In his first half term here at New Bridge, Mr Lyons has spent a lot of his time speaking to the teams of people who work ‘behind the scenes’ about their role in ensuring the smooth running of the school. Teams such as the premises, finance, IT, administrative and central advisory teams play a vital role in ensuring we have an outstanding, well-resourced school that allows teachers to teach so that, most importantly, pupils can learn. He finds it inspiring to return to ‘front of house’ – in other words, the classroom – to see this happen. He has observed first hand pupils learning new phonemes in English, creating and interpreting tally charts in Maths, performing tuck jumps and building them into sequences on a trampoline in PE and working on their improvisation and performance skills during scat battles (google it!) in Music, all taught by our outstanding teachers.

Our curriculum focus on ICT this week is nicely timed as Tuesday saw all our young people taking part in Safer Internet Day 2018 which was celebrated globally with the slogan “Create, Connect and Share Respect: A better internet starts with you”. More than a thousand organisations across the UK got on board to help inspire a national conversation about using technology responsibly, respectfully, critically and creatively and our young people at New Bridge were happy to get involved too! They took part in a whole host of different activities including a competition to design a poster using the Safer Internet Day jigsaw template. We’re delighted to announce our winners – Jude at the school site..

..and Mrs Brierley’s class at the Learning Centre..

The winners will be presented with their certificates and prizes in assembly when we return after half term, and their winning designs will be printed on canvas by our Digit4ll students and proudly displayed in school and the Learning Centre. There is a wealth of information, tips and advice on the UK Safer Internet Centre’s website here – definitely worth a look!

Mr Bright explains what else has been taking place in ICT lessons across the school and Learning Centre..

We cover so much in ICT it’s sometimes difficult to give a snap shot of what the pupils are learning but here are some examples, starting with one of our Year 7 classes. Subhan has been using the touch screen to make choices and complete a jigsaw of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a Disney classic that he has been learning in his form class. By continuing that theme in his ICT lessons, the use of technology has more significance for Subhan and engages him more. Samil has been practising full stops, capital letters and how to use the return key on a keyboard. Samil is in the same class as Subhan but we ensure all our learners follow an individual progression path, even if they are learning about the same topic. Kaleem has also been using the keyboard this week. He has been matching letters on the keyboard to label different IT equipment..

In Year 8 we are learning all about data handling. This involves conducting surveys on different themes and presenting the data in different ways. Connie has been learning all about Microsoft Excel and has created a bar chart on pupils’ favourite chocolate. She has entered the data on a spreadsheet, converted it to a chart and formatted the colours, all without any support – she could teach some of our staff a thing or two!

Jamie-Lee also demonstrated her data handling skills, conducting a music survey and showing her results in a pie chart..

Well done to all Year 8! In ICT we always focus on the technology skills but we also do a lot of study. At the moment some of our Year 10s are learning all about graphic design. Look at Jude’s research on different types of graphics – he really has grasped some of the theory behind photo editing..

Also in Year 10, Ethan has blown me away with his plan for an advertisement he is going to design. He is studying for the OCR Level 2 iMedia qualification and he has to thoroughly plan a poster/advert for print. Well, as you can see it is very thorough. He is doing so well..

We always want to show off all the ‘wow moments’ on the blog but I wanted to share another important part of our lessons…self assessing. Here are our Digit4ll 2 class checking over their work and assessing which areas they need to focus on next. It may not be the most exciting activity to show you but it captures our young people taking ownership of their learning..

There are some nice visual diagrams from Danielle, Mike and Zulaika too..

Finally, here is Ellie testing her memory on helpkidzlearn..

Miss Dickson’s Key Stage 3 groups have had a fantastic half term. In programming, the pupils have been programming beebots around a track and across the ICT room..

Some of them have used a flight simulator to land a plane while others have been using software to control robots in various simulations..

The pupils in 7RSH have even been coding in Logo. Ashton produced some fantastic work making shapes in Logo..

In data handling, Year 8 have sorted various types of data into a range of graphs: pictograms, bar charts and pie charts..

Our Key Stage 5 Digit4ll students have been extremely busy too! As part of their work with Young Enterprise they gave a very impressive Dragons’ Den presentation to a panel of 6 business leaders at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Manchester! You can read all about their day here and then find out how they got on the following week at the Trafford Centre Trading Fair here – we can’t wait to hear what they get up to next!

Last week we welcomed the Radclyffe School’s PE department to New Bridge to observe our PE team delivering inclusive sport. Our visitors joined the Year 10/11 PE lesson where our young people were taking part in a variety of sports including cricket, table cricket, boccia, new age Kurling and wheelchair basketball. The Radclyffe staff were able to try their hand at some of these, ably supported by our pupils and staff. It was a really good opportunity for New Bridge to showcase all the good work we do in PE and give the staff from our neighbouring schools ideas they can use in their own PE lessons. Mr Lawrence would like to thank all the staff and pupils involved for creating such a wonderful, welcoming atmosphere..

Our Activ8 students had a very exciting time when they were invited to the grand opening of the new Positive Cycles Oldham….and met Chris Boardman himself!! Positive Cycles offer many services through Positive Steps to those who may not have access to bikes, whilst also offering servicing, guided rides and many other opportunities. Their new centre based on Albion Street in Oldham was officially opened by Chris Boardman, a British former racing cyclist who won an individual pursuit gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics, broke the world hour record three times, and won three stages and wore the yellow jersey on three separate occasions at the Tour de France. In 1992, he was awarded an MBE for services to cycling. In July 2017 Boardman was appointed Greater Manchester’s first ever commissioner for walking and cycling – it was such a fantastic opportunity for our Activ8 boys to meet someone with such sporting pedigree!!

Our students from the Learning Centre have really settled in to their placements at the Atrium cafe and have been working very hard as you can see..

Letters have gone home with details of our Duke of Edinburgh’s Bronze, Silver and Gold practice expeditions which are taking place in March and April. Around 50 of our young people will be dusting off their walking boots and families have been invited to an information meeting on Tuesday 20th February at New Bridge School when they will be able to find out more and talk to the staff who will be going. Let’s hope the weather is kind to them! They aren’t the only ones hoping for warmer temperatures – our excited Year 13 students don’t have long to wait now until their Calvert Trust residential in the Lake District!

We hope you have a good break over half term and look forward to welcoming everyone back on Monday 19th February,

Gavin and Dawn

For news on our Key Stage 5 pathway groups at Medtia Square please click here

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