This year’s Safer Internet Day celebration took place on Tuesday 5th February. The campaign’s slogan “Together for a better internet” was a call to action for all stakeholders to join together and play their part in creating a better internet for everyone, especially for younger users.

Along with young people from across the Trust, our Learning Centre students took part in lots of different ways. E-Safety remains an area where many of our students need support and guidance. Our own E-Safety programme seeks to ensure all New Bridge students remain safe online, however the digital age continues to bring with it specific challenges. Many of our pastoral interventions focus around how social media can impact negatively on students’ self esteem and self-belief.

Here’s all the news of what our Learning Centre students have been up to..

“My group watched lots of interesting videos from the Safer Internet Day website and then discussed them afterwards. We also looked at various posters that had good tips on how we could stay safe online.” ~ Mrs Robinson

Mrs Gillett’s and Mrs Joubert’s Year 13 groups joined together for E-Safety activities. The majority of the students played Kahoot! whilst others watched and then discussed an E-Safety video..

“We took part in a quiz about using social media safely. We discussed each question as a group and voted on an answer. We didn’t get them all correct but it was interesting to read the reasons for each answer. Terry thought the questions were mostly easy but some were really hard. We all felt that we had learnt something useful by the end of the session, even the staff!” (Mrs Keane)

Students in Mrs Joubert’s ICT lessons have been busy creating their very own E-Safety posters this week, well done to you all..

Mrs Brierley’s class learned some key E-Safety messages including:

• ‘Report cyber bullying to the police’
• ‘Don’t give out any of your personal details’
• ‘Ask parents before paying for anything’
• ‘Report anything inappropriate on your computer’
• ‘Never give your password to anyone’

I’m very pleased to announce that our regular cooking feature has returned and I am again being fed some lovely dishes – twice this week!! I’ve also learned a few more terms, as Mrs Gillett explains..

This term our work has included investigating and making recipes depending on our lifestyle choices. We have studied various options including Vegan, Vegetarian, Flexitarian and Pescatarian. Our recipes have included Vegan Spaghetti Bolognese, Vegetarian Curry, Flexitarian Chicken Noodles and Pescatarian Fish and Chips. The students have a good understanding of these diets. When asked, the majority would like to follow the Flexitarian diet, less meat and dairy and more plant based foods..

Ryan made Chicken Noodles in this week’s lesson. This term he has focused on his work and his speaking and listening skills have greatly improved..

Thank you Ryan for a very tasty dish and I may try Flexitarianism for myself, will keep you posted.

There have been more ‘Wow!’ moments this week as our students continue to work hard. Mrs Peacock would like a special mention to go out to Joe and Jacob for excellent recall of shape names and all of the same Year 12 group for the wonderful learning that took place when they looked at Roman Numerals. Ryan was exceptional and was able to identify numbers up to 1000! Who says that computer games are of no educational value?!

Nathan W., Nathan R. and Kimchi did an amazing job this week in Mrs Robinson’s lesson, writing a speech about someone they admired and then presenting it to the class. Each student then wrote an X Factor style assessment on their peers. Well done everyone!

We move outside the Learning Centre to say well done to Mr Taylor’s DofE group Joseph, Nathan R., Jacob and Nathan W. who all completed the walk to the top and got to see an amazing view..

The rest of the group along with Miss Knight managed to get half way up but didn’t quite manage to finish the very steep climb. Mr Taylor was very impressed with their efforts, well done!

On Monday myself and a number of Learning Centre colleagues are spending most of the day with our Technical team for the iPad launch meeting. I am looking forward to seeing where this exciting journey will take us and the impact it will have on our young people. I’ll post regular updates (once I fully understand them!) within my blog and if I need any help, I know the students will be on hand.

If your child is taking part in our Bronze, Silver or Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s expeditions this year, don’t forget the meeting this Tuesday 12th February at 4pm at New Bridge School where you will be able to talk to the DofE staff who will be supporting them and ask any questions you may have.

Finally, can I remind families that our Learning Centre Parent Group is meeting again this Monday 11th February at 2.30pm. We will be joined by professionals from the parent support groups POINT and SENDIASS and refreshments will, of course, be available courtesy of Mrs Gillett’s Food Industry group. We are looking forward to seeing both our regular and hopefully some new faces – we hope you can join us!

Have a great weekend all,

Dawn

You can find Gavin’s blog for the school site here

For news on our Key Stage 5 pathway groups at Medtia Square please click here

Click here to read this week’s news from Graham

You can find my previous blog posts here