I look forward to doing it again.

Matilda Purvis 7MHa I really enjoyed this day because I got spend the whole day with the friends I have made in my learning group. The reason that I really enjoyed this day was because it was very different to the last one as we learned about equality for minority groups. I didn’t do anything like this at my primary school though either and I am really looking forward to doing my next MLA day.

Faith Radley 7MHa Our day was based on discrimination. We all had to be either a refugee, homeless, immigrants, special needs or someone with physical needs. We did group activities to see how hard it is to be faced with discrimination. We also made videos to see what it feels like to be them. Our group were doing refugees.

MLA day was so fun!! We really enjoyed ourselves. We would like to thank Miss Weller for an amazing day with us.

Jess Barker and Nia Jeffery 7AWe

C12 Returners’ Evening On Thursday 9th November 2017 we saw last year’s Cohort 11 return to Honywood for their final event at the school.

The hall was packed with returning youngsters as well as many proud parents.

I was surprised to see just how much the learners had appeared to have grown up and matured in just a few months since they had left. I would like to thank our excellent guest speakers, Will Spicer and Alice Harper from the Cohort, and Josie Thorogood who left the school in 2008. Josie took the time to speak to the cohort on the evening and reflected on the challenges she has faced since leaving Honywood and offered the returning cohort some sound advice for the future.

After the certificates had been presented, photos taken and speeches made, the evening continued in the main hall where there were canapĂŠs and drinks to be enjoyed.

This was a fantastic opportunity for the youngsters, parents, teachers and Learning Group Leaders to catch up, reminisce and gossip.

It was a fantastic evening and I would like to take opportunity to thank the Learning Group Leaders, parents and carers and Cohort 12 themselves for re-joining us for the evening. It is still very strange not having the characters of the Cohort as part of the school and I look forward to hearing about all of their achievements in the future.

Dan Smith Cohort Leader

Mock United Nations On Saturday 4th November, Will Brassington, Lily Vickers, Esme Scott, Rhiannon Ellis, Connie Sarti and Catherine Burr traveled to Richard Hale School in Hertford to participate in a Mock United Nations, to debate with other students (primarily of sixth form age). They found it intimidating at first but grew in confidence throughout the day, with Rhiannon winning the Peacekeeper award for her work in the Ecology and Environment committee.

Well done to everyone who took part in this fantastic opportunity!

Cohort 8 Art Session Tuesday 7th November in Art today Cohort 8 took part in a "Mad Hatters Tea Party" to ignite their new topic! This ignition session will lead on to the development of larger than life 3d sculpture inspired by artists such as Claus Oldenburg and Sarah Graham. If you would like to know more about this study period, ask your youngster to show you the material on il@h under Artspace.

(Don't forget to follow our subject teams on Twitter to see learning in action!)

Subject Teams on Twitter

Follow our Subject Teams on Twitter to see Learning in Action

Honywood School Presents

Wednesday 13th December Thursday 14th December Tickets on sale in Learner Reception at Breaktime and Lunchtime only.

Adults ÂŁ 6.00 Children ÂŁ4.00

Learning Supervisor (37 hours per week, full-time, £19,509 - £25,985 p.a.)

We are looking for an exceptional person to join our team of staff supporting youngsters’ learning. The successful applicant will supervise classes and support learners in completing learning tasks during periods of teachers’ absence. Initially the contract will run until the end of August 2018 and would ideally suit a candidate looking to start teacher training in September 2018. An option to convert to a permanent contract will be discussed with the successful candidate.

We offer:  

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A high achieving Academy producing excellent examination results.

A challenging learning environment where you will be asked to expand your thinking about the education we offer our young people.

An approach based on shared responsibility and teamwork, which values every member of our school community.

Excellent in-house induction and training for all our new employees.

You will need: 

Outstanding people skills, flexibility and initiative.

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The mental agility to push your own learning and thinking in a fast moving dynamic setting.

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Minimum Grade C GCSE (or equivalent) in English and Maths – this post would ideally suit a graduate, especially with a degree specialising in Science.

A willingness to learn every day as you consistently strive to increase your impact on our youngsters’ learning.

For an information pack, or to organise a pre-application visit, contact Mrs S. Pattison (spattison@honywoodschool.com), Honywood Community Science School, Westfield Drive Coggeshall, Essex, CO6 1PZ (Telephone: 01376 564706).

Closing date for applications is Monday 20th November, interviews will be held on Monday 27th November

C8 Shoe Box Collection On Thursday 9th November, 8DCa sent off their Christmas Shoeboxes to ‘Link to Hope’ Link to Hope is a charity who organise the Christmas boxes throughout the country and then take them out to the poorest parts of Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and Bulgaria.

