The Batley Buzz Jan 2023

Our children deserve the best. No child left behind - ever. Every school a great school. Creating remarkable people.

Our Trust Vision

Every young person, regardless of their starting point, or background receives a high quality education, including first class care, guidance and support.

Our Infant and Primary News

Reach for the stars

Just before the Christmas break, we had the pleasure of welcoming an inflatable planetarium into our school hall. The planetarium allowed our Year 2 children to experience the night sky, this complemented the learning that had been taking place all half term about space. The children were fascinated and really enjoyed the experience.

Looking forward, this half term we are continuing to further develop our community links through a series of parental/carer engagement events, starting with a reading event this next week for Year 2 parents/carers.

Coming soon…

Our next big project as a school is the development of a reflection space, where we can deliver bereavement support and drawing and talking to support our young people through difficult times in their lives. We are also developing our school library, to ensure this is up and running and the development of unused spaces in our former Children's Centre. We are hoping these will be up and running by February. Watch this space!

Social Action in KS1

Our Year 1 children have been extremely generous donating some of their toys to local charity shops; Scope and Shelter. The class, with some of their dads and grandads, walked into town with their bags of goodies as part of kindness month - the incessant rain did not deter them!

The money raised from selling these toys will provide new toys for children in need and support for people who are homeless. Research shows young people who take part in social action before they are 10 years old are more than twice as likely to keep participating in the community. Thank you for being such good citizens, Y1!

Young Voices 2023

What an experience! Children from Field Lane and Healey School went to Sheffield Arena to take part in the world’s largest choir, which consisted of over 4,000 children! We spent the afternoon practising our songs for the final time with world renowned conductor, David Lawrence.

We saw lighting engineers, sound engineers, videographers, photographers, musicians, singers, dancers, organisers, security guards at work - what an enthralling opportunity for the children and staff alike!

The performance itself was incredible; we were treated to a brilliant light show whilst we performed alongside stars such as Heather Small, The BeatBox Collective, Urban Strides and the incredibly talented violinist, Anna Phoebe.

Maths Workshop for parents/carers

We were joined by a lovely group of parents/carers to take part in a new weekly maths workshop, looking at how cooking with your children can support their learning in maths.

We made apple pies and savoury tarts which looked and smelt delicious! Hopefully they tasted good too!

We are already looking forward to the next session!

Firsttimeawayfromhome

Adventures, archery, caving, climbing and challenges are just a few of the exciting things that Years 5 & 6 have experienced last week at Robinwood. Building confidence, self esteem and life-long memories, the children have had a fantastic time working together to conquer fears and prove that they can achieve anything by believing in themselves.

Believe - Achieve - Succeed

Overcomingfears

75% of Reception parents/carers engaged in our reading workshop. It was so popular and thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended that requests have been made for it to take place weekly.

Young Voices 2023 at Sheffield Arena was mind blowing for our choir, who sang with thousands of other children. Healey School partnered with Field Lane for this amazing experience. The children came back to school buzzing after an evening of live performances and collaborative singing and dancing.

What have you done today to make you feel proud?

Our Secondary News

Let the Eco Schools’ committee commence!

The new Eco Committee held its first meeting at the start of term. They are now in the process of completing an environmental review of the school, where they will be asking staff and students important questions about what good practice we already have in school, and areas we need to improve.

In pairs, they each have a different topic e.g. biodiversity, waste, energy etc. and they need to come to the next meeting with their answers on the topic they had. From there, we'll be making an action plan.

30 students have been accepted onto the committee after submitting applications to express their interest and the first meeting was well attended. There are representatives from each year group to ensure all ages have a voice and input.

The aim is to attain green flag status for the school.

National Book Tokens

Winners!

We were one of five schools to win book tokens to the value of £1000 and a membership to the School Library Association for a year. A fabulous prize, which meant we were able to replenish our library.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to nominate our school, but a special thank you to the student whose nomination was

responsible for us winning the book tokens (pictured). National Book Tokens also awarded the student £100 of book tokens and, as a thank you from the school, we gifted a tub of chocolates - a nice treat when you’re immersed in a good book!

Some of the tokens will also top up the Reading for Learning programme texts across the academic year as part of the constant review of the programme and new book releases.

The money has also helped us to spread the joy and love of reading through the 'Golden Tickets' which were randomly distributed in Y7-11 assemblies where students were able to choose a book they wanted to read and we purchased it for them.

Please attend our first Careers Information Event for parents/ carers on Thursday 2nd February!

What a performance!

In December, BGS students and staff performed Gigantus and what a fabulous display of theatrical talent it was.

Huge congratulations go out to the fantastic students who took part, from those performing on stage to those behind the scenes. Fantastic effort and commitment was shown by all and this did not go unnoticed.

Miss Parkes commented: “After several years without live performances, it was lovely to see such support from parents, staff and students. Both evenings saw a full audience, and all the students overcame the nerves and delivered a truly wonderful performance. A huge well done to the actors, choir members, band members and backstage team who all worked together and should be proud of themselves.”

The show went down a storm with its audiences. Batley Multi Academy Trust CEO, Sam Vickers, praised all involved: “A huge amount of work goes into a production of this quality, and it was clear to see it was a whole team effort which led to the success of the evening.”

After-school tuition for Year 11

Departmental sessions are currently taking place for Year 11 learners, which are timetabled each week.

Departments have planned bespoke sessions based on the recent set of examinations that took place. The sessions cover examples of learner misconceptions that have been identified by teachers. These are then addressed, giving them the skills and the knowledge to inform them for future exams

New arrival in The Barnyard

We're excited to announce our new arrival here at The Barnyard. Welcome baby Pingu and congratulations to proud new mum Poppy!

