Redwood School

Your views

Thank you to those parents / carers who completed our survey last week asking for your views on the information we send out to parents via home school books, IEPs, annual reviews and reports. Your views will help us to make decisions for the start of the academic year in September 2014.

The 'headline' results were:

• 94% felt that the Home / School planners are very useful
• 92% felt that the Parents Evenings were useful and there should be two each year
• 71% felt that the Annual Review / My Plan meetings were very useful

Key 103 Toy Appeal

Thank you for your support with the Key 103 Toy Appeal, ‘Kids at Xmas`. If you would like to donate a small present please send it into school clearly explaining it is for the Key 103 Appeal.

Extended Schools Provision

A reminder that all the after school clubs and youth clubs end this week and will start again week commencing Monday 13 January 2014.

Diary Dates for 2014

Please make a note of the following activities and dates for whole school inclusive activities:

• Wednesday 15 January – whole school Indoor Rowing trials
• Friday 14 February – whole school Winter Olympics Day

More details will be published in the new year for these special events.

Rochdale FC in school

This week groups of students have had the opportunity to take part in soccer coaching sessions with the development team at Rochdale FC and take some penalties! Well done to those who have managed to raise funds as well as having a good time.

Key Stage 3

Allamin, Joshua, Nabila, Safia, Sajjida, Saleem & Declan represented Redwood at a rowing event at Oakwood School in Salford. Everyone came away with a placement medal; Saleem & Sajjida received silver. Well done to everyone.

Joshua invited some friends from Year 7&8 to join him for his birthday party at Boomerang; everyone had a lovely time.

Reminder: the Christmas showcase in Key Stage 3 is on Wednesday 18 December; mince pies and Christmas Carols at 10:00am. Raffle tickets will be on sale to win hampers which include Christmas cake and there are lots of other prizes to be won. The performance will begin at 10:45am.

Faye, Lilie, Rahim & Alex went to the Manchester Christmas Markets. Lilie & Alex tasted some sausages & cheese. It put us in the Christmas mood.

Pupils have been making Christmas cards in their ICT lessons.

8&9 Blue worked well as a team to research and investigate the characteristics of a variety of rocks. They now understand the difference between permeable and impermeable rocks and how this applies to building materials such as slate roof tiles.
Ann Weir the physiotherapist is coming into school for extra sessions with some pupils in the hydrotherapy pool.

Harris is having trials on how to use an electric wheelchair; everyone watch out.
In after school cookery club pupils made chocolate logs and enjoyed a Christmas party eating lots of party foods everyone got a selection box to take home. Craft club will be having their party this week.

As part of Rochdale’s football coaching in the community programme the coaches have been in school all week teaching skills and game sessions. The famous ‘penalty shootout’ is a sponsored event that raises money for the school and Rochdale Community Project; our pupils really enjoyed he sessions. As a bonus we were visited on Tuesday by the clubs 2 goal keepers- Josh Hillis (1st team keeper) and Robbie Thompson (reserve keeper), these two both went into goal for some penalties. Isaac Kershaw saved Redwood as the only pupils to score- Well Done Isaac. They also stayed for photos and autographs.

Akeel started off swimming in the shallow end wearing armbands now after many swimming sessions he has built up his confidence to jump in the deep end and swims independently.

Key Stage 5

The Pre-internship group are holding a coffee morning for their interns and parents/carers at the Town Hall. It will give the parents/carers of the pre-interns information about what their next rotational placement will be.

6th Form are taking part in the National Christmas Jumper Day. Staff and students are encouraged to wear a Christmas Jumper and make a donation of 50p. All monies raised will go towards Save the Children. Students on the Pre-Internship will need to come in as usual in their work clothes.

On the 18 December, 6th Form are holding an Enterprise Coffee Day and Sale. Students will be busy taking part in Enterprise workshops to produce products to sell next week. Please come along and support our students and pick yourself up a fantastic bargain. Doors open on Wednesday at 10am—2pm. There will be lots of stalls, raffles, guess the weight of the cake and our ever famous 6th Form café where you can order a drink and slice of cake for £1. If you have any spare food or beauty products that you could donate for our Christmas Hampers it would be gratefully received. Please send in your donations to Saj in 6th Form.

6th Form’s Pre-Internship group based at Rochdale Town Hall are working really hard on their programme. Follow the students and share in their experiences:

Name of Intern: Kerys
1st Rotation Placement:-Based at No 1 Riverside in the Cleaning Department.
Job role – Domestic assistant
Intern’s comments – “My duties consist of emptying bins in the kitchen area (considering re-cycling), cleaning hand basins, toilets, mirrors, tiles (using different cloths), mopping spillages, cleaning glass and chrome, and cleaning stainless steel.”
Colleague comments – “Kerys has settled well within the department and has become more confident and relaxed with her colleagues. She has followed instructions well and has the confidence and initiative to complete them independently. “
This week Student of the Week is Louis R. Louis is always smiling and has been working really hard in his lessons. He shows enthusiasm and likes interacting using the whiteboard.

The Most Improved student of the week is Adil. Adil has been communicating better with staff and is doing really well on the Pre-internship Real Work Project, where he has been holding his own in the group and using his initiative.
Well done to you both, Keep it up.

Key Stage 4

As part of their accreditation SSC have decorated a letter box for Christmas post. Students and staff can post their cards into it and they will be delivered...just like magic.

This week 4J have worked extra hard to welcome some guests from St Joseph’s, St Clements and the LDS Church to their community Christmas coffee morning.

There were lots of activities for the elderly visitors to take part in and it was a great opportunity for the Yr11students to meet some new people within our community.

Some KS3 and 4 girls performed a dance for the guests which they have been practicing during their lunch times. Mr Brown magically transformed into a bingo caller and an excellent few rounds of Bingo were played by all with some great prizes.

At the end guests were both surprised and delighted by the hampers that students gave them to take home.

Brenda’s PE groups have been exploring gym equipment and looking at kurling strategies. Danielle’s dance group are practicing hard.

SSC have made some absolutely fabulous Christmas cakes this week. They baked everything from scratch and then used coloured icing to decorate them.

This week students have been busy working away making things to sell at Fridays Key Stage 4 Christmas Fair. They have made cakes, cards, pottery and some absolutely fabulous (not that I’m biased because I’ve been helping!) personalised Christmas baubles. They come in either a Santa or elf and you can insert your own picture.