Year 11 Celebration

Celebration Assembly

The Winston spirit of 'we can' was in force across Year 11 yesterday, following the announcement from Boris Johnson that schools will close today and that examinations are cancelled.  It took eight hours to accomplish what normally takes weeks to create, a brilliant Leavers Assembly.

We started off in the Sports Hall, signing shirts and taking photographs, as well as having the favourite lunch of chicken and chips!  The students then moved to the Main Hall, where Mr Harrington-Tucker and the students had put together a programme that 'rocked' the hall!!  Staff and students were sorry that a number of students could not join us today but we know that there will be opportunities in the future to say goodbye.

It has been incredibly difficult for both students and staff to accept that Year 11 has had to finish in this way but I hope that the students feel that they have had a good send off.  They are amazing young people of whom we are rightly proud.  Our Headgirl, Lucy, gave a great speech and Mateo, Headboy joined us via a video, as he is self-isolating, followed it up with wise words.  It was an emotional moment and the students applauded their leaders for the great job that both have done.  I would like to add my personal thanks to Lucy and Mateo, they have been outstanding.

Thank you Year 11 for your hard work, respect and sense of fun.  We wish you well.

If you scroll to the end of this blog.............

Challenging Day

Thursday 19th March: Rising to the Challenge

Coronavirus is challenging every level of leadership across the country and we are no exception.  It has been important to remain calm for the sake of our students, as panic is unhelpful.  This is when you realise that, as a leader, you cannot please everyone!  However, decisions that I have taken have been considered and I have taken the views of the senior team into account, as no one person has all of the answers.

My whole staff team have been outstanding and are focused on doing the very best for our students.  They will be in school next week ensuring that your children have plenty of work to do and interesting tasks to complete.  We want to help parents to manage the next twelve weeks (as stated by Boris Johnson today), we are aware that this period of time will place a strain on families.

Year 11 have been brilliant!  Although they are in shock, following the announcement regarding examinations, they have appreciated being able to come into school today and they have, under the direction of Mr Harrington-Tucker, organised a Leavers' Assembly in just a few hours.  These events are so important to our students and I am pleased that they will have this opportunity, in what we all see as worrying times.  Sadly students who are self-isolating cannot join us but there will be other occasions before Awards Evening to get together as a Year Group.

School Up-date 18-03-2020

School Up-date 18-03-2020

Dear Parents/Carers,

As we all wait for our government to understand the challenges being faced by schools, I am endeavouring to maintain a service.  I am led to expect that there will be an announcement, from Boris Johnson, in the next two days, regarding schools.  I know that Year 11 and their parents will be eager to find out if any decisions have been taken by Ofqual regarding the examination season.

Families should follow the advice from Public Health England and that has to include the families of my staff team. The school will continue to follow the advice of the Department for Education and Public Health England.

This is an exceptional situation and clearly the announcement from central government impacts both on students and staff; with some staff having to stay at home if they are at risk or have family members who are displaying symptoms, this includes five staff who are pregnant. 

I have risk assessed the staff team and know that I can only offer less than a full service for the rest of this week, if I am to maintain the safety of students on site and quality provision in the classrooms.  As the situation has escalated and I have more staff isolated at home with sick children and their own underlying health conditions, I have now had to close the school for Years 8 and 9 from Thursday 19^th March 2020.  Any child in these year groups, receiving free school meals, will be very welcome to come into school at 12.20pm, wearing their uniform, to have their lunch.

The aim is to prioritise Year 11, in their preparation for the examinations and support our youngest students.

Year 11: Open as normal

Year 10: Open as normal

Year 9: Closed, working from home

Year 8: Closed, working from home

Year 7: Open as normal

It is likely that there will be further changes later this week or at the beginning of next week and we are awaiting instruction from central government.  There have been no known cases of coronavirus in the school population to-date.

There will be some changes to staffing but the timetabled day for these students will run as usual. Teachers will set work on Frog and some additional work is being done to ensure that our systems are robust.

I know that this will be disruptive for some parents but I will keep our staffing levels under-review.  I would appreciate your co-operation in these challenging circumstances.

Yours sincerely 

Mrs Zoë Johnson-Walker
Headteacher

School Update - 17/03/2020

This Week

Assembly This Week

Mr Parsons delivered a thought provoking assembly, based around human behaviour and used examples from the current corona-virus situation to encourage further understanding.  Students were asked to consider why all the toilet paper had disappeared from supermarket shelves, what had caused people to panic buy?

 Mr Parsons and two families; the greedy family and the thoughtful family.

 The greedy family were busy panic buying.

 The thoughtful family ended up buying more in case nothing was left for them.

 Lunch on Thursday!

                                          Lunch on Thursday looked and tasted delicious!

New Building Project

You will be pleased to know that the plans for our new building, Performance Space, were sent in to the planning committee this week!  We are all very excited to see how this progresses over the coming weeks.

Mr Collins!

The Value of Penguin Classics

We were delighted to support Speakers4Schools, when they asked if our Head of English, Mr Collins, would share his views about the use of Penguin Classic Books in school.

The film also includes some of our students in an English lesson!

Thank you to everyone involved in this production.

World Book Week; Chapter 2

Winston Loves Reading

Book Week continued on Wednesday with Mrs Smith being our staff reader at break time. She read one of her son's favourite stories: The Dinosaur Who Lost His Roar. The students enjoyed listening to a nostalgic story that some of them may have enjoyed when they were younger. Thank you Mrs Smith!

Thursday was World Book Day which could only mean one thing... Teachers dressing up! The English department really got into the spirit of World Book Day by dressing up as various book characters such as Gangster Granny, Tin Tin and Lay Macbeth. See which teachers you can spot!

Aside from the teachers dressing up, Thursday was a busy day involving a World Book Day breakfast for invited Year 7 readers and lunchtime author masterclass videos. The Year 7 students invited to the World Book Day breakfast enjoyed pastries and hot chocolate as they chatted about their favourite books. KS4 book club started after school on Thursday, with a group of us chatting about what we like to read and deciding on our first book to read. We will be meeting every other Thursday to chat about what we have been reading!

 

The Book Week celebrations came to a close on Friday, but not without an author visit. Ele Fountain, the author of Boy 87, spoke to Year 7 in their assembly, before delivering 2 creative writing workshops for selected Year 7 students. It was interesting to hear how living in Ethiopia for a period of time with her family had inspired her to write the book about a story of one refugee. Ele encouraged the students within the creative writing workshops to think outside the box and use their imagination to make their story come alive. The stories they came up with were fantastic - from Salt Pig to Evil Vegetables!! 

Ele was then able to stay over lunchtime for students to come and say hello, ask any questions they had and even get their copies of Boy 87 signed! Waterstones in Woking brought along some World Book Day books for students to purchase with their tokens, along with some other books that students could buy. It was a great way for students to get a free book without even having to go to the shops!

 

I hope all of the students enjoyed book week. I know I had lots of fun planning it and taking part in the activities too! The feedback from students was definitely positive and it was great to see them engaging in books that they wouldn't normally pick up.

Congratulations Ms Dodds!  Thank you for a fantastic week.