It’s been another busy week at Spring Brook Upper packed with lots of learning to share with you, starting with Miss Crossley’s class..

This week each pupil in SBU2 was given their Boarding Pass – they have each assumed the identity of a 1st Class passenger aboard the Titanic. With a view to writing a formal letter, in role as their character, the pupils have made a fantastic start by writing a detailed description of The Grand Staircase. Jacob assumed his character (Thomas Andrews – the naval architect in charge of building RMS Titanic) perfectly, even bragging about his accomplishments in creating a new, unsinkable ship! I look forward to sharing the completed letters with you in the blogs to come!

In Maths, we have made excellent progress in our work on Place Value, ending the week by securing our knowledge of rounding numbers (to the nearest 10, 100 and even 1,000) – though no one was keen on my Reggae Rounding Rap (apparently it was a bit cheesy!).

Speaking of cheesy… Food Technology this week was Ellie’s choice: pizza! After wrestling with the dough that didn’t seem to want to be moulded into a pizza base, team SBU2 worked independently to create their own pizzas – Ellie was sure not to let hers burn in the oven!

In life skills this week we focussed on our ability to problem solve, firstly on our own, then as a team. Pupils worked hard to create their own marble runs using plasticine – it took a lot of trial and error to get right, but I was very impressed with the resilience shown when things didn’t quite go to plan! Eventually all the runs were successful – a reminder that perseverance and patience pays off in the end!

After this, the class were given free time… if they could earn it!

• Alyssa and Ellie were given a secret note that said they would only earn their free time if all of the chairs in the classroom were placed in pairs.
• Lewis and Conor were given a secret note that said they would only earn their free time if all of the chairs in the classroom were placed in a circle.
• Mr Moxon and Jacob were given a note that said they would only earn their free time if all of the chairs in the classroom were placed upside down.

After initial confusion, I was genuinely surprised and impressed at how quickly SBU2 realised that each of their individual problems could be solved if they worked together – stacking chairs in pairs, upside down and in a circle!

Finally, after experiencing some challenges during the week, it was lovely to spend Friday participating in activities surrounding our social, emotional and mental health in aid of World Mental Health Day.

In the morning we chose to read ‘The Dot’ by Peter H. Reynolds – a book which encourages self-confidence through the medium of artwork. Pupils then used entirely their own ideas to create their own dot – all dots were celebrated for their uniqueness and beauty. Our work on dots led to a discussion about the painting technique Pointillism – where tiny dots of pure colour become blended in the viewers eye to produce a recognisable image – Lewis commented on how TV screens and computer monitors use a similar technique to portray images.

In the afternoon we read ‘The Colour Monster’ by Anna Llenas. The book explores emotions such as sadness or anger by giving them each a colour. We began to look at these umbrella terms used to describe our emotions (sad, happy, angry…) and the more specific feelings that each emotion consists of (anxious, worried, excited, frustrated…). We talked about how it is possible to feel more than one thing at a time and used the pointillism painting technique on our own class monster – talking about times when we have felt each emotion as we painted. Our completed monster revealed muddled feelings of confusion and distraction – we spoke about how this would mean the monster was struggling with his mental health and may need help to separate his colours and identify his feelings…

Ms Power is really pleased with how hard her class have worked this week..

SBU3 have had a fantastic week, I’ve been so impressed with the positive attitude they have shown to nearly every lesson, and the way they have got stuck in to learning new things and different activities. Well done everyone.

To celebrate Black History Month, we have been learning about a different figure from black British history every day, and we started the week by decorating our classroom with images of important people and events. I’ve been really impressed with the kind of questions SBU3 have been asking about our country’s history and more recent events.

In Geography, we are looking at our planet and began a project making light up models of the Earth. These are going to look brilliant when they’re finished, updates to follow!

Continuing our messy theme, we made plaster models of our hands and painted them, considering shape, texture and form. These looked fantastic, well done especially to Tyler who spent a lot of time and patience making his painting perfect.

