Winning Ways!

 Quarter-final WIN! 

Yesterday afternoon, the year 8 and 9 girl's football team took to the field to face Cobham free school in the quarter-final of the County cup. 

With a 3:30pm kick off the students took to the field in a starting formation of 3-5-2. The first half started strong with the wind in our favour, we managed a 3-0 climb to the half time whistle. Some fantastic goals scored by Chloe and Lily with an own goal assisted by our own Charlotte T!

In the second half Cobham free school came back with a spring in their step and had a few good runs down our goal end but Jenny, Izzy and Imaan worked well to ensure it stayed out of the back of our net. Celebrations were almost had with goal scored by Winston however this was disallowed due to an offside technicality. Ava took a freekick, from just outside the box, an excellent strike met by an excellent save from Cobham's keeper, very unlucky for us! But, positively, we still we remain at 3-0. 

The final whistle blows and it's a 3-0 for Winston! Now onto the semi-finals. 

Well done girls. Excellent, excellent play! 

Year 7 Girls Football

 

 

The Year 7 girls played their first round national cup game away in Chichester, Sussex in the Year 8 competition. 

 

After a really strong first half where they led 1-0 thanks to Kitty’s goal, we were forced to defend pretty hard second half as the older team pressed on.  About 10 minutes from the end they scored an equaliser, but the girls kept going and a through ball from Tilley found its way into the net to put Winston 2-1 up.  We managed to hold out for the last few minutes to secure a really impressive win, as the opposition were at least a year older.  The girls are now awaiting their next opponents but we know it will be another away trip, this time to Dorset.

Mr Phillips

Ski Adventure

Skiing in Killington, USA🎿 

So, the skiing part of our American adventure has come to a close. There’s some achy bones and joints out here but overall, it’s been a huge success. 

I am sat here in the “Snowshed” on our final afternoon reflecting on all the comments I have had from the instructors. Zero to hero in a week for so many of them and the progress from every single one of them has been incredible. Every group has managed to explore the extreme ends of the mountain. All the groups are parallel skiing. There’s been some tears and some bruises but the resilience in our students is inspiring. 

The top groups have put Miss Morrison and me through our paces. It’s safe to say that my old legs are tired, and I never want to see a tree run again in my life! I’m also not sure the kids will ever let Miss forget the time she blamed “the snow” for her wipeout! 

Our students have made us incredibly proud in Killington and I hope they take some amazing memories away from Vermont. A special mention to the Year 11 boys who continually go out of their way to be helpful for us and the general public we come across. 

On to New York!

Mr Collins

Chelsea Supports Winston

 Chelsea Supporting our Students

Fifteen of our students were selected to participate in a programme run through Chelsea Football Club.

As explained in an earlier blog a number of workshops, provided by Isaac from Chelsea FC were held each week, at Winston, which focus on a variety of topics such as reading, social media and sustainability. 

Students were tasked in groups to develop ideas for a sustainable and eco-friendly project and they have been refining their ideas over a number of week, culminating in a presentation held in Performance Space last week.  Student learnt the importance of creating a sustainable lifestyle, as well as using techniques in design, problem-solving and teamwork to form ideas in order to overcome current issues.

Their presentations were outstanding, with each group presenting to a panel of judges.   This requires confidence in the members of your group, good subject knowledge the ability to articulate your ideas clearly.  It is not easy to stand up in front of your peers and staff, with the spot light on you!  Yet these students handled the pressure incredibly well and did an amazing job.  They were all winners.

Well done to every one who took part.  Chelsea presented the school with a signed football shirt. A special thank you to Miss Exworth and Mrs Walton for setting up and organising the programme. 

 Speakers4Schools

Dan Healy:Managing Director, FTI Consulting

Award winning strategist and researcher, fusing together primary research, analytics, psychology and behavioral economics techniques to understand behaviour and forecast future scenarios. Working with various governments, corporates, investors and NGOs, he was one of the few to forecast the fault lines that lead to the Arab Spring, Trump’s conquest of Clinton and the legacy of Covid-19 on both consumer behaviour and corporate business models. Back to back winner of Holmes Report SABRE award for best thought leadership with ‘True Cost of Financial Crime’ for Refinitiv/LSEG and ‘Resilience Barometer’ for FTI Consulting.

Students studying Business Studies and History took part in online polls to see how quickly data can be collected and used.

Dan gave the students a valuable insight into the research that politicians and businesses use to guide their decision making, including sharing research that had been presented at the World Economic Forum, Davos. Students were shown survey responses that revealed people are more influenced by fear, anger or distrust in their voting decisions than by economic ideas. The students were also interested to see the data showing that people will form opinions about the news from social media posts, and reshare as facts, rather than doing their own research.

