Building our Skills

 Getting Ready for Learning Review

Students are busy practising for Learning Review during Winston Extra lessons this week. They are taking it in turns to role play the tutor, parent and student roles.  They do this to build their confidence when talking to adults and ensuring they get the most out of the session. It also helps them understand how their contributions effect how the adults support them during the interview.  We are particularly focused on the difference between a target and a strategy.

Peer Productions

On Tuesday 8^th November, Year 9C band watched 'As I See IT' - a performance by Peer Productions that tackles knife crime and violence and the different roles that people play within various social situations. These topics are an important part of our PSHCE curriculum and aim to allow our students to think of the short-term and long-term impacts of the pathways and options that they choose. Various comments such as 'I didn't think about it like that' and 'that was so moving' from the students demonstrated how engaging and important the play was. The students behaved impeccably, and we look forward to 9W band watching the show on 22^nd November. 

Year 8 Girls' PE 

Mrs Smith's Year 8 class has set some real aspirational targets this term, and they are stepping up to the challenge in lessons. Having spent 2 lessons on passing and gaining confidence in going to ground, we were able to move onto how to make a tackle in rugby. Mrs Smith has been so impressed with how each and every student is gaining confidence in taking a risk and moving outside their comfort zone. Who knows, maybe we will have some future rugby stars in the making?

 

Cracking the Code

  Bletchley Park

I really enjoyed my time at Bletchley Park. It was very cool to see the very start of computing. I found Colossus and the Bombe intriguing, and I found it very interesting how they worked and were used for decrypting. Another thing that also caught my attention was how much progress we have made in terms of the size of storage devices and the amount of storage in them compared to now, because it used to be that you could fit a couple megabyte in a very large storage device, but now we can fit terabytes into storage devices half the size of the originals. My favourite part of the trip, however, was coding a game of snake on the BBC software on the old computers because it was fun to see how coding started and how it has changed today, and how a simple few line of code can make an interesting game. All in all, Bletchley Park was an amazing place to visit, and I would recommend it to anyone considering the trip in the future. 

Sam  

"During my visit to The National Museum of Computing, we were shown how technology has evolved through time. From the very earliest computers, all the way up to today's technology. My personal favourite exhibition was when we hopped onto some computers from the 80s and actually tried them for ourselves. We were shown how to make a game in BASIC. Overall, the trip was a great experience." 

 

Eashaan 

 

Bletchley Park trip's Turing test: 

 

This is what I enjoyed the most about the Bletchley Park trip: 

I enjoyed the Turing test the most because I found it interesting because we had to try guess if the machine we were talking to was someone in the room or the computer. It showed us that computers may not be as smart as us because they cannot express emotion as humans can.  

Courtney 

 

Bletchley Park trip's BBC micros: 

 

"The activity I enjoyed most at Bletchley Park was when we got the opportunity to program snake games on the BBC Micros from the 1980s by following the various coding guides. They were similar to computers we use in many ways but different in others such as the lack of a computer mouse, so it was definitely interesting to learn how this piece of technology worked. If you completed your game, you could even turn you guide over and learn how to make obstacles." 

 

Kian 

 

Great Learning Opportunities

 GCSE PE

GoPerform in Reading, a state of the art sports injury and human performance centre, was the location of a recent GCSE PE trip.

16 students were fortunate to attend the 2-hour session which involved both practical and theoretical input. The purpose of the trip was to give students the opportunity to make the link between the content they are learning in lessons with the practical application in the real world.

Examples of activities involved included; movement analysis, neuromuscular electrical stimulation, altitude training, use of the anti-gravity treadmill as well as reaction and acceleration tests which proved to be competitive within the group.

With many going into further education next year, it also ignited a greater interest in PE beyond GCSE and gave students a chance to hear from the professionals about their journey to become successful in their profession. Overall a fun and educational afternoon well spent outside the classroom!

Year 8 Science

On Tuesday in science, 8CR compared covalent and ionic bonding. They investigated household items , like sugar crystals (covalent) and salt granules (ionic) to the see the structural differences under the microscope. 

