Happy New Year

A warm welcome back to our staff, students and families.

We have started 2020 with a vengeance!

I gave an assembly to all students about how proud they make me feel. Particularly when I drop in to their lessons and see them working hard with a focus on their learning. I have to remind myself what a tough job school can be - the amount of ‘stuff’ students need to learn and recall is vast. From equations in Maths and Science to quotes from Literature and learning by rote in Drama and Languages.

The standard of their written work is also exceptional. I popped in to Miss Tunnell’s Year 9 English lesson last week and saw students improving their work on Martyn Pig to achieve higher grades. I was hugely impressed with what they had written in just one lesson. Walking around lessons is a real tonic - your children are working hard and you should be rightly proud of their achievements.

In the assembly, I also talked about how our students make me proud outside the classroom. For example when they are representing the school in community events or representing school sports teams or just taking part in enrichment activities. I had the pleasure of reading the GCSE Latin coursework for a group of Year 9 students and Miss Murray who are now studying the level 2 course after successfully completing level 1 at the end of Year 8. Wow! What an accolade.

I am also proud of how respectful our students are and the maturity they demonstrate on a daily basis. They are a caring bunch, looking out for one another and behaving respectfully in school. I loved being asked “Did you have nice Christmas Miss?” last week or being wished  a “Happy New Year Miss”.

What a lovely start to 2020 I had!

Another great experience last week was our Year 11 GCSE mock results day. All Year 11 students were formally given their mock results by senior staff on Thursday morning. All students acknowledged that their results reflected the amount of studying they did. From those who achieved the highest possible grades, to those who were disappointed with their outcomes but solemnly acknowledged “I didn’t do much revision Miss”. These exams provide a crucial learning opportunity for our Class of 2020. They now know how big the mountain is they need to climb in order to get the grades needed for the next stage in their education/career pathway.

Seasons greetings

Christmas is coming and we've had a week of celebrations.

Let me start with celebrating those students who have worked hard all term, getting themselves to the top of the merit tables. I was delighted to share their success with them last week by presenting their certificates and badges to them in their lessons.

Gaskell winner, Nayl Ahmed (Y10) was in Mrs Greenwood’s GCSE German lesson. Nayl was responding to the FAR marking of an exam-style writing task, which he had written on the theme of free time, so he was correcting and extending his language.

Imogen Davies (8T) and Esme MacDonald (8T) were joint winners for Rylands. They were in Mrs Bradbury-Cheethams Art lesson, where they were doing oil pastel studies of John Piper’s work - a British artist.

Emma Boaler (8K) was Turing’s highest merit total winner. Emma was in Mr Dubale’s Maths lesson, where she was in the process of completing her "red pen retest" from the first Year 8 end of unit test.  Emma then went on to learn about conversions between fractions and ratios.

Dylan Lamond (9H) was the Whitworth winner this month. Dylan was in History where Mrs Mackay was teaching the lead up to the Second World War with a focus on Chamberlain's policy of appeasement and the analysis of the cartoons of David Low.

Pankhurst winner, Zack Jordan (7E) was in Music with Mr Wood, where they were doing their assessment using duration notation. They were creating their own 4 bar rhythms then arranging them so they demonstrated Pulse, Call & Response, Polyrhythms and team/ensemble skills.

Finally, Lowry winner, Hannah Phillips (7I) was taking part in the scholars’ workshop.

On 13th December, Year 7 scholars were invited to a workshop presented by Stephen Frew from ‘Tomorrows Engineers’. This is a charity which aims to enthuse and instruct young people about the world of engineering and STEM.

The scholars spent the day learning about renewable sources of energy, discussing why these are important in the industry of today, and then making and testing electric cars. Students worked together as engineering teams and spent time considering variables in order to achieve a set distance for their car before it ran out of energy.

Students were encouraged to develop creative technological ideas in order to enter the ‘bright ideas’ student STEM challenge and become engineers of the future.

Dr Holdsworth, who organised the event said:

“The 50 students taking part today were chosen based on achieving and maintaining greater depth in their Year 7 studies and being awarded the highest Attitude To Learning scores in the year group. We hope that by providing our students with enhanced learning opportunities that we can help them to compete for the most sought after college and university places in the future.”

