Sunday followed Friday, where every single student and member of staff stood on our Broadway Field, in the wind and threatening rain to show our respects. My muddy high heels were a very small price to pay for the incredible image captured by a drone overhead. It was just amazing to be part of our school community of 1500 students and staff showing their respects for somebody’s child.

A number of our students came to school in Friday in their service uniform: Scouts, Guides, Sea Cadets, Air Training Corps, St John’s Ambulance and many more. It was lovely to see how different organisations are represented by Kingsway students.

If you’re not one of the 30K people who have seen the video on our social media… watch this!

For the past few weeks, we were honoured to be entrusted with a ' there but not there' silhouette by Gatley Village Partnership. Students had chance to see the powerful and moving silhouette at various locations around school. The ' There but not there' project commemorates the centenary of the End of World War 1, representing a member of our local community who went to fight in the war and either never returned or returned a very different person because of the atrocities they witnessed and the horrific experiences they had.

All these remembrance events were the pinnacle of another exciting week at Kingsway.

On Monday, Mrs. Maxey attended a private reception in the House of Commons in support of Anorexia and Bulimia Care and specifically the Pip Foundation. Pippa McManus was a student at the school in Years 7 & 8 who tragically died at the age of 15. It is hoped that through fundraising and charitable donations, the McManus family will be able to open the first independent support centre for eating disorders in Manchester. As a school, we have already raised approximately £5000 in support of what will be called 'Pip's Place' and it is our intention to continue to support this hugely needed resource. If you would like to make a donation privately the page can be found below.

If you need any advice or further information around eating disorders please contact either Mrs. Maxey or Miss. Cropper.

Monday also saw the start of our Year 7 Literacy Intervention week, where students had to use their literacy skills to solve the mystery of Mrs Lowe’s kidnapping! I had the pleasure of joining the students and their parents on Friday to celebrate the progress they had made during the week, thanks to Mrs Heil (English HLTA) and Mr Carr (Librarian).

I also bumped in to students from Gatley Primary School Arts Council who have been attending regular Illustration workshops with Mrs Dunn to turn their designs in to a book that describes their school ethos. Students have practised a number of printmaking techniques including sgraffito, mono-print and poly-block before selecting their choice and creating their illustration.

On Tuesday, I was conducting learning walks around the school with senior colleagues and was delighted to have been invited to join a WISE event for 30 Year 9 girls which was run by one of our Partners in Industry, BASF. WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) is a charity which has been set up to enable people in business and industry to increase the participation and success of women in the STEM subjects.

Ashley, Sam, Paula, Diane and Ali, who are all employees of BASF, presented an inspirational talk called "People Like Me". It was based around the research to encourage girls to consider careers in STEM. A sense of "fitting in" can be reinforced by the careful choice of vocabulary and messages during lessons. One of the tasks involved the girls choosing a list of adjectives which described their personalities and matched them up to the types of jobs that can be found in companies like BASF.

They found out that you don't necessarily need a traditional background in Science to work for companies like BASF and that there were jobs in areas such as Digital Marketing, Sales, HR and Technical Services.

There was a real buzz in the room and the girls commented that they really enjoyed the experience of meeting people from industry, which opened their eyes to possibilities for them in the future.

BASF are continuing with their support to Kingsway by delivering another "People Like Me" event in the new year for another set of Year 9 girls. They will also be challenging our Year 8 STEM club members with a small project about Cosmetic Chemicals. Watch this space for more STEM events coming up.

On Wednesday, we hosted an Afternoon Tea for parents of students with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities. There was tea and some delicious cakes, but more importantly an opportunity for families to talk to one another and staff about their child’s needs.

We held our annual Sports and Duke of Edinburgh Presentation Evening on Wednesday night. It was a well attended event, to celebrate students’ success representing the school in sport as well as achieving the Duke of Edinburgh awards. Special guests included Paul Griffiths (North West Duke of Edinburgh Team) and Sam James who plays for Sale Sharks Rugby Club.

Daisy
“The night before, I travelled down via train and arrived in London for just past 7pm. We checked into out hotel, went out for dinner and went out exploring in our area of London. Once we got back to the hotel after our day of travelling, I went to sleep.

