Blog week ending 5th May

We are overjoyed with our beautifully designed and equipped new facilities, which we have named The Lodge, in keeping with our other buildings The Grange and The Manor and also in reference to our former CEO Donna Lodge.  We will be having a formal opening ceremony after May half term with more details for parents and carers shortly. Our new block comprises a brand new (bigger!) Library space for our students to enjoy the vast range of books and periodicals and access specialist careers reference books and literature.  Additionally, the library offers numerous computers for student use as well as access to a printer and copier for students to prepare final revision materials ahead of their examinations.  As you can see from the below photos, the new Library is already extremely popular! 

Downstairs, the WG6 dining area provides greater capacity for students to gather for hot meals from our kitchen or to eat their own packed lunches.  Outside of meal times the downstairs space provides additional capacity for our WG6 students’ independent study.

We have been asked by our University research partner to work with them to create a video for the OECD’s Educational team on how you teach Epistemic Knowledge. The clear research across the world is showing that students understanding how knowledge works allows them to understand their learning and enables them to achieve more and at higher levels.  We have been working on this style of learning now with our Epistemic Insight Curriculum in Key stage three and will be continuing to develop this across the next year.   As part of this we had a professional filming team in school along with Professor Berri Billingsley to demonstrate how this can be built into a school curriculum.  The students were confident in front of the camera and engaged so well that the team are sure that they will have to make two films to capture all of their excellent contributions! We are very excited to see the end result which will then feature on the OECD’s website both nationally and internationally.  So well done to our budding film stars and we look forward to sharing this with everyone in due course.

The Art Department recently accompanied our fantastic Year 10 Art GCSE groups to see the contemporary installation work of leading British artist Sonia Boyce OBE RA at the Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate. This was a multi-sensory experience using sound, lighting, video and mixed media to portray the voices of four female black musicians Tanita Tikaram, Poppy Adjudha, Jacqui Dankworth and Sofia Jernberg.  The installation by Sonia brings together different generations of black British female artist’s in the music industry and on vinyl, records, cassette tapes and CD’s. This is part of Sonia’s work entitled the Devotional Collection where this was started in 1999 by the artist inviting a group of women to sing and reflect upon the first record they every bought. Sonia gives a platform to these creative musicians by inviting multiple voices to be heard within the installation and also uses gold pyrite structures for viewers to sit upon, that is a mineral that forms the basis of metals but is undervalued as ‘fools gold’. Could Sonia Boyce be using the gold pyrite as a reference to make us think about the perceived values and status of black British female artists in the music industry?

The students spent the morning immersed in the exhibition and then produced practical responses in the learning centre for the rest of the day. This exhibition has helped many students in the class to learn about, experience and understand installation art and has given them a more epistemic experience of art connecting together, sound, music, video, and practical art media with aspects of popular music culture over time.  Miss Cregan, Head of Art.

Mrs Dobson of our Food & Nutrition Department has launched a competition to find a dessert 'fit for a King'?! Students are invited to design and bake a celebratory bake to mark the King’s Coronation.  I look forward to seeing your creations … and I am sure Mr Lennon is looking forward to sampling them!!

All Food and Nutrition students learn practical cooking skills in tandem with the science and nutrition associated with a given cooking method or ingredient.  In this lesson Year 9 enjoyed a food science lesson where they explored and demonstrated how yeast works (and how to activate it) within a recipe.  The accompanying photos were taken on Culture Day .. and include wonderful images of students and Mrs Bukoye, our Food and Nutrition Technician in clothes that express their cultural heritage.

Miss Armstrong’s Year 9 Food and Nutrition students have been looking at meat free high protein plant-based recipes.  In this lesson students made a spicy bean chilli using a range of beans including red kidney beans, pinto beans and cannellini beans and as an accompaniment made flour tortillas from scratch!  The basic recipe can be adapted to suit personal tastes and vegetables in season.

We are delighted to share news that our Drama Department will be staging a WGSG special production of Matilda The Musical!  Tickets are available to buy now on ParentPay.  There are two performances; Wednesday 24^th May and Thursday 25^th May at 5pm.  Running time is 1 hour with interval.

Our student performers and production team are hard at work in rehearsals .. as you can see below – Matilda is coming together brilliantly!

WG6 students have been investigating Gamma radiation and specifically, to ‘prove’ the inverse square law as part of their final revision ahead of the public examinations.  Students worked with Mrs Patel, Head of Physics to conduct the investigation before then calculating their results and using their findings to plot a graph to demonstrate the inverse square law.

Rugby Club is now open to Year 7 students.  Sessions take place Mondays 3:30 - 4:45pm.  If any students would like to find out an further details please see Mrs Fiander in the Student Managers’ office.

We would like to remind parents and carers that if your financial circumstances change that you may be eligible to apply for additional funding through Kent County Council. To assess your eligibility or to find out more please visit Free school meals - Kent County Council.

PFA Update.  Thank you to all those, families, staff members and students who took part in our recent PFA Quiz Night!  A great evening was had by all .. an exceptionally fun night of entertainment including raffles, cash competitions and a lot of laughs!  Thank you to our Quiz Master Cllr Kyle Stealey (pictured below with the winning team!) .. the event raised £880 profit which will be used to enhance our students’ learning.

Pre-loved Uniform sale – if you have any out-grown or unwanted uniform items please do consider donating them to our PFA Shop.  We offer a range of uniform in excellent condition and will be offering items for sale in school ahead of the new school year.

Easyfundraising & Amazonsmile - By signing up and using the below link when you shop online with more than 3,300 well-known online stores such as Amazon, eBay, John Lewis will earn free donations for WGSG at no additional cost to you.  Please click here for further information and to sign up 

Forthcoming dates;

• Public Examinations begin – Tuesday 9th May
• Year 12 Politics Trip to County Hall – Tuesday 23rd May
• Year 12 Geography Trip Thursday 25th to Sunday 28th May
• Year 11 Prom – Friday 23rd June.
• WG6 Year 13 Prom - Friday 30th June at Birchwood Golf & Country Club from 7 – 11 pm.

Best wishes,

Michelle Lawson

Head Teacher