The highlight of my week was on Tuesday when Mr Bocking did the fitness challenge dressed as Big Bird from Sesame Street. I totally belly laughed. The fitness challenge started on Monday and finished today with 50 reps of each exercise.

You may have seen the videos posted each day on our facebook page but you can also find all of them on our website here. I would like to say a huge well done to Mr Bocking and all of the students and staff who took part. I did it with my son and he had to sit down for a rest! Next week it is Miss Davies’ turn.

It’s been a strange week here. Whilst I’ve got through lots on my to do list, I feel like the list is never ending. We are constantly reading updates from the Department for Education, checking daily our risk assessments and safe running of the site, engaging students with our new way of working online and through our Showbie portal, attending meetings in Microsoft Teams oh and not to forget the day to day running of the school!

Let’s have a look at the blended learning this week, starting with Ms Power..

It’s never been so difficult to choose a student of the week in SBU3! Everyone has adapted brilliant to our new temporary way of working, whether at home or in school I have been so impressed with the effort and resilience everyone has shown. I’ve seen some brilliant work this week both on Showbie and on paper.

In Science we have continued our Human Body topic and this week we learned about how the heart pumps blood around the body. We made models to demonstrate how the valves and muscles in the heart move the blood between chambers and around the body..

On Tuesday, we took advantage of the good weather and went for a walk in some of our local Oldham countryside, climbing walls and meeting farm animals!

In cooking we made pasta sauces and served them with veggie balls and spaghetti, as well as lemon cupcakes. The sauces in particular smelled absolutely amazing!

A special well done to Maisie this week for using Showbie so well to keep up to date with your Maths, you’ve adapted so well to working in a different way.

Mrs Young is also really pleased with how hard SBU 1 are working..

Harry has been working hard in school too..

SBU 4 have been enjoying their life skills lessons with Mr Stewart..

SBU4 have seen a few students in school for half the week where we did a lot of life skills learning how to be organised and clean, as well as cooking up a storm in the kitchen..

We have had the rest of the class doing remote learning with a high engagement. Well done!

Mr Coldwell reports that Harry, Alyssa and Kyle have been very busy on their online learning and deserve a mention on the blog – he’s very pleased with how they have all been engaging in their interactive lessons with him.

You won’t be surprised to hear that Mr Hopkins has been keeping everyone on their toes..

Here at SBU this week PE has been excellent. We’ve seen some real progress and enjoyment from our students in school as they are all having 1-1 trampoline lessons. Trampolining is without doubt our pupils’ favourite activity and they are all glad to be back improving on their individual skills and working towards their British Gymnastics awards. The beauty of trampolining is that it is so individualised – as an example, Maisy had never stood on a trampoline before and is working on balance and shapes, while at the other end of the scale we have Kian who is an experienced trampolinist who is working on tiny movements to improve his somersaults. Both are making amazing progress, facing their fears and improving their resilience. Well done to these two and all of our pupils in-between as we continue the learning journey!

For those pupils who are learning from home we have promoted Mr Bocking to the post of fitness guru and he has been putting together fitness videos each day for us all to work out to. They have been getting harder throughout the week and I even felt sorry for him watching him perform Friday’s workout! (or was it relief that it wasn’t me?) It has been great seeing others join in with your videos Mr B, some of our students even joined in in their classrooms this week. I also particularly enjoyed the different outfits that you presented us with each day with Big Bird, Joe Wicks and Popeye making an appearance!! Well done to anyone who completed all 5 days! You can find all the videos here if you missed any.

Finally, here at SBU we are concerned that our students who are working from home aren’t always managing to make it out of their homes each day. Therefore, we have been putting plans in place this week to continue to offer our outdoor education offer to those students who are at home. We will be picking up a different group of students from their homes on a Thursday and Friday morning each week and taking them out into the countryside for their outdoor education session before returning them to their homes at around dinnertime.

We began this programme this Friday and it was great to see all of the pupils enjoy the countryside (and snow) so much! It was also great to see parents and carers and be able to chat to them to check in and see how everyone is doing – at a distance of course!

It is so important to be able to get outside of our 4 walls and get some fresh air and exercise and I am really appreciative of our school leadership team who are so supportive of our outdoor education offer and the benefits it brings to our young people.

Hopefully the weather will hold out for our adventures next week… 

Mr Quinn has mentioned the trust’s position about lateral flow testing in his blog this week. You can read it here.

I have to say that I am very proud of everyone’s efforts this week. Well done to all of you.

Remember to stay safe and follow the rules, be kind to yourself and if you are not feeling great, why not try one of the fitness challenges or some of the Yoga moves taught to you by Candice. I’m sure that will help make you feel better. Even try going for a brisk walk around the block for some fresh air – this always helps me.

Have a lovely weekend everyone,

Miss Rodgers
Head of Site

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