Matters of the Head and Heart

Legally Blonde 

This year, the students of the Winston Churchill School are raising the bar with their most ambitious production to date: Legally Blonde. With a massive cast of 270 students (before the band, backstage or dancers are added), this musical is set to be an unforgettable experience for everyone involved.

The excitement was tangible as students gathered for their first cast meeting. The energy was contagious, and it was clear that the cast are focused on producing their best performance to date for with two amazing full cast rehearsals already attended. The production will take place this year, once again, at the Rhoda McGaw Theatre, providing a truly spectacular setting for this challenging and unique musical.

At the their first ever meeting, the scale of the production became apparent. With a team this large, it's no surprise that the students continue to break their own record for participation. Students were given the opportunity to meet the leadership team and learn about their roles in the production. This year, student involvement has brand new opportunities, with leadership roles in directing, choreography, event management, vocal health, technical direction, wellbeing, business management, set design and more.

The rehearsal schedule has been released on Frog which will involve learning Choreography using the screen and technology in the Performance Space, singing with the music department and acting through song with full technical rehearsals from the get go! Each year I am in awe of the dedication and professionalism of the students involved. 

Todd Harrington-Tucker

Head of Drama

The Winston Churchill School

 GCSE PE Understanding the Heart 🫀

Mr Weale, Mr Fuller and Mr Martin had the pleasure of guiding their Year 10 GCSE PE classes through a Heart Dissection last week. This opportunity provided the students with a hands-on experience with the heart and enabled them to explore and identify the different chambers, valves, and vessels. This will provide them with the necessary knowledge required to excel in their current Cardiovascular  System topic. 

A huge thank you to the Science Department for the equipment and providing the hearts. 

Great Outcomes!

 Celebrating Language Learning

To celebrate European Day of Languages, the MFL department ran a Duolingo Competition. We had over 70 students take part in the competition and even 10 teachers!

Congratulations to Charlotte (1st), Scarlett (2nd), Josh (3rd) and all students that took part. Congratulations as well to all our teachers that took part! Well done to Mrs Hammond (1st), Mrs Jones (2nd) and Miss Retzepter (3rd). 

It is always so encouraging to see people enthusiastic about using languages outside the classroom! Watch out later on in the year for our next Duolingo Competition...

Mrs Humphries

Outstanding Results

The MFL Department are also celebrating record breaking GCSE outcomes.  We enter far more children for either French and German than most state schools and the quality of our teaching and learning has led to great results:

French: 28.7% of students achieved grade 7 - 9 with 88.5% achieving grades 4 - 9.  This is a 10% increase on last year's outcomes and exceeds outcomes in other schools locally and nationally.

German: is also on an upward trajectory.  18.8% students achieving grade 7 - 9 with 73.4% achieving grades 4 - 9.

Congratulations to our teaching staff, our language assistants and our students, you are a winning team!

Radio News Flash

 Winston Shortlisted for Four National Community Radio Awards

We were delighted to receive notification that our radio station, Radio Woking, which broadcasts live over a wide area beyond Woking, has ben shortlisted in four categories of the National Community Radio Awards.

One of the presenters shortlisted, Luke, is an ex-Winston student!

The winners will be announced at the ceremony, in Cardiff on 16th November 2024 and Mr Coll will be attending, as he plans, organises and runs the radio station.

Watch this space and listen to the radio for up-dates.

Holly announced the shortlist on the radio, after school today, with Mr Coll.

Mr Coll then went on to start training a new Year 7 cohort who are keen to write and present their own shows!!  Perhaps they will be nominated in the future.

Assembly this Week

 Strings

My assembly, this week, has been developed over a number of weeks.  Having had the initial idea I enrolled Mr Harrington-Tucker and some of his drama students to create visual representations, as I progressed through the theme each morning.

The students had some great ideas and they changed their performance as they went through the week, creating a mesmerising outcome. The lighting, music, smoke and the masks had the visual impact needed to highlight a serious issue.

Students were taken from the handheld puppet toys of their childhood, through to the difference between being nurtured and supported and being controlled.  Then we explored the need for agreed sets of standards and rules in a community.

