Spotlight On South - CHS South Issue 1

WE ARE

Welcome to the first ever issue of ‘Spotlight on South’!

When compiling all of the articles and images for this Term’s issue I felt an incredible sense of pride in all that our students, families and staff had achieved in our first Term together as a brand new 11-16 Secondary School. Earlier this year we all met as a new team, and developed the firm bonds of trust necessary to succeed with an exciting new venture like CHS South. The pride I felt about all of our achievements at the end of our first day together has only served to strengthen; testament to the determination, generosity, and excellence exemplified by all invested in CHS South.

I am also proud of the strong sense of community we have built at CHS South. As a new High School fortunate enough to be opened in the great city of Manchester, I believe in belonging to and celebrating community. The investment we have all made in CHS South has generated a sense of unity and pride in our new school community.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy exploring the journey we’ve been on together at CHS South over the past few months; here’s to creating more memorable experiences together in 2019!

Mr D Prophet

CHS South Headteacher, CHS South

CELEBRATING THE FUTURE OF OUR NEW SCHOOL

Our visitors were warmly welcomed into our new school and with the aid of our CHS South map were free to explore all of our curriculum areas, enjoy our facilities and experience a wide range of fun activities, games and workshops. Our inspirational staff were on hand to encourage participation, conversation and discussion, answering questions on curriculum, teaching and values. Our students showcased their creative, academic and sporting talents, proudly representing our community ethos throughout the evening.

During the evening our visitors gathered in our Dining and Community area where Mr. Prophet shared the vision for CHS South and outlined an even more exciting future ahead!

On Wednesday 3rd October, we enjoyed our first, fantastic Open Evening!

Thank you to all of our hard working students and staff, and everyone who attended our first ever Open Evening.

QUALITIES OF SUCCESS WEEK

The first 8 days of CHS South life were unforgettable. 180 young people, lots of them knowing no-one, were thrust together in their gorgeous grey and pink uniforms and embarked on enriching and memorable experiences which proved to shape and form lasting relationships for students and staff alike!

On an 8-day carousel we ‘found our voice’, developing our oracy skills by creating and performing our own speeches. We created art at The Whitworth Art Gallery, took a tour of our Manchester community with the People’s History Museum, spent a day of team building and water sports at Venture Out. At Z Arts we utalised CSI style forensic science to solve the mystery of who kidnapped Mr Jameson, enjoyed Music, Drama and performance, and explored our creative writing and poetry with the help of the novel “Goldfish Boy”. All pupils also developed their Maths and Engineering skills to take part in the Crest award, a STEM project that inspires young people to think and behave like scientists and engineers.

All CHS South Students:

• created an Ignite Speech

• undertook a team challenge

• visited a museum

• visited a theatre

• visited an art gallery

“Thank you for giving me the courage to explore outside of my comfort zone and make new friends.” - Year 7 Student

SUPPORT FOR THE CHS SOUTH COMMUNITY

As a school we wanted to do something special with all of the wonderful new clothing and footwear we were given. We are aware the festive season can be an expensive time of year and so we decided the best way to use our new sportswear was contact all of our amazing parents and careers and invite them to come along to CHS South to collect an item of their choice.

We hope that this gift proved a fun extra present for our students to say thank you and to celebrate their amazing contribution and hard work during our very first academic year!

UK Fast provided us with brand new Adidas footwear and clothing to share with our community.

“ ‘UK Fast’ are dedicated to enabling businesses to grow. As one of the UK’s leading hosting providers they pride themselves on their first rate service and extraordinary customer support.”

EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

We have a commitment to extra-curricular activities and high quality opportunities outside of the usual curriculum.

These activities are an important and exciting feature of school life and contribute enormously to our students’ academic and social development. The vast majority of extra-curricular provision and educational visits are provided voluntarily by teaching and support staff as a commitment to our young people.

There were 24 different clubs on offer across the week in Autumn. From Cycling to Gospel Choir, Cooking to Rugby there was a wide variety of provision to suit all tastes.

The Autumn Term saw staggering attendance at Extra-curricular Activities. An incredible 92% of CHS South Students took every opportunity to make the most of High School life and embrace the opportunities on offer.

Some students took part in things they knew and loved, some braved brand new challenges, but all students made lots of friends and lots of fun was had.

We launched our “Embrace Life and Prepare to Succeed” future foundation affirmation at the start of the Autumn Term and through our extra-curricular provision our students certainly did embrace everything on offer.

They were awarded with a beautiful badge to recognise their optimistic approach to life.

REMEMBRANCE SERVICE

The friends of Southern Cemetery invited students and staff from CHS South to take part in a service of remembrance with students from our sister school Chorlton High School.

