Good Luck Year 11

We wish our Year 11s all the best as the examination season starts this week. We are so impressed with their dedication and commitment, despite the many pressures that they have faced. This was exemplified on Saturday when over 170 pupils attended an English Supersession on Paper 1 Language and Literature. Thank you to the staff who also gave up their time to deliver such a quality session. Remember whatever the outcome, we are proud of you and wish you all the best for your very bright future.

Transition Programme

Our Year 6 transition programme continues, and last week saw Mrs Dyson, KS3 Coordinator for Maths, deliver a workshop on numeracy and supporting your child with Maths. For parents who were unable to attend a copy of our slides can be found here.

We have two more workshops planned, Wellbeing and reducing anxiety and Literacy. Full details can be found on our Eventbrite page and via the Class of 2027 closed Facebook group.

 

The Kingsway Association

Last week The Kingsway Association held a Cheese and Wine evening. This social event was an intimate gathering and allowed new members to see the unique way that parents and carers can contribute to improving the school for each and every child. As part of the evening, current members of TKA explained how they function differently to more traditional PTAs.

As many of you know, over the years TKA have contributed many resources to the school. Since February 2021 alone, their family donations scheme has provided specific resources for the Inclusion and Diversity base, such as Motor Skills United programme, sports equipment and social skills resources; for Science they donated renewable energy kits; Geography received equipment to support the field trips such as tape measures, stop watches and metre rule sticks; Food Technology warmly received a Cricut machine and ingredients and equipment for our very popular Mother’s Day cupcakes; and PE have received four 7-a-side football goals, nets and U pegs. They have also allocated money for our new sensory room, which is under development, as well as additional outdoor seating which was requested by our Head Students on behalf of the wider school body.

These contributions enrich the experiences of all our students, but it can only be realised through the very gratefully received donations. Each family is asked to contribute just £10 a term (regardless of the number of students attending the school). Previously this has been done through a Direct Debit scheme, but we are now able to request this through Parent Pay which you should see if you go to your child’s log in. In addition to this, we also have a donations page that anyone can send donations to without being a registered user. This page will also allow you to donate with gift aid should you be eligible.

If you are interested in becoming a member of The Kingsway Association, who meet three times a year, please contact office@kingsway.stockport.sch.uk who will pass on your details and someone from TKA will be in contact.

 

Fund-raising for the Platinum Jubilee

Our House teams are raising money so that we can plant a tree and add a commemorative bench/picnic table next to it on both Foxland and Broadway campuses.

On Tuesday 24th May, all students will have the opportunity to purchase/collect a Krispie Kreme doughnut from their House Team to see which House can raise the most money.

The doughnuts each cost £1 and can be purchased in advance via ParentPay. If students select this pre-purchased option they will have their doughnut delivered to their form during registration on Tuesday morning, if they do not wish to eat it there and then we strongly encourage them to bring a bag to keep it in.

Students who do not manage to purchase via ParentPay will have the option to purchase from one of the stall areas on both Broadway and Foxland. We do expect to sell out, so we strongly advise the students to order via ParentPay and have the doughnut delivered to them. There will be 6 colour coded boxes on each stall so that the money raised can be allocated to the correct House. ParentPay is now live and will close on FRIDAY 20th May.

 

Ukraine Appeal

If you can, please help our appeal for medical supplies for Ukraine:

 

The event was hosted by the Body Coach and NHS in response to their Wellbeing for everyone campaign. Further information can be found on the NHS website: https://www.gmmh.nhs.uk/coronaviruswellbeing/

 

Kingsway Showcase

Not only do we have an immensely fit and athletic student body, they are also very talented with regards to Performing Arts. Over the past few weeks the Performing Arts department has been working with a wide range of talented students in preparation for the showcase which took place on Tuesday 10th May. Britain’s Got Talent has nothing compared with Kingsway! We look forward to sharing photos and videos of the event!

 

Year 7 SEND coffee afternoon

We were delighted to be able to host our SEND coffee afternoons, which had a warm return last week with our lovely Year 7 students. The coffee afternoons are an opportunity for parents and carers to meet key members of the department in an informal setting, as well as allowing students to take pride in showcasing their school to their families.

 

Our SEND coffee afternoons will continue over the next few weeks but we would also like to draw your attention to the Stockport SEND week of action during the week of 16 - 22 May 2022. The purpose is to focus on raising awareness of SEND throughout the Local Authority.  Throughout the week they will be offering a range of webinars and events for parents/carers and professionals, as well as hosted activities at the hospital. All done in co-production with parents/carers and various organisations across the local area. They will be doing as much as they can to raise awareness and have a discussion with families of children and young people with SEND to offer support.

