Wilson Stuart School
Wilson Stuart SchoolSummer Term A Special Academy
Newsletter Spring 2017
D
ear Parents,
The Summer fast approaches and the Nursery build continues to make progress. We have now moved our children into the two new Wilson Stuart nursery classrooms. They are wonderful, very big and very light with huge picture windows. They also have a super decking play area attached to them. We have also built a superbly equipped new bathroom. The children and staff are really enjoying their new facilities. Our old nursery class is being converted into a new nursery for local children and will provide some lovely opportunities for our nursery children to enjoy some inclusive opportunities and play. Our new nursery development will be opening in September. We will be holding an official opening for the new build in October and we are delighted that the Lord Mayor of Birmingham and Colin Diamond CBE, The Director of Children's services will be attending. At the older end I am very pleased to report that we are also having great success with our 19-25 Hive College, 5 students have recently obtained paid employment through the programme, which is a fantastic achievement. It is a very busy time in school with residential visits and examinations in Year 11, everyone is working hard and doing their best.
SteveHughes - Head Teacher
Young Voices 2017 Genting Arena. NEC Wilson Stuart attended the Young Voices Concert on Thursday 26th January and as usual we got lots of attention from the conductor, David Lawrence.
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Having attended this event for nearly every one of its 20 years, Wilson Stuart School has developed a reputation for being the most enthusiastic participants with both pupils and staff always giving 110%!! This year, the special guests included Natalie Williams (a popular soul/jazz singersongwriter with 7 critically acclaimed albums), Tabby Callaghan (one of Sharon Osbourne’s protégés on the XFactor) and pictured here with Kadeem – The Beatbox Collective. We always have the most amazing night and the pupils were, as always, an absolute credit to Wilson Stuart School.
Keep up to date with news on our website: www.wilsonstuart.co.uk
Wilson Stuart School
Spring Term
4.1 visit Blists Hill Victorian Town
Bees Phonics workshop
4.1 visited Blists Hill Victorian Town on 8.3.17 to learn about what life was like in a typical Victorian town. Although the air was much cleaner as there was less smoke than during the Victorian times, the experience was very realistic as many of the people we saw were dressed in period clothes and spoke in an old-fashioned way. There was a Victorian bank to change new to old money, a traditional Victorian pub, Victorian shops, an old school house, coal mine, clay works, industrial factories and traditional cottages / terraced houses. The pupils enjoyed the day, the weather was warm and dry and we were able to gain and learn much information for the Y11 pupils to complete their history controlled assessment assignments back in school.
Bees Class had a fantastic time today showing our Parents our Phonics skills. We explained to our Parents why Phonics is so important and how developing good Phonics habits can go on to help children become excellent readers. We talked about the importance of developing children’s listening skills as well as letter recognition to help us become good at identifying the different sounds we hear in words and suggested activities they could do at home to support their child’s learning in engaging ways. We also provided the opportunity for Parents to experience a range of playful Phonics activities with their child in class as well as the chance to ask any questions they had. We had a fantastic turnout and the children were thrilled at the chance to show Parents how hard they have been working at developing their early reading skills.
St Patrick’s Day
Chinese New Year
To get into the spirit of St Patrick’s Day on 17th March, the 4.4 and 5.4 classes joined together to create a fantastic performance about the life of St. Patrick. All pupils also had great fun learning about the different traditions that take place on St.Patrick’s day, including all the Irish music and dancing. Both classes worked extremely well together to put on a ‘grand’ show!
The school celebrated the Chinese New Year festival with some fun workshops. We learnt why it was the Year of the Rooster through a role play story about The Chinese Zodiac. Some of us created a huge dragon made from different textures, which has been displayed in the dining bay for everyone to see. We had a special visit from a professional Chinese dancer who taught us ribbon and fan dancing. During a music workshop, Mr Moss taught us some Chinese words so that we could sing along to some Chinese themed songs. We also explored and played with instruments traditionally used in Chinese music. Finally, some of us cooked some delicious stir fry with noodles and rice. We experimented with using chopsticks to eat the food we cooked. It was an interesting day had by all.
Keep up to date with news on our website: www.wilsonstuart.co.uk
Wilson Stuart School
3.4 visit Town Hall for exciting show! On Wednesday, 3.4 visited the Town Hall to watch What the Ladybird Heard. This was an introduction to our class story and what an introduction it was! The pupils enjoyed listening to the lively and catchy songs, joining in with the actions and finding the ladybird on stage.