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Goodness me! This half term is flying by - not only in school, but also with festive preparations at home too. We have our tree up and outside lights and the turkey is on order! There’s something about Christmas that makes hard work fun!

Kingsway also got into the festive spirit this weekend at Cheadle Victorian Christmas Market day. Near ‘Splat the Victorian Rat’ and the Coconut shy you will have found the amazing ‘Human Fruit Machine’, Manned by Kingsway’s student ambassadors!  The stall was great fun for children of all ages. The Cheadle markets were a huge success with hundreds of visitors throughout the day. I even got the chance to do a bit of Christmas shopping from the craft fair and makers’ market.

Here’s Liam, Georgie and Jodie being the fruit machine!

STEM Success

As I’m sure you are aware, The Kingsway School is proud of our broad and rich curriculum offer, and we have always fought hard to save subjects like the technologies and creative subjects from extinction as a result of the government’s focus on the EBacc qualifications.

In particular, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) subjects are close to my heart and Mr Hammersley and Miss Khan have been keeping our STEM torch alight for a number of years now. Their work has been recognised in parliament by local MP, Mary Robinson and through local and national awards including:

• Excellence in STEM Award 2017 from the Museum of Science and Industry
• Best Team Award, Pupil Choice Award and Best Overall Project Award from North West EDT Go4SET - The University of Manchester
• The Era Foundation - Outstanding STEM Teacher - Mr Hammersley 2017
• The Big Bang Special Award winner for Environmental/Scientific Advancement
• The Rotary Club of Great Britain & Ireland Special Award for Environmental & Scientific Advancement

and then last week, we received the great news from Mr Hammersley and Miss Khan that Kingsway were awarded the UK’s Industrial Cadet Award.

Here’s Mr Hammersley’s report:

“On the 21st November, myself and Miss Khan set off very early in the morning to London for the EDT Industrial Cadet Awards at The Institution of Engineering and Technology.  We were shortlisted with just 3 other schools, nationwide, for this highly prestigious national award.

We already knew that Kingsway had been nominated for the award with judges summing up our application as “a very inclusive attitude towards STEM. From year 7 they run a Stemettes club during break times, as well as getting their year 9s to attend STEM activities supported by Industrial Links. Year 9s are also invited to apply for the Go4SET programme. The school has very active links with post 16 providers and work hard to ensure that their students are skilled to the levels that colleges desire. They won the North West Best Project in 2018 and an award at The Big Bang. They have also been one of the first schools to gain The STEM Excellence Award in Stockport from The Museum of Science and Industry.”

The judging panel was made up of some of the largest engineering companies and academic institutions within the United Kingdom, and were unanimous in their judging decision and I am extremely proud to announce that The Kingsway School won the award.”

UK Industrial Cadets Award for School/College 2019.

This highlights that the STEM provision and the STEM capital that we have developed at The Kingsway School, is without doubt, judged as the best in the country for 2019.

The event endorsed by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales was a huge accolade for all the hard work that Mr. Hammersley and Miss Khan have put into making STEM such a success at The KIngsway School.

Mr. Hammersley and Miss Khan summed up their day:

“It was a considerable honour to be presented with the award. To receive such recognition from EDT, Industry and Academia and to know that our next future King is aware of us and The Kingsway School. We were treated like VIP celebrities all day and left feeling extremely proud of the recognition for our hard work and achievements to date and so grateful to the numerous Industrial links that have been so incredibly supportive of The Kingsway School over the years, particularly John Crane and N.G. Bailey. It’s hard to know where we go from here!”

John Crane have been our industrial partner for a number of years and this email was received from Neil Slater (European Business Development Manager): “I would  like to say  well doneon behalf of us all at John Crane.  This is amazing and as far as I can see, more than well deserved. You have both shown a massive level of enthusiasm, determination, motivation and just sheer loyalty to the scheme you believe in. In an age of targets and the changing of nature of teaching from a vocational to business like role, you show an approach and desire to help the children, which is inspirational and in my humble opinion above and beyond the cause.”