Dear all,
It’s half term, guys! The week we’ve all longed for, after around 832 school weeks of remote learning since Christmas, or so it has sometimes seemed! And just before we celebrate the last couple of weeks of our term together, while apart, can anyone see any reason not to start this round up with dogs and a lamb and a cat? Courtesy of Mr Campbell-Hill and Mr Copland, along with my own Alice Cat, enjoy these pictures of animal calm and serenity, and make sure you rest up this holiday week:
There’s a special pet cheer for Biddy, Joe’s dog, who has been recovering from a really big operation. Joe did a wonderful job of helping with her recovery and would walk her during his breaks. She has now had her stitches removed and she’s so pleased she hasn't got to wear the cone of shame anymore:
Next up, it’s the crazy world of blindfolded lionicorn drawings from members of Mrs Hockings’ mighty Anderwood tutor group. What I love about this group is the way they get creative and have a bit of fun together throughout all this:
Given we’ve just had the final of Masked Singer Series 1, I’m thinking, Blindfolded Lionicorn for Series 2 all thanks to us at Noadswood. 😊
Now to some seriously fantastic work, we’re going to start celebrating a couple of terrific mindmaps about themes from Macbeth by Tom and Lily, sent my way by their proud teacher, Mrs White. These impressed me hugely, you two, and will be a terrific support to your study of the play.
Miss Rawlinson sent me a lovely summary of her History classes’ work of late: 10T1 – They used a metimeter online to share their conclusion to their recent lesson today on the reasons for the government change in attitude to public health in the 19th Century. Here’s a super example for you:
11T2 have made a superb effort to live lessons overall this half term, and done some great work on their exam question essay last week completed in their live lesson on Thursday. 7LH and 7LC History have taken a great active part in lessons, sharing answers through the chat function and really thorough discussions to understand more about the Reformation throughout this half term.
9S/Hi3 as a class have been trying their best with their learning on the Korean War, a tough topic to start GCSE History with, and even more so during a lockdown. Here’s one example from Joe recreating the map of the Korean War:
Mrs Woodhouse wanted to celebrate the work of lots of her Digital Media students: In year 9, it’s a big well done to Gurnoor, then in year 10 it’s congratulations to Fatehah and Sophie,then last but never least it’s a shout out of praise to these fab year 11s of ours: Harry, Noah, Matthew, Annie, Chloe, Eden, Sonny, Annabelle, Sonny and Ellie. Mrs Woodhouse is very proud of how hard you’re all working and your efforts do not go unseen by us.
Moving to the Arts now, Mrs Rees sent a fab clip through of Freya rocking out some superb chair drumming, whilst Mrs Brown couldn’t wait to send me some super portraits created by Sophie – well done, there, because I know you did these over and above your school work – and a lovely landscape inspired by David Hockney by Olivia cleverly making use of technology in her work as lots of you do, I know.
Here’s the food moment, from Zoe this week – I cannot tell you what kind of chocolate heaven I think this cake must’ve been, Zoe. Well done, you!
The CyberFirst Girls competition is one that takes place annually run by the National Cyber Security Centre (part of GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters) aimed at Year 8 girls possibly interested in a career in Cyber Security. This year, Mr Kenyon heard about this from Mr Chilton and reached out to the students, and the very brilliant Ione, Isobelle, Morgen, Lauren, Rachel, Emma, Emilia and Erin.
Mr Kenyon is really proud of the efforts and commitment the girls all demonstrated, working on puzzles and competitions at GCSE/A Level complexity:
‘I am sharing this with you because it is something, I believe we should shout about, that even in lockdown we can enthuse pupils to try something new and just have a go at something. I have really enjoyed my involvement with the girl’s teams and next year we will be much better prepared!!’
Noadswood Read-Aloud – exciting updates:
Mrs Hockings’ literacy groups have completed some super work in response to the mighty Flaming Vengeance that I so enjoyed reading aloud for you all – here’s a couple of highlights from 7RO’s work:
I love these! In the first one, I think it’s clever twist making Lena and Sagor have to work together to get to sfety – if you don’t know the story, Sagor is the boy her parents want Lena to marry and she can’t stand him. But, you have to make it work with someone you don’t connect with if the alternative is death!
Then in the second one, wow, what a fantastic idea that the hay that the evil character, Lateus, buys triggers Lena’s allergies, rather than being for fire making purposes, as in the text. Reading opens up your imagination and here’s the best news of all: any story is yours to tell, no rules, no one can stop you.
And on that note, let me take you to my ultimate favourite day of last week, which was Thursday because I spent my morning on Teams with our amazing author friend, Stewart Ross. He’s the guy who supported lots of primary school children and some Noadswood students in writing Flaming Vengeance way back in February 2020 on our annual Build a Book Day. Stewart joined us to chat to lots of children from our local primaries and then with about 20 Noadswood students all about his life, his work and what it takes to be a top writer.
After his talks, he announced the winners of our writing competition – to enter you had to write about what happens after Chapter 8 of our book.