This was to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War and remember all those who died in that and subsequent wars.

Ms Liburd and Mr Jameson led the CHS South Form Representatives up to Southern Cemetery on a beautiful Autumn morning. As we walked to the Cross of Remembrance, we took the opportunity to enjoy the peace and quiet of the cemetery and discussed the significance of some of the monuments and the cemetery layout.

The service itself was very atmospheric with a bugler from the Flixton Band playing the “Last Post” and “Reveille”. Students observed silence and also laid a poppy memorial bearing personal messages.

At the end of the service we took the opportunity to mark the occasion with students from Chorlton High School.

CHOREOGRAPHY AND COLOUR

Our students have been exploring, demonstrating and developing their dance and art skills.

Focusing on dance from different cultures, our students have explored traditional dance styles from America, India, and Brazil, such as Street, Samba and Bollywood. They have researched these cultures and the world of Musicals to help broaden their understanding of choreography and professional performance.

These skills have been developed further by our fantastic extra-curricular Dance Club, where enthusiastic students are learning more about Contemporary Dance.

Our young artists have been introduced to the work of Oliver Jeffers to help grow their Art knowledge and technique. They have looked at scale, proportion and characteristics, whilst also exploring colour theory, mixing and application.

As part of the lead up to Christmas our students have been using mono printing, collaging and their new colour application skills to create a Christmas card design. We had so many wonderful designs to choose from but in the end we decided that Hanaah Abdullah’s beautiful design was the worthy winner!

CHS SOUTH ‘HAS GOT TALENT’ 2018

To help begin the festive season, we recently presented our first ever ‘CHS South Has Got Talent’ showcase on Monday 3rd December 2018, held in the The Blue Box Theatre at our sister school, Chorlton High. We had an amazing array of brilliant performers, who took this fantastic opportunity to entertain their audience and introduce themselves as the creative future of CHS South! We welcomed over 150 guests, who created an enthusiastic atmosphere whilst they were entertained by a range of singers, artists, dancers, musicians, magicians and actors!

During the interval, CHS South staff were on hand to serve our guests with refreshments and chat with guests and families; this proved to be a great way to help introduce and build our new CHS South community.

To round off the evening, we ran a popular Christmas Raffle, raising £85 for our extra-curricular Community Cohesion club. The donations were used to purchase and deliver Christmas gifts to the children of the ‘Starlight Unit’ at Wythenshawe hospital and to provide much needed items for our local Food Bank.

We would like to thank: Siemens, Zitano’s Restaurant, Croma Restaurant, Treetop Outdoor Adventure, Unicorn, Morrison’s & UK Fast for their support and raffle donations.

A huge thank you to all our performers and to all the families and members of the community for attending.

We are already looking forward to next year’s ‘CHS South Has Got Talent!

NOT SO BORED GAMES....

Over the last term, one of our favourite sights has been to witness our CHS South students engaging in board games; from breakfast and breaktime to lunch, and for a handful of students, even after school! Connect 4 and Chess feature heavily in our school Dining Room on a daily basis, whereas more unusual strategic board games such as Santorini have been introduced at our weekly Board Games club by our very own marketing manager Mr Stout. Overall, the games have provided students with the opportunities to bond with new friends and staff alike.

From a world so full of Fifa and Fortnite, it is so refreshing to see students interacting with each other in a more traditional way; we have Chess masters, quizmasters and Connect 4 champions. Our students are also enjoying teaching (and defeating!) staff members to play Chess. And whilst some students say they are missing the opportunity to play with their phones, we suspect some are not missing them at all!

NATIONAL POETRY DAY

Students celebrated National Poetry Day on 4th October this year by reading some inspirational poems and then creating some of their own.

The theme this year was ‘Change’, and we have some excellent examples of how this has been interpreted by students.

There were lots of discussions and questions asked about climate change, pollution, the weather and animals. Students discussed poems that were written from the perspective of Mother Earth, but also poems about the animals that we share our planet with. The students were then asked to write their own ‘Change’ poem, focusing either on an animal they want to celebrate or on climate change and the impact this is having on our world.

The students enjoyed thinking about their world and what the future holds, and produced some fantastic examples of creative, imaginative and inspiring poems.

Pupils will have the opportunity to enter their poems into the National Poetry Day Competition, where they can win signed copies of “The Lost Words”.

SCIENTISTS OF THE FUTURE

It has been an amazing first term at CHS South, with so many incredible activities going on both inside and outside the classroom.

It seems a long time since we started our journey at CHS South, but it feels like the first few weeks have really helped to build a sense of community that makes CHS South really stand out. We are so proud of the way the pupils embraced their bridge building and forensic investigations in the first two weeks.

