Blog #14 – wc 14/12/20

Hi All,

Well, we made it to the last day of term …. and what a term it has been.

It feels like 2020 has thrown everything it could at us but we’re still standing, and we continue to provide the best possible education to our students in extraordinarily demanding conditions. In addition to the challenges we expect to face in the vibrant, rich and colourful tapestry of everyday school life, this year we’ve had to deal with things that none of us were prepared for, or were trained to do. Despite this, we did it anyway; what an achievement! Lots of us have, by necessity, learned and developed a range of new skills that have enabled us to deliver our lessons remotely so that, even when students were at home isolating, they were able to access good quality learning and teaching online. We know this isn’t ideal, but it’s so important to stay engaged with lessons.

We are likely to continue to feel the impact of Covid 19 well into 2021, and changes to school procedure follow the latest advice from government, which changes almost daily. However, hopefully, we will all begin to see and feel the positive influence of the new vaccine early in the year and then, with any luck, things will settle down into new ‘normal’, whatever that is.

What is certain is that, without the ongoing support of parents and carers, it would have been much more difficult. So, once more, we would like to extend yet another, very grateful, ‘thank you’ to all of you.

Virtual Whole School Rewards Presentation.

As I mentioned last week, the Whole School Celebration of achievement has had to move online this year. Please follow the link to the presentation and remember to join us in congratulating all of the students who have won awards this year. Well done to everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9xg6WOZ5eE

Golden ticket

A new initiative for this year is a rewards scheme based on positive SSA grades: students’ attitude to learning. This is our first group of 25 winners who were treated to a day out of school and enjoyed a great trip to Chester Zoo in acknowledgement of their hard work and commitment to learning.

New Build

It’s hard to believe what can be achieved in three months. I’ll add a longer piece in the New Year but I will let the photos speak for themselves.

               3^rd September                                                      18^th December

Technology

The Technology department are pleased to share an image of this fantastic Year 7 student who has won the 'Technology Student of the Term'. This student has consistently displayed a positive attitude to learning whilst producing some outstanding work in all lessons across Technology; she also created the artwork for the school Christmas card. As a reward, she has received a letter home, a certificate and a prize from the Technology faculty. Fantastic work!

Computer Science

Students have been getting really creative using pixels this week in Computer Science. Almost everyone used the Christmas theme to get into the festive spirit and created some fantastic pixel art tiles. Good work guys.

Christmas comes to the Science Department

In the image of the Christmas tree, students used Skittles to create a visual representation of dissolving and diffusion (the movement of particles from an area of high concentration to low concentration).

The second image shows a Yr 10 student using strawberry laces to investigate ‘Hooked Law’; a fun twist on their GCSE required practical. I don’t think any sweets were left at the end of the experiments.

Finally, Year 8 have been working on a topic of plants over the last few weeks. Almost all life on earth depends on the ability of photosynthetic organisms, such as plants and algae, to use sunlight in photosynthesis to build organic molecules that are an essential energy store and to maintain levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

What a fantastic community

Blacon Boxing Club, Weddel Swift Meat Distribution and Blacon High School have either collected, donated or helped to distribute a huge quantity of support to those people in the community of Blacon who need a bit of help this year. Fantastic packs of meat and enough presents to fill everyone’s Christmas stockings have already been delivered, or are on their way out this weekend. This is such an amazing coming together of the community in the true spirit of the season. Thank you just doesn’t even get near to acknowledging this effort. Merry Christmas everyone.

Christmas Cards to Care Homes

Last week some of our students created Christmas cards to send to residents at local care homes. Students in the Sanctuary made some beautiful handmade cards while in Computer Science lessons, Year 8 learned how to use vector shapes on a folded document. Year 7 Progress Leader, Mr Slade, also encouraged the whole year group to write greetings so we currently have over two hundred cards being quarantined so they can be sent to the care homes in our community this week. We hope that our pupils are able to spread a little joy during these difficult times.

What a lovely idea. Thanks to Mrs Tait and Mr Slade for organising this.

Last Day of Term

Students were treated to a full, two hour, fantastic, feast of festive fun today thanks to the efforts of Miss Mc Hale, Mr Colewell, Miss Hargreaves and Miss Ankers who put together the best entertainment you will see out there this year. Thanks also to all the staff who joined in or contributed to make this Christmas bonanza an amazing success.

Merry Christmas

As we say ‘Goodbye and Merry Christmas’ to our students today, it is with a huge amount of pride that we have managed to get to the end of a very challenging term, and remain relatively unscathed. In these unusual times, I hope that our blog has focused on the many positives that we experience every day at Blacon High School and the many reasons that the young people of this community give us to celebrate.

We also bid a fond farewell today to our amazing head caretaker, Ken Bates. Ken has been hammering, sawing and fixing for us at Blacon High School for an amazing twenty one years. He leaves with our very best wishes for a long, healthy and restful retirement.

As we close the doors on the school and on 2020, we would like to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a very happy and peaceful Christmas and offer our best wishes for 2021.

Above all, ‘Stay Safe’ and we look forward to seeing everyone return in January at the start of the exciting next chapter.