At the conference, our first speaker of the day talked to us about how to present with confidence. This was beneficial as it provided tips on before, whilst and after presenting and how to deal with the nerves related to presenting. Furthermore, it taught me how to boost my confidence when talking to a large group of people. I enjoyed this talk because my confidence and presenting was one of my weakest areas and it helped me to find ways of overcoming this.

The second and third speaker enlightened us about their experiences within STEM and their journey to where they were now. This was influential and uplifting to see a strong powerful female role model in a STEM based career. Also, it showed me the different aspects and opportunities that STEM can provide and that STEM is not limited to men even though it is presented as a male dominated industry.

The fourth speaker also shared her story and how to overcome the misogynistic ideologies that men have in a workplace. I found this helpful as women are not pushed as much as men are to advance into a STEM career, especially engineering based jobs. Additionally, the fifth speaker educated us about strong, influential leaders in STEM and how they influenced the world of STEM.

Finally, we had a talk from the STEMettes leader, Lucy. She talked us through the websites and how to easily run a STEM club at our own school. Overall, I found this whole leadership conference extremely beneficial on building my confidence,leadership and presenting skills. I also met many other young STEMettes at the conference, who also helped me build more social skills.

I would like to say thank you to the STEMettes for sending me on this incredible trip that I will remember forever and to my teachers at the Kingsway school for providing me with this opportunity to further my knowledge of STEM and encouraging girls everyday to partake in STEM activities in our school.”

Georgia-Mia Fowler in Year 11 was selected to represent her cadet group in London:

“We travelled down to Whale Island near Portsmouth and stayed onboard HMS Bristol along with cadets from all across the country. On Friday and Saturday, we prepared for Trafalgar with the marine cadets, sea cadets, air cadets and the national sea cadet band. On the Sunday morning, we had to be up and ready in our best uniform for 6:30am to make our way down to London. When we arrived in London there were hundreds of people gathered there already. The parade was to commemorate 100 years since the battle of Trafalgar. When the parade started, we marched up to Trafalgar Square and said hymns, prayers and thanks to God. Returning from the parade we marched past Buckingham place (it’s a lot bigger and grander than I thought) to Wellington barracks where we finished the parade and took a photograph with the captain of the sea cadets. As we said our goodbyes to the people that we met, a few tears were shed. This was one of the best cadet experiences I’ve had and I won’t forget it or the people that I spent the time with.”

At Kingsway, we will be commemorating the 100th anniversary of WW1 on Friday 9th November, by holding our own special moment of reflection. On Friday 9th November we are inviting all our students who participate in uniformed services eg. Cadets (Army, RAF, Navy, Marine), Scouts, Guides, St. John’s Ambulance, Police etc. to come to school in their service uniform, as a mark of respect. We will also be holding a whole school two-minute silence.

We have also been invited to to join the Churches and other Organisations in Cheadle for the Remembrance Day Parade and Service at the Cenotaph on Cheadle Green on Remembrance Sunday. Our students have been asked to parade holding aloft the names of the 101 fallen soldiers from Cheadle. This is a fantastic honour and a very special privilege on the centenary of the end of World War 1. If you would like your child to participate in this historic event, please complete the form on the letter that was sent home from Mr Wood.

I would be great to see many of our students and their families at this event.

There was a great opportunity in school last week for our year 8 students to polish their speaking and listening skills in French. Here’s Miss Hunt’s report on the event:

“Our Year 8s enjoyed a performance from Onatti Productions this Thursday, a French Theatre company touring the UK. The play was entirely in French, containing lots of vocabulary which has been covered in their French lessons, as well as lots of challenging new words and phrases, which they were able to follow thanks to helpful props and fantastic acting! The play: 'La salle des énigmes' or 'The escape room', was a story about Jérémy and Marie, two French teenagers, attempting to escape a room filled with challenges and hidden clues. There was plenty of audience participation and we saw lots of our Year 8s up on stage helping to solve the escape room puzzles!”

Have a great week everyone,