Getting Involved with Football

 Year 7 Football

With the school football season coming towards an end, the Year7 boys can look back and reflect on a great 1^st year representing Winston. Their 1^st game on 11th Oct was promising to watch as the boys won 8-1 in the 2^nd round of the National Cup. It was clear early on that the squad had a lot of potential, which is why it was disappointing for the Year7's to lose their next 2 games in the National Cup & County Cup, 2-0 to The Heathland School and 3-2 to Howard of Effingham respectively. 

Out of the cup competitions by November meant all attention turned to the League. From the 7 fixtures played, the boys won 6 and drew 1, remaining unbeaten in the District!

3-0 win vs Hoe Valley

6-0 win vs. BDB

6-2 win vs. Woking High

1-1 draw vs. Heathside

4-2 win vs. Fullbrook

1-0 win vs. Chertsey High

3-2 win vs. Salesian

Not only have the squad shown their quality but also resilience and determination to achieve a result even when not playing well. The boys have also developed their analytical skills by leading their own half time team talks which has helped develop their learning and understanding. Overall, 21 players have represented the 1^st team this year which is a great selection problem for Mr Martin to have, especially with the boys playing 11-a-side next year.

The Year 7's can now look forward to playing at Woking FC in the District Final at the end of April.

Barclays #LetGirlsPlay

On Wednesday 9^th of March The Winston Churchill School students took part in the Barclays #LetGirlsPlay initiative, this involved as many girls playing football throughout the day as possible. 

The PE Department ran football across all girls PE lessons that day, there was an additional recreational football club and also a year 10 & 11 girls fixture against Hoe Valley- so lots to get involved in! The day was a success, with tweets from @WinstonSport keeping track of what was going on. Over 40 students attended football club and the 10 & 11 girls won their fixture 7-1. 

The initiative looks to get more female students involved in football and it was lovely to see so many students get stuck in and play some great football! 

The PE department hope to encourage more students to girls football club on Tuesdays 3.10-4pm!

Rising to the Challenge

Pancakes!

Year 7 had a great time learning to cook pancakes during their first Food Technology lesson. With so many new things to learn, weighing accurately, consistency, food hygiene and using equipment, they eventually were able to cook the pancakes. 

There were smiles all round, as they made pancakes to enjoy with their families. The students also learnt to flip them and none fell on the floor!!

Dissection

This week in Biology, students worked in pairs to dissect various organs. Mr Hough`s and Mr Russ`s classes -10C3 and 10W4 - identified the cortex and the medulla in lamb kidneys.  They were able to see where the blood vessels and ureter entered and exited . 9CE and 9CG dissected chicken hearts under the supervision of Miss Spurrier and Mr Russ, as a visual tool to discuss the functions of the atria and ventricles . 9W2, 9C1 and 9WE were treated to Mr Rose demonstrating the dissection of an Ox heart.  The students applied this knowledge when they opened the chicken hearts and threaded strings through the blood vessels. The size comparison of the two hearts amazed the students , no surprise when a chicken heart is about 3 cm in length, whereas the ox heart is the size of a human head.

The Rice Challenge

9CE were set a challenge this week, to work out how many grain of rice would fit into their classroom.

They had to plan their approach to the problem, decide on the equipment that they would need and then allocate roles within their teams, before they got started. 

At the end of the lesson they discussed which of the Winston 13 Skills helped them to complete the task and had to justify their answer.

Born to Write!

      Steve Cole Author Visit - World Book Week!

 

Bestselling author Steve Cole visited Winston today, to present an assembly to our Year 7 students! The kids thoroughly enjoyed listening to Steve who told us all about his career, how and why he became a writer, and a little bit about some of the 251 books he has written. 

 

Steve's book Swarm Rising co-written with Astronaut Tim Peak, is his latest book. Steve spoke to students about the creative process behind the book, where the inspiration of the characters came from, his passion for space, and held a quiz about some really cool space facts. Did you know...on board the ISS, in 24 hours the Sun rises and sets sixteen times?!

 

60 lucky students were chosen by their English teachers to participate in a smaller workshop where Steve spoke about his Young Bond series. Interacting with students about what makes a spy, what weapons have been used and, what they are, who James Bond is, and the idea behind each Bond book he has written! He even signed some Steve Cole postcards for students to take away as a souvenir of the day.

 

It truly was a fantastic visit, packed with information and a lot of laughs!

 

Thank you Steve! 

Demonstrating Resilience

 Well Done Winston!

On Tuesday 22^nd February Year 7 and Year 8 went to Hoe Valley and took part in some netball matches. The teams were both ready to get going as soon as we were there and show how hard they have been working in training. Winston were off to a flying start by scoring very quickly into the first quarter, in both games and kept up the high score rate throughout. They all worked so hard as a team and were encouraging throughout the game. 

