Endurance, Perseverance and Stickability!
One more week to go until our Easter Break. This week we have seen snow, wintry showers, outdoor exploring, wonderful Shakespeare work. I love it at SBU. Lots of exciting things to do also next week before we break for Easter. I just need to mention the wonderful bench that Carl and Harley made this week in the workshop. Excellent engineering and design boys.
Let’s have a look at Mr Hopkins blog…
On Thursday Mr Mullin’s class went on their John Muir trip to Bolton Abbey near Skipton. Here we explored the ‘welly walk’, discussed the in depth physics of stone skimming before trying to master it, helped each other get across the stepping stones on the river Wharfe and explored the ruins of the 1000 year old abbey. Each of these activities was great to watch as they all needed great communication, teamwork and commitment from everyone.
Today I showed some visitors from the council around school. I really enjoyed showing them our lovely school. We popped into a few classrooms. Thank you to everyone who welcomed our visitors.
“This week, SBU1 have been developing their ability to summarise William Shakespeare’s Macbeth by orally retelling the story using fewer and fewer words. We consolidated our knowledge of this skill by summarising and sequencing Act 1, Scene 1 in the form of a comic book strip – using onomatopoeia to emphasis key events. Towards the end of the week, we explored the original text of Act 4, Scene 1 and ‘translated’ words such as hedge-pig, maw and gulf into their modern day equivalents. We look forward to writing instructions for others to re-create the witches potion in the coming week.
Next Tuesday marks the end of our Equine Facilitated Learning Intervention – though SBU1 would argue that much ‘Cat Facilitated Learning’ has gone on during these sessions too! The sessions have been an engaging way to introduce pupils to the concept of emotional regulation – we have explored the behaviour and body language of the equines (and the cat!) in order to decipher how the animals may be feeling based on how they are acting in various scenarios. SBU1 are beginning to learn that any behaviours they may display are a consequence of their emotions – we have begun to categorise their emotions into 4 different Zones of Regulation. Going forward we aim to support the pupils to identify which Zone of Regulation they are in and what strategies they can utilise in order to maintain or regain a more regulated self. Pupils have enjoyed exploring a number of different strategies and resources to find the one that may work for them (and that can be used in the context of the classroom) – although we cannot have our very own pet equine within the classroom (as much as I’d love that!), we now have a wealth of self-regulation tools within our class quiet room that can be accessed when a pupil identifies a need to self-regulate.
It has been lovely to see each member of SBU1, some of whom had very little or no experience working with animals, thrive while working at the farm over the past 10 weeks. I have shared in their enjoyment of their successes when they have been able to train the animal to behave in a certain way and witnessed the equines perform the desired behaviour as a direct result of their teaching. Though the phrase “what we can learn from horses is infinitely more valuable than what we can teach them” has been apparent throughout our time working with, and learning from, Fudge, Mini, Toby and Peaches.”
I love these photos of little KB and the cat with Maisie and Miss Crossley’s class at equine learning.
Mr Coldwell is proud of his class also working hard to achieve their behaviour targets…
“In SBU7 we have had a good week with all the pupils achieving over their behaviour target of 80%. Lewis has shown his confidence in long division coming up to the board on multiple occasions. Kyren is learning to ask to leave the room when he is frustrated as opposed to getting angry. Paddy and Lewis have both earned a place in the football team due to good behaviour and are very excited. In PE they helped each other in climbing.”
Paddy’s Climbing Skills:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cYxvmo9R0G4
This weekend is the Manchester Marathon. A race of endurance, perseverance and stickability. I am sure that the good people of Manchester will make all the runners feel welcomed and encourage them to finish the race. My cousin’s Ashley and Liam O’Connell are running to raise money for two very important charities. So, to Ashley and Liam and all runners this weekend, our Spring Brook Family wish you lots of luck.
Endurance, perseverance and stickability = Achievement, success and belief!
Happy weekend everyone,
Miss Rodgers and the TEAM!