I want to give a mighty great shout out here to everyone who entered and then to all the following budding authors:
From our local primaries, Kaitlyn, Scarlett and Jack were the winners and special mentions were given to Sophie, Seth, Travis, Emily and Abigail.
Then from our entrants at Noadswood, it was Mia, Chloe and J-P who took the prizes, with special mentions given to Talen and Lilly.
Prizes will be on their way to all those guys and girls soon, and I am genuinely proud of everyone for taking the time to use their creativity in keeping the Flaming Vengeance vibe going.
Here we are on Teams, with Stewart celebrating how fab all the young people are, with some of his great advice for writers on the screen, too:
You can hear Stewart’s talks to us all at the Read-Aloud section of our website here (click link)
And why not write a chapter or a poem and send it to me at headteacher@noadswood.hants.sch.uk – I would love to read it out loud for you on the website. Or you could read it aloud for yourself and email it to me. Olivia sent me her incredible story, When Sheriff Douglass Comes to Town – the next chapters will go up on the site soon and you’ll discover more about how the town responds to his arrival as you hear more of her clever narrative based on the impact of Covid-19 on the lives of us all.
Did you know that those of us who read regularly find it easier to do well in alllll our qualifications, not just English and History, or other subjects where you might expect this to be the case? There is in fact no subject, not one, I promise, that will go as well for someone who rarely reads in their younger days as for someone who gobbles up books and magazines. That’s why we’re passionate about Read-Aloud: it’s wonderful to relax into stories, and it helps you right the way through your learning and your life. That’s a win-win type situation, so look out for more on this programme after half term. Miss Walker has ideas afoot!
Another incredible friend to Noadswood, the legendary Holocaust survivor, Dorit Oliver – Wolff joined Year 9 and some of us over Teams last Wednesday. As every year, she told us about how she survived the Holocaust as a young girl, going on to become a singing sensation. Dorit was just four years old when she sang and danced in front of the future king of Yugoslavia. By six years old she was in hiding from the German soldiers who were rounding up and transporting her fellow Jews to concentration camps around Europe. Years of terror followed, with narrow escapes from capture and bombing raids plus betrayals by those she thought were her friends until, at last, she and her mother were rescued from the basement flat in which they are hiding. Singing helped her survive those dark days. But the Holocaust is only part of Dorit’s amazing story and we were treated not only to this but also to the joy and exuberance that is her life today, this time beaming to us from her home.
We had brilliant questions asked by Arthur and Ella, and some brilliant well deserved feedback for Dorit from attendees and parents alike who were able to listen along with you:
“ Her story is incredible and brings to life a period of history so vividly, it's great to be able to share her story with a wider audience,”
“ What an amazing, brave lady she is and what a life she has lead. I'm sure she has been an inspiration to the year 9 students listening. Even though it's a tough subject to talk about she tells her story with such delight and in a way that's easy to understand, she even made me laugh on quite a few occasions! I can't believe she is 85.”
If you’d like to watch this very special event, you can find it here, on our website (click link)
Huge thanks to Mrs Rollett for organising both Stewart and Dorit to join us – such special Noadswood family moments.
The final event before we broke for half term was our Digital Down Day. Well done to you and so many parents and carers – so many threw yourselves in to a really fun ‘no-screens day’ after such an intense time of remote learning. We were sure it was really important for us all, and you proved us right and made us proud again.
Here’s just a few of the highlights that came my way. The first, a mouth-watering looking choccy cake from James and more baking from our fantastic students who’ve been coming to school throughout the half term. The painting is from Jaide, who wrote to me to tell me she was so pleased to have the day off screens and to take the opportunity to finish this work she’d been underway with a while:
Well done to all you fab bakers there, and I love the painting – puts me in mind of my favourite beaches down in Dorset and Cornwall, and it’s got such a lovely texture to the work.
Let the mistakes go….
I know that lots of us will hit the break doing our best to remember all the good stuff we’ve done, such as all the super things in this letter.
Let’s face it, though, we often find it soooo much easier to remember the things that went wrong, the stupid things we said, the things we didn’t do, or the errors of judgment we made. I want to say to you all, if that’s you, I hear you, and I have plenty of moments when it’s those thoughts that rush into my head before I can put something positive there instead.
An idea I love that helps me at those moments is to say, you can let those negative memories and thoughts in (you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t) but don’t let them sit down and stay for tea in your head! Instead have the back door of your mind open so that they can pass gently through and out again – really important, guys.
This was captured really powerfully by a Noadswood student this half term, and I will leave you with her super wise words:
A mistake does not define you. A mistake is an opportunity to grow. You are still the same person you were yesterday; you just reacted impulsively and didn’t think. People may think less of you, but you just need to remember that deep down you are not a bad person. This is just a blip in your journey as you continue to learn and grow.
Looking forward to next half term, and all the ways we will a learn and grow: you will impress me, make me laugh and make me proud.
Take good care,
Miss M 😊