We can’t believe how fast this week has gone, it has been very busy. Unfortunately we seem to have had more than our fair share of sickness, there must be a ‘bug’ going round. Please remember that if your child has sickness and diarrhoea, they should stay at home for 48 hours. We also have the added complexity of winter coughs, colds and viruses – again, please let your child recuperate at home.

Armistice Day was marked across New Bridge and we observed an impeccable two minute silence to remember and pay our respects to those who sacrificed their lives for us in past conflicts. At the Learning Centre students stayed together after break and Mr Hollinworth visited the war memorial in Oldham with a group of Year 8 pupils during their travel lesson..

Along with our other young people, they observed the silence impeccably and showed the upmost respect, a credit to the school and the community. This is a lovely example of our young people’s understanding of British values and citizenship. Our class groups have been remembering significant wars and the continuous unrest in the Middle East and the Learning Centre’s assembly was based on Remembrance Day. We talked about the significance of 11th November as well as why we wear a poppy around this time. Miss Kindon’s class read a poem..

and Chris talked about his role taking the trolley round selling poppies and Remembrance Day related items and why we do it..

We were also encouraged to reflect on our actions in everyday life and how we can avoid conflict. Our young people have been busy on a range of work on Remembrance Day around school and the Learning centre, including Mr Hanif’s group..

..our IB students who have been working hard producing poppies..

.. which they added to their beautiful display..

Miss Allison was particularly pleased with the wreath for her door..

At the school site Mrs Bingley has been training new buddies to assist our young people who are unable to move around school independently. 7 buds, 12 buddies and 18 outdoor buddies have now completed their training and earned their coveted badges. We also have new lunch time buddies who support their friends in many different ways – in total we now have 58 pupils who help out in this way which is wonderful. We are very proud of the maturity and care that our young people show towards their peers – well done to all those pupils who have volunteered for this role!

This week is the turn of our Creative Arts department to share the work they do with our young people. Lumenus are busy working on their WJEC accreditation, ‘Using the Voice in a Dramatic Context’, and in this session they were asked to work in pairs and take turns practising saying some tricky tongue twisters and see how the pace affected their delivery..

Looks like they had a lot of fun with that!! Some of our older Lumenus students were invited to take part in a special workshop at the Lowry in Salford on Monday in partnership with the Dark Horse Theatre Company – we don’t want to give too much away for now, so we’ll just share this picture of two rather excited actors..

As you know, our Summer Extravaganza is going to be ‘Aladdin and Jasmine’ and our Year 11s had a great lesson working out which characters the various costumes were for..

..and taking that all important flying carpet for a test drive..

If you can’t wait for the summer show, you’ll be very pleased to hear that we’ll be holding a Christmas Showcase in December for our young people to share the work they’ve been doing this term – information about times and tickets will be coming home soon!

Miss Allison would like to give a special mention to EBase 2 after observing their fantastic Living Skills lesson – she says, ‘it was a privilege to observe teaching of the highest standard with all the students actively engaged and obviously enjoying their learning. Well done to the team, I know where I’ll be taking my laundry!’

Our ‘Cooking with Hortus’ feature brings you this week’s offering of a ‘Pizza Feast’..

..tasty ingredients, a well made dough and professional presentation resulted in a very tasty treat – thanks, guys! If you would like to try their recipe, please click here.

Don’t forget that next Friday 18th November we will be joining the ‘Big Spotacular’ in aid of Children in Need – we’re hoping to see everyone in something spotty and there will be plenty of spotty treats (not to mention hot chocolate) available to raise funds. We should have some lovely pictures to share with you next week!

Have a good weekend,

Judith and Dawn

You can find our full blog here

The New Bridge Horizons blog is available here for updates on our Key Stage 5 Pathway students in Lumenus, Digit4ll and Activ8 together with Future Finders students and the young people at Horizons

Click here to read this week’s blog from Graham