It’s been a short week and our young people returned after the Bank Holiday ready to see their friends and to learn. Every Tuesday Mr Quinn, Heads of Site and other key members of staff meet as a panel to discuss admissions. In September New Bridge will welcome a record number of over 60 pupils into Year 7! We are working hard with key members of school staff to ensure a smooth and reassuring transition and our new pupils have already started their transition visits. We know this can be a worrying time for families; the move from primary school to secondary school can feel daunting but we hope to make it go as well as possible.

There have not been as many educational trips this week but it has still seemed busy. Exam season is looming and pupils are busy revising and practising their exam techniques, we all wish them well. Wednesday was exciting when Sarah Quinn and Mark Thompson from the Manchester Fire Service brought 8 young people to school from the Prince’s Trust to complete a team challenge which involved working with groups in the community. The young people spent the morning with us, helping out in our Interactive Base and throughout the wider school. In return Mrs Lamb managed to negotiate a fire engine for the morning!! Our pupils were able to climb on the rig, wear helmets, sound the sirens and operate the hose pipe – as you can imagine, they had an amazing morning..

Mrs McLaughlin has taken her class out onto the playground to tackle our litter problem, promoting our “keep Britain tidy” campaign. AB3 have been talking about caring for the school and why it is important to keep it a clean and tidy environment. Everyone worked really hard litter picking in the school yard and Mrs McLaughlin was really pleased with everyone for getting involved and having a go..

Our curriculum focus this week is on ICT so we’ll hand you over to Mr Bright..

We have had a fantastic week in ICT. There’s been lots of learning in many of the different year groups; our Year 11s have finished their qualifications, the AB and IB groups have been learning all about Scotland and in particular the Loch Ness Monster, and our IT Pathway (DIGIT4LL) have had a great day out at the National Media Museum. Where do I begin?

The IB and AB classes have had a special visitor over the last few weeks. Mr MacBright delivered their lessons and taught them all about the myth of Nessie the Loch Ness Monster. Pupils learned about bagpipes, what a kilt is and developed a range of creative IT skills in making their own story using touch screen technology. Pupils learnt key IT skills including pressing a switch to make something happen, responding to familiar ICT sounds, touching and dragging on screen, making choices of colour and entering text using a keyboard to name just a few..

Through our sensory story ‘My Day at Loch Ness’ pupils also learned key transferrable skills such as taking turns, following verbal instructions and responding to prompts. Sometimes words don’t do justice to the fun that is had in a lesson. So take a look at the video to see what the class got up to..

In Year 7 pupils are learning all about Desktop Publishing, using Microsoft Publisher to create a front cover for a magazine. Pupils have been identifying the features of a front cover and designing their own front cover for New Bridge News. Considering it is only their second lesson using new software they have done really well. Take a look at the examples to see for yourself..

In Year 8 the topic is Photo Manipulation and pupils are learning all about the way photos can be edited to look different. Pupils are using Serif Photo Plus and there has been some fantastic work…take a look at some of the splash effects pupils have created..

In Year 9 we are learning about programming. Pupils are designing their own game using building block code. Pupils have to understand how to make objects move on screen and how to assign scores and time limits. This is a really exciting topic and all the pupils are loving making their own games..

In Key Stage 4 pupils are completing their qualifications at Level 1-3 which involves a range of topics from Functional IT Skills, Video Editing and Programming. Digit4ll Key Stage 4 have been working hard on creating their own music/video websites and have created pages with hyperlinks to music and video content. On Thursday mornings the group have fun making animations, designing their own animation projects either using plasticine, toy figures or combining photographs and graphics. Danielle has created some fantastic work using the animation app on the Ipad with plasticine and toy figures..

Hasnain and Zulaika prefer working on the computers using animation software..

Finally, the IT pathway had a lovely time at the National Media Museum this week as we merged both our Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 groups together to explore the interactive galleries on display. If you have never been I would encourage you to visit. All our students loved the trip out and learned all about the history of photography, film, animation and the digital world in general in a really hands-on and engaging way. I’d like to thank Mrs Dickson, Mr Handrick and Mr Slater for supporting our young people – 26 students and 4 staff says a lot about the maturity and trust we have in our DIGIT4LL students. Guys, you were brilliant! You represented New Bridge perfectly and I know you had a great time too..

At New Bridge we always aim to acknowledge and celebrate our young people’s many achievements. At the Learning Centre it has been agreed by both students and staff that a change was needed from our ‘Star of the Week’ awards that we present in our Friday assemblies in order to more accurately reflect the fact that we are a college setting. We will now be acknowledging our students’ successes in the form of ‘Achievement Awards’ which will be presented for a number of reasons and we are looking forward to sharing some of our students’ exceptional achievements with you in future blogs. During this week’s assembly our Year 13 students were also presented with a disc of photographs from the recent Calvert Trust residential, if you’d like a reminder please here to see what they got up to!

There are some weeks when we get the chance to see just how far our young people have progressed during their time with us here at New Bridge. It has been truly heart-warming to observe the levels of maturity increasingly being displayed, particularly in the way our young people help their fellow peers. We have seen evidence of this across all our year groups and sometimes we don’t have enough awards to hand out! Miss Allison would like a particular mention to go out to Shazia, one of our Year 12 students who demonstrated the attributes of true friendship in helping friends overcome difficulties and make positive choices, even though this meant standing up for what she felt was right when friends initially struggled to agree. As Professor Dumbledore said, “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.’  (‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ is one of Miss Allison’s favourites!)

This month will see another first for New Bridge as of 4 our Interactive Base students take part in an overnight trip for their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s exhibition. We are very proud of them all and look forward to hearing all about it and seeing all the pictures. We wish them all the best and hope the weather is kind!

Parents should have received invitations to our upcoming Parents’ Evenings:

•  Wednesday 17th May for pupils in Years 7 – 11 at the school site
• Tuesday 23rd May for students in Years 12 – 14 at either the Learning Centre or Medtia Square, depending on the site your child attends

We hope to see you there!

Have a lovely weekend,

Judith and Dawn

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