However, we finally looked at others trying to control us, including being tied to the strings of a mobile phone.  For the older children the issue of controlling, coercive behaviour was highlighted and how to report concerns.  For the younger children we finished with 'how to tell if a friendship has a positive impact on your life'.  Friendships help to shape your success or they can diminish you.  Look for the signs and listen; find true friendship. 

A huge thank you to Mr Harrington-Tucker, Mr Major and our amazing puppets:

• Alice Betterley
• Amelia Peters
• Luci Francis
• Zach Holmes
• Nathan Birrel
• Milo Gosney
• Naya Harrison
• Ella Parsons
• Bona Masso
• Molly Ward
• Molly Pilbeam
• Grace Hardicre
• Lily Skeet
• Vivienne Lenti
• Nour Kara-Mohammed
• Isabelle Hawes
• Lucy Anderson

Zoe Johnson-Walker

Headteacher

Innovation

Brooklands Innovation Academy

Winston students attended a whole day event at the Brooklands Museum, founded by Lord Mawson and Prof Brian Cox.

They listened to talks from Prof Cox, Prof Simon Singh and others,  as well as participating in several workshops, which included making toothpaste and discovering what it takes to become a BA pilot, whilst looking around concord. 

The images below show a little glimpse of these activities, as well showing Prince Michael of Kent stood next to our students at the toothpaste stand and one of our students being given an award for his great questioning. 

Active Start!

 Participation is Key

It has been a busy start to the term in the PE Department resulting in high engagement and activity levels across all years!

 

In the 1st week of lessons, students were exposed to a wide range of exciting fundamental movement warm ups. Since, this has allowed different students to build their confidence and communication by independently organising and leading warm ups for the class. We’ve also seen students flourish, including our Year 9 Sports Mentors and Yr11 Sports Prefects, in other leadership opportunities e.g. Year 9 Rugby Lessons, Open Evening, Year 6 Taster Day and coaching at extra-curricular clubs!

 

It’s not been uncommon this term to see all of our facilities in use after school. Our sporting extra-curricular programme has been as popular as ever with an average of 400 students a week in attendance. This includes Dance and Boxing club, which are two new popular additions. Fixtures are also up and running! In football we already have 4 boys and 4 girls teams that have progressed into the 2nd Round of the National Cup. There have also been 2 fantastic Rugby tournaments organised by Mr Reid. Many more fixtures are to come including Netball, Basketball and X-Country.

 

In only the 1st three weeks, PE & Sport is already bringing out the best in our students. We have seen countless examples of sportsmanship, leadership, determination, communication, passion and self-belief. The PE Department are excited to continue and facilitate the positive start made by our students!

Mr Martin

Deputy Head PE

Open Evening

 Year 6 at Open Evening

Year 6 came back to school this evening, to show their parents what they had been doing on their Taster Day.

Our students and staff were ready to welcome them, keen to share our school with both parents and children. Our Year 7 and 8 students acted as tour guides and we received some very impressive feedback about their knowledge of the school, 'they were amazing', was the comment of the evening!

We started the evening with a talk in the main hall.  I then set the parents a challenge to test what I had been saying as they went around the school. Parents were able to visit every subject area and discuss with staff and students the curriculum and challenge involved as well as seeing outstanding facilities.

There are a few images below:

Announcing the Music Teacher of the Year Award

A great performance of Hairspray

                                        Professional Chefs supporting Food Technology Students

Comment from the chef: "Can I thank you for providing us the opportunity to work with the students as part of the Winston Churchill School open evening, both Mary and I thoroughly enjoyed sharing some of our experience with the students even if the students learnt one thing from the time we had together it will certainly have been worth it.

 

As I mentioned last night the students were excellent ambassadors for Winston Churchill School from the moment the session started the students were engaged, extremely well behaved and exceeded expectations with the quality of the dishes they produced with a real desire to learn, the photo’s will certainly evidence this, they deserve a lot of credit."

                                                               Textile Students at work.

A new room is currently in the design process.