Tim Peake Discussing Space Travel

The Science of Space

Major Tim Peake's visit to Winston, as part of a charity filming assignment, was exciting for our students and Tim Peake also found the experience inspiring, as no other secondary school has a planetarium!

Tim sent us the following message:

“I very much enjoyed visiting The Planetarium at The Winston Churchill School. It is a superb educational resource that I am sure will inspire young people to think beyond the confines of our planet and instead encourage them to reflect on the many ways in which Space – and its exploration - is helping broaden our knowledge and understanding across so many different subjects.”

We would like to thank Major Tim Peake for giving so generously of his time to our students, it was a great experience.  We hope, in a few weeks time, to share the film of the discussion session.

Watch this 'space'!

Major Tim Peake at Winston!

Winston Welcomes Tim Peake

Space Walk the Winston Way

Major Tim Peake became the first British European Space Agency astronaut to travel in space; the date 15th December 2015, when his mission was launched on Soyuz TMA-19M. He joined American astronaut Col. Tim Kopra and Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko on the International Space Station. 

On 15th January 2016, he and Col. Tim Kopra exited the hatch of the space station on an assignment to repair for the station’s solar panels. They worked in total darkness, while the panels were not generating power, to avoid the risk of electrocution. This meant that Tim Peake became the first official British person to walk in space. Tim returned to Earth on June 18, 2016, shortly after becoming the first British subject to be honoured by the Queen—as Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George—while in space!

Tim Peake made a surprise visit to Winston on Thursday afternoon, as a production company had asked to use our planetarium to film an interview.

Ten students from Years 7, 8 and 9 were selected to meet Tim and talk to him about his experience on the International Space Station.

There will be more detail to follow about Tim's visit but here are a few images of the afternoon.

 Setting up the interview.

Waiting for Tim to emerge from the planetarium!

 It was worth the wait!

Watch this space for more about Tim's visit.

Our School

Year 9 Rugby

9W/PE1 have spent the last 3 weeks learning and progressing their Rugby skills. After their 1^st lesson many of the boys were anxious about playing full contact or even getting muddy! Therefore, lots of fun challenges in pairs were introduced so the boys felt comfortable playing Rugby and slowly but surely the class moved onto tackling, rucks and scrums. Mr Martin could not be prouder of the progress and personal journeys the boys have had during this unit and has been his favourite group to have taught Rugby with. Not only had their Rugby improved but more importantly the boys showed an increase in confidence, resilience to overcome their personal challenges, the ability to motivate and collaborate in teams as well as showing a high level of respect and sportsmanship towards each other; many of which are reflected in the England Rugby core values. Well done 9W/PE!

Celebrating Success

At break-time on Friday the maths department celebrated the successes of the year 11 in their mock exams.  The 80 students who made the most progress from their year 10 mock to their year 11 mock in the year were invited to come and celebrate with the maths department so we could acknowledge that all their hard work was paying off.

Exploring Peer Pressure in Year 7

In Year 7 Winston Extra lessons we have been exploring peer pressure. We have analysed a Year 7 scenario, questioned why people behaviour the way they do, both with regards to putting peer pressure on others, as well the reasons for giving in to peer pressure. We have deepen our knowledge of this when looking at a study about conforming. We have then discussed different types of peer pressure and the impact this can have. Student were then challenged develop a freeze frame showing bullying and then Break out into a role play explore a situation of peer pressure. To finish the lesson the students worked together to create their classes top tips on dealing with peer pressure. 

Learning at Winston

Maths on Wednesday

I had the pleasure of visiting several maths lessons on Wednesday.  Students were fully engaged in their learning and Year 9, both Aspire and Grammar streams, were tackling grade 6 and grade 7 GCSE maths questions.  This created a buzz in the classrooms as they problem solved their way through this challenge.  The students were very keen to be on the blog!

Year 11 Assembly

This week Mr Fricker gave every student a progress card, which provides useful data regarding targets and predicted outcomes for GCSE, BTec and VCerts.  Year 11 are very focussed on working to achieve above their target grades.  These cards will be used by teachers and will help to form the basis of the conversation at Parent's Evening.

Year 10 GCSE Computing

The students in the GCSE Computing class were working in team to complete one of the challenges on the image below.  They were keen to engage in conversations about the role of such technology in the future, particularly in the areas of health and care of an ageing population.

Personal Safety

Students in Year 8 experienced a drama production and workshop on Peer Pressure, focusing on the issues of alcohol and illegal substances.  It looked at how easy it is to be encouraged by 'friends' to try substances and most importantly, where this gateway leads.  Students then have to consider how these situations can be avoided by contributing to the discussion that followed the play.

