Newsletter winter 2014

Wilson Stuart School

Wilson Stuart School Winter Term A Special Academy

Newsletter Winter 2014

W

e have had another very busy school term; the highlight has been the opening of our new 16-25 building, called The Hive (pictured). This has really improved the facilities for our older students, and everybody loves the large bright classrooms. We have also obtained ÂŁ641,000 of funding to expand the dining rooms, classrooms, medical facilities and meeting rooms in school. A planned improvement for parents is a new waiting area for when you attend clinics here. All of this work will be completed by September next year.

All of our Staff and students here have worked tremendously hard this term, and everyone is looking forward to the Christmas Holiday. We have all enjoyed our Christmas celebrations, the Primary and Secondary performances in particular, were wonderful. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support for our school; it is really important to our success and very much appreciated. Christmas is a time to promote peace, goodwill and for families to get together, I hope you enjoy a special and enjoyable holiday.

SteveHughes - Head Teacher

19-25 Grand Opening On the 21st November 2014 Cllr Penny Holbrook officially opened our fantastic new building which is a dedicated centre for students aged 16-25 years. The Hive has been developed to provide our Sixth Form and our 19-25 LIVE students with the very best education and training and features four superb teaching rooms and specialist facilities.

Cllr Holbrook was very impressed with The Hive and the study programmes that we offer our students to support them into employment and promote their independence and confidence. She was thrilled to be invited to do the official opening and wished all our students the very best of luck for the future.

Other visitors included Alex Lofthouse from University College Birmingham, Chris Atkinson, Assistant Director for Children with Complex Needs and Emma Leaman, Head of Education, Skills and Infrastructure.

The Hive has formed many partnerships with prestigious companies who offer our students work placement opportunities and representatives from some of these companies attended the opening such as Aston Villa Football Club, HSBC, Witton Lodge Community, CP Midlands, Priestly Smith School and Witton Lodge Community.

www.wilsonstuart.co.uk

Wilson Stuart School

Winter Term

Parents Maths Workshop

Monkey’s Trip to Sutton Park

On Tuesday 18th November, parents of 3.1, 3.2 and Giraffes were invited in for a Maths workshop. The workshop started with an introduction on how we teach word problems and times tables.

On Wednesday 15th October, Monkeys class visited Sutton Park. We had been looking at the story of Percy the Park keeper and part of this was experiencing a park.

The children had a great day out and we were really lucky the weather stayed dry for us. We went to feed the ducks, played on the play area, had a picnic in the café (and ice cream) and finally played hide and seek. The following day they wrote a recount on their trip.

The parents then had chance to have a go at the activities set out before the children joined in after break. All the activities were linked to word problems and times tables including iPad apps and websites as well as games. The feedback was very positive and both parents and children had an enjoyable morning.

“The children had a great day out and we were really lucky the weather stayed dry for us.”

Oak Tree Farm Lackshhya on Loudmouth Lackshhya from 4.1 writes: This term we had loud mouth came in to talk about bullying, sexual behaviour and being inappropriate.

The act was very entreating it tort me a lot about bully as matt and jodi acted.

I would like to have them back to teach us about other dilemmas and thank you load mouth.

Blue Orange Theatre Visit 3.1 , 3.2 and 3.3 were visited by three ghosts at Wilson Stuart on Wednesday 3rd December. The Blue Orange theatre company came into school to present a drama workshop on Charles Dickens' ‘A Christmas Carol’. The students were all participants in the story, some dressing up as characters and performing in front of an audience. There was some great acting ability on show and everyone enjoyed themselves. Well done to all involved!

In communication we have been looking at different stimuli, exploring new environments, recognising and responding to familiar and unfamiliar sounds and experimenting with using different sounds to communicate feelings, choices and preferences, so we went to the farm to see things we don’t usually see every day.

When we arrived at the farm we fed all the hungry animals. We saw lots of different animals at the farm: the goats, who were the greediest, the ducks and geese who were the noisiest, the donkeys which were the dustiest and the pigs who were definitely the funniest and the muddiest.

Dawn, the lady who owned the farm let us spend some time with Dave; a blind and deaf pig. He ran around us eating bread and animal food off our chairs and buggies, he smelt us with his big snout and we stroked his big head and face, he made lots of strange noises and he was really fat.

It was a great day at the farm.

www.wilsonstuart.co.uk

Wilson Stuart School

Winter Term

Black History Month

Helping PMLD

On Friday 17th October we celebrated Black History Month by spending an afternoon learning about five famous figures.

Secondary, Sixth Form and 19-25 students were divided into five groups and learnt about either, Louis Armstrong, Maya Angelou, Ruby Bridges, Mary Seacole or Herman Boone. All students then came together in a special assembly to share their new found knowledge.

The afternoon was really valuable and included the Makaton signing of some of Maya Angleou’s inspirational quotes as well as Sixth Form student Conor singing “It’s a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong!

The staff were delighted with the enthusiasm shown by students to learn about the varied achievements of black people from different historical periods. Once again our students have shown not only their thirst for knowledge but also their belief in valuing all races and cultures.

