Positively persistent….is what I have been thinking about over the last few weeks. No matter what we are faced with here at Spring Brook Academy, we all strive to be positive with our students and we persist – we don’t give up. It is really important to me that our students and families know that whatever challenges we are faced with, we are together the Spring Brook family and ultimately this means that we are in this together:

• Together learning (sometimes from our mistakes)
• Together facing challenges, whatever they maybe ~ frustration, anger, sadness, barriers to learning..
• Together each day of the week, supporting and nurturing each other to achieve our very best

I have been talking to some people this week about circles of excellence. This is something that I have been reading about this week. We can all remember a time where we felt really good because we had achieved something. This could be a Maths lesson, learning how to master a skill or doing a good deed that made us feel especially great about ourselves. Hold on to that time, think about how it made you feel, what you could see, what you could hear, what you could smell. Hold on to this feeling and draw a circle of excellence around yourself and remember this time when you felt great.

Think about the circle around you as a spotlight shining on your excellence. What colour is the light? Change the light to be whatever colour you want. Remember this. Now use this feeling and your circle of excellence when you are faced with a challenge and the next time you are not feeling so good about something. This could be a lesson that you struggle with, a relationship that is difficult, a new challenge ahead. Draw your circle of excellence around you and remember that feeling of being positively persistent….believe in yourself!

A class that are always showing their circles of excellence are our Nurture Group..

In the Nurture room the group have worked hard producing lots of work. In English the boys have looked at different jokes following a ‘Dockside’ story. Kieran loves to get the joke book out to read. They also produced a piece of independent story writing following a story starter..

In Maths the boys have continued with number pyramids while Kieran had a recap with subtraction last week. All the group are continuing with their Maths AQA units..

This week they have been working on different topics with Kieran having a recap on long multiplication, and the rest of the group working out perimeters of different shapes..

Last Wednesday after the Tesco trip for food tech shopping, the boys enjoyed a game of football on the field with the rest of the school. Joshua stayed in to play Lego, building a car and lamp posts..

In Science the group have being covering the topic of senses. Last week the boys looked at touch and were blindfolded to see how sensitive their fingers were..

Some of the boys were a little bit scared when they thought the piece of fur was an animal. This week they have been looking at different tastes. The boys were blindfolded and asked to see if they could recognise the different foods..

I’m sure from their faces they thought they were being poisoned!

In food technology the boys made flapjacks last week. They all worked safely and tidied up as a group..

This week in the boys had a theory lesson where they looked at healthy eating and the ‘Eatwell Plate’..

In the art and craft lesson we have made masks which the boys have coloured and decorated..

 

Well done boys, you have had a good week!

What a busy week boys, enjoy your weekend. Use those senses to think about your circles of excellence! It is nice to see you learning about the Eatwell plate – I think I need one of those!!!

Over to Mr Mullin’s class, let’s have a look at what they have been learning about..

Having delved deeper into all things Civil War related, the boys have decided whether they would be a Cavalier or Roundhead. They have then worked towards getting more emotion into their writing with a view to producing a letter from the perspective of those aforementioned. In addition, they have studied map territory during the Civil War, analysing patterns, outcomes and the importance of maintaining control of London.

In Maths, we have been focusing on our mental Maths skills through paired activities and class games. This has allowed the boys to think deeper about addition and subtraction algorithms and they will be applying this knowledge to more advanced two step problems.

In other news, I apparently no longer look like a young King Charles but rather Cromwell’s son. Hopefully, it isn’t their way of saying they are planning a revolt…

Enjoy your weekend. Wow Mr Mullins – your class try to compliment you don’t they?!!! Over to SBA 1 and their circles of excellence..

This week in SBA 1 we have had another creative week in a number of our topics. As we keep the pace of learning before half term, the boys are still putting all of their effort into their work. This week has been a busy one for all of the students.

This week in food technology we created jam sponges and the boys decorated their cakes as they wanted some more creative than others. Harry decided to go for sprinkles and frosting, while Leo wanted to decorate his as the Captain America symbol. The cakes took longer to bake than they did to eat!

The boys, myself and Miss Davies have been focusing on completing our displays around the room. In topic we have been focusing on The Battle of Hastings and the boys have been looking at the different types of soldiers involved in the battle. The boys were surprised at how many different types of soldiers there were. We became creative with colouring the different soldiers in and then putting them on our display..

Furthermore, we are coming to the end of looking at the different techniques used to create Aboriginal art. The boys, especially Leo, have enjoyed creating their different images using paint brush, finger prints, cotton buds and tooth picks. All of their Art work has been displayed in the classroom and the boys love coming into the classroom to see whose Art work has been added..

The boys in SBA 1 continue to complete their Maths and English, next week they will be finishing off their creative stories and finishing Romeo and Juliet. Keep up the hard work SBA 1 ~ Miss Price and Miss Davies.

