Blog

Blog week ending 3rd March

Posted on: 03/03/2023

1W1A0511 Copy Come and join us for an evening of fun, laughter, and quizzing! We have scheduled a school PTFA social event to bring together our whole school community. Our Stone Lodge Quiz Night is booked for Thursday 23rd March devised by our own quizmaster extraordinaire Mr Naylor, it’s the perfect opportunity for parents, carers, students and staff to get together for fun .. and fund raising! We look forward to welcoming you on the 23rd. For more details please see the poster below, and to book your place, click here.

The Police Cadets came out to do take an assembly this week to speak with our students about their Volunteer Police Cadets and give them a sense of what it would involve. We already have some students that want to sign up! It was amazing to see the students interacting so positively.

Every Volunteer Police Cadet (VPC) unit offers fantastic opportunities for all young people aged 13 - 18 years old to support their local communities. There is a great mix of like-minded young people reflecting the diversity of their local community participating in:

Developing their life skills
Meeting new friends
Social events
Learning about British policing
Sporting activities
Force-wide, UK-wide and even international opportunities

The VPC understands that most young people want to do something constructive for their own community. They are the only uniformed group that expects young people to volunteer an average of 3 hours a month in support of local policing and community inspired social action. They will help and support students to lead their own social action projects. The VPC has developed a social action workbook and course to give students the necessary skills so that they and their friends can really make a difference in our community.

For more details and to join please click here

Our Year 7 and 8 musicians have begun Cycle C by learning about form and structure within music. They started with call and response clapping and singing, understanding that a musical phrase is formed of both a musical 'question' and a musical 'answer'. Warm up vocal games such as 'Boom Chikka Boom' and 'Che Che Kule' have helped students to understand this in a practical and fun way! Students then progressed to working in pairs on keyboards; one student improvising the ‘call’ or question, and the second student replying with the answer or ‘response’ to form a complete musical phrase. Pictured in the last photo, Sara Kemsley, Chair of our Local Governing Body visited Mrs Archibald’s classroom just in time to hear students play their compositions!

Year 8 Scientists have been investigating fermentation as part of their broader respiration topic. In this practical lesson students tested the anaerobic respiration of yeast. Yeast undergoes fermentation when bread and beer is made. Ethanol is the alcohol produced. This is evaporated away when bread is baked. Carbon dioxide gas trapped in bread makes it rise and gives beer its bubbles. In this experiment students collected the carbon dioxide released in a balloon over a carafe, students were able to monitor the rate the balloon inflated by the amount of glucose added to the yeast.

Year 8 Biologists have been using viewfinders to examine plant cells before making observations and creating scale diagrams. This forms part of their study of photosynthesis in the current study cycle.

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Miss Rutt’s Year 7 PE students are currently working on Outdoor and Adventurous Activities (OA) this cycle. In the lesson pictured below, students took part in a series of team challenges to overcome. Students used their 5 Steps for Problem Solving to effectively solve and solve the challenge! Well done everyone, great teamwork!

Identify – What is the problem?

Knowledge – How can I solve the problem?

Decision making – Which method will be successful?

Execute – Putting method into practice.

Review -Was the method successful? What needs to be changed?

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Mr Baillie has scheduled lots of activities and trips for the Drama Department this term … including;

Stage Combat Workshop - Year 7 and 8 - March 10^th - The school will be welcoming Squire, Stage Combat professionals, for a day of exciting workshops, looking at how to safely and effectively portray combat on stage. This is now fully booked.
Stone Lodge Showcase - Year 7-10 - March 21^st - We will be holding our first ever Stone Lodge Showcase this term, whereby students in years 7-10 come together to perform a variety of performances. The talent show will commence at 6.00pm in the main school hall. We welcome staff, friends and family to attend. Tickets are currently available on ParentPay.
Frantic Assembly Workshop - Year 9 and 10 - March 31^st - The school will be welcoming Frantic Assembly, a physical theatre company, for a day of workshops, supporting students with their devising skills through physical means. Tickets are currently available on ParentPay.
Annie the Musical - Year 7 and 8 - May 04^th - The Drama department will be taking students to the Orchard Theatre to see a rendition of Annie. The show commences at 7.30pm. This is now fully booked.
Drama and Theatre Club (Pictured) - KS3 - Every Tuesday 3.30-4.30 - Mr Bailey runs a Drama club after school every Tuesday for those wanting to extend their Drama and theatre potential. We explore a range or genres and styles, devising our own performances from stimuli.

For all the happens in the Drama department, please check out our Twitter page: @StoneLodgeDrama

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Mr Uddin’s Year 7 Computer Science students are currently working on designs for their own computer game using the software coding programme Scratch. Coding is a valuable part of computer literacy and supports strategies for solving problems, design projects and communicating ideas.

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Year 9 Options. To view our Year 9 Options Presentation and to find out more about the option process, please click here Year 9 Options - Stone Lodge School

Forthcoming dates;

Year 8 Parents’ Evening PLEASE NOTE ALL FORMS – Thursday 9^th March (online)

Year 7 – 9 Learning Beyond the Classroom (School Trip Day) – Wednesday 29^th March

PTFA Quiz Night (bring the whole family!) – Thursday 23^rd March (see above poster for more details)

Year 12 Parent Evening (face to face) - Engineering room and Sport teaching room - Monday 27^th March

Last Day of Term – Friday 31^st March

And lastly …

Mr Naylor has prepared a few Sample Quiz questions ahead of our Special Family Quiz Night to get you practising!

… as always there will be a mix of visual questions such as which two celebrities have been used to make the below left-hand image. On the right … say what you see! What well known phrase or expression does the right hand image depict?

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