As you are aware, last week saw the roll out of our iPad one to one project with students receiving their own iPads and they are already getting into the swing of things, as I observed within Mrs Sarwar’s Year 13 Living Skills lesson. All the students were engaging with technology and learning about different aspects of personal hygiene. Well done all!

I’m sure that over the coming weeks and months I’ll be able to share some amazing reports about how the iPads are helping our students in all areas of the curriculum.

I’d like to focus the rest of this week’s blog on two events – the elections for our Learning Centre student council and today’s Macmillan coffee afternoon.
First, to our student council elections.

Today I had the pleasure of watching all the speeches from those students who have put themselves forward to represent their respective year groups on the student council. In Year 12 two students put themselves forward and both Kaitlin and Saif did really well to overcome their fears and share their speeches with the rest of the year group. They focused on supporting and listening to other students and promised to represent their year group’s views at student council meetings.

Years 13 and 14 joined together to listen to Natasha, Josh and Sophie from Year 14..

..and Joseph F., Cordelia and Jacob from Year 13..

They all stood up in front of both year groups and made their speeches. I’d like to share some key points from their speeches..

• “I am friendly and caring and if I was on the school council I would listen to your problems and I would help you. I think I can talk to the teachers and change things so the Learning Centre is a better place for us all.” ~ Sophie
• “I will speak for Year 14 at the meetings and I will give you feedback. I want to make the car parks safer for students in the morning and after school.” ~ Josh
• “I have a good memory, I am helpful, I will listen to others and fight for their cause. I will make the Learning Centre a better place. You can depend on me.” ~ Natasha
• “I will go to all the meetings and will listen to your ideas.” ~ Cordelia
• “I will listen to you and your ideas and feedback to the meetings and feedback to you all.” ~ Jacob
• “I will go to all the meetings and listen to the others. I will take your ideas to the meeting.” ~ Joseph

The election process will continue on Monday when Joseph S. (Year 13) and Sabeel (Year 14) will share their election promises with their respective year groups. Students will be voting next week and we will be announcing the chosen representatives during Friday’s assembly.

After hearing all their speeches, I feel sure that, whoever is elected, they will be great representatives for their peers. It has to be said that our students could teach our own elected MPs a thing or two about working together and appropriately representing the views of others in a clear and concise manner.

This afternoon saw our very own Macmillan coffee afternoon where parents and carers joined Learning Centre staff and students for cake and coffee.
A huge thank you to Miss Kindon, Mr Fairest and Mrs Walters who, along with some very willing helpers, manned the stalls all afternoon..

..and to Josh who helped on reception..

We had a great turn out, with nearly all the cakes sold. I will definitely need to work off the calories this weekend!

I’m very pleased to announce that the total monies raised so far come to £159. Well done everyone, we had a great afternoon whilst raising money for a very worthwhile cause.

We also have an update from our job coach Bethany Fletcher on our work placement students..

Another busy week at Scope Ashton with Sophie, Bobby-Joe and Jacob, let’s see what they have been up to there.

The first thing we do is sign in, so staff and volunteers at Scope know we’re there. We then head upstairs to help the staff sort through the stock they have received. With the change in seasons we have been bagging up any summer clothes and saving them for next year. We have also been sorting through clothes that we are selling and hanging them up ready to be steamed.

After this we go and get gift aid barcodes for all the items that are gift aid applicable. We type the numbers into the scanners so it prints off more barcodes and we put them into the bag ready to be tagged at a later date.

When our time is over, we make sure we sign out and head back to the Learning Centre.

Finally, I’d like to thank Natasha from Year 14 for my Apple and Pear Surprise – treats available for whoever can guess the surprise!

Have a great weekend,

Dawn

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

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