Maths Workshop On Thursday 2nd February, parents came into school to join their children in a maths workshop focusing on money. Parents had the opportunity to work with their children through a variety of activities and were able to see how different resources were used in school. The activities ranged from identifying coins to solving problems with adding amounts and finding change.
Summer Term
A Journey Across The Western World– Symphony Hall On Tuesday 31st January, 3.1 and 3.2 attended a school’s concert performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall. We were very lucky in that the newly appointed Musical Director and Conductor, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla had chosen to conduct this concert herself, emphasising her support for the importance of live musical performances in education. She is astonishingly young for such a prominent position, but extremely talented and full of energy. She led the orchestra in 8 pieces of music taken from different parts of history from 1869 – 1982. It was a varied and entertaining programme and everybody enjoyed it.
Following this, parents were made aware of how money is taught in school and how progression is made. Parents were sent home with a homework pack appropriate for their child to work on at home.
The Big Top Music Theatre join PMLD
Bendrigg Lodge On the week beginning the 27th of April Wilson Stuart took a small group of children from Key Stage 3 to Bendrigg Lodge, in the Lake District for a week of outdoor activities. There was plenty of laughter and the students had a fantastic time. Students had the opportunity to go rock climbing, canoeing, zip wiring, caving and most of all they got to socialise and be part of a team. Bendrigg was a chance of a life time and all of the students were challenged and all succeeded. Great memories which will last for a life time.
We enjoyed another wonderful performance from the Big Top Music theatre on Tuesday 21st March. The theme was the Ice World and the students enjoyed the musical interaction and sensory exploration. All the students gained so much from the session and showed great anticipation!
...students had a fantastic time.
Keep up to date with news on our website: www.wilsonstuart.co.uk
Wilson Stuart School
Spring Term
Panathlon & Warwickshire Table Cricket On Tuesday 14th February a combined secondary team made up of pupils from KS3 and KS4 went to Sutton College to complete in the Birmingham Qualifiers for the Panathlon and event made up of the following activities; Boccia, Kurling, Table Cricket, Polybat and Track and Field Indoor Athletics. The team had a very successful winning all of the disciplines and finishing in first place and thus qualifying for the Birmingham Finals on Tuesday 14th March. Warwickshire Table Cricket Champions On Wednesday 15th February the Table Cricket team went to Edgbaston Cricket Ground to start their quest of returning to Lords for the National Finals of the Lords Taverners Table Cricket Competition for 2017. They successfully won all of their matches to continue their unbeaten start to the 2016/17 season by becoming Warwickshire Winners and going though to the Regionals Event later this year. In what could be an even more successful season to last year after their win at the CP Sport Nationals back in December where they beat the 6 best community teams from around the country.
C.B.S.O. Woodwind Trio On Tuesday 7th February, Wilson Stuart welcomed 3 woodwind players from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. They performed a selection of music and demonstrated their instruments – Oboe, Clarinet, Cor Anglais and Bassoon. We learnt that these instruments required thin pieces of wood, called a “reed” to make a sound and to change the pitch you have to cover the finger holes and use the silver keys – Alicia had great fun trying to change the sound on Rachel’s oboe. We also learnt that the bigger the instrument – the lower the sound and the smaller the instrument – the higher the sound. The Trio played 2 concerts in order to differentiate the presentation style, one for all Secondary Pupils and 6th Form and the other for all Primary Pupils and PMLD. They explained about the job of a Conductor and how important it is to keep in time, and a few of our pupils had a chance to conduct the Trio. All the pupils and the staff enjoyed a lovely morning with everyone demonstrating excellent listening skills. Our visitors even commented on how well behaved, polite, knowledgeable and enthusiastic all our pupils were. Of course!!
Dates for the Diary Apr
May
Jun
Jul
24 25 25 10 11 17 26 20 29-02 05 05 07 16 27 01 05 06 07 10 18-19 21
Teacher Training Day Pupils Return to School Primary Residential KS5 eSafety Workshop PFPA Pamper Night Maths Parent Workshop Half Term Break Whole School Parents Evening Half Term Break Pupils Return to school PFPA Coffee Morning Parents Handwriting Workshop PFPA Fathers Da Shop Eid Carnival Garden Party Transition Day Primary/KS3 Parents Evening PFPA Summer Ball Year 11 Residential Sports Day End of Term— Pupils Leave at 2pm
Keep up to date with news on our website: www.wilsonstuart.co.uk