CBSO Workshop and Concert On the 19th November, 2 string players and a Music Therapist led a 2 hour “Music and Ability Workshop” with groups 3.4 and 4.4. They had a lovely morning listening to our visiting musicians and then trying out their instruments. They went on to explore lots of other sounds and created short improvised compositions, tapping into lots of transferable skills in such a fun way.

On Friday 5th December 5.3 were invited to join Galileo 1 for some pre - Christmas fun.

The session started with Ed playing Christmas songs on his guitar whilst we all sang and played along with a selection of instruments. Next we helped out with making marshmallow and strawberry chocolate skewers as well as decorating Christmas biscuits – delicious! The session ended with more Christmas songs, including Liz’s favourite – “Last Christmas” by Wham!!!

Sports Roundup This term's sports had ups and downs. The Wilson Stuart Sharks Table Cricket team won 2 games out of 5 and had fun meeting England Cricket star Jonathon Trott. At the Special Schools Championship we teamed up with Victoria school to get our best result for a number years, coming in 2nd overall. Lewis stood out, taking gold in floor darts for the 3rd year running. The Primary Panathalon, saw competition against 9 schools and some internal rivalry as Monkeys class battled Giraffes and came out 2nd overall.

November brought a comeback for Giraffes in the Primary School Games Boccia and Kurling Championships with the Kurling sub-team beating off some stiff competition to come out 1st and the Boccia sub-team fighting some close battles to end with bronze medals (3rd). In individual Boccia, Reece took part in a Regional competition and recorded his first victory at this level, playing a terrific game early on, unfortunately Reece could not best latter opponents, who included a current England player. Finally, our senior team delivered a performance worthy of our Monkey's attention in the Secondary Panathlon, beating off teams from Fairfax and New Oscott to finish in 1st place!

I'm sure you'll agree it has been a fantastic term for sport.

On the 4th December, we had 3 other string players who came in to deliver 2 short concerts, one for Early Years and Primary, and the other for Secondary and 6th Form.

All our CBSO friends were so complimentary about our school, but particularly about our pupils behaviour, saying there were the best behaved students they had ever worked with!

www.wilsonstuart.co.uk

Wilson Stuart School

Winter Term

Macmillan Coffee Morning On Friday 26th September, Wilson Stuart School’s Sixth Form hosted a coffee morning to raise funds for Macmillan. The Sixth Form Social Enterprise group had worked hard to make the Primary Hall look very inviting and thanks to the great generosity of staff, pupils and parents, a huge number of cakes were sent to school! We had an amazing “Macmillan Coffee Cup Cake” to raffle which had been made and kindly donated by Sixth Form TA, Claire.

The morning itself was very well supported both on stalls and via our new initiative “Macmillan On The Move” which saw Sixth Form Staff and Students providing a mobile cake selling service throughout the school. The result of all this hard work? Nearly £800 raised! A massive thank you to everyone involved !!!

West Midlands Safari Park

International Success for Javaughn

On Wednesday 22nd October Galileo 2 went to the West Midlands Safari Park to see some of the animals they had explored in the story Handa’s Surprise. We saw rhinos, lions, elephants, tigers and lots of other amazing animals. The giraffes came right up to the bus and tried to poke their heads through the window.

This made some of the children laugh and some of them tried to move back away from its long tongue! The zebras were very playful and were enjoying running across the park while we drove through. It was a lovely day and all of the children showed interest in the animals as we drove round the park.

Javaughn left Wilson Stuart in July 2012 and has gone on to achieve the highest accolade possible in representing Great Britain in Athletics in August this year.

Javaughn was part of the Junior GB Disability Athletics Team that took part in the IWAS World Junior Games an event with 33 competing countries held at Stoke Mandeville in August this year, running in the 100m, where he finished 3rd in his heat qualifying for the final. He is currently ranked 4th in the country at Senior Level behind three current Paralympians.

Blithbury Reindeer Lodge During December class 3.3 visited Blithbury Reindeer Lodge. Where we met a lovely dog called ‘Bow’, who Rhys made friends with straight away. We were lucky enough to see the baby and mommy reindeers and the BIG daddy reindeers. Feeding them was great fun. Our guide Heidi showed us round and we learnt that each year the Reindeer antlers fall off!

After meeting the Reindeers we all had a super sleigh ride pulled by ‘Dancer the Reindeer’. This made us all giggle.

After Lunchtime we sang Christmas carols and then…..

Santa arrived! We were all so excited and we all received a lovely present . It was a Magical, Christmassy time!

Dates for the Diary Jan

05 06 15 21 27

Feb

Mar

03 13 27 03 05 09 17 20 24 26 27

www.wilsonstuart.co.uk

Teacher training day Pupils return to school GCSE mock exams start Young Voices Parents literacy workshop Parents maths workshop Y10 Annual reviews week Y12 Annual reviews week 16-25 Parents breakfast Students Break Up for Half Term KS4 & 16-25 Reports sent home Y13 Annual reviews week KS4 & 16-25 Parents evening Bendrigg residential week Butterflies & Meerkats annual reviews wk Teacher Training Day Monkeys & Giraffes annual reviews week 6th Form show Term finishes, students leave at 2pm