Active Start!

 Participation is Key

It has been a busy start to the term in the PE Department resulting in high engagement and activity levels across all years!

 

In the 1st week of lessons, students were exposed to a wide range of exciting fundamental movement warm ups. Since, this has allowed different students to build their confidence and communication by independently organising and leading warm ups for the class. We’ve also seen students flourish, including our Year 9 Sports Mentors and Yr11 Sports Prefects, in other leadership opportunities e.g. Year 9 Rugby Lessons, Open Evening, Year 6 Taster Day and coaching at extra-curricular clubs!

 

It’s not been uncommon this term to see all of our facilities in use after school. Our sporting extra-curricular programme has been as popular as ever with an average of 400 students a week in attendance. This includes Dance and Boxing club, which are two new popular additions. Fixtures are also up and running! In football we already have 4 boys and 4 girls teams that have progressed into the 2nd Round of the National Cup. There have also been 2 fantastic Rugby tournaments organised by Mr Reid. Many more fixtures are to come including Netball, Basketball and X-Country.

 

In only the 1st three weeks, PE & Sport is already bringing out the best in our students. We have seen countless examples of sportsmanship, leadership, determination, communication, passion and self-belief. The PE Department are excited to continue and facilitate the positive start made by our students!

Mr Martin

Deputy Head PE

Open Evening

 Year 6 at Open Evening

Year 6 came back to school this evening, to show their parents what they had been doing on their Taster Day.

Our students and staff were ready to welcome them, keen to share our school with both parents and children. Our Year 7 and 8 students acted as tour guides and we received some very impressive feedback about their knowledge of the school, 'they were amazing', was the comment of the evening!

We started the evening with a talk in the main hall.  I then set the parents a challenge to test what I had been saying as they went around the school. Parents were able to visit every subject area and discuss with staff and students the curriculum and challenge involved as well as seeing outstanding facilities.

There are a few images below:

Announcing the Music Teacher of the Year Award

A great performance of Hairspray

                                        Professional Chefs supporting Food Technology Students

Comment from the chef: "Can I thank you for providing us the opportunity to work with the students as part of the Winston Churchill School open evening, both Mary and I thoroughly enjoyed sharing some of our experience with the students even if the students learnt one thing from the time we had together it will certainly have been worth it.

 

As I mentioned last night the students were excellent ambassadors for Winston Churchill School from the moment the session started the students were engaged, extremely well behaved and exceeded expectations with the quality of the dishes they produced with a real desire to learn, the photo’s will certainly evidence this, they deserve a lot of credit."

                                                               Textile Students at work.

A new room is currently in the design process.

News Flash!

 Secondary Music Teacher of the Year
Announced this morning on 

Classic FM Breakfast

Mr Drake, Director of Music at 

The Winston Churchill School

Congratulations!

The nomination:

Words that describe Chris Drake are, inspirational, driven and relentless in the pursuit of opportunities for young people. I appointed Chris as Director of Music in 2014. The music department was abysmal, hardly anyone participated, the equipment/rooms were in a terrible state, the curriculum was mediocre and the small staff team needed inspiration.

Given the state of the department, Chris needed some encouragement to take the role. However, from the moment he walked through the door the culture in the music department changed, staff had someone they could believe in, who has an unrivalled passion for teaching young people how to make music and valuing music in their lives.

Under his leadership, we have the highest performing music department in a comprehensive school in Surrey, the largest number of participants the greatest range of music-making activities and unrivalled numbers taking GCSE & music technology. Staff and students are empowered by him to be the best that they can be and to push the boundaries, into terms of what can be achieved within our secondary setting to produce music at the highest level.

Chris arranges the music for performances so that it can be achieved by new learners and can stretch the more experienced. He wants all children who belong to the Winston family to belong to the music family, supporting and encouraging each other to grow and take music with them into their future lives. Chris has also focused on our disadvantages children (20% of our cohort) providing free instruments & free lessons, resulting in young people forming bands and taking their place in our ever growing orchestra.

I burst with pride at the concerts, recitals and Young Musician competitions, parents are in awe of what is being achieved with their children and the primary schools are jumping at the opportunities that Chris offers. Our performance opportunities allow children to make music together and Chris is now blending Winston children with primary children to create both support and aspiration.  The Primary Orchestra concert is an example.  The staff have grown as Chris coaches them to develop their own styles and passions for music.

Chris believes in the vision for our school and is an integral part of our focus on the students and providing challenging and enriching opportunities, that develop the whole person.  Music at Winston is not a ‘department’, it unpins the whole culture and up-lifts us all everyday under the leadership and passion of Chris.

Zoe Johnson-Walker

Headteacher

Winston at Kew

 Inspiration from a Day at Kew Gardens

Last Thursday, Year 10 and 11 GCSE Art and Textile students went to Kew Gardens to collect primary resources for their Natural Forms and Surroundings Projects. 

Students were able to draw and experiment with a range of chosen materials whilst using their surroundings as their subject matter. 

Whilst we looked at many different natural forms in the glass houses, we were also able to see art work by Artist Marianna North, a variety of art work by Marc Quinn exhibiting in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery and larger instillations around Kew Gardens. 

Miss Sandling