What a very busy few weeks it has been at Spring Brook Upper Key Stage 3! There have been lots of exciting things happening at school. I am so very proud of the boys for trying their best amongst some challenges in and around school. For the first time ever we have opened in September with new students in every year group. It takes time for students to adjust to new ways of working. Some of our young people are not only new to our school but have been out of education for some time. Here at the academy it is important for us not only to welcome our new students but it is an honour for us to be the staff team that gets the boys back on track with their education. Being out of school for any length of time has its challenges for most. You will get there boys with a positive mental attitude, trusting relationships with staff but, most of all, hard work by you.

A highlight of my week was visiting Theo with Miss Kansick. Theo had a very serious accident over the summer holidays and had to spend some time in the RMCH. We are please to say that he is home now and in recovery. Thank you to all of the doctors and nurses at RMCH that have looked after Theo during his stay. Theo has to be the bravest person that I have ever met. We will be home educating Theo until he can return to school safely. We wish Theo a speedy recovery and can’t wait to have him back in school.

This week I have been walking around our building listening to the conversations from our hard working and dedicated teaching team. The word RESPECT was a common theme. Mr Coldwell is introducing something new into his class this week. Watch this space over the next few weeks for more news about this. I always say that if you give respect – you get respect. Sometimes, if you have made a choice that wasn’t the best you might have to earn back respect. For some of us this can be frustrating. Developing trusting relationships with new teachers and staff doesn’t happen over night. ALL of our teachers, pastoral team and leaders choose to work at Spring Brook Academy because they are the difference that makes the difference to our young people.

Now over to Mrs Young’s class who have been having a great time..

In English we are reading ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ and the class have been working hard to analyse the chapters – here they are drawing their own ‘OUT WITH’ houses..

They have also worked well together to build the character Bruno a new house out of lego..

In Maths we are concentrating on place value starting with Roman Numerals using place value counters..

..before extending this further..

In Science we are really enjoying finding out about volcanoes and the different layers that make up the Earth’s surface..

We are learning how to budget in our Life Skills lessons..

The spontaneous trip to the Portland Basin Museum on Friday turned out to be a hit with the lads. We were actually quite shocked how much they loved all the exhibits..

Kyle was trying to say he has known Doctor Bowden for many years and tried to cheer him up😀..

Donovan and Dawud kept on coming back to the pub to see the man and his dog and were trying to see if the man had a “proper” throat😂..

..and the highlight of it all was Kyle trying to give us a sermon in an American accent…he was just amazing!

We all had a fantastic time and it was a pleasant end to our week.

Oh Kyle, I would have loved to have listened to the sermon and preaching from you! Mrs Young putting the boys in the stocks at Portland Basin…..great photos. Thank you Year 7s and Mrs Young and her team for their dedication over the last few weeks.

Before we look at Mr Mullins’ news in his class, I want to say a very special congratulations to Mitchell-Lee. He is really trying hard with his learning, making lots of positive choices and is like a completely different student since we returned in September. Mitchell, it hasn’t gone un-noticed. You keep up the hard work. Mitchell achieved the senior leadership pupil of the week which this week was a JD voucher. He also achieved pupil of the week in his form and pastoral pupil of the week. Mitchell, this is a first. Your Mum and Dad must be very proud of you, as we are!

Now over to Mr Mullins..

It has been a busy first few weeks back for SBA3 and the boys have settled well into their new groups. They are well on their way with all things WWII related and have produced some excellent first pieces of writing for the year, including articles, diary entries and have even mapped out the Liberation Route. That said, none of pupils were awfully keen at the prospect of driving or riding let alone walking the remembrance trail, having learned that it connects the main regions along the advance of the Western Allied Forces. We decided against comparing it to the coach journey from school to Disneyland Paris which many of the Year 8s will be part of next May!

As I type this, the class are still in the middle of what can only be described as an epic game of Monopoly which has been going on for the last three days during tutor time! It has been a pleasure to witness the boys communicating with one another appropriately, taking turns, encouraging and supporting one another with Maths problems during some quite lengthy property negotiations! We are still unsure about Mr Moxon, mind – we are convinced he’s been fiddling the banking system..

Finally, a special mention to a certain Mitchell-Lee who not only claimed a clean sweep in class awards this week but also pastoral and SLT! A fantastic achievement.

Enjoy your weekend boys, you’ve certainly deserved the rest.

Lots of activity in Mr Mullins’ class! The writing is amazing. I have popped my head in a few times during those games of Monopoly. Mr Moxon’s concentration and the negotiation skills with the rest of the boys in there is a force to be reckoned with. I also agree with Mr Mullins that it is great to see the boys co-operating together.

Miss Crossley’s class have also had a busy few weeks with mad Science, mental Maths and fabulous food. Well done also Miss Crossley for planning fun and exciting lessons..

This week SBA2 have solved some addition and subtraction problems, converting their answers into Roman Numerals to reveal a surprise picture! As a class, we have written a collective diary entry which was much more impressive than Miss Crossley’s unedited version. We held a democratic vote and chose to watch The Zookeeper’s Wife, a film set in a zoo in German-controlled Warsaw, Poland. We look forward to exploring the characters and their experiences in more detail next week. Our very messy Science experiment on Tuesday focused on the amount of oil spilled by warships in WW2, we were very shocked that it was enough oil to fill 800,000 bathtubs! SBA2 attempted to separate black cooking oil and ‘sea water’ and realised that this is not an easy task! On Thursday we got to work on creating a delicious sweet chilli stir fry!

Finally, Mr Coldwell would like me to mention how his class are making good progress in cooking. I have to say I did try Leo’s cookies and they were very scrumptious. The boys have also been mastering the art of making pizzas. I worked as a pizza chef when I was at university so next time you make pizzas boys give me a shout and we will do some dough throwing – great fun! Mr Coldwell also reports that the boys have shown great maturity with their speaking and listening and writing about the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis. I will look forward boys to reading your stories and letters when we look at the progress in your books.

I have to say a thank you to Mr Coldwell for bringing new ideas into school, as I said earlier watch out for more news about this in my future blogs.

We ended the week with our rewards assembly – the boys just love to be rewarded with MacDonalds!

We do eat healthy the rest of the week. Our cook Sue makes sure of this. We are also lucky enough to be a Magic Breakfast school. We have a range of healthy breakfast choices all free so that we make sure we start the day off positively.

On that note, I will see you all bright and early in the morning.

Miss Rodgers
Head of Site

You can find all our weekly blog entries here

Click here to read this week’s news from Graham