11G Last Week of Spring Term

Apologies for our lack of blog posts recently, here is one to end this term with. Only one term left at Astley Park for 11G after these holidays.

On Monday morning we took the time to catch up on what everyone had got up to at the weekend. We used this as part of our speaking and listening work, listening to what our friends told us then asking relevant questions to gain more information from them. In preparation for the next school council meeting due to take place on Thursday, Miss Della Fera had posed the following questions for the learners to answer: What do you like best about our school? And what would you change about school to make it even better? We had lots of discussion around the best things about school (once “going home” had been vetoed!) and we had some good answers such as friends, feeling safe, residentials, opportunities to be more independent and having fun. The second question gave some very interesting answers such as a swimming pool at school, having a college on site, moving to a 4 day week and having a school shop that Year 11 could work in.

In the afternoon we worked on some position and direction in our Maths and consolidating our understanding of number with some games on Purple Mash.

On Tuesday morning we were doing some Easter themed art work. Mrs Cobham had seen some lovely white wooden rabbits in Home Bargains last week and thought they would make a wonderful piece of Easter art for 11G. We looked at some examples of where animals have been painted with different designs such as the bees that were displayed around Manchester and the elephants that were displayed around South End and used these as our inspiration. We could use a range of different mediums to decorate our rabbits: Sharpies, glitter, paint or paper. Some of us chose to make our own designs, whilst some of us chose to use some of our interests to influence our designs such as Harry Potter and Manchester United. We can’t wait to see how they turn out.

In the afternoon, Mrs Fisher took groups up to food tech to bake our goodies ready to sell to staff in our Tuck Shop on Wednesday afternoon before staff meeting. We all worked together to make two trays of sheet cookies with milk chocolate and white chocolate chips, and a tray of mini egg rice crispy slices so that they could be sold on Wednesday in our staff tuck shop.

Back in class, Mrs Cobham and Miss Brown were leading Good to Be Me where Katie shared her new book that she has bought, Ruby’s Worries which is linked to the recent work that the learners have been doing around worries and what we can do to ease our worries. Mrs Cobham then lead a session on lying and telling the truth and the group looked at some dilemmas, having to decide what they would do in each situation.

On Wednesday morning it was Mrs Mahood holding the fort. The class were continuing with their enterprising efforts to raise money for prom by cooking bacon barns for staff. There were a range of jobs that needed doing: cutting the bacon, cutting the barns, buttering the bread, adding the sauce, writing the name of the person who had ordered onto the bag and delivering the barns as well as collecting the money. We saw some excellent team work and lots of motivation.

In the afternoon, we worked together to set up our staff tuck shop ready for it opening. Again, we had lots of jobs that needed doing and everyone played their part. We put the cans of pop in the freezer to cool off before the shop opened, we made signs for the shop with prices on as well as signs to advertise the shop around school and then we set up the actual shop ready for our customers. We sold cans of pop, our baked goodies from Tuesday’s cooking session and the last few of our sweet cones. What a success it was this week! We made over £40! It is so good to see everyone motivated to help with the shop and to want to serve our customers, handle the money and give the correct change. We are working on our conversation skills, making sure they we explain what items are for sale and their prices so that our customers can understand us.

Thursday was our last day in school. In the morning before break we finished off our Easter bunnies, we are so impressed with the work that everyone has done on their rabbits. After break Mrs Fisher led some work on Online Safety. We talked about apps that we use to speak to our friends and then focused on WhatsApp, Snapchat and Discord and looked at the pros and cons of each app. Your child will have brought some information sheets home with them for you to read about these three apps to help you support them and to keep them safe when using their phones.

In the afternoon as part of our golden time we took part in our Easter duck hunt around school which was lots of fun. The winner was Katie and Miss Snailham!

Our Star of the Week this week is Katie. Katie has been such a great asset to 11G this week, showing our school value of teamwork. She has been very supportive towards her friends in class with her comments and for dealing with an unexpected change today very maturely. Well done Katie!

Homework for these holidays is for everyone to take 3 photos of 3 different things that they have done over the break and share these with Mrs Fisher by Sunday 14th April. Any problems, please let Mrs Fisher know.

We hope everyone has a lovely Easter break. We will see everyone when we are back in school on Monday 15th April.

Mrs Fisher, Mrs Cobham and Mr Crofts