Olympic Swimmer and former Werneth student, James Goddard took the the time to visit us and talk about his career on the 17th November 2011.
James is one of the most experienced swimmers on the England and Great Britain teams, having competed at two Olympic Games, two Commonwealth Games and four World Championships. He has made finals at every level.
In 2010 he won two Gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and is now preparing for London 2012 where he hopes to challenge the best in the world.
Our Year 10 Rugby Leaders were involved in the delivery of two mornings of tag rugby to Year 7 working alongside the community rugby coach, they led warm ups, drills and refereed games to give all Year 7 the opportunity to try this sport. Well done lads, you did a great job!
Leaflets on joining local clubs in these sports are available from the PE Department.
Mr Brierley’s Year 11 GCSE group, working alongside coaches from Stockport Hockey Club, led a development day for 160 primary students last month. The group had received leadership training from the lead coach prior to the event and did a fantastic job on the day of keeping large groups of students active and entertained despite the terrible weather.
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The Remembrance activities have once again proven to be a great success in raising awareness and funds for the British Legion. This year we sold three boxes of Poppies. All students attended a family Remembrance Assembly run by Mr Carter.
Students were told that all lessons would be started with the teacher telling them who they were wearing their poppy for. In addition a minutes silence was conducted on the 11th and students who are in a uniformed organisation could attend school in their uniform on the 11th. The result was that we had Scouts, Cadets , Air Cadets and St John's uniforms on display among our student body.
On the 11th there was barely a student in the school who was not wearing a poppy and the conduct of the student body was exemplary
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Assistant Headteacher, Mr S Bolland, who ran the New York Marathon on behalf of the ‘Steve Landells Cancer Fund’ for Christies’ Hospital.
Mr Bolland ran the marathon in 3 hours 50 minutes. We are asking for donations of 26p per student, please help for such a good cause.
Mr Bolland, you are our hero and Very, very well done!
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Year 11
Hanna Smith - NVQ Hair and Beauty
Jacob Ball - Diploma - Construction
Year 10
Gavina Costello - NVQ Hair and Beauty
Jake Thompson - Diploma in Creative & Media Studies
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This certificate is to acknowledge the achievements in attaining a value score of 12 points or more, based on Professor David Jesson's value-added methodology.
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On Tuesday 29th March a group of Werneth students attended Stockport Town Hall for a very special Presentation Evening. Parents, family and friends gathered in the grand Ballroom. Seated at round tables with balloons and banners decorating the room, there was a real feeling of success and importance.
The Mayor of Stockport, and special guest Commonwealth Games Gold Medal Winner David Carry presented certificates in a ceremony filled with spectacular performances from Werneth students, including Dance (Kerry Upton), Drama (Amelia Gavrila, Sophie Jackson, Kerry Upton) and two duets (one by Sophie Jackson and Natalie Davies, another by Oliver Melia and Elliott Jones). In total 18 students received their Bronze Awards, and we also saw three of our previous students (Joanne Horsey, Kelly Shore and Sarah Kay) gain their Silver Awards and Tom Carter ex student received his Gold Award.
They are now working towards their Gold Awards and delivered a fantastic presentation and video during the evening too. We have 28 students embarking on expeditions during the next two months in order to gain their Bronze Award this next year.
Congratulations to:
Bennett, Lizzie
Copeland, Sam
Davies, Natalie
Dunning, Tom
Fowler, Katie
Goldrick, Katie
Hughes, Charlie
Humphries, Becca
Jackson, Sophie
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Here are some comments from the monitoring letter we received. You can read the whole letter on the OFSTED website www.ofsted.gov.uk
‘the school has made satisfactory progress in making improvements and good progress in demonstrating a better capacity for sustained improvement.’
‘the school is making sustained improvement in terms of attainment and progress.’
‘the vast majority of behaviour in lessons observed was good or better.’
‘the curriculum has been strengthened with additional vocational courses and a greater focus on potentially high achievers.’
‘the specialism contributes significantly to the improvement of teaching and learning.’
‘inspired leadership and effective improvement management from the headteacher have engendered a comprehensive change of culture over the last few years.’
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It is the second time we have held a DAAW week at Werneth School and it has it has had a real impact on students.
The activities and guest speakers this year included a mother whose son had been killed by a drink driver, ex drug addicts who spoke to all Year 11 students about the effects and dangers of smoking cannabis and other drugs, fantastic assemblies all week on drug addiction performed by drama students.
We had drop in clinics and displays at lunchtime with Mosaic, who also taught lessons to Year 7 students. The Don’t Leave Your Friend to Die Campaign was taught to students in Year 10 and Year 9, and the Fire Service came in to speak to some of the Year 8 classes.
We also entered some students in the Key 103 Alcohol/Mosaic Competition. Seven students made it to the final:
Niomi Dibden
Jadon Rathbone
Jamie Sale
Lorena Scott
Megan Stockton
Mitchell Bower
They spent the day at Key 103. They designed and produced a wonderful advertisement for the radio and we are hoping they stand a good chance of winning and getting it played on the radio. 'Chipmunk' was recording next door and took the time to have a photo taken with The Werneth Crew. They were described as being a credit to the school.
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Year 8a2 had a visitor called Jonathan, the manager of the Wellspring charity in Stockport. We invited Jonathon in because we have been reading a book called Stone Cold which is about homelessness. Wellspring is a homeless charity based in Stockport so I contacted them and invited them in. The students had prepared extensively and had written down lists of questions to ask him. The students learned a lot about homelessness in Stockport and were a credit to the school and Jonathan has volunteered to return if we ever ask him!
