Join Us!

Be Part of the Winston Team

A number of opportunities are being advertised over the coming months, which could enable you to become part of the Winston Team.  Our students need your expertise and professionalism and they want to work with you. 

Head of Science

Lead a team of 15 staff

11 specialist rooms and a computer suite

Brand new planetarium

Head of English

Lead a team of 12 staff

A suite of 10 classrooms and a computer suite

Brand new library adjoining the English block

Come and visit the school and talk to us, so that you can make an informed decision.


Perhaps you think you are not ready; come and find out, we have a great development programme.


Drop in and meet the Leadership Team on Thursday 7th December from 4.00pm.

Graduates looking for a gap year job? 

Come in and talk about the opportunities to work at Winston for a year.

In and Out of the Classroom

RHS Wisley Youth Takeover 

A selection of Year 9 students took over RHS Wisley Gardens for the day. They were tasked with leading tours, running their social media platforms and contributing to a collaborative art project with the aim of making the Gardens more accessible to young people as they try to diversify their demographic. 

Students were challenged to use their communication skills, creativity and ingenuity to develop ways in which the gardens can engage young people.  

It was lovely to see students learning a whole range of subjects outside of a classroom. 

Visiting The Houses of Parliament

On Monday 27th November, we took fifteen Young Carers to The Houses of Parliament for a fascinating visit of this world famous building in London. This included an insight into seeing the Robing Room and passes through the Royal Gallery to take her seat on the gilded throne in the stunning Lords Chambers.

We also visited the Central Lobby, the heart of Parliament, entering the intriguing rooms of the Commons before standing in the famous Chamber itself, home to the Speaker's Chair , the green benches and some lively political debates. The tour guild gave the students the chance to embrace the experience and let them follow him,  performing the Michael Jackson 'Thriller ' dance, which was the only time they would every get to dance in the Chambers.

Following the visit to the Commons , the students enjoyed lunch at Pizza Express, before the journey back to Woking. This opportunity was kindly sponsored by our local MP Jonathan Lord, who kindly funded the trip for our Young Carers to experience.

The tour guild asked the students who this iron lady was in the main hall way to The House of Commons, their reply was it was " Mrs Johnson-Walker, our Head Teacher!!!''

Our School this Week

Assembly This Week

Mr French posed the question, 'what does it mean to be confident?' Students were asked to reflect on how different people behave and what characteristics they show.  Mr French challenged students to think about the use of 'selfies', the very artificial images that are posted, often with  'fish-like pouting' from the individual.  He asked why do people post such strange pictures of themselves, what are they trying to achieve? Does it say that they are confident or are they lacking in confidence?  An important aspect of the assembly was the impact of other people on the way we feel about ourselves.

The Suffragette Project

You will recall from a previous blog that 8WG, a Grammar Stream Group, are working with the Surrey History Centre to find out about Suffragette's in Surrey.  This will them help them to prepare their part of a radio play which will be recorded in January.  Our section of the play is 'The Protest' and during this second session students were developing the characters and the dialogue.  They had to consider who would be at the protest, their jobs and something about the lives of people during this period of our history.  I witnessed the students engage in a lively debate and they shared some great ideas with Jane and Grant, the team from the centre.

Stars in Our School

We have all been celebrating the work of our support staff this week.  Students identified someone who had helped them in school and wrote messages on stars, which we have displayed in our main entrance.  Small gifts were then distributed by our Student Well-being Team. 

Some of our stars!

Participation

STEM!

Mr McCarthy organised a visit to Surrey University where some of our gifted and talented Year 9 Science students were involved in a STEM event, (Teen Tech), on the 15th of November.  The students took part in a number of challenges and ideas sessions. Laylah Vickers, won the award for the best idea on the ideas wall for her Smart Bricks plan and the others acquitted themselves well, getting a mention from 'Tomorrow's World' Diva Maggie Philbin.
A good time was had by all as can be seen in the photographs below.

 Rebuilding a Horse!

Hammering a Plasticine nail with a banana. ( and the aid of Liquid Nitrogen )

All Years District Cross Country Competition 2017

On Tuesday 40 students from The Winston Churchill School competed in the Annual District Cross Country Competition held at Lightwater Country Park. Each race had over 80 runners as 9 locals schools battled out for the individual and team victories.  

