Welcome to another Spring Brook blog! We have seen some wonderful teaching and learning here at our academy. Mrs T. and I have continued to observe lessons and we were absolutely blown away by the outstanding teaching and learning in one of our Key Stage 3 classrooms last week. Mrs Young, supported by Mr Heaton, taught an outstanding Citizenship lesson. The knowledge and the prior learning that the pupils had was astounding. They recapped previous learning on Ameila Earhart, they talked about segregation and Rosa Parks before the lesson flowed into current affairs about Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.

Mrs T. and I were so impressed with the amount of learning happening. Lots of different learning styles were carefully planned for – it was a total privilege to be able to see this amazing lesson. Well done and thank you to everyone in Mrs Young’s class – a real showcase of teaching and learning. Here is more about Mrs Young’s week..

On Monday in Literacy we worked on our fine motor skills through creating patterns on a peg board..

..using cotton buds and acrylic paint..

..and pieces of string..

The purpose of it was to prepare a diverse learning environment and show the boys that there are many more ways they can improve their handwriting..

Further on the week we did a reading comprehension task based on the topic of European Union and looked into what synonyms and antonyms are. In Maths, we moved on to discussing 2D shapes and different types of angles. The class had to match various shapes to their names..

..and learnt what the characteristic features of acute, obtuse and right angles are..

In Citizenship we talked about a quite contemporary topic, which is North Korea and its egocentric leader, Kim Jong Un. We looked into the poor living conditions and the whole idea behind the nuclear rush in that country..

The class was really shocked when they found out about the families being told that they can only have 2 meals a day! We also focused on the relationship between North Korea, USA, Japan, China and Russia and managed to design our own political cartoons portraying the current situation between those countries..

It was an extremely engaging and productive topic and there were many interpretations and predictions about the future between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump at the end of the lesson.

Let’s see what Nurture Group 1 have been up to..

This week has gone very quickly in the Nurture Group. The boys have worked hard completing lots of work. In Maths the group have looked at ordering fractions, percentages and decimals.

In Food Technology the group wanted to make burgers again so Harry and Leo were set the challenge of going to Tesco with the list and shopping independently for the ingredients, with myself walking behind them. They checked the prices and the fat content of the mince, and weighed the onion. Well done boys, you worked well together. We made the burgers as a demonstration due to our timetable being changed for the assembly from Positive Steps.

Some of the group had free time after completing their work; the boys worked together playing with Lego using their fine motor skills..

The boys completed their keyrings from last week and what a great success they were!

At soft play Harvey S. came up to me saying he had hurt his thumb….but he was playing a trick on me as he is double jointed. It definitetly worked at first!

In our Humanities lesson the group have been looking at different types of farming and the different jobs the farmers do over the year.

Well done boys, you have worked hard this week and as for Harvey – you now know how to scare me!!! Unreal.

Year 9 have been just as busy..

This week Year 9 have had an interesting practical and interactive time together. It all started when we adopted a space theme in Science which allowed each learner within the classroom to plan and create their own rocket ships to fly to the moon..

The experiment started when the class released theirs up into the sky and recorded the winning ship based on the time spent in the air..

Following our experiment, the class took a trip to the Museum Of Science and Industry in Manchester to view the items listed there from space..

We all boarded our own aircraft as we became pilots on the simulator machine in the aerospace archives..

This week has been substantially productive and extremely busy – well done as always, Year 9!

Thank you Year 9, the commotion firing those rockets was epic!! I loved listening to your enthusiastic laughter and shouts of amazement at how far they went.

Mr Mullins’ class have been working hard too..

In Maths over the last few weeks, the boys have identified types of triangles; recognised, identified and measured angles; practised their skills in drawing angles and later applied this knowledge in finding the size of missing angles on a straight line. Needless to say, they are now extremely confident in this area of the subject – even pointing out different types of angles when walking around school..

The boys have continued to impress throughout their literacy, delving deeper into all things Shakespeare. From discussing and debating family feuds, annotating scenes from Romeo and Juliet to producing their own setting description for the aforementioned play. A special mention to Shaun who helped support others in producing story maps, having shared his excellent understanding of the structure and sequence in events. I have included examples of their setting descriptions below:

In fair Verona, you can see the glistening river brighter than a hundred stars. The magnificent terracotta buildings have the attention of tourists as the smell of freshly baked pizzas floods their nostrils. You can hear the locals plotting plans for the day, the air full of romance and excitement. – Lee

In fair Verona, the outstanding river swiftly swished side to side as the sun spread slowly across the city, kissing the roof tops. The spectacular trees were as still as statues as the warm air surrounded the romantic couples below. You could smell magnificent food all around, you could almost taste it. Joy and laughter filled the streets. – Shaun

In fair Verona, the lively smells flooded out of the enormous buildings. Herbs and spices surrounded everyone, their mouths watered at the thought of all the magnificent food. The bells from the churches howled in the breeze as their towers touched the clouds. The street lights gleamed like diamonds in the night sky. – Lewis

In fair Verona, glorious buildings lit up the night sky. You can hear the gentle flow of the river as people rushed by. The church bells filled the air with a beautiful, calming sound. Amazing fast food smells attracted people to all of the restaurants. Pizzas as big as bus wheels and ice cream as sweet as nectar could be seen on every table. – Wayne

Now let’s have a look at Nurture Group 2..

This week in KS3 Nurture, we have been very productive!!

We have been working very hard at handling money and working out the total cost of shopping lists: doubling items and effectively using column addition..

In our topic lessons, we have started to make a model of the Colosseum in Italy. Ryan and Kaiden have worked extremely hard, cutting the cardboard..

..and using papier mache..

Ryan has done a fantastic job at labelling the map on our Italy board..

Early on this week, we were very happy to have set up our very own gardening corner – thank you to Miss Brown for handing over the trolley..

We hope to start growing our own crops, as we are very lucky to have an extremely experienced gardener in our class.

I can’t wait to see the finished model, it looks amazing! I am also excited to have Ryan on our gardening team. Kaiden and Ryan have both worked hard this week. Well done again for all of your achievements.

Wayne and Connor went to the pet shop to price up some nice pets for school..

Don’t worry Mr Quinn, they didn’t bring the snake back!

We ended last week celebrating World Book Day..

The best costume was Mr P’s by far – he was the Mad Hatter..

In readiness for Saint Patrick’s Day, just look at Lewis – he came dressed as an Irishman..

I have been visiting potential new students this week with a view to them attending our academy and I have also planned for new students to come and visit us at Spring Brook. Isn’t it great to be popular? Watch this space for more news in our next blog….

We’re looking forward to welcoming families to our coffee morning on Tuesday before we finish for the Easter holidays on Wednesday afternoon – if you need a reminder of our term dates you can view the school calendar here.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Miss Rodgers
Head of Site

You can find all our weekly blog entries here

Click here to read this week’s news from Graham