Redwood School

Redwood School

Building Programme update
To keep parents / carers updated on the developments in relation to the building programme, a meeting has taken place this week with the local authority, the project manager and the preferred bidder who will be carrying out the construction. To reduce the detrimental effect on our youngster's learning and also those students at Oulder Hill whose learning may also be impacted upon, the decision has been made to commence the building programme at the start of the summer holiday period in late July and not in May. It is expected to be completed by late April 2017.

I think this is the correct decision and will allow school to plan in more detail the impact of the building programme. Also I am pleased to report that the main playground area (MUGA) will not be affected by the programme. Before the summer holidays we will be organizing a health and safety poster competition in advance of the building work starting to highlight particular aspects for the youngsters. I will keep you updated on further developments.

Spotlight on Safeguarding
This week the team's focus is on the many different aspects of `Substance misuse`. This is part of our spotlight on safeguarding issues and this will be discussed in assemblies and tutorial lessons in a variety of ways to meet the youngsters level of understanding on this issue.

Parents / Carers Workshop: ESafety and Radicalization
A letter has been sent to invite parents / carers to a workshop session to be held in school on Thursday 12 May, 10am, on ESafety and Radicalization. It will be presented by Yasin Khan, Schools Equality and Community Cohesion Lead for the Local Authority and Mrs Haworth, Deputy Headteacher.

Musical Ensemble
Congratulations to those youngsters who have been selected to take part in a music ensemble programme with youngsters from Oulder Hill.

Courtyard and Sensory Garden
We have started the process to establish how we can improve the courtyard and sensory garden area for our youngsters and the timescale this may take. This will involve consultation with our youngsters during this term.

Extended Schools club programme
I would like to confirm to parents and carers that the Saturday morning youth club will be taking place this week despite school being closed for the long weekend. I hope youngsters who attend have a great time.

KS3

7 Red went out on a shopping trip to a local supermarket.  They thoroughly enjoyed walking around the aisles looking for and selecting ingredients.  Everyone took turns loading items at the checkout and they were very polite when interacting with the staff in the shop.  On their return to school, there was lots of excitement making and tasting some delicious honey cakes.
 
8/9 Red are currently doing their Spring topic.  This week they have been learning about ‘The Journey of the Seed’.  They have experienced a sensory story and have also been planting seeds themselves.  We will have to wait and see which ones grow over the next few weeks.

On Monday KS3 watched the performance “A Little Princess” which was delivered by M&M Theatrical Productions.  We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and the issues in the play were then discussed during PSHE and tutor time.  The Inclusion group and 7 Blue also used the plot from the play in one of their English lessons, showing their excellent knowledge of connectives and story structures.
 
KS4

4J have been looking at different shapes in their maths lesson, they have been practicing saying and recognising circle, square, rectangle, triangle and hexagon.
 
We are beginning to wonder if it is too chilly for our chillies! Everyday we are checking for signs of progress and every day we are disappointed! Are there any chilli experts out there that can offer us any advice?
 
Meanwhile back in space...er I mean SEB—the students have been busy this week making a rocket and moons out of different materials.
 
KS5

5A have started exploring our new school topic ‘Space and Travel’. We have started to make resources for our new sensory story, a trip to the moon. We all had lots of fun and opportunities to use our senses.

In Project morning, we started our new topic –The Environment. We explored the area around the path where we can hear the birds singing, sadly, there was quite a lot of litter.
 
Student of the week:
 
Luke for making choices independently & most improved Shamama for interacting with her peers and enjoying her environment.

On Friday afternoons students get to choose their Leisure options. George chose gardening, Komel, Mitchell, Jamie and Nasima work on the newsletter, Jason chose Creative ICT and Kevin does baking.
 
This week Daniel, James and Lucas enjoyed learning about digital cameras as part of their Asdan module. They put batteries and a memory card in the camera before taking some excellent pictures.