Manchester Theatre Trip

The English department ran a theatre trip for 50 Year 10 learners to see J B Priestley’s, An Inspector Calls, live at the Lowry Theatre. As part of the AQA GCSE literature specification, Year 10 learners are required to study An Inspector Calls and this was a fantastic opportunity for learners to see how the play was intended to be performed and brought to life on stage.

Year 10 thoroughly enjoyed their experience at the Lowry Theatre and for some, it was their first time visiting a theatre.

Learner Leadership Team reports for duty

Our Learner Leadership Team are taking on new responsibilities; the Head Boy shared the the new learner leadership duty rota with staff, saying: "We look forward to supporting staff to make sure all learners are being the best version of themselves during break and lunch time."

The team have been issued with blue high visibility jackets so they are easily identifiable.

"Leadership is the acceptance of the awesome responsibility to create an environment in which people can work at their natural best."

Simon Sinek

Our Sixth Form News

Debate and Create

We were visited by the fantastic Theatre of Debate group who ran a full day workshop with our BG6 students.

The Theatre of Debate team tour throughout schools in the UK and begin their sessions with an idea for a play, then run an informed debate with groups of students to explore how the idea, storyline and characters can be developed. The sessions culminate with a presentation by each group. The objective is to create a new production, informed by this collaborative work, which will tour and be filmed in the future.

Our young people were tasked with researching and developing the story of The Three Queens from Mysore, with the aim of creating a drama focussed on the debate about vaccinations. They learned about the power of storytelling to aid making informed decisions about health inequality and vaccine hesitancy and were able to develop their communication skills, teamwork and confidence. Challenging themselves and their thought process, as part of the discussion and debate, to better understand how to convey your own thoughts and ideas.

We received some great feedback, saying that our students were “Amazingly imaginative.”

“All of us thought the young people were brilliant and cannot thank you and your staff enough for making the workshop possible.”

Our Curriculum Enrichment

Our trust family of schools offers a wide range of curriculum enrichment activities. This greatly enhances our young people's educational experience, and also supports their health & wellbeing.

Our Staff Super Heroes

For leading on Exams and Educational Visits seamlessly at BGHS.

For ensuring that the BGHS’ Management Information System and timetabling systems work so reliably.

For leading daily cover and Evolve superbly well.

For championing staff wellbeing across the Trust family of schools. Jodi has been proactive in arranging fitness classes for all our staff, which is fantastic!

For the successful implementation of a new whole school teaching & learning tracking system at BGHS.

For brilliant work on whole school personal development at BGHS and passing her MEd which was based on leadership.

Debbie Goddard & Emma Boults

Amy Wilby

Jodi Ramsden

Michelle Barker

Sharon Tinker

Ravinder Grewal

Our Staff Super Heroes

Sandeep Kaur

For always going over and above to ensure all our staff and young people across the trust family of schools receive the very best care, guidance and support. Sandeep is truly excelling in her role.

Ismail Akram, Farai Nyamunda

For leading the extra-curricular sports activities and fixtures to ensure all UBHS learners benefit from a wide range of different opportunities. They also focus consistently on developing learners’ key leadership skills such resilience, communication and teamwork.

Dan Bamfield,

Our Community Work …

really means a lot to us, and we see our Trust and our schools at the very heart of our community. Community Makes Us and it is the unity in community that matters.

Support for Batley Food Bank

Our Trust family of schools were very charitable before the Christmas break, supporting those in need and we were able to give generously to Batley Food Bank.

BGHS raised over £600 in cash donations and also made a food donation, which filled the boot of Mr Riley’s car!

At UBHS learners helped to raise over £400 to buy items to support our community during the holiday period. Staff also contributed to the collection, bringing in food and other items such as toiletries and cuddly toys.

The Trust Central Team filled 6 huge hampers, donating one per school.

The Great Winter Get Together community events

Batley Community Centre

Saturday 21st January: 12-2pm

Everyone is welcome to pop in for coffee, cake and a chat.

Upper Batley High School

Community tea and coffee morning

Wednesday 25th January: 9-11am

Come along for a cup of tea, piece of cake and friendly chat.

Healey Junior, Infant & Nursery School

Coffee, cake and chat afternoon

Thursday 26th January: 2pm

For residents of Charles Jones Court, elderly parents of school staff and parents/grandparents of our KS2 children.

The Great Winter Get Together

16th January - 29th January 2023

Places for connection is this winter’s theme as, when we feel lonely, that’s what we seek.

Let’s tackle loneliness together, one connection at a time.

Careers work

On 17th January, we held our regular Trust Careers Network meeting, which proved to be very exciting for the young people across our community of schools. As a group of secondary schools, we all hold the full 8 Gatsby Benchmarks for excellent careers education, which puts us in the top 7% of schools nationally to have achieved this. We are extremely proud of this and the fact that, no matter which school our young people go to, they are receiving outstanding careers advice and guidance.

Also present at the meeting, was a representative from the Careers and Enterprise Company who was able to share resources and provide us with the national picture to date, which was useful insight to inform our future planning.

Our focus for the session was our primary schools and how we could add value to an already excellent careers provision. In response to the government’s new drive to support and develop careers education at primary level, we’re exploring what that could look like in our family of schools. The team have lots of exciting ideas.

There are superb times ahead for all our young people as we continue to drive careers forward and raise aspirations for our young people in Batley.

Our wider links

https://bbesthub.uk/About-Us/

https://www.ckteachingschoolhub.org/