Winston Making the News!

BBC School Report

                                

 

We held the second BBC School Report workshop on Friday 26th February, which was followed up with a day in the media studio at Surrey University and the progress was phenomenal. Firstly, all students involved met in the Churchill Suite for a quick explanation on how to use the 'WordPress' report writing system our website uses.

During period 1, Jon Chandler gave a thorough explanation to students about what is going to happen on the Surrey University trip. We even had a task where we had to host our own mini 'Question Time' style debate (the debate between Microsoft Windows Apple OSX turned out to be an interesting one!)

During periods 3 and 4 all student teams created a report during an allocated 1-hour slot. All reports were set to "pending review" when written by the subject teams and then during period 4, a team of 11 editors (including the help of one of our German student teachers) edited these reports and sent them to be published on the website at the link below if you'd like to see our progress so far:

 

http://schoolreport.yeoutbox.com/.

 

Thomas Walgrove

Below are photographs of the students preparing their programme at Surrey University, using some very expensive, professional equipment.  Mrs Parsons described the whole experience as 'intense', as the students had to take on board great many instructions in a short period of time, develop new skills and apply their knowledge, in a high pressure environment. 

'Wasted'

A great, young theatre company ADAD, explored the issues around illegal substances with Year 8.  This drugs awareness production helped students to understand the impact of peer pressure and the consequences of making poor decisions.



World Book WEEK

 

We’ve been celebrating World Book Day all week at Winston, to encourage and engage our already enthusiastic students to try something new.

Teachers have been sharing their favourite stories with students at break times in the LRC, to an attentive crowd.

On Tuesday, Waterstones Woking offered students the chance to use their £1 World Book Day Vouchers in the LRC, to claim their free book  as well as offering substantial discounts on some of their most popular fiction titles, especially for our students. Over 200 students came to get a book! Be sure to claim your free books, the vouchers are valid until 27^th March and can be used to get any of the specially published World Book Day books for FREE, or to claim £1 off of any book or audiobook over £2.99 at any bookstore.

On Wednesday Year 7 students welcomed a visit from renowned author Caroline Lawrence, writer of the Roman Mysteries series, among other titles. Her talk, ‘How to Write a Great Story’ was “interesting, and it inspired me”, as one student put it. Her application of storytelling technique to books, movies and everyday life highlighted the applicability that reading and consumption of a wide range of texts has on the stories we tell, whether they’re fictional or real. 7CF and 9W2 had the opportunity to ask Caroline questions later in the day in the LRC, picking her brain on the writing process, her own inspirations and why she thinks some of her books are more successful than others. Student contributions were so appreciated she gave away some signed copies of her books.

On Thursday, World Book Day, students and staff were treated to whole-school D.E.A.R. time where the entire school community “Dropped Everything And Read’ for 10 minutes at the end of the school day. Staff promoted their love of reading by dressing as some of their favourite fictional characters, including our very own ‘Katniss Everdeen’ from The Hunger Games, ‘Sergeant Hanley’ from Private Peaceful, ‘Daisy’ from The Great Gatsby and the Witches of Macbeth, to name but a few.

We have been so impressed with the increased enthusiasm towards reading across the school, as we look forward to World Book Day 2017, we will maintain this momentum to keep Winston reading!

News Flash!

BBC School Report 

Thomas Walgrove and Sophie Howbrook have worked incredibly hard to ensure that Winston's contribution to this event is of the highest standard.  They so impressed their mentor, Alex, from the BBC that they were shortlisted to be the student editors at the BBC in London on school report day.
They have just heard that they have been selected, from all the students across the country, to work at the BBC on Thursday 10th March.  This is an amazing opportunity.


30,000 students are taking part in this year's BBC School Report, across the country and only two were selected by a BBC panel to meet and interview Huw Edwards.

After meetings with the BBC planning producer and online producer, Tom and Yasmin were taken into the editing gallery to watch Huw Edwards present the 5 O'clock News for the 24 Hour news channel.