If you are interested in any of the events please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/stockport-local-area-30613527054

 

 

Year 5 MFL day

Last Thursday, Year 5 students from Gatley and Meadowbank attended a day full-packed with activities all based around a French theme. Students learned French songs, took part in French games, ordered and enjoyed croissants and crepes from the Kingsway French cafe and learned about French artist Matisse, before creating a collaborative paper collage art piece. the whole day was très bien!!

 

Year 6 Parent Workshop - online safety

It was delightful to see a large number of our Year 6 families as they attended the first of our transition workshops aimed at supporting parents in the move from primary to secondary school. This session was delivered by Mrs Bull and Ms Woodyear and focused on the ever shifting sands of online safety. A number of sound tips were provided to help parents and carers navigate the world of online safety, as well as reassurances about the curriculum delivery and advice given to students when they join in September. For any parent unable to attend please find a copy of the presentation here.

We will share the presentation from our second workshop which will focus on developing support for numeracy, soon.

 

Year 11 Our Pass

All Year 11 students are now eligible for applications for Our Pass. In addition to free bus transport across Greater Manchester, it provides you with offers, events, discounts and a range of other opportunities such as festivals and careers tasters. Applications have opened early for anyone born between 01/09/2004 and 31/08/2006.

Applications can be made via www.ourpass.co.uk

 

The week ended with the final Year 10 exam. After two weeks of hard slog, our Year 10 cohort have completed formal examinations in all their subjects and they have done themselves proud! Just the results to come…

Sandwiched between these two formal study activities were an array of wondrous Kingsway creativeness:

Our remarkable Resource Centre students chose to support a unique charity for the volunteer element of their Duke of Edinburgh Award. The Toilet Twinning Project enables families living in poverty to have lifesaving loos. To raise money for this special charity all Resource students took part in a fundraising car wash. Staff who supported the event drove home in gleaming cars and enough money was raised to fund two toilets for a vulnerable community.

Mrs Jones and Miss Lavanini and teachers of 7K and 7I supported our community neighbours, Friends of Scholes Park (FOSP) last week. Our Kingsway team joined Jo and Bridget from FOSP, Gatley Primary School, Lum Head Primary School and Brookside Pre School for a busy morning of planting, painting and litter picking.

The Performing Arts department and its BTEC students welcomed Sarah Lockwood, Dance tutor from Salford University into school. Sarah, accompanied by her third year student Luke, was very impressed with our young dancers. Kingsway students loved participating in exercises to improve technique and learning some new choreography. Our students were also invited to Salford University to watch their third years’ final show. In the future we hope to build on these links to help our students grow as dancers and learn about future pathways. Here’s what some of our Year 10 students thought: 

Adele C: “The dance workshop was very different to what I have experienced before in dance. It opened my mind to new ways of communicating and floorwork in contemporary dance. Having an external workshop coming into the school for the first time since the pandemic was exciting. I loved it and I am looking forward to the dance trip on Friday where we will get to see dancers from the University of Salford live on stage.”

Kiedi E: “I really enjoyed the workshop with the lady who was very energetic and inspired me into other influences in the dance industry. I learnt new techniques, which were high level and made me consider further education in dance.”

Lilly T: “I loved the dance workshop and Sarah really made me realise what I need to work on in my dance ability and technique. She taught us how to add emotion into our dance and how to go to our full ability.”

Lexie C: “The dance workshop felt like something that would help me in my future in the dance industry as I learnt plenty of new techniques and moves that I would have never tried before. Sarah was very welcoming and extremely comfortable to work with since she and one of the current dance students, Luke, repeated some of the moves when I didn’t quite manage to grasp it after the first time. During the dance trip to the University of Salford, I hope to see more techniques from the dancers and high-level choreography.”

Every day last week, Our HLTA Mrs Tudsbury delivered an assembly to year groups on Autism Awareness. Mrs Tudsbury was joined by visitor Jessica Mann, a second year music journalism student, who shared her personal experiences of having autism in school. With one in one hundred young people being diagnosed as having autism spectrum disorder in the UK, the assembly helped our students gain an understanding and appreciation for their peers who struggle with autism in school.

On Friday we were visited by our fabulous Year 5 pupils from Lum Head, Prospect Vale, Cheadle Primary and Outwood. Having walked to Kingsway in the sunshine, they were entertained in the hall by ‘Mad Science’ company, led by mad scientist, Scientific Sarah. The students all learnt about how amazing air can be and how it behaves in different situations.  The experiments included ideas about pressure and forces, and most importantly lots of fun! Many of the students got involved with the demonstrations. Thank you to Mrs Lucas, from our Science Department, for organising this annual event. It was an absolute delight getting to meet the pupils, who were all so polite and respectful, and giving many of them their first look at the school.  We hope all the pupils enjoyed the show and we hope to see them again soon.