Tyler captured the perfect image of granulated sugar, utilising laboratory skills under Dr Lau's supervision. 

Year 9 Science

During the past few weeks, Mr Spain has attended a physics programme to share practical ideas and collaborate with other teachers to deliver impactful lessons. Mr Spain returned with a variety of excellent practical demonstrations just waiting to be modified by our science technicians. Today, 9WN were fascinated by this handmade oscillating wave machine which only required masking tape, bungs and some wooden rods to fabricate. 

Careers: Former Winston Students

 Career Choice: What is the Verdict?

We have had recent visits from two former students of our school, who shared their career journeys with our Year 10 and Year 11 students.  It is lovely for pupils to see real examples like these, to improve their understanding of careers.  If you are a former student yourself or are interested in talking about your career experiences, please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Smyth in our careers department on l.smyth@wcsc.org.uk.

Jake took a Year 11 assembly, showing the variety of apprenticeships that are now available across all industries and levels and the kinds of skills and competencies you need.  He is doing a Law degree apprenticeship with NRF and followed the assembly with a negotiation workshop with a group of students interested in Law.

Judge Benjamin practiced as a Barrister initially and then became a District Judge.  He explained to a group of Year 10 and 11 students the pathways to becoming a Barrister and Judge and then shared a case he recently worked on, to see if our students came to the same judgment.  They did!  He also explained how his experience with Drama and debating at The Winston Churchill School helped him with presenting to an audience.

More to Celebrate

 Year 10 Football

We have reformed our Year 10 Football Team under the leadership of Mr Cotton and Mr Martin.  We have been delighted with their positive start to the season.  Their work ethic and behaviours have been excellent.  In their National Cup match, they just lost out on penalties 4-3.

Chelsea Supporting Young People

It was great to celebrate the success of the Chelsea Programme, called premier League Inspires, aimed at supporting young people and building their confidence to become even more successful at school.  It has been run by Isaac Keighley from Chelsea F.C. Education Department, who has built great working relationships with our students and staff team.

Year 9 Art

Students have been completing the first assessment of the term using a variety of different media to create a decorative skull inspired by the Mexican day of the Dead Festival. Tonal drawings studying the work of the artist Jose Posada and creative homework images of Mexican spirit animals, known as  Alebrijes  which are recognised  in Mexican folk art as fantastic creatures that have transcended time and space.

Year 7 Participating

 Year 7 Girls' Football

A few weeks ago, the Year 7 girls played their first competitive game in a County Cup fixture at Salesians School.  The game was the first competitive game at any level for 9 of the 12 girls, which made the result even more pleasing.  Trailing 0-1 at half-time the girls had found their opposition very capable but had managed to keep themselves well in the game.  Then a little against the run of play the opposition scored again.  However, the girls didn’t let this deflect from their efforts and a few minutes later they were awarded a penalty, which was confidently converted.  Then a well worked counterattack provided a further goal, before the game went to penalties.  Winston eventually won 1-0, with our goalkeeper making a number of saves in the shootout.  The team now await their 2^nd Round opposition.

 

The team consisted of Amelie, Kitty, Jess, Kira, Daisy, Amelia, Maisie, Tilly, Alyssa, Bella, Poppy and Abbie.

 

At least a further 10-12 girls are training regularly and games will be run for all girls, so they get an opportunity to represent their school.

A few days later 5 of the team played up for the year 8’s, in a National Cup game which they won.  For two of these girls it was only their second ever game, so a great achievement.

Mr Phillips

Summer School Catch-up

After a successful Year 7 Summer School at Winston, all students who attended were invited to a catch up session with hot chocolate and biscuits during break. They completed one last task for their scrap book, which included providing feedback on the sessions they enjoyed at Summer School. Members of staff were also in attendance to discuss individually with students how they have started at Winston and the positive journey all have begun. 

It was great to hear the lessons and activities the students have been enjoying so far as well as some of the obstacles they have had to work around/overcome. All felt that Summer School was a positive experience which has led to an easier transition into Year 7.

Mr Martin