We are also very proud of the effort and engagement shown by our students during their space suit building projects; there really were some amazing ideas on display. We may well have some budding Scientists of the future! Well done to everyone involved!

SCIENCE CLUB

The Autumn Term saw staggering attendance at Science Club!

As the term has developed the popularity of Science club has continued to grow from strength to strength, and it is great to see so many different students coming every week to demonstrate their curiosity for the natural world.

Led by Mr Khokhar and Dr Nadri, Science club aims to build on our student’s curiosity and provide an interactive and enjoyable experience. From fizzing bath bombs to exploding volcanoes, this is an extracurricular club that aims to wow its students!

COMMUNITY GIFT GIVING

Thanks to ‘Mission Christmas’, a campaign run by the charity ‘Cash for Kids’, we received a huge stock of brand new Christmas gifts!

The gifts we received were for ages 2 - 6 years old, so we decided to use this as a fantastic opportunity to reach out into our community! We arranged to visit our some of local primary schools and charity organisations in order to deliver a bundle of exciting gifts and presents to each of them.

We visited Chorlton Park Primary School, St.Mary’s Primary School, Wilbraham Primary School, Oswald Road Primary School, Rolls Crescent Primary School and Piper Hill High School with an array of fun and exciting Christmas boxes for their young students, and we also donated a box of food and household items to ‘Barakah Food Aid’, who provide food parcels to people who are struggling in and around Manchester.

Supporting our Future Foundation affirmation of “I support my community and make a difference to it”, CHS South students from our community cohesion club organised to collect food donations during December. All donations were delivered to ‘Reach Out In The Community’ and will be distriubuted during this festive period by the local charity who help people who find themselves homeless or in food poverty.

SOUTH SPORTING SUCCESS

Students at CHS South have embraced all their opportunities to take part in our extensive extra-curricular sporting provision.

This term, we have established A, B and C teams in football, rugby union, netball and cross country running. We are playing competitive fixtures across Greater Manchester, maintaining an inclusive competition format for all.

FOOTBALL

CHS South have entered the Manchester Schools’ League, Manchester Schools’ Cup and Greater Manchester Schools’ County Cup. The boys have reached the second round of the Manchester Cup and GMCSFA plate. We have also provided a number of competitive opportunities for our B and C teams in developmental games with Chorlton High School.

CROSS COUNTRY RUNNING

This term our runners participated in the School Games Citywide Cross Country Championships. CHS South won gold in the Y7 boys race and the team finished in respectable positions.

RUGBY

The partnership with RFU All Schools Programme has allowed Rugby Union to flourish at CHS South. Students have been committed to the Rugby extra-curricular club at Broughton Rugby Club and have really developed a love for the sport. CHS South were very successful in the developing schools’ competition and the boys showed commitment, discipline and excellent sportsmanship in all six games.

The partnership with RFU All Schools Programme also provided the opportunity for our students to visit the prestigious Canterbury kit workshop at Doncaster Rugby Club to design our new Rugby kit. Our students loved the trip and we cannot wait for the big reveal in 2019.

NETBALL

CHS South have entered the Netball Manchester Schools’ league this year. Our A and B teams have been competing and training regularly this term and have again been successful in our first Term games. We have also provided a number of competitive opportunities for our B and C teams in developmental netball games with Chorlton High School. Netball continues to thrive at CHS South with growing numbers at our weekly clubs!

INDIVIDUAL SPORTING SUCCESS

OWEN REEKIE

Since starting his High School life at CHS South, Owen Reekie has really stood out in his PE lessons and was selected to run for school at the citywide School Games Cross Country Championships. Owen dominated the race, winning gold in his year category.

Earlier this year, Owen was in the Trafford AC

under 13s Team who came 13th at the Northern Counties Road Relays which was held at Sport City. During the winter, Owen recently became the Manchester Schools Year 7 Cross Country Champion and will represent the city again in February. Well done Owen we salute you!

TAYLOR EVERETT JONES

Taylor has been freestyle Olympic wrestling since age 8, training at Manchester Y-Club and Aspull Wrestling Club.

In 2016, Taylor placed 3rd in his first competitive Freestyle Wrestling competition and has faced opponents from across the UK and Europe.

He won a double gold in 2017 in the Irish Open Wrestling Championships and was also crowned ‘Wrestler of the Tournament’. He is one of just 40 wrestlers selected to train on the Northern Regional squad, giving him the opportunity to be trained by Charlie Bowlingcurrent Commonwealth Games Bronze medalist - and Phillip Roberts - two times Commonwealth Games member. Taylor will aim to become British Champion this year.

We have every faith Talyor will succeed!