Mrs Wardle is currently undertaking a review of homework across the school. We would welcome parent and carers views on this. Please take a couple of minutes to complete this questionnaire, which will close on Monday 9th May. 

Many of our students, staff and families have been celebrating the month of Ramadan and this culminated this weekend in Eid Al Fitr. We wish Eid Mubarak to everyone in our community.

We would like to invite all parents and carers to The Kingsway Association’s ‘Wine and Cheese’ evening on Monday 9th May. As many of you with older students will know, we traditionally host this in the autumn term to welcome our new Year 7 families. Global events made that difficult over the past couple of years, so we have rescheduled this event to welcome parents and carers from all year groups across the school. It will also be an opportunity to say goodbye to many of our long-standing TKA members who have Year 11 students leaving the school. We hope to see many of you there. 

It was a busy, buzzing week in Kingsway - I was glad of the long bank holiday. Nonetheless,  here’s to another week just like it!

Dates for your diary 

As our work with Year 11 draws to a close, our work with our younger students ramps up. They need a lot more support in closing the gaps caused by COVID. We also recognise that our parents need support, having not had the close relationship with school that they once had. This includes our Year 7 parents who finally had the chance to meet their child’s form tutor face to face at the Parents’ Information event last week. 

If you’d like to find out a little bit more about what responsibilities your child’s form tutor has, Miss Williamson explains her role below.

It was so lovely to meet so many parents in school and hear how well their child has settled in, despite the challenges. If you were unable to attend please see a recording of the presentation below and if you have any further questions please feel free to contact your child’s form tutor in the first instance.

We recognise that unless something is wrong, the opportunities for parents to come into school have been limited over the past two years. As we all live with COVID, our plan is to hold as many celebratory events as possible to build strong, mutually beneficial relationships with the people who hold the greatest influence on their child. With that in mind we are delighted that our Kingsway Association are holding a social event for all our parents. The Cheese & Wine evening will be held in Foxland Hall and will be an opportunity for parents to meet each other and some members of staff. This is not a fundraising event, or a recruitment drive to join the PTA, (which we can provide details of if you are interested) but an opportunity to engage with your child’s school community. We look forward to seeing as many of you there are as possible.

Living with COVID is not a burden but an opportunity to build and construct, together, the educational experience that sees each student creating the best versions of themselves.

Dates for your diary

We also welcomed Year 6 parents last term in the first of our ‘Meet the Team’ events,  led by Mrs Wardle and Mrs Jones. This was an opportunity for parents to receive valuable information to help best prepare their child for their start at Kingsway in September. We also informed parents of the transition activities that will take place before September to help their child feel at home at Kingsway, including a summer school which builds on the success of the summer school last year. If you have a child starting with us in September and would like any information about the support we can offer in transition, please email transition@kingsway.stockport.sch.uk

Another joyful activity last week of term was the Year 11 photograph. Over 300 students and a dozen or so staff collected together to have our commemorative photograph taken. It is a really proud moment for me as Headteacher to join these amazing young people as they embark on the next chapter of their lives. Here’s a sneaky preview of the before shot! 

Living with COVID-19

At the end of last term the Government announced measures for living with COVID-19. The basis of these measures is to treat COVID-19 in the same way as other infectious respiratory diseases. The need to test for COVID-19 has generally been removed, as has access to free tests.

A student who has symptoms of a respiratory illness and a high temperature should not attend school and avoid contact with other people, until they feel able to resume normal activities AND no longer have a high temperature.

If a student has received a positive COVID-19 test then they should remain at home for 3 days after the test result and avoid contact with other people. This period is extended to 5 days for an adult.

Symptoms of COVID-19, flu and common respiratory infections include:

• continuous cough
• high temperature, fever or chills
• loss of, or change in, your normal sense of taste or smell
• shortness of breath
• unexplained tiredness, lack of energy
• muscle aches or pains that are not due to exercise
• not wanting to eat or not feeling hungry
• headache that is unusual or longer lasting than usual
• sore throat, stuffy or runny nose
• diarrhoea, feeling sick or being sick

Break time sports activities

Break times are much needed free time for students to catch up with friends, be fed and watered and to take a break from learning. Some students have asked for more structured activities during break time, so we have invited a local coaching company to come and trial break time sports activities such as cricket and dodgeball. This trial will continue in the summer term on Broadway campus and if proven to be popular, it will extend across both campuses.

Dates for your diary