A message from our Headteacher Mr Dickson
On Thursday of this week we hosted the Next Big 10 cohort, which is made up of school leaders and professionals from across the UK. The Next Big 10 is a two year transformation project for schools who want to develop innovative education practices alongside like minded schools, and to shout louder about the possibility of doing education differently.
We welcomed 50 guests to the school, who worked throughout the day on a variety of tasks, and had talks by keynote speakers including Liz Robinson, CEO of the Big Education Trust, and Gabriel Pineda, who is a young person working tirelessly to change the school accountability system. We were proud to showcase four of our signature practices at school 21. These were Music, Oracy, Slam Poetry and Project Based Learning. Massive thanks to all staff and students who represented our school so well and made us very proud.
LATEST NEWS AT SCHOOL 21:
Ramadan Mubarak
Thank you to everyone who came to our annual Ramadan Charity event and Open Iftar on Thursday 14th of March. It was a huge turnout! The community came together in what was an extra-special event. Thank you for everyone who helped, volunteer, donated and attended! We have raised £530, and counting, towards charitable donations.
There was amazing food to break fast, henna, craft from our students and much more. It was beautiful to see the whole community come together. Extra-special shine to Ms Edoo and Miss Begum for making it all happen!
Outdoor Play and Learning – Primary Parent Survey
We are working with a external company – OPaL (Outdoor Play and Learning) to help improve primary playtimes and ensure that every child has an awesome playtime everyday! You can read more about OPaL here.
As part of this work, we want to gather some parent/carer opinions. Please take some time (10-15 minutes only!) to read through and answer this survey – https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/TH5S9JS
Project Based Learning
What makes School 21 special? There are lots of answers to that question… One of them is Project Based Learning!
Spring Exhibition 2024
Spring Term Exhibition on Wednesday 27th March – We look forward to welcoming you to School 21 from 3:45-5:45pm for a fantastic exhibition showcasing the achievements of pupils across the school, plus some fun activities for you to take part in on site. This will be a great way to round off the end of term!
Please note there will be an early 2:30pm finish for Secondary and Sixth Form students on the day, please check Reach More Parents (Weduc) messages for details.
International Women’s Day
Friday's International Women’s Day celebration was a hit! Thank you to everyone who joined our community event at School 21 on 8th March to share your powerful voices 🤩 Big shine to Ms Edoo for organising the fantastic evening!
Well done Year 5 and Year 6 Girls’ Football Team!
Congratulations to our Year 5 and Year 6 Girls’ Football Team for their win over West Ham Church! It was a magnificent game. Thank you to Ms Helen who saved our day! We are really proud of the team, and wish them luck in the upcoming East London Year 5-Year 6 competition!
World Book Day
We had a fantastic World Book Day which took place last week on Thursday 7th March. We enjoyed a range of activities to develop our love of reading.
Secondary and Sixth Form students became fantastic reading role models to our Primary students during our peer reading sessions. The winners of the Primary sticker competition went on an amazing trip to Stratford Library to take part in an author workshop. We had a wonderful Reading Café after school where students were able to take home books of their choice.
LEARNING AT SCHOOL 21:
Reception
This week we did so many exciting things! We read the story Handa's Surprise and acted out the story. We explored many different ways to measure things in the classroom, and ourselves. On Thursday we had a lovely day in West Ham Park where we immersed ourselves in the story ‘We're Going on a Bear Hunt’.
Year 1
Year 1 have started a new topic in project. This term we will be learning all about healthy food plate. Our end project outcome is to cook healthy snacks to sell. All the children are super excited. We have already started cooking and our first healthy snack that we made was a fruit kebab, we mostly enjoyed eating them after!
Year 3
Year 3 have started their computing projects this week and and enjoying exploring how to code on Scratch. They are working towards a project to create a piano on Scratch, and creating tunes to be played on it. Come and play the pianos they make at exhibition on 27th March!
Year 4
Year 4 had an exciting trip this week to St John's Church to learn all about the Easter celebration within the Christian community. They had the chance to participate in a range of Easter themed activities, from drama and role play to designing their own stained glass windows. It provided each child with an understanding of why Easter is celebrated, the significance of the chick, silver, rock and nails and allowed them a chance to meet children from other Stratford based schools. A perfect way to spend a Thursday morning. We enjoyed creating wonderful Easter gardens, creating banners as well as singing and dancing.
Year 5
Year 5 have been exploring reversible and irreversible changes! They took part in various experiments to develop their scientific knowledge and awareness of reactions that can and cannot be reversed.
Year 6 Conservationists!
On Wednesday afternoon Year 6 welcomed Naomi from The Conservation Volunteers to our school. They learned about the importance of trees in our environment, carried out nature based activities and planted trees in the school grounds.
The trees included: apple, pear and wild cherry fruit trees alonside native British hedgerows which will bring benefit to local wildlife.
The students worked hard to dig and prepare the ground before carefully planting the delicate new trees and placing mulch around them to further protect them.
We look forward to enjoying the fruits of their labour for years to come!
Year 6 Tea Party Concert!
Our Year 6 students are excited to host this year’s Tea Party Recital event as part of our Band Project curriculum programme on Thursday 21st March. This term, the students have been working in small ensembles and have selected their own pieces to prepare and perform for you at this event. They have been developing their independent rehearsal skills as well as their mastery and ensemble skills, and have received music coaching from our instrumental teachers as well as their classroom music teachers. Click here for more details!
Year 8
Some great process pictures of the year 8 portraiture project inspired by artist Shepard Fairey! Students have picked their own famous person they would like to make a portrait of and are using their tonal mixing skills to create a pop art inspired portrait. Well done to the year 8s for practicing their colour scales before making final decisions.
Year 8 Food Technology students learn how to make a healthy meal, vegetarian black bean stir fry udon. They learned about the health benefits of stir-frying as a cooking method and how to arrange the vegetables in a ‘wok clock’, which is the order in which the vegetables are stir-fried.
Year 9 Parents & Options Evening
Our Year 9 Parents and Options Evening is taking place next Monday 18th March (4:00pm-6:30pm). We are approaching an important moment in the journey of our Y9 students, where they make choices about the subjects they wish to study at GCSE level in Y10 and Y11. These decisions will inform pathways open to them beyond the age of 16, and we are committed to supporting students and their families to make the right decisions for them. As part of this event we will be delivering an Options Evening presentation at 4:00pm, which we expect all Year 9 students and their parents/carers to attend please.
Please check your Reach More Parents (Weduc) messages to complete the form to confirm your attendance. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to seeing you at the event!
Year 10
This week, Hospitality and Catering students learned how to make sushi from scratch. In the class, the students practiced their skills by making vegan sushi!
Year 13
Congratulations to Adanna Okoli in year 13 for speaking so eloquently at the Big Education event on signature practices around real-world learning. Adanna demonstrated great oracy skills, explaining how she and her team developed architectural designs for a reimagined sixth form playground as part of her design, engineer, construct (DEC) programme.
LOCAL NOTICES:
Junior Bake Off! Application
If you are a student (9-12 years of age) and are passionate about baking then there is an amazing opportunity to apply for Junior Bake Off!, a Channel 4 program where the young bakers compete for a final win. Please find attached a flyer with information on how to apply. The application closes in 2 days, i.e. on 17th March 2024, Sunday and the filming of the shortlisted participants will take place in July 2024.
If you are interested in applying and would like to discuss this opportunity with a member of staff in the school, then please get in touch with Mrs. Gumbeer [email protected]