Several Year 11 students with interest in politics, starting their own business, and going into marketing, were able to talk to Dan about their future careers. Seeing real world information gave the students a deeper understanding of how the world of business and politics operate.

Ms Nye

Deputy Subject Lead for History and Year 8 Tutor

Working Together

 Primary Latin Reading 

Competition.

This week we were thrilled to welcome Year 6 students from local primary schools for a day of learning Latin and our inaugural Primary Latin Reading Competiton, organised by Mr Fisher. Students arrived with no prior knowledge of Latin. They learned some essential grammar, translated a story from Latin into English, and prepared and performed an adaptation of 'tres porci parvi' in Latin, as well as enjoying a film on Ancient Egypt in the Planetarium.

Students competed in their performances, judged on their accuracy and expression of Latin. Those from Goldsworth Primary and The Hermitage performed admirably, with some thoughtful characterisation, but St John's Primary clinched the win with their staging and intonation, and we look forward to bringing them with our own students to the Guildford Latin Reading Competition next month.

To begin the day having no knowledge of a language and end it with a convincing performance in that language is very impressive and we applaud the enthusiasm and resilience of these young students. We know that a few of them will be joining us in September and we can't wait!

ad WCSC Latinam amamus

Blood and Circulation

Mr Gunnoo has been using practical resources with 11C1 in order to recap the biology GCSE topic "Blood and Circulation".

The students built arteries, veins and capillaries as part of their deeper understanding of the circulatory system; with the emphasis on the differences between them.

A Panathlon Challenge at Winston

 A National Charity Event Hosted by Winston

Last week The Winston Churchill School hosted in association with Active Surrey, a Panathlon Challenge for 7 schools in the Surrey district: Rodborough, Kings College, Freemantles, The Abbey School, Salesians, Greenford and we also had the opportunity to enter our own team.

A 'Panathlon' is a national charity event which hosts a series of different sporting activities that have been specifically adapted for children with physical disabilities and/or learning difficulties where there is a specified special educational need. 

This allowed students in years 7,8 & 9 the opportunity to have the chance to represent themselves and their school to take part in competitive sport. There were varied sporting stations such as 'seated' ten-pin bowling; curling; paddle table tennis; standing long jump (or wheelchair push), to name but a few. Each school had a team of up to 8 students and each activity enabled every child to access a different skill set and feel a real sense of achievement.

Our team of participating students were coached by 2 very special Winston role models in Y11. They had to overcome their own fears as they too have special educational needs and hugely stepped out of their comfort zone to model inspirational behaviour and generate effort from all to gain competitive points. There were smiles all round and an infectious enthusiasm in the air.

As hosts of this competition our Y11 PE prefects managed and led this special event. As their GCSE exams are soon approaching this was probably the last opportunity for them to lead in their PE prefect roles. They did an amazing job from greeting the schools as they entered our site; to carefully listening to the owner who trained them on each sport; to effectively communicating with every child making them feel safe, comfortable and confident; to awarding every school and participant with a special medal for great achievement. 

They showcased their fantastic sports leadership to help make a difference to every child taking part. They had such a positive impact, and in fact, every Winston student involved is part of a special group of motivational young people who demonstrated such impeccable, respectful behaviour. They delivered a high standard of instruction and involvement at each sporting station, removing barriers so they could all excel, enjoy and achieve.

The owner of the Panathlon challenge had this to say: 

      "Thank you so much for this morning.

      Your leaders were some of the best I have worked with not just this year but the past 4 years.

      They were a massive credit to the school and themselves and if honest would have them with me on any event.

      You should be very proud of yourself and the team at the school."

They were also referenced on Twitter from one of the participating schools:

      " Thank you to the team for organising a superb event! The Winston Sports Prefects were outstanding!" Rodborough School

Well done to everyone who participated in this event, we are extremely proud of everyone, and we would like to wish the best of luck to those schools who progressed to the next stage of the competition.

The WCSC PE Department

Mrs S Walton

Trying Something New

 The Winston Book Fair

The Book Fair is in full swing and the students have been loving browsing the books and deciding which ones will be their next read!

There is a huge variety of books on offer - some as cheap as £2.99 - and students are able to place an order with Miss Dodds if they would rather pay via Scopay. 

We have already made around £600 in sales in just a few days. Our aim is to make over £1500 as that is what we made in sales last year and this also means we get 60% of this to spend on books for our school!! We still have a week to go and a reminder that students will be visiting either in one of their English lessons or during form time. 

Tasting Test

All of our Year 11 GCSE students took part in a focus group during their Business Studies lessons where they tasted three different varieties of Jaffa Cakes and answered questions on each one based on five categories.  The average scores showed that the original orange flavour was still the favourite amongst those who took part with a score of 3.42.  This was reflected in the final vote where half of the 109 students voted the original as their favourite of the three flavours sampled.