Over to Mr Roscoe’s class…

This week in SBA2 we have discussed potential rewards for our class and school behaviours that students can follow to earn the rewards. Some rewards that the class would like included trampoline parks, go karting and a trip to the driving range. Hopefully some of these trips will be earned throughout the year!

We have also been improving our times tables and spellings with regular practice throughout the week. Dylan in particular has been impressive with his spellings and ability to make simple sentences using those spellings. Seamus had the opportunity to make a Nutella cake that I know he really enjoyed and took some home to share with his family.

Oliver and Keal had eagerly anticipated Wednesday’s football tournament and both really seemed to enjoy it.

This week in literacy, we have devised a plan to write our individual game reviews based on a game of the children’s choice. The class was really engaged with this lesson and produced a fantastic plan that they can use to write their own game reviews.

Thank you SBA 2.

Mrs Young’s class have been busy too..

Our boys have been absolute stars this week! Especially Jayden who has made enormous progress across ALL OF THE SUBJECTS. His work ethos in Maths, retention of quite a few facts about the living conditions in Victorian times and his politeness towards the staff deserve recognition this week. I must say I have been impressed with our class for a few weeks now as the verbal input during starters or plenaries has been just mind blowing! The boys remembered so many facts about the Industrial Revolution and really enjoyed the discussion about the role of children in Victorian England.

In English, we focused on the character of Bill Sikes from the book ‘Oliver Twist’ and wrote a ‘Wanted’ poster based on the information from the text. All the lads did superbly and produced really great work. Later on we moved on to discuss the actions of Emily Davison during the race for the Derby in 1913 and analysed all the available evidence to find the answer to a very important question: Was it a suicide or just an accident? The majority of the boys decided she did not intend to take her own life and died in a freak accident instead. Inspired by a short documentary about the events from the 4th June 1913, the class wrote a newspaper article about Emily and her final hours..

In Maths, we focused on adding and subtracting integers of any size and solved various problems using number facts, place value and more complex addition and subtractions..

We have also been working on perimeters..

In Citizenship, we learnt about the Women’s Social and Political Union and what it was like to be a woman in the Victorian era..

The boys were very shocked that women in the olden days were driven to commit serious crimes in order to be noticed or heard. Not only did they protest peacefully but they also set buildings on fire, damaged shops and theatres and even tried to assassinate politicians with bombs. That was something the boys were not aware of before.

In History, we have been discussing the factors which triggered the Industrial Revolution and how everything evolved with the help of child labour. The boys were really shocked and upset when they found out the grim details of the ordeal of orphaned children living in the workhouses. To conclude our topic we went to the Museum of Science and Industry to see how difficult and dangerous it was for children to work in mills. Jayden and Wayne could not believe that some of the factory workers were five!

We also attempted to design a structure out of pasta to represent a Victorian invention. Jayden decided to try to build a car 😉

In Science we focused on good and harmful bacteria and how the Vikings used yeast in the production of bread, mead and Skyr. We carried out an experiment where the boys had to mix yeast with various components and observe if any reaction took place. It was noticed that only sugar and flour reacted with water and yeast and oil, coffee and rice did not help to cultivate any bacteria..

We all worked hard as a class –  even on spellings..

..and in our spare time we have attempted to play Boccia..

I hope you have enjoyed this snapshot of what we have been up to this week ~ Mrs Young

This week in Science, Joshua has been looking at Reactions with Mr Southerington..

We used bottles of Diet Cola and Mentos mints causing the cola to spray out of the bottle. Joshua learnt that the Mentos creates an eruption that pushes most of the cola up and out of the bottle. The eruption is caused by the Mentos converting the dissolved carbon dioxide in the bottle to carbon dioxide gas. This forms rapidly expanding gas bubbles in the cola, which pushes the beverage contents out of the bottle..

This provd to be a cross curricular lesson, as Joshua used Maths when doing the count down, PE when running away, Drama when imagining we are Astronauts and Social Skills in working with different people..

[fvplayer src=”http://newbridgeschool.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Science.mp4″ width=”848″ height=”480″]

Joshua really enjoyed the experiment and said “I enjoyed doing the blast off. It was fun and made me feel happy. Miss Wolstencroft got carried away with the photos! My favourite part was seeing the coke flying in the air. Miss Rodgers screamed too much!”

Finally, two teams from Spring Brook Upper went to City this week to play in a football tournament and the boys were great ambassadors for our school. They were well behaved and played well as a team. We are all very proud of your achievements and efforts boys – you truly were positively persistent and it paid off! #TEAMSPRINGY #POSITVELYPERSISTENT #CIRCLESOFEXCELLENCE

Embrace the weekend with your positive pants on everyone!

Miss Rodgers
Head of Site

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