Well Done Girls!

 Football Success

Year 8 and 9 Girls took to the pitch yesterday afternoon, for the semi-final of the Surrey County Cup. 

The girls were ready to go with an optimistic attitude and their heads in the game. The first 5 minutes were tough. George Abbot had possession and we were battling to gain access to the ball. However, with a foul just outside the penalty box Ava stepped up to take a free kick. Just in Beckham style, she curled the ball beautifully, landing it in the back of the net, setting the pace for what was to come...

With the wind in our favour and possession now ours, we were making some excellent plays. Some long goal kicks from Amelie received by Ava goal end, resulted in two more goals. Taking the score to 3-0. A hattrick for Ava (in a semi-final game) what an achievement! 

Charlotte then scored a lovely goal to end the first half at 4-0.  Excellent first half ending in high spirits and some beautiful team work shown on the pitch.

Second half kicks off and George Abbot came back with more energy taking possession in the first few minutes. Five minutes into the first half and Winston conceded their first goal, an excellent strike from the opposition. But this was no test for Winston! With Winston on offensive and Jenny and Izzy keeping the ball away from our goal, we made some excellent plays sent through by Chloe and Lucy, resulting in a 2 more goals - one from Charlotte and one from Lucy! The score is now 6-1!!

The girls keep pushing and the final whistle blows. An excellent game, some fantastic play, and brilliant sportsmanship shown from both teams. 

It's a 6-1 win for Winston Girls, taking us through to the FINAL! 

Well done to all the girls, phenomenal job! Let's now go for that win...

Miss Turner 

Finding the Dream Job

 Dreaming Fish: Getting Girls into 

the Film Industry

On Wednesday 15^th March, Helen Ewer, the Creative Director at Dreaming Fish came into school with her team: Ana Ramos, the New Business and Marketing executive and Lucy Longley, the Assistant Produce. They gave an inspiring presentation and held a Q and A session focused on the barriers girls face in the industry and the possible career paths and opportunities that are actually available to them.  It was their experience that girls tended to question their capability to do a role, whilst the boys would confidently apply for any job.

Celebrating National Careers Week 

 Last week we celebrated National Careers Week throughout the school, learning about different careers and skills during form time and lessons. 

Year 10 participated in real life interactions with local employers, employees, further and higher education and training companies.  They were able to learn about many different careers, career pathways, apprenticeships and the career journeys of the people they met. 

Some of sessions students joined included the sports industry with SCL and UCFB, sales careers with Clarify, Woking Borough Council career journeys and opportunities, roles in the NHS, roles and apprenticeships in the tech industry with Invotra, social care careers with Surrey Choices, careers in professional services and teaching with Woking College, engineering, design and production with Stanhope SETA and Petrofac, apprenticeships with ALPS and MIT Skills, careers in the law with LMP Law, digital marketing with Exposure, careers in the Civil Service, culture and the arts with Woking Lightbox, Fullbrook 6^th form, Brooklands College, highlighting careers in protective services and sports and the arts and IT, Army careers, The University of Surrey Business School, Surrey Chambers of Commerce, conservation careers with Natural England and video and animation with Dreaming Fish Productions. 

Through these sessions, students have also been learning about important skills they need for these roles and how these match our Winston skills and competencies. 

Many of our students said that they were intending to take action as a result of the sessions they attended, such as finding out more about a certain career, looking at courses in further and higher education or looking for work experience. 

Thank you to all our visitors who gave their time to help our young people become more informed and create the working lives they wish to have. 

 

Year 7 Music Class

 Year 7 Excel

I was walking past Performance Space this week and heard an orchestra playing.  Imagine how impressed I was when I went in and found a Year 7 class of students forming an orchestra.  Every student had mastered an instrument and the class were working together to make music.  

Well done Year 7!

Mr Drake explains how this group have been working.  'This half term Year 7 have been working on a project relating to Beethoven's Ode To Joy in Music lessons. Over the last few weeks they have been learning to play the piece, working on reading music notation in the process, and then performing what they have been working on. 7CM went one step further and created a class orchestra to perform Ode To Joy in the Performance Space during their lesson on Monday. The performance they gave featured a number of instruments and some students played instruments that they have taken up this academic year as part of our instrumental scheme. Their final performance was excellent, mirroring Beethoven's original performance by starting with a quiet and low-pitched rendition of the theme and ending with an upbeat and loud version. Students in Year 7 will now be looking at creating their own versions of Beethoven's music in the coming weeks.'

Winston Book Week Chapter 3

 Winston Book Week: The Final Chapter 

To draw Winston Book Week to a close, we had another author visit, this time for Year 8 on Friday 3^rd March. Andy Briggs; author, screenwriter, graphic novelist and producer, came to Winston to hold an assembly for the whole of Year 8 and run 2 creative writing workshops with students who had signed up. 

Andy started his assembly by telling us all how he classed himself as a ‘reluctant reader’ when he was at school and that he struggled to find something to read that he really enjoyed. He knew that when he started writing, he wanted to write about things that interested him rather than things similar to those books that he was told to read!  He told the students that everything that you watch, whether it’s on the news, on a TV series or even on TikTok will have had some writing behind the scenes! The students were very keen to watch the video of drone racing, a link to one of his books and also found it funny to end up talking about what real bananas were!! Andy also told us about his time in Hollywood where he has worked on the production teams of some big Hollywood films! 

Students went back to their classrooms after the assembly and some classes had a go at coming up with their own gadget to solve a daily problem they might be having. Take a look at some of these innovative ideas… 

During the creative writing workshops, Andy asked the students to sit in groups with their friends. He said that he works best when he works in ‘writing rooms’ with his friends or colleagues and they all draw on their skills to come up with the best piece of writing. The students were very excited to be working with their friends and all were really engaged in the task they were set. They talked about taking inspiration from something they already like to watch or read and merge it with something else to make a twist on it, for example – The Hunger Games meets The Simpsons! 

Students worked in their ‘writing rooms’ to come up with some fantastic ideas such as ‘Mr Johnson and the Last Latin’ and ‘7 days to live’. Andy was so impressed by the students’ work and ideas and loved how they each drew on their strengths to come up with their ideas to present to the rest of the class. 

I want to say a huge well done to all students who got involved in Winston Book Week, including those students who entered the Book in a Box competition. See the fantastic entries below from Riley in Yr 7, Polly in Year 8 and Charlotte in Year 8. It was a very hard decision as they are all amazing and the students put so much hard work and time into them. However, the winning Book in a Box was The Giant Jam Sandwich by Charlotte in Year 8. A £10 book token will be making it's way to the winner, along with a £5 book token for the 2 runners up!

A huge thank you to Miss Dodds for making World Book Week 

such a huge success!

Celebrating our Differences

 Assembly this Week  

Mrs Johnson-Walker and Mr Parsons delivered an assembly which asked children to consider their differences and what they are proud of about themselves.

Winston is only whole when everyone is in and we are able to enjoy and respect the diversity of our community.

The students wrote down what they are proud to be and then turned the paper into a plane and threw it across the hall.  We were then all able to read what was on the plane nearest to us and then fold it and throw it again.  

We were sharing and celebrating our differences.

Miss Dodd has agreed to create an art installation using the planes.