We have also been looking at different painting techniques, working collaboratively to make a splatter painting, using marbling ink to create a range of patterns.

In food tech this week we used measuring and melting skills to make cornflake and Rice Krispie cakes, well done everyone for being safe in the kitchen and especially to Ariz for concentrating so hard on the shape of his cakes.

Continuing the cake theme, we finished the week by wearing yellow and making #HelloYellow lemon iced cupcakes to raise money towards our half term’s charity, Young Minds. We then sold these at break and lunchtime, they were really well received. Well done everyone! Ms Power and Mrs Culhane

Mrs Young’s class have been very busy too..

This week we focused on team work and relationship building. We start each morning with Action for Happiness calendar quote. We read it out loud and discuss the message and meaning of the words and how it could apply to us. In history we have learnt what happened when Harold Godwinson was given the throne by Witan after William Edward the Confessor’s death.

In Maths we continued with the place value and identifying the value of various digits in 3, 4 and 5 digit numbers.

We concluded our week with designing our own T-shirts with a positive quote of our choice celebrating our uniqueness and mental growth and identified what made us proud this week.

All the boys are slowly coming out of their shells and learning how to focus on positive achievements no matter how small. We sometimes are our own worst critics and in our class we are trying to embrace our little imperfections and not dwell on our failures. They all pave our journey throughout our lives and we just needs to remind each other we are doing enough and that WE ARE ENOUGH.

Mr Hopkins has been putting everyone through their paces this week..

It has been another good week for the weather this week and so most PE lessons have been outside orienteering or exploring! Miss Young’s class and Miss Crossley’s class have been out in Brookdale Park working their way around the hardest orienteering course there! All were extremely good at using their maps and working out where each control point was. Special praise must go to Jaydan, Harry, Szymon, Alyssa and Lewis as they were so independent in their problem solving and were able to refocus and problem solve if they found they were moving in the wrong direction.

Miss Mason-Power’s class is a new class and so we focused on bonding and social interaction this week through a trip out to Tandle Hill. It was amazing to see the class exploring the countryside together, having fun rolling down hills and also investigating different plants and animals along the way. Well done to Isiah, Maisy and Tyler for being so polite to passers by and encouraging each other throughout the trip.

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Finally Mr Stewart’s class had the chance to get out on their John Muir Award day and go to find the hidden waterfall at Middle Black Clough. This week was a totally different experience as the river was so high after all of the rainfall over the weekend! The amount of water presented all sorts of different challenges and the class managed to find a different route up by the river to avoid one river crossing. While Kyle and Miss Mellor explored a new ‘island’ Theo and I managed to cross the torrent and head up to the waterfall. The sight was quite amazing with the amount of water coming down, well done Theo for making it up there! Also well done to Kyle for realising he couldn’t make it and was happy to explore new territories instead!

Hopefully the weather will be kind again next week and allow us all to get out into the fresh air again as we know it’s so beneficial to our mental health ~ Mr Hopkins

This week Maisie and Jaydan enjoyed meditation sessions in Miss Mellor’s intervention sessions.

Finally, it was Mr Hopkins’ turn for a challenge on Friday..

I advertised a challenge to the whole school for the last 45 mins of the day to come and take as many penalties against me as possible. If a penalty was scored then I would donate 10p to the charity. Of course all of the pupils and the staff turned up in the sports hall, including Mr Sefton (our caretaker) and Miss Loftus (our receptionist), and took between 150 and 200 penalties. Lucky for me I’m bigger than most and managed to save all but 22! So it was £2.20 that left my pocket – phew!

Biggest shout out goes to Kian who managed to slot 5 (Five!!) penalties past me, all of which I got a hand to but couldn’t keep out. And who can forget Mr Stewart who blasted 4 penalties over the bar!! Great fun, thank you all!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Miss Rodgers
Head of Site

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