 

Outstanding Individual Performances

 

Louis Sossick finished 2^nd in the boys year 7 race

 

Ross Macdonald finished 9^th in the boys year 8 race

 

Joely Hartwell finished 7^th in the girls year 7 race

 

Genna Vine finished 6^th in the girls year 8 race

 

Outstanding Team performances

 

A huge congratulations to the Year 7 boys team who finished an impressive 2^nd overall in the team race – Ed Charles, Louie Sossick, Jack Phillips, Alex Bishop, Joseph Atkinson, James Cook

 

We look forward to the athletics season in the summer term and well done again to everyone who competed.

All Years District Cross Country Competition 2017

 

On Tuesday 40 students from The Winston Churchill School competed in the Annual District Cross Country Competition held at Lightwater Country Park. Each race had over 80 runners as 9 locals schools battled out for the individual and team victories.  

 

Outstanding Individual Performances

 

Louis Sossick finished 2^nd in the boys year 7 race

 

Ross Macdonald finished 9^th in the boys year 8 race

 

Joely Hartwell finished 7^th in the girls year 7 race

 

Genna Vine finished 6^th in the girls year 8 race

 

Outstanding Team performances

 

A huge congratulations to the Year 7 boys team who finished an impressive 2^nd overall in the team race – Ed Charles, Louie Sossick, Jack Phillips, Alex Bishop, Joseph Atkinson, James Cook

 

We look forward to the athletics season in the summer term and well done again to everyone who competed.

All Years District Cross Country Competition 2017

 

On Tuesday 40 students from The Winston Churchill School competed in the Annual District Cross Country Competition held at Lightwater Country Park. Each race had over 80 runners as 9 locals schools battled out for the individual and team victories.  

 

Outstanding Individual Performances

 

Louis Sossick finished 2^nd in the boys year 7 race

 

Ross Macdonald finished 9^th in the boys year 8 race

 

Joely Hartwell finished 7^th in the girls year 7 race

 

Genna Vine finished 6^th in the girls year 8 race

 

Outstanding Team performances

 

A huge congratulations to the Year 7 boys team who finished an impressive 2^nd overall in the team race – Ed Charles, Louie Sossick, Jack Phillips, Alex Bishop, Joseph Atkinson, James Cook

 

We look forward to the athletics season in the summer term and well done again to everyone who competed.

Embers at Dragons Den

Congratulations to Ember, Winston’s Young Enterprise team, who received a Commendation at their recent Dragons Den competition, beating companies made of sixth form students. They had to present their product firstly in a business plan, then through a pitch to the Dragons detailing sales forecasts, manufacturing processes as well as their company ethos. 

Sophie, Shehneela and Aaron performed confidently and professionally in this event, only the first of the year. We look forward to watching the student company grow through this academic year. 

Embers will be selling their bespoke candle holders - made from reclaimed logs - as well as their customised pillar candles at the following events, we hope to see you there!

Saturday 2nd December, 9am-6pm

Woking Town Centre YE Christmas Fair 

Sunday 3rd December, 9-11.30am

Winston Churchill School, Indoor Boot Sale

Outstanding Achievement

Awards Evening

It was lovely to welcome back last year's Year 11 students to our Awards Evening to celebrate their GCSE and BTEC results.  We are immensely proud of their achievements and enjoyed seeing the young people we have worked with for five years move on into the next stage of their lives. Every individual had something to celebrate and stories of their new lives to share.  We also welcomed back Mrs Southern and Miss Ruffle from their new roles, along with Mr Vines and Mrs Davis, presenting awards.  This is the final year of this format for Awards Evening.

We wish our ex-students every success in their futures. Thank you for sharing the evening with us.

Making a Difference

Anti-bullying Assemblies

Our Well-Being Team planned and delivered an assembly aimed at celebrating our differences and asking everyone to question how we treat others, including our friends.  This included the use of social media and the message was reinforced by a very moving film, made by a mother, about the traumatic outcome of this type of bullying from 'frenemies'.  The link to the film will be on Frog, in the area for PSHCE, to enable you to follow this up and to talk about these issues at home. 