8DCa have put together boxes specifically for children and families living in these places and have included things like toys, school items, warm clothing and toiletries.

We hope our shoeboxes will be well received by the children in these countries who do not have the basic luxuries that we take for granted. These boxes are having to be sent off early due to the harsh winter that sets in in Eastern Europe, making many of the roads impassable.

8DCa are aiming to build on the link with this charity so that we can contribute and encourage others to contribute even more in the future and will be leading an assembly to cohorts about why they did this and to illustrate the impact these boxes will have on children in these poor countries.

Week 2 Main Course

Vegetarian Course

Dessert Pasta Bake

Courtyard Cafe

Monday

Salmon & Dill Fishcake with Wedges & Green Salad

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Vegetable Tikka with Wild Rice & Flat Bread

Stuffed Pepper Chips & Salad

Chocolate Mousse Arrabbiata Plain

Fresh Fruit Salad Pasta Bake of the day

Pizza Tugo Quad Special

Mediterranean Vegetable Spaghetti with Green Salad & Garlic Bread Very Berry Jelly Cheese Sauce Tomato & Basil Plain Pizza Tugo Quad Special

Pizza Tugo Quad Special

Pizza Tugo Quad Special

Roast Pork with Stuffing Roast Potatoes and Seasonal Vegetables Spicy Bean Cheese & Onion Burger with puff with Roast Wedges & Potatoes and Green Salad Seasonal Vegetables Syrup Sponge Cheesecake & Custard BBQ Sausage Chicken Tikka Cheese Sauce Vegetable Tikka Plain Plain Pizza Tugo Quad Special

Menu subject to change

Spaghetti Chicken Tikka Bolognese with with Wild Rice Green Salad & & Flat Bread Garlic Bread

Traditional Fish & Chips with Peas or Beans

My Learning Choices Enterprise & Solutions MLCs this week are available to help collect, collate and analyse consumer survey results by applying the ‘3 step rule’. Guidance is also available for C8 learners that have started their ‘Los Santos Beach Bar’ project, specifically on how best to plan and manage their time across an extended project in order to complete all aspects of the investigation to a high standard.

Business Studies MLCs this week will be focused largely on the Case Study 4 investigation which c10s have just started. Emphasis will be on how to apply the correct style of writing to achieve high marks at AO2 (application and Knowledge) and AO3 (explanations and justifications). MLCs are also available to c9s that would like to go over any aspects of the Marketing Mix, as well as USPs and Branding MFL Have you just started your MFL GCSE and want to get ahead in French, German or Spanish? Are you in Cohort 7 and eager to get your language learning started? Did you travel to France, Germany or Spain this summer and find yourself intrigued by the language you heard? If the answer is yes, then book an MLC appointment with an MFL teacher today!

Important Dates 13 Nov - 1st Dec - C11 Mock Exams 17th Nov, 20th Nov and 21st Nov Non Learner Days 23rd Nov - Catch Up Photo’s 12th Dec - Deadline for Lead Learner Application 13th & 14th Dec - School Production 14th Dec - Textiles Showcase 18th Dec - Christmas Lunch C7 & C8 19th Dec - Christmas Lunch C9, C10 & C11 20th Dec - End of Term Variety Show 20th Dec - Early Finish for Christmas Holidays 3rd Jan - 2018 Back to School Week B 5th Jan - Cohort 11 Mock Results Day

Thank you to everyone who came along to our Curry and Quiz on Friday night we raised £300. It was a fantastic event with a fabulous turnout. A wonderful way to bring our community together and to raise much needed funds for the learners. Keep an eye out for the next event!

If you would like to be involved in supporting the Spirit of Honywood team, please drop an email to spirit@honwyoodschool.com

Well done to our Cohort 8 Duty Receptionists Sophie Gedge Erin Hill Charlotte Lightly Louis Medlock Noah Morley

English Is there a particular topic that you are currently finding challenging in English?

Do you need support with addressing your recent learning points? Perhaps you are finding some punctuation tricky or you can’t quite get your head around how to use PEE to respond to texts. If so, don’t hesitate to book an MLC today.

The support we can provide you with will benefit your learning immensely.

Maths - Are you curious about a specific Maths topic that you would like to learn more about?

- Do you want to improve your problem solving skills and become a more capable Mathematician?

- Or, do you want to boost your confidence in Maths?

Spirit of Honywood Curry and Quiz Night

Congratulations to Alfie Owens in Cohort 8 who gained first place in the recent Clay Pigeon shooting competition at the Colchester Garrison Shooting Club.

Well done Alfie!

Family Learning Team

email FLT@honywoodschool.com If your youngster is absent please email attendance@honywoodschool.com