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Some of our year 8 and 9 students have been working with Manchester's Key 103 radio as part of Werneth's Aimhigher and Gifted and Talented Programme. The adventure began when Key 103 set up the opportunity for students to apply to become trained in a media area of their choice (Presenting, creative directors, news reader/journalists and marketing directors) The challenge was set in a special assembly where the students were asked to treat the experience like a professional job interview and to complete job application forms. From there, students were selected to visit the Key 103 media bus for radio taster sessions. The Key 103 staff then selected 12 students who showed particular talent to visit the Key 103 studios the following week to create their own radio show from scratch.
The two day experience included the early creative stages of thinking of a name, building a slogan, sourcing news and preparing interviews. The students were particularly excited when they learned that they would be interviewing X-Factor's Lloyd Daniel's on day two!
The students (Alicia Hall, Rhona Butler, Lauren Lumsdon, Daniel Norris, James Barratt, Sally Brennan, Nelson Cummins, Andrew Phillips, Mohammed Hamid, Lloyd Duigan, Shauna Ball, Katherine Almond) created 'Soundz' radio which debuted in the school canteen. The project was a great success and will continue to develop under the supervision of our very own DJ Andy O'Brien.
The complete show can be heard soon at http://www.key2radio.com/schools
Click here to view the students @ Key 103
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Following Friday's Key 103 visit, the following students have been selected out of 42 to go to the Key 103 radio station on Thursday and Friday (27th,28th) of this week to produce a show.
Creative Developers:
Andy Phillips
Rhona Butler
Lauren Lumsdon
Marketing:
Karl Garland
Lloyd Duigan
Mohammed Hamid
Presenters:
Sally Brennan
Nelson Cummins
Shauna Ball
Journalists/News:
James Barratt
Abigail Hall
Katherine Almond
The staff on the media bus were very impressed with our students and said that their attitude, enthusiasm and creativity were amazing; making it very difficult to choose only 12 students for the visit.
We would like to congratulate the students involved in the project last Friday as they have represented Werneth really well.
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This week a group of students from Year 8 to 11 have been performing an edited version of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ by Shakespeare to different audiences. Firstly it was performed on Monday night for the public and then on Friday to our Year 9 cohort to enrich their experience of Shakespeare .
The performance was originally shown as part of the National Schools Shakespeare Festival at the Contact Theatre, Manchester in October. On the night, the feedback from the festival’s organiser was extremely complimentary as to the talents of our young students and for our costume designer, Mrs Starkey. The whole experience has been very enjoyable for the students involved and they have all said it has helped develop their knowledge of Shakespeare. As for our year 9 audience their view was that, “It was brilliant!”
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Last week plans were put in motion to create Werneth's A Team . A specially selected group of year 12 students who achieved A/A*s in the summer will be mentoring some of our Year 11s to help them achieve top grades. The students, many of whom are now studying A Levels, are looking forward to the challenge of working with our GCSE/BTEC students. Jake Francis, a student from the class of 2010 commented “I feel proud to have been selected out of the year group who have excelled with their GCSEs.”
The group attended a training session last week and early next year they will take part in an advice forum with their mentees and parents. From there the A-Team will stay in touch with their student via email and social networking sites to be on hand for revision help and advice.
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35 students and staff spent the weekend in Cologne visiting the Christmas Markets. We saw and smelt Christmas lights, Glühwein, pancakes, toys, crafts, decorations, clothes, hats, scarves, sausages, biscuits… We visited 5 of the 7 different markets, a chocolate museum, the cathedral and there some people went ice skating.
The weather wasn't’ great, but it didn’t rain much, so everybody stayed dry. Our hostel was great – clean, tidy, good food and nice rooms, and it was only a 10 minute walk to the centre of town.
The drivers were great too, and kept us entertained on the very long journeys there and back. All in all, it was a great trip – just too short: one weekend isn’t enough! I’d like to thank everyone involved, behaviour was great, and did a wonderful job of representing Werneth School.
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The ‘BIG FREEZE’ did not stop 32 enthusiastic Year 10 dance students from attending this year’s dance show at the Birmingham NEC on Friday 3rd December 2010.
The students were inspired by the performances they saw and the workshops in which they participated, including two completely new dance styles to them: Krumping and Lindy Hop. They were also in admiration of a few roaming celebrities: Richard Alston’s Dance Company, Tobias Mead (BGT finalist), Arlene Phillips and Gok Wan.
All students were a credit to the school and to themselves and fully engaged with a day in which they were able to be awarded marks towards their final BTEC grades. The day has had an overall positive effect on all the students involved and has inspired them to do well.
“Thank you so much! We all had so much fun and had a really good experience especially , Chloe Shuff, Krissy , Olivia and I who met some amazing people and tried to join in as many things we could. Thank you so much.”
Chloe Hodson
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For the fourth year running Werneth School hosted a Boccia Competition for special needs students across the borough. A total of twenty four teams from thirteen schools took part in the tournament held last Wednesday November 17th.
The day was an enormous success and gave over 140 students the opportunity to represent their school or college and to take part in a competition designed to meet their needs.
Whilst this was a relaxed and highly enjoyable event with the emphasis on the taking part it was also hotly contested in the final rounds with the host school, Werneth, emerging as winners for the first time.
The competition is inspired by the energy and enthusiasm of Werneth Schools own Special Needs Department led by Karen Sutcliffe working alongside Jan Holt and Tracy Sloane from the PE Department. Werneth Schools Sports Ambassadors and members of the Sports Council were there to support the participants and help officiate.
This event is inspirational and raises the spirits and confidence of many disadvantaged young people. With the Olympics and Paralympics less than two years away this event goes a long way to promoting the values they represent.
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