The Aconbury Centre

Spring Term Newsletter 2016

To begin with may we offer many congratulations to Mr Warley on the birth of his beautiful son, Noah. Thank you to Mr. Paul Barnes from St. Davids Centre and Dame Oremi Evans from The Brookfield School for helping us out during his paternity leave.

Our Students have enjoyed a rich and varied curriculum, with various extra Art activities and the chance to work with Joelle Taylor from the Ledbury Poetry Society

Although the Head of Centre, Mrs Dixon has been unwell; she is now making progress and we hope she will be visiting us soon.

Themes and Values

Our themes for the Spring term were,

Tolerance

Cooperation

Honesty

Courage

News and events

During this term we have said farewell to our temporary teacher Mr Lloyd, who has secured a full time position nearer his home in Wales. Mrs Alderdice has joined us to teach humanities and hopefully some music in the future.

Curriculum English: Poetry with Joelle Taylor

We were very fortunate to secure funding from the Ledbury Poetry Festival again this year, which enabled us to have a visiting poet for three mornings.

Joelle Taylor is a professional spoken word artist, published poet and playwright, as well as the founder and Artistic Director of SLAMbassadors UK, the national youth slam championships administered by the Poetry Society.

She came into English lessons to perform her work and show students how to develop and shape their own poetry. The work that the sessions produced was amazing and, all students should be very proud of what they achieved.

Ledbury Poetry Society have also agreed to fund a publication of the students best work and to provide a copy of the book for each student involved. Watch this space for details of our up-coming book launch!

Herefordshire Hoardings Project

You may have noticed the colourful Hoardings in Widemarsh Street, if not they are well worth a look. Ours is just outside the side entrance to the Merton Meadows Car Park, just up from Wicks.

We are very proud of all the students who took part in this project, from the planning to the finished work. Well Done Everyone.

Schools Expo 2016

Once again we are proud to be able to tell you that many of our students had artwork exhibited in the Annual Schools Art Exhibition held at The Hereford College of Arts, Folly Lane, Hereford in January and February.

The Opening and Private View were well attended and we received many compliments and praise for the high standard of our students work. We were really pleased that several students and their parents or carers attended and were able to see their work displayed. It is a real achievement to have work in this exhibition and all those involved should be very proud of themselves.

All our students were taken to visit the exhibition during school time.

Sports Relief

In our cross curricular lessons; students all looked at the different ways Sports Relief helps others, both in our own country and overseas.

They looked at the Golden Rules of Sportsmanship, designed sport inspired T shirts and also discussed Childrens Rights.

We also completed a whole school sporting challenge.

The students were in groups and had to try and score as many goals as they could; run as may relays as possible and score as many hoops at basketball all within 15 minutes per activity.

It was a very successful afternoon. Our students rose to the challenge. We were proud of the way they cooperated with each other and the effort and enthusiasm they poured into this event.

Sumdog Herefordshire Competition

14 students took part in this competition last month, in just 1 lesson they answered over 3,400 questions between them!

Life Skills

This term the Transformation Trust is once again sending in a speaker to teach the students about Life Skills. This will include; overcoming challenges, writing CVs, interview skills etc.

Design and Technology

This term we have been making clocks and this has allowed our students to really show their creative side. Some of the clocks produced are fantastic.

Homework and Behaviour

We can look forward to an exceptional summer term for behaviour. Students have managed their behaviour very well and we expect the forthcoming hot Chocolate and biscuit (with a bit of homework added) after school club being a huge success.

Miss James will also be continuing the Health and beauty after school club, which is for all students, not just the girls.

Attendance

We also have new posters around the Centre detailing the significant rewards that can be achieved from maintaining good attendance scores.

Next term

There will be lots of opportunities for students to be rewarded for good attendance and behaviour. We will be planning a reward trip at the end of this half term and a variety of enriched curriculum prospect, including, health and well-being group, indulge in their creative side with exciting new projects in woodwork, textiles, cooking and art.

As this is the start of the summer term, although there is still a risk of wintry showers, it may get hot. If the weather does get warm please remember that our outdoor space is very exposed and students may need sun-cream and a hat.