Getting Involved

 Digital Leaders

It is amazing to see students in years 7, 8 and 9 working together as Digital Leaders. In the images they are enrolling into the Childnet Digital Leader Programme, as well as producing material to be used within our school and our local feeder schools. They meet every two weeks to plan their role.  As the programme progresses there will also be additional activities in between the meetings for them to do. This is a fantastic opportunity to develop our young leaders. 

Mrs Smith

Preparing for Learning Review

During the run up to Learning Review, we are empowering the students to be ready to take those risks and have professional conversations with their parents and tutors. In Year 7 we have focused on five of our 13 Winston skills and explored situations where these skills can be used. Following this the students developed some strategies on how to improve the skills of; Listening, fitness for purpose, overcoming “stuckness” , risk taking and self perception. In their Winston Extra Lessons the students where involved in a “hot desk” situation, where they have a 10 minute conversation with another student. One of the students became the tutor and the other was the the student. They experienced what the learning review situation would be like and how they can construct their answers and build in their strategies. Year 7 came away from these lessons feeling more prepared and confident for their 15 minute learning review appointments. 

Winston Remembers

 11th November at 11.00am Winston Remembers

The whole school joined me on the patio this morning, to stand alongside the rest of the country for 2 minutes of silence to reflect and remember those service men and women who lost their lives fighting for our country.  Our trumpet players, led by Mr Drake played the last post, before a period of silent reflection.

Science Skills

 Eukaryotic Cell and Electron Rings

A few weeks ago 9C1 and 9WE worked with salt dough ,to create eukaryotic cell and electron rings during their hands on learning approach. 

This week they painted their amazing work and many of the masterpieces made it to the display board in Mr Rose's laboratory.

Displacement

Year 7 looked at chemical changes and specifically displacement in their lessons this week. The students  in Mr Philcox's class investigated which metal was more reactive. They learnt that a more reactive metal will displace a less reactive one : here the pupils worked with magnesium chips  and copper sulphate solution.

Thank you to Our Community

 Making Music with Community Support

GENEROUS Woking residents have donated musical instruments to The Winston Churchill School, allowing about 30 Year 7 students to take free music lessons. Many young people start their journey of music making at the age of 11 and go on to thrive at GCSE.  At Winston we have over 100 students taking GCSE Music and Music Technology qualifications and this number is increasing year on year.

The donations are part of a new scheme in which students were invited to sign up for free music lessons on an instrument of their choice.

“It was giving them the opportunity to try something they hadn’t necessarily done before,” said Claire Laurent, a music teacher, who is leading the scheme. 

“We did a social media advert asking if anybody had any instruments they would be able to donate.

“We were overwhelmed by the generosity of the local community, who donated flutes, clarinets, cellos, violins, saxophones, recorders, trumpets, guitars and even drum kits.

“The department was also very fortunate to have received an award from the Wellington College Arts Fund, which covered the cost of the lessons.

“We’ve got a school orchestra, a big band, session bands, several choirs and instrumental groups.

“The ambition is for the students who are learning to play instruments for the first time to feed into the various ensembles we provide at school.

“The music staff hope that this is just the beginning of the scheme, and that year on year, more and more students will decide to take up a musical instrument to enrich their time at school,” Mrs Laurent..

Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme News

Good News 

Mr Doel wanted to share with you some exciting news about The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (DofE) at The Winston Churchill School. We have just found out that our school has received a grant after successfully applying to the DofE’s Diamond fund enabling us to reach and support more disadvantaged young people who want to do their DofE at the WCSC.

With this funding, the WCSC will be able to achieve our three strategic aims: 

1. Increase the number of participants at Bronze level, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. We currently have 211 students taking part in the DofE Award, an increase of 174% from previous years placing us 5th in Surrey

2. Train a greater number of our own staff as Lowland Expedition Leaders, which enables us to become more self-sufficient when it comes to running expeditions. This allows us to provide affordable expeditions so that every student at the Winston Churchill School has the opportunity to undertake the Award, with the encouragement and support that they need

3. Provide more of our young people the opportunity, which may not otherwise have been open to them, to develop ‘soft’ skills and attributes for life and the workplace through reducing the barriers and the obstacles which can prevent young people from taking part in the DofE, such as providing a greater level of support and expedition equipment for our disadvantaged students

The DofE’s Diamond fund is made up of £1.5 million raised by over 15,000 supporters during the Charity’s Diamond Anniversary year (2016), £1 million from the #iwill Fund for England – a joint investment from The National Lottery and the Department of Culture, Media & Sport to support young people to access high quality social action opportunities – and additional DofE donations to double Diamond Anniversary fundraising in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. With a total of £3 million to invest over the next four years, the Charity aims to work with Licensed Organisations/centres, like the WCS, to give more disadvantaged young people the chance to develop life-changing skills and attributes – such as communication, determination and teamwork – for life and work, create new friendships and gain the confidence to reach their full potential.