Huw invited Tom and Yasmin into the BBC studio for their interview with him. No student has ever been invited there before!

Huw loved the question in French! With a first class degree in French, he had no problem responding!

Find out how the students got on when they spent a day at Surrey University's Media Centre in my next blog!

Welcome to Winston

Working in Partnership

When the Goethe Institu asked if Winston would host two German students for a month, I delighted to provide the opportunity.  We welcomed Cosima and Susann to Winston on Monday and they are very keen to get involved with our school and to learn as much as possible about the British education system.

 

 This is their impressions so far:

Spending our internship at Winston Churchill School was probably the best decision we could have made. We were welcomed by a great staff (special thanks to Ms Finney for helping us with everything!), a huge and modern school, an extremely wide range of very interesting subjects and by really awesome students. It’s an honour to be here and we get more impressed every day by all the things we are able to do and able to see. But enough of this eulogy. We are just really happy to be part of this school for one month and we are thankful that you are having us and that you are taking such a good care of us.

However, our original roots - as some people already know - lie in Germany. Susann’s in Wittenberg, Cosima’s in Berlin, but we both go to the University of Leipzig where we study English and Biology to become teachers one day. That’s basically why we are here. To see how the British / English school system works and to - as a useful side effect -  improve our English and broaden our horizons. And we are also here to help out wherever we can. Of course, in the German department but we don’t want to hide our personal talents like cooking, being creative and supportive, cheerleading (Susann only) and we are also really enthusiastic, which definitively should be mentioned as a talent! 

Hopefully, we can get involved with most of you. Right now we are part of the BBC school report team, which is absolutely awesome! We are super happy to join them and get inspired by there work. It’s such a great opportunity for the  students! Besides this project, you might see us in your after school clubs, during your lessons and in the hallway. Wherever it is - don’t hesitate to say hello or ask us everything you are interested in. We will answer your questions as good as we can - maybe in a funny accent..

So see you soon or as we say in German: Bis bald.

Cosima and Susann

 

 

 

Poetry By Heart

On the evening of Wednesday 10th February, Woking Library hosted a competition entitled 'Poetry By Heart' during which students who had won regional contests, battled for the title of county champion. The participants recited 2 poems by heart, a pre-1914 poem from the Poetry By Heart timeline anthology plus either a post-1914 poem from the timeline anthology or a poem from the Poetry By Heart First World War Showcase. The judging panel included poets Adrienne Dines and Greg Freeman.

During the evening Winston students Adam Grainger, Benjamin Moore and Philip Norman performed instrumental pieces to welcome guests to the event and enhance the atmosphere throughout. Their performance was well received and the organiser has already hinted at a return concert next year!

 

Thank you from Pond Meadow

The students of Pond Meadow School sent the following thank you letters to Mr Drake and our students.  Clearly everyone gained a great deal from the experience.

 

 

 

Whats Happening at Winston?

Swimming Gala

“On Thursday 11^th February the Pool in the Park at Woking Leisure Centre was the scene for the annual Woking and District Schools Swimming Gala. We took a team of 19 students from Years 7 to 11 to compete in the event, some experienced and talented swimmers who have done it all before through to those first timers. All students who travelled to the event were a credit to Winston Churchill School, their behaviour and etiquette throughout the whole day was exceptional.

The event itself was a huge success for us and we had some very good individual performers with the school picking up 4 first place finishes and a number of second and third place medals as well, with Molly Robinson winning both of her races to pick up two of the 4 gold medals overall. The competition itself is split into mixed year groups and overall we finished (out of 9 schools) 8^th in Year 7, 6^th in Year 8, 2^nd in Year 9, 2^nd in Year 10 and 2^nd in Year 11. In the overall standings Winston finished a very respectable 4^th behind some extremely strong and experienced schools. A huge thank you to all the students who represented the school brilliantly on the day. Well done!”