Players of the match went to Lucas from Year 7 and Holly from Year 8. 

Year 7 won 14:2 and Year 8 won 22:2. 

Well done to both teams and we look forward to the upcoming fixtures later in the term. 

Presenting in a Positive Way 

On the Friday before half term groups of students in Years 7, 8 & 9 got the chance to present the social actions plans, that they had been working on, to a panel of judges, to determine a school winner.

We are very lucky to be working with the Chelsea FC Foundation and their Premier League Inspires Challenge. Over the past 6 weeks each group have been working on their chosen social action plan and how they would like to positively contribute to our environment in a sustainable and collaborative way.

Each group made a pledge to create a social impact towards climate change and to reduce the damage that we are making on our world.

The CFC Foundation have been working with schools in London and Surrey to determine which school is going to represent Chelsea FC and compete against all the other Premier League football teams in this National challenge.

Firstly, we had to determine which team, in which year group, was going to represent The Winston Churchill School. Here are all of our groups who presented their plans which ranged from cycling challenges to help to reduce our carbon footprint; to recycling projects using art and working with our kitchen staff and business manager.

It was a very tough decision, but we could only have one team to take forward to the next stage and represent the school. This team was Year 9.

                                          

On Wednesday 23^rd February the Year 9 team travelled to Chelsea FC’s football ground where they had to present against another 4 schools. They were given the VIP treatment as the day was hosted in the Vialli Suite overlooking Stamford Bridge’s football pitch. The students got the opportunity to meet representatives from the Premier League and Future Foundations who were judging all of the presentations. They were also given an insight into future career paths and how they can utilise the skills they have learnt from working on this project in their future employment.

All the presentations were amazing and all very different. The judges had a very tough decision. However, a decision had to be made and the overall winning school was Fulham Cross Girls’ and we would like to wish them the best of luck as they now compete with all the other football clubs.

The judges gave our Year 9 team such positive feedback about their presentation and some ideas and guidance to support their project as they begin to roll this out within the school.

 

The Chelsea FC judge commented, “I thought it went superbly and everyone delivered a fantastic presentation and were a credit to the school!”

We are extremely proud of them and how they demonstrated a level of maturity, confidence and connectivity with their audience to be able to effectively present and get their message across. These skills can now be put to the test as they next will present their project to our Senior Leadership Team so they can implement their community cycling project to help the environment and collectively reduce our carbon footprint. Watch this space……………

Making Music

 Year 9 West African Drumming 

The Year 9 were finishing their West-African Drumming pieces at the end of half term, which they then performed to other members of their class. The performances included key features such as a call and response, polyrhythms and solos and they all did an excellent job. 

The Ukulele 

The Year 7 have been learning to play the Ukulele this term and in their final few lessons of the half term 7WS formed 'mini-bands' including Ukulele playing and singing, whilst 7CM made a Ukulele orchestra (!) combining chords with picking to produce impressive performances.

 

 

 

Memorable Science

 Key Stage 3 Science Club

 Every Thursday afternoon we hold a science club for our KS3 students . Here, they are able to explore a different side to the curriculum in more depth with some fun injected into the process. Recently, Mr Spain has been dying clothes with them using red and common onion skins. 

Students explored how natural chemicals like tannin, which is found in onion skin,  help colours bind to fabric.They have also created snowy crystal scenes from brine and potassium ferricyanide and learnt about ionic structures and saturation at the same time. 

Astronomy

Year 8 performed enthusiastically in the discovery space this morning during their astronomy lesson. Mr Rose`s lesson guided them to re-enact some mythological stories about the birth of stars. The children were very inventive and even attempted to "reach for " Beta and Zeta Tauri - these two stars form the horns of the bull in the constellations of Taurus.

 Big Bubbles!

Year 7 students were engaged, on Thursday afternoon is planning and carrying out an investigation into and then making big bubbles.  Students gained a better understanding of surface tension.

Well Done Winston

⚽ Winston Victory ⚽

This week has been a huge week for girls football at Winston, firstly with the success of the tournaments and this week with two back to back wins at fixtures!

Monday 7^th saw the Year 8 & 9 girls go to Chertsey High for a league fixture, with the girls managed by Mr Jones and Mr Raby. The girls went 1-0 down at half time but showed great resilience coming back to win 2-1! This league game win gets them one step closer to the league finals day! 

Then, on Tuesday 8^th February the Year 7 & 8s travelled to Weydon for the quarter finals of the county cup. This was an extremely tight game, ending 0-0 at full time, and 0-0 still after extra time! A penalty shootout was the difference between the two sides. The shoot out ended 3-2 to Winston, resulting in a Winston victory! 

Absolutely outstanding achievement under pressure to come out the better team. Amelie  bagged player of the match, and deservedly so- saving a penalty that was all the difference! The semi finals will be played after half term. 

Well Done!