Don't do this at Home!

 Year 7 Science

7WR and 7CT looked at displacement reaction this week. Mr Spain used aluminium foil in a mixture of copper chloride and hydrochloric acid and lit the hydrogen gas produced.  

Due to the copper displacement in this reaction the flame has a lovely blue -green hue, just like the Northern lights, followed by a pop as the hydrogen gas reacts with oxygen.

Key Stage 4 Science

Dr Gonzalez has introduced a spectacular, exothermic reaction to 11W5 and 10CB, as a recap to the catalysis topic in chemistry.  Potassium permanganate was sprinkled over a mixture of peroxide and ethanol to create these series of loud but harmless bangs.

Sports Awards Evening 2022

                    Celebrating our Students

Our guest for the evening was Shelayna Oskan-Clarke, a British middle-distance runner and the current the British 800m champion.  She competed in the 800 metres event at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, finishing 5th in the final. In 2016, she won the women's 800m at the Anniversary Games, and also reached the semi-final at the Rio Olympic Games, narrowly missing out on a place in the final. In 2019, Shelayna took the gold medal at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow.

Shelayna handed out the awards throughout the evening, celebrating with us the success of our students and then told her story, taking us through the highs and lows of her career.  She demonstrated to the audience of  students, staff and parents that it requires determination, hard work and resilience to succeed.

Our Talented Students

It was with great delight that we were able to host the thirteenth annual sports awards evening just before half term following COVID! We were really excited to have over 150 students, along with their parents, attend the evening to celebrate Winston sport, as well as to celebrate the achievements of all our gifted and talented performers! It is so important to recognise the student's successes, commitment and dedication to their sports, and the resilience and hard work they endeavour to put into their training week in week out to achieve the best they can.   

During the evening we presented our main shields to students who go above and beyond in their commitment to school sport.  And the winners were:

Most dedicated to School Sport: LUCA WALTON

The Young Sports Leader: JESS BRIDGER-CUNNINGHAM

The Sarah Hammond Achievement Award: CAMERON GOLESTANIAN

Performer of the Year: ALEX BISHOP

Most Improved: CHARLOTTE GALLAGHER

Services to School Sport: GEORGE EVANS

Joe Grant Sports Personality of the Year: FENN HORNER

Team of the Year: Y10/11 GIRLS FOOTBALL

 

The PE department also gave a round up of last years sporting achievements for each team and sport and it was great to see so many students’ coming up to the stage to receive their awards and be recognised for their dedication to school sport and their performances throughout the season.

And the winners were………….

Racquet Sports:

Most Dedicated: Rose Whisker (KS3), Luca Walton (KS4)

Coaches Player: James Pratt (KS3), Ben Kuk (KS4)

Netball:

Most Dedicated: Holly Fernandez (KS3), Jozelle E Silva (KS4)

Coaches Player: Mia Plaugmann (KS3), Ella Price (KS4)

Boys Athletics:

Most Dedicated: Charlie Hardwick (KS3), Matt McDonough (KS4)

Coaches Player: James Skeet (KS3), Alex Bishop (KS4)

Girls Athletics:

Most Dedicated: Florence Holmes (KS3), Isabelle Heney (KS4)

Coaches Player: Isobel Wathen (KS3), Grace Timblick (KS4)

 

Boys Basketball:

Most Dedicated: Olly Thorpe (KS3), Matt Hallums (KS4)

Coaches Player: Dom Corner (KS3), Seweryn Zylka (KS4)

Girls Basketball:

Most Dedicated: Isobel Mellor (KS3), Asya Durmus (KS4)

Coaches Player: Mariana Castano-Pena (KS3), Sarolta Kohari (KS4)

Girls Football:

Most Dedicated: Eda Durmus (Y7), Amelie Backhurst (Y8/9), Erin Gallagher (Y10/11)

Coaches Player: Parisa Baghri (Y7), Ava Price (Y8/9), Ellen Turner-Gadd (Y10/11)

Boys Football:

Most Dedicated: Alfie Hardwick (Y7), Oli Harrison (Y8), Jack Phillips (Y10), Callum Spillar (Y11)

Coaches Player: David Okoro (Y7), Matt Gilkes (Y8), Harrison Wood (Y10, Cameron Golestanian (Y11)

 

The sports awards evening also gave us the opportunity to recognise the sheer talent of our County, Regional, and National sporting performers.  We currently have 25 students on our Gifted and Talented register who compete at these levels in a variety of sports ranging from National swimmers and gymnasts, County and National representatives in football, County and Regional basketballers to Regional dressage riders, Regional cyclists, County performers in Judo and Netball and County level divers to name a few.  We are in absolute awe of your recent achievements and wish you all the best in the coming months for future competitions.  Having learnt all about your future ambitions, we are so excited to see you one day representing our country!

During the evening, we also showcased some of the talent we have at the school with an outstanding gymnastics performance from Jay Coote, Archie Sturt, Tegan Fookes and Georgia Fookes as well as enjoying some excellent dance performances from Sophie Magid, Caitlyn Cope, Emma Bradbury and Mae Farrimond.  

A massive thank you goes to the PE department for their continued effort, dedication and passion that they show and invest on a daily basis.  I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the parents and carers of all the students who participate in and represent Winston sport – your undevoted commitment to your children is commendable. And finally, a massive well done to all the students who attended the sports awards this year and to those who won awards.  We look forward to seeing you all next year to celebrate Winston Sport.

 

Mrs Daniels

Subject Leader PE

Winston Remembers: The Last Post

 Thought Provoking Art

In art club this week some students up-cycled an old wedding dress by hand painting with acrylic paint and ink inspired by the theme of Remembrance Day. 

Winston Remembers

To remember and honour those who died in conflicts around the world, students and staff at Winston gathered on the patio to listen to the Last Post being played by our trumpet players and to reflect in silence for two minutes.

Students are to be praised for their outstanding response to this event.  Our Head Students, Emma and Josh then laid a wreath on our memorial garden.

At Last...

 Performance Space! 

Finally, Performance Space has been handed over to the school and Mr Drake has been able to hold his first sessions in this great new space.

The Brass Ensemble rehearsed in the morning and then the school orchestra held their first full session after school on Wednesday.  Both students and staff were excited to use the new space as the acoustics enhanced each piece.  It is definitely worth the wait!

  

Drama are also beginning to use Performance Space this week.  

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.