Sports Leaders

Our Sports Prefects were invited for hot chocolate and cakes, by the PE Department, to say thank you for the wonderful support given to the department during Sports Awards Evening and throughout the year.  these student exemplify leadership at Winston.

Developing New Skills

Three students in Year 10 are learning the art of barista and have proved to be outstanding.  They are not only developing the skill of making excellent coffee but have improved their social skills through the need to acquire customer service skills.  Well done! 

At Winston...

Assemblies this Week

Mrs Markham delivered a thought-provoking session on the theme of Remembrance.

The Dome Arrives

The eight, carefully engineered sections of the planetarium dome arrived in school on Wednesday.  They will be stored while the base is built on the newly finished floor and the windows are fitted.  progress with this project is now highly visible and I am now able to start the process of ordering the items of furniture and kit required to ensure that it is fully operational as soon as possible!

Learning Review

Parents and students met with their teachers this week to look at how to improve learning both inside and beyond the classroom.  Year 7 and 8 focussed on the Winston Competencies and how developing these key skills will support their progress throughout their time now and after Winston.  Year 11, with only 6 months to their final examinations, have looked at their need to prioritise their time, maximise lessons and engage in the intervention programme available.

Remembrance

Remembrance Day

On Sunday 12th November Winston Churchill School played a key role in the community's Remembrance Sunday service in Jubilee Square, Woking. Our Head Boy and Head Girl, Eddie Day and Maisie Hopkins, lay the wreath underneath the memorial with representatives from cadet groups, the scout movement, local army barracks, military veterans, as well as religious and political leaders. We had our Senior Prefects Lyndon Khan, Jessica Wheeler, Nishant Vats and Charlie Wayne handing out the Service of Remembrance booklets to both organisations within the Square and members of the public. All dressed in their school uniform in a biting wind, they remained composed and professional throughout.  It was lovely to also see dozens of Winston students dressed in their cadet or scout group uniforms standing around the Square, taking the time to show their respect for those who gave their lives, fighting for us.


This year we also provided the Service of Remembrance's poem. The English department held a war poetry competition in October and the winner chosen from a short list of four poems was Freya Edward's poem 'The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month'. It was incredible during the service how she confidently read her poem to a crowd of over three hundred people. Standing in the audience, Ms Elkington, Ms Perkins, Mr Johnson and Ms Strachan, felt proud to be associated with Winston Churchill School and would like to say thank you to all the students who shivered their way through the service, giving up their Sunday morning to help the local community remember.

Suffragette Radio Show

8WG took a trip to the Surrey History Centre on Wednesday morning.  Their aim was to find out about Suffragette's in Surrey to help them prepare their radio play which will be recorded in January.  24 of the students arrived at the Surrey History Centre at 9:30am and were greeted by Jane, the producer and organiser of the project, and Grant, the script-writer.  Students took part in three different activities.  Students were given a tour of the centre which was really exciting and interesting.  They first visited the archaeology room and saw some artefacts from a WW1 and WW2 prisoner of war camp that had recently been excavated.  The tour also included meeting Jeff who restored documents, and a visit to the archives where there were 6 miles of documents with the oldest document dating from the twelfth century.  Students were allowed to handle and interact with some of the material from the archives.  They examined it to try and gain a better understanding of the Suffragette movement in Surrey and the actions the Suffragettes took.


The rest of the students worked with Grant to start creating characters for the radio play.  They were given copies of the 1911 census from Peaslake in Surrey and were invited to choose a person that they could build a character around.  It was really interesting to find out the different occupations held at this time with 'cowman' being the most popular among the students!  Students really engaged with the census' and realised that you could find out a lot about people from the time, for example the size of their house, and the fact that a men and boys had more of a chance of education than women and girls.  The students had a fantastic time describing where their character lived and what secrets they might have.


Jane and Grant are coming back to work with us again on 22nd November where students will be developing their scripts.  In history lessons we will continue with some other work, but will dedicate another lesson to a bit more research into the Suffragettes and Suffragists, and what life was like during the early 1900s.


Also we owe a massive thanks to Mrs Harper, Mr Smith and Mr Jennings for taking us there and back in the mini bus!