Furthermore, the Diamond fund will allow students at the WCSC to embody our ethos of Service Before Self, whilst providing young people with the opportunity to develop their Resilience, Communication, Collaboration, Ingenuity and Analysis competencies.

Lastly, we’d like to thank you for your continued support of the WCSC and the DofE. We look forward to seeing the impact this funding has on our young people’s lives.

Spooky Library

 October in the Library 

The Library, this month, has been home to our Halloween inspired display full of spooky books for students to read. Whether it's a story about a haunted house, or a fantasy book about witches and wizards, the Library has lots of books on offer if you are a fan of all things scary!

Students in Year 8 have been inspired by some classic horror story tropes to come up with their own spooky storyboards. This has taken place during form times with a different tutor group visiting the Library each day. They have enjoyed working in small groups and being creative - they've also come up with some fantastic story ideas, so well done Year 8!

Our very popular Literary Pumpkin competition has returned, with even more entries than last year! Students have decorated their pumpkin to look like a book character or with a design inspired by a book and we've had some brilliant entries again this year. The students have worked hard on their creations and staff have been voting for their favourite; the winner will be announced on Thursday! This competition is also very popular with staff so we run a separate competition, with students able to vote this week for their favourite staff pumpkins. See some of the fantastic entries below from staff and students...which is your favourite?

As well as all the Halloween inspired activities in the Library this month, we were very lucky to be able to be part of a virtual author talk with Michelle Paver, an award-winning author famous for writing books such as 'Wolf Brother' and 'Viper's Daughter'. 7CM were fortunate enough to watch this event live, but other Year 7 classes have been able to watch a recording of the event in their library lessons since. Michelle talked about the extensive research she does before writing her books and it was fascinating to find out about places she has visited such as Alaska. She also answered some questions from different schools and 7CM were very excited when she read out one of the questions they asked about the inspiration behind her writing. It is always great to be able to hear from authors first-hand about their experience with writing books, their journey to becoming an author and inspiration behind their writing. The Library now has some signed copies of some of Michelle's books so if you enjoy her stories, come and check them out!

Our Remembrance Day display will be going up over the next couple of days so make sure you come and have a look after half term!

Miss M Dodds

Discovery Space Manager

Success at School

Language Learning at Winston

Year 9 German:

Charlie and Isaac said they wanted to teach part of a German lesson so after a bit of preparation they were given the challenge of introducing and teaching the Perfect Tense to their class. They were brilliant in this role and did a great job!

Year 8 French: 

Well done to all the students who have already achieved ten MFL reward stickers. This is a great achievement by this point in the term. 

Year 8 French

Congratulations to the Year 8 'cahier jaune' students who regularly complete challenging extension tasks during lessons.

Year 7 German

Well done to Lenny, Sonny, Harrison and Oliver who have been awarded multiple gold stars this term for exceptional contributions during German lessons.

Year 8 Netball

On Tuesday the year 8 netball team competed in the SJB netball tournament against other schools in the district.

From the get go, the girls gave it their all, winning their first match against SJB 6-2. Next we came up against Fullbrook, who gave us a tough game and when it was 1-1 with minutes to go, Winston dug deep and slotted another goal making it 2-1 win. 

We knew that the next match was going to be tough, up against Woking High who we have played previously this term but it was a hard fought battle, losing a respectable 6-2.

4th Round found us playing against Kings International, who we had not played against previously, the girls came out with a fantastic team performance, working the ball down the court quickly creating lots of shooting opportunities. the came out on top with an incredible 14-0 win, with some fantastic shots from Holly Fernandez. 

The girls then had a tough game against Salesians, sadly losing out on a win, but the girls did themselves incredibly proud. 

It was so nice to have the team competing again in tournaments and overall the year 8 team came a respectable 4th out of 7 teams.

Very proud of your performance girls, let's keep working hard.