Blog week ending 11th March

Votes for Schools.  International Women’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women and girls all over the world.  During this week’s Votes for Schools debate we asked ourselves; are films today celebrating and representing women and girls fairly? are they avoiding stereotypes?  Our students acknowledged that progress has been made and sited films they felt had positive female representation such as in Enola Holmes, the Marvel film Eternals and Disney’s Encanto – However, all students agreed that the film industry still had a way to go to achieve parity and equality both on screen and in behind the screen roles.  The students’ feedback will be shared with decision makers within the film industry.

Year 8 Drama students are currently working on a musical theatre topic.  In this lesson students were working on their listening skills whilst watching excerpts from famous musicals including The Lion King, Hamilton and Dream Girls.  Students were able to identify musical movements and styles as well as identify specific instruments.  This week we focused on Staccato – short separated notes or disconnected notes and sounds and Legato – smooth style notes where sounds are connected. 

Reciprocal Reading Programme.  Reciprocal reading is a structured approach to teaching strategies (questioning, clarifying, summarising and predicting) that students can use to improve their reading fluency.  Mrs Artmann is working with our PTA who will be contributing to our scheme by providing one-to-one sessions with students to enhance our school culture of reading for pleasure.

As part of our Year 9 Successful Lives Programme the Oasis Youth Theatre performed a powerful play commissioned by the Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation, a drug and alcohol education charity that supports young people to make safe choices about drugs and alcohol and reduce harm.  The play and the subsequent workshops equip students with the knowledge, life skills and confidence they need to choose lives free of substance abuse.  The play, “I Love You Mum – I Promise I Won’t Die” by Mark Wheeller now forms part of the Eduqas GCSE drama syllabus alongside Shakespeare, JB Priestly, Malorie Blackman and Benjamin Zephaniah.  For more information on the DSM Foundation and their work, please click here 

Miss Cogswell’s Year 7 Scientists have been investigating thermal insulation with the aim of finding the most effective material from the samples provided.  Students first wrote their predictions for the experiment before plotting the resulting temperature changes and writing their conclusions. 

Please join me in congratulating Sophie C who represented Stone lodge School in the Kent Schools Trampoline Championships this week .. and won the Silver Award for her event!  Pictured below Sophie’s Trophy and her in action at the competition.

Best wishes,

Gavin Barnett

Head Teacher