Books Matter

Winston's Book Fair 

The students have been thoroughly engaged in the book fair, choosing books that they have been looking forward to reading as well as stationery items. The best part is that everything is half price which means some books start at £1!!

Students will be visiting with their English classes or during form times, and the book fair will be finishing next Thursday 30th January;  so get those orders in! We've made around £500 in cash so far, and that's without any online payments, which we will use to buy even more books for our library.

More Good News

We will be working with Speakers4Schools and Penguin Books to promote the teaching of the classics in schools.  This will be in the form of a film probably staring Mr Collins!!

Watch this blog for more details.

Student Work

Year 7 Dance

In the light of Mrs Johnson-Walker's assembly Mrs Smith decided to introduce a different stimulus for the Year 7 Dance unit with class 7WPE6; the current, devastating news of the 'Australia Bush fires' as our stimulus.  The students have had two lessons and developed their own freeze frame, a key movement to be repeated throughout their dance, in different ways to bring it back to their main message / element.  They have started to choreograph their own small sections of dance linked to the bush fires, most have chosen to tell the story of the animals trapped  within the fires.  Today the students developed their actions and focused on how they moved their body, known as dance dynamics, and how the story and dance can be built up and calmed back down again.

"Making Salts"

"Making Salts" practical from Yr 9 and Yr10 classes, with Miss Golding and Mr Potier.

In this required practical the students investigate the reaction between an acid and an insoluble base, to prepare an aqueous salt solution. After the excess base has been filtered off and the concentrated salt solution is evaporated,  high purity , dry copper sulphate crystals are formed . When the procedure is followed precisely,  some crystals of a size of 2 cm or inches can be achieved. 

Science Club 

During Miss Woodcock's Science Club session the Year 7 students created a winter/ snowy scene by growing salt on cardboard Christmas trees, using sodium chloride solution and potassium ferricyanide.

During the last week of December they also created some snow/glitter globes and decorated them with a Plasticine snowman (which they made from scratch) and filled the globes with glitter glycerine and water.

Music Success

The Autumn Term saw a number of Winston students sit graded instrumental exams. The results have now all come back and we are so proud of them and what they have achieved. In particular we would like to highlight Freddie Garner and Ned Bird who gained a distinction and a merit in their grade 7 exams respectively, and Josh Prince who gained a distinction for his grade 6. 

Congratulations to all of our students!

The full list is shown below:

Name	Instrument	Grade	Result
Sam Bishop	Drum kit	3	DISTINCTION
Jack Anderson	Drum kit	1	MERIT
Harry Faulds	Drum kit	1	DISTINCTION
Henry Salter	Drum kit	2	MERIT
Freddie Garner	Drum kit	7	DISTINCTION
Matt Early	Guitar	3	MERIT
Ollie Storey	Guitar	5	MERIT
Aniya Lumsden	Bass Guitar	1	DISTINCTION
Olivia Laurent	Guitar	4	MERIT
Paola Hagen-Zanker	Guitar	1	MERIT
Sienna Sutton	Guitar	2	MERIT
Ben Howell	Piano	2	DISTINCTION
Hannah Pratt	Piano	2	PASS
Ned Bird	Piano	7	MERIT
Darci Sutton	Piano	2	MERIT
Dan Jacobs	Piano	5	PASS
Josh Prince	Violin	6	DISTINCTION
Emma Anderson	Clarinet	2	DISTINCTION
Jess Dunipace	Voice	1	PASS
Fern Curtis	Voice	1	PASS
Katie Gershikov	Voice	3	PASS
Josh Ryley	Theory	5	DISTINCTION
Jo Stathopoulos	Theory	5	DISTINCTION
Tharusha Fernando	Theory	5	PASS

New Year

Winston wishes you a Happy New Year!

Assemblies this Week

My assemblies this week have focused on the need to engage in conversations; putting social media to one side and actually talking to each other.  Students were shown a series of images taken by Eric Pickersgill who removed the smartphones and digital devices from his portraits of everyday life. I asked the question have we stopped communicating face to face, having discussions, debates and arguments; have we lost the art of conversation? 

I have encouraged students and staff to have conversations about the issues facing our world and what we know and more importantly, what we don't know about each situation.

Some of these issues are very challenging and sensitive but at Winston we believe that it is important to have open and frank discussions to develop further our understanding, which then informs our opinions.