9 g 201 Sprin letter HEAD’S term at our school. This has been a terIm NThasR defiOnitelyD spruUng. OCf coTurse,I thOis alsN o that has seen our students not only continue means that our Year 11 students are to have their experiences in the classroom preparing for their Easter break of revision developed, but also has benefitted from and preparation for their GCSE examinations. further new opportunitiess outside the My thanks go to you as parents for your classroom, many of which you can read support of your children at this challenging wabout inside. Our school continues to be time and also to our staff for the time that a great place for your children to learn and they give both within school and in the e develop, one where their personal holidays to provide the support that development is paramount, underpinned students deserve. N by their good behaviour, as recognised by I hope you enjoy reading about the Ofsted. I am incredibly proud of our opportunities that make Walney School a students and make no apologies for quoting fantastic place for your child to learn and again to you Mrs Erica Sharman, Her develop as part of a truly inclusive and caring Majesty’s Inspector in her recent report community. Please also, if you don’t already, about our school: follow the school and its departments on “Pupils are attentive learners. They Facebook and Twitter to ensure you stay participate well in their learning. They are well up to date with the fantastic achievement of behaved around school and are respectful to our students and our school on a daily basis. adults and each other. Pupils are polite and With very best wishes for an welcoming to visitors.” enjoyable Easter. Welcome to our Spring Term Newsletter. I write to you as the nights are getting I hope you enjoy reading through the articles lighter, the weather is warming up and Spring that provide an overview of another fantastic John Richardson Comic Thanks to the generosity of our Rstudentes, parelnts iande staff, wf e are delighted to announce that we will be donating £800 to Comic Relief. The students were on top form as they came in dressed in red, bought red noses and did their bit to help to raise any extra money. Year 7 went funny on Friday as they competed to win the prize for best joke – some excellent entries which really finished off the day in a brilliant way! Thank you as always, to all those who baked, bought and helped to sell at our Cake Sale. There were some amazing donations – made by some extremely talented bakers. Prizes are winging their way to the best of the bunch. Well done Walney! Mrs Magee 2 | News Transition Alongside all of the great work going and MFL so far this year and what be able to work with the next generation on in school, the wheels of Transition for a fantastic time they’ve had! From of wonderful Walney students! Year 5 and 6 pupils from our local Primary microscopes to baking, photography to We have lots of very exciting plans lined Schools are constantly turning! felting, the Year 5 and 6 pupils have been up for our Primary Transition programme I have been delighted to welcome treated to lots of exciting new experiences and I look forward to sharing them with you pupils from North Walney, South Walney here at Walney. as the year progresses. Next stop: Year 5 Juniors, Vickerstown, St George’s, St I have also thoroughly enjoyed visiting Taster week w/c 24th June! James’ and Barrow Island to experience the Year 5 pupils to give them some fun, taster sessions in Science, Technology French mini block lessons. It’s brilliant to Mrs Magee Head of Year 7 & Transition RED January Rewards To celebrate student's achievements during RED January they were invited for a special rewards event in the Library. The students were joined by the Mayor Bill McEwan and Suzanne Murphy from Mind to celebrate their achievements. The students ran, jogged, danced and skipped through January raising awareness and money for Mind in Furness. In all the Staff and Students at Walney School signed up for RED school has raised £411 and students have asked to continue the January this year. RED January is a scheme by the mental activities past January. Also keep a look out in the Mind shop on health charity, MIND, which encourages people to Run Every Dalton road for the positivity hearts the students made in Day in January (this can be any type of exercise). The aim is to conjunction with RED January. help people beat the January blues and raise money for MIND at the same time. Miss Preston, Library News | 3 environment, has been our new red recycling Student Council bins, which are designated recycle points for plastic bottles. The Student Council noticed that there had been a lot of discarded plastic bottles around school and felt strongly that this should be put right. Since our new bins have been in place, the yard is looking much cleaner and tidier! To help us to promote our focus, Mrs Magee held assemblies about plastic waste and we launched a competition to make sure that students are more aware. Many thanks to all of our entries but well done to our top prize winners – Amy and Walney School’s Student Council is community and environment is on top form. Sienna, whose artwork we will be seeing all working really hard behind the scenes to One initiative realised by the Student around school. enrich our students and ensure that our school Council, through our focus on the Mrs Magee & Student Council World Book Day World Book Day became a whole theme of Sharing Stories and the amazing the posters up around school and school interactive event at Walney School work that Miss Preston already does for their experience of the book or films this year. Over the last eight weeks literacy Harry Potter day each year, we will be (it’s all literature!). lessons have been dedicated to reading a having a 'book themed' day once a half Along with World Book Day the Five range of novels, working collaboratively and term during which we will bring a little Minute Writers Club have been meeting guiding each other in small groups. The 'magic' to the corridors and surprise the one lunchtime a week to discuss and World Book Day theme of share a story students as they enter school in the experiment with our writing skills during five transformed the walls of the school as all morning. This is purely to continue giving minute tasks and writing for competitions. pupils designed and created posters to students opportunity and inspiration to Five Minute Writers isn’t about how ‘good’ inform the school of the narrative and the discuss books and characters in everyday the students are (which they often worry characters of their chosen novel. conversation with each other and staff. about) but about if they enjoy the act of The library became the land of Our first day was based around The writing and want to share that with others. potatoes as each form was invited to Hunger Games and much effort was put in The Young Writers ‘Poetry Escape’ partake in a literary potato competition. to prepare posters, propaganda and challenge was perfect for challenging our There were some creative transformations activities that students and staff could skills as many of the students hadn’t which included Captain Underpants, The enjoy. These included an archery attempted poetry before. Four of the girls Cat in the Hat, Roald Dahl's memorable competition, poison berry balloon popping (Maddison Lowden, Phoebe Lovidge, characters and the winning entry of 7A’s and a design a capitol outfit competition. Teegan Nicholson and Sophie Kendall) Peppa Pig family! Mrs Kavanagh and the kitchen staff were selected to be published out of over Along with the amazing potato head provided one of their amazing themed 8000 entries to the competition. They were form competition that Mrs Gale oversaw, lunches for staff and students - the all overjoyed and so proud of what they Miss Jagger and Miss Preston chose hunter's chicken burger went down a treat! had accomplished are looking forward to Thursday 7th March as our launch day for Each department was declared as a district challenging themselves with more a new literacy across the school initiative. and everyone was encouraged to enter competitions and perhaps seeing more Based around this year’s World Book Day into conversation with the students about names in print in the future. 4 | News 2T5 Yeahr 8 stuedent s aBt Walnaey Stchotol le to Succeed have been taking part in the “Battle to Succeed”- a business enterprise challenge designed to raise awareness and money for St Marys Hospice. The inter-school competition is comprised of two parts: 1 A competition for groups within year 8 to devise a creative plan to raise as much money for the charity from £30, which was kindly sponsored by Orsted. This involved presenting fund raising ideas in a Dragons Den style pitch to representatives from Orsted and teachers, who provided students with constructive feedback. Students then had until 15th March to put their plan into action and raise as much money as possible for St. money as they can since February half Battle to Succeed, explaining why they Mary’s Hospice. term. Some of our students have been were raising money and how they 2 A competition between groups in braving the wild Walney weather to wash managed to do it.