Blog No 26 – w/c 10/05/2021

Hi Everyone,

Well, another week over and we’re another week closer to saying goodbye to our Year 11s. Some of them are excited, and some are nervous. However, we continue to offer them the best possible support as they stand on the brink of exciting new futures as this particular chapter of their educational journey draws to a close. As you know, we have spent the last few weeks supporting them to generate excellent assessments in all of their subjects to enable teachers to justify the best possible GCSE grades. However, as they approach their last couple of weeks with us, it is important that Year 11s continue to use their time wisely and focus on completing any assessments that remain outstanding.

As one group gets ready to leave us, the rest of our students are settling back into our everyday routines and the school is beginning to resemble something like normal. The atmosphere always seems to be a little lighter in the summer term; it must be the warmer weather and, with restrictions beginning to be lifted, we can look forward to an exciting few weeks.

Young Enterprise call with the Duke of Westminster

‘Last Wednesday, Mrs Hudson Mr Lloyd and two Year 11 students were invited to join a zoom meeting with the Duke of Westminster and trustees of the Young Enterprise Programme. Rayson and Jay were both part of a successful Young Enterprise team here at Blacon High School called ‘Enviroverse’. The Young Enterprise scheme is funded by the Westminster Foundation and focuses on young people designing their own business idea. The Duke of Westminster, alongside the trustees, were looking to gain an insight into the team’s experiences of the scheme as well as any skills they developed throughout the process.

Enviroverse’s idea had a dual approach and focused on the amount of plastic waste in the world, while helping out students in the local area. Their product was based around environmentally friendly stationery sets for pupils and staff. The team had the opportunity to promote and sell their product to the public at the Trafford Centre in Manchester. They also took part in a ‘Dragons Den’ themed presentation where they received feedback on their product from five ‘Dragons’. The team pitched their product idea successfully and won the 2020 Young Enterprise award for ‘Best Customer Service’ in the North West’.

Well done to everyone who was involved in the project.

New Coding Club

Calling all prospective ‘coders’. There is a new Coding Club starting for Year 7s on Friday 21st May. It will run from 2.45pm - 3.30pm each week in Room 201. Mrs Tait and Mr Allen are looking forward to seeing you all there.

Year 7s Debating Fun

Year 7s enjoyed debating this week in an activity designed to illustrate their interpretation of ‘Stone Cold’ by Robert Swindells. Working in groups, they developed arguments to support their belief that ‘Shelter’, a character from the novel, was responsible for the deaths of other characters in the text. Students justified their arguments by making specific references to evidence from the text before setting up the class like a court room. The activity was a fantastic opportunity for students both to build confidence and develop their oracy skills. Well done everyone.

Race for Life

Miss Sutton is planning a whole-school ‘Race for Life’ event on the 23rd June. The event will be lots of fun and will encourage everyone in school an opportunity to take part and raise some money for a very worthy cause. Please support us in any way that you can. Remember that every contribution, however big or small, is massively important.

Please follow the link below to our ‘Just Giving’ page. Thank you in advance.

https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/blacon-high-school

And finally,

As from Monday 17^th May, students will no longer be required to wear face masks in and around school as the first Covid restrictions are lifted. However, if any student wants to continue to wear a mask for now, this will be acceptable. The latest advice for teachers is that they should continue to wear face masks in communal areas, so students may not see any change to staff procedures at this point.

We all welcome this as the first sign of a more positive outlook and expect to see further restrictions lifted in the coming weeks. We will, of course, keep you up to date with all new developments as soon as we are informed.

Stay safe.