 

 

Year 10 Boys Basketball

 

A huge congratulations to the Year 10 Boys Basketball Team for winning the District Basketball Final vs Woking High. After three consecutive District Championships for our local rivals it was Winston Churchill who came out on top with a convincing 48-33 win. A big well done to the boys below and good luck moving into the Counties Finals.

James Oghassabian, Josh Aiyenuro, Callum Hopson, Sam Rawson, Phil Potter, Ben Steer, Paul Goupil,

Tom Judd, George Musselwhite and Jack Mallet.

 

Assembly this Week

 

Our assemblies this week have been led by Mrs Nettleton and focussed on the importance of literacy skills and reading.  As you will be aware a major change has taken place at Winston with regard to the promotion of reading and the use of the library, through Mr Fisher, our Librarian.  We are all looking forward to World Book Day on Thursday 3rd March and expect everyone, students and staff to spend the last 10 minutes of the day enjoying reading a book.  There is also the opportunity to purchase a boo using the £1.00 voucher provided.  Books will be available for under £5.00.

 

Our School

Site Improvements

This half term a number of activities have been planned to improve our school site.  Further work is being completed on the pipework and the water supply, as well as new gas safety valves.  The sports centre has paid to replace the damaged fencing around the Astroturf and has increased the height to reduce the loss of footballs!  Surrey County Council have replaced our old flood lighting with new, energy efficient LED lighting.  Some classrooms are being deep cleaned and display boards are being introduced in various areas of the school to display the art work of our students. 
Mr Hill has also arranged for a clear out around the site, as well as the replacement of some damaged flooring.  All of the automatic doors are also being serviced.
The aim of all of this work is to improve the environment for your children. Thank you to the Site Team for all of the thought and effort that goes into creating such a good, safe school.

The Astroturf Fencing

New LED Lighting

Refurbished Toilets

Classroom Cleaning

Improvements to the Lunch Pod

 

 

New Display Boards for Art

Repair to Damaged Floor

Friday at Winston

Jonathan Lord MP Visits Winston

I was delighted to welcome our local MP the RHon Jonathan Lord, MP to Winston on Friday 12th February. 
During the visit I was able to discuss the plans to develop an exciting new learning environment for our students and we observed the Grammar Stream and Aspire Groups in their Maths lesson and in Music.  Students in these groups are taught Maths using the Harkness Method, an enquiry based approach which encourages the development of independent learning and problem solving skills.  During the visit Jonathan was able to see a workshop being run by Theo Fennell with our Design Technology students, taking place in our library. There are more details below about this work.
We were then able to see the Year Grammar Stream 8 students in a music lesson, again being stretched with complex rhythms and vocabulary, that they needed to use to create their own music.

Jonathan was very keen to talk to the students about their experience and I was also able to raise a number of challenges facing schools.

Working with Theo Fennell

This was a really successful day, where we had three master classes with students from year 9 and 10 who are particularly talented in Technology, working with Theo Fennell.  Theo taught the groups the principles of drawing and perspective and also gave insight into the industry of jewellery design in an interview with Emily Dowding, Holly Kitcat and Jake Spiller for the BBC school report.

Theo discussed with each student their designs they had submitted to be a part of the day and set each group the challenge of designing either a part of cufflinks or rings that could be opened to reveal a surprise, much like his trademark style. The students came up with some amazing ideas, such as opening fridge doors to display lots of luxurious foods, an egg which opens to reveal a baby bird and a beach hut which opens up to an ocean paradise.  

The students have all been tasked to take these designs away over half term and work on their ideas; they then need to bring them back to Miss Blackman to send off for Mr Fennell to judge, before possibly winning a place on a trip to his studio in Fulham Road and then the best three designs might be made in his workshop.

This was Theo’s forth year working with Winston students and each year gets better and better.   We appreciate Theo's time and expertise and  cannot wait for next year's event!