Community Newsletter 22/03/2024

A message from our Headteacher Mr Dickson – School 21 Values

At School 21 we hold the strong values of Humanity, Community, Excellence, Openness and Responsibility.

To reconnect with our values, and to enable us to live them every day, it is important to have a shared understanding of what they mean. We have worked together in consultation with staff and students to define what these values really mean to us as a school.

Take a look at the outcome on our new ‘Our values’ page here.

LATEST NEWS AT SCHOOL 21:

Happy Nowruz!

This Wednesday 20th March marked the Persian New Year. This festival celebrates the beginning of the spring equinox. Wishing our Persian students and their families at School 21 a very happy Nowruz filled with love, joy and prosperity!

Spring Exhibition 2024 – Wednesday 27th March (3:45-5:45pm)

We can’t wait to see you all next week for our Spring Exhibition! Arrive from 3:45pm to explore performances, displays and fun activities around the school. All are welcome to attend.

Reminder – Early 2:30pm finish for Secondary/Sixth Form students on Wednesday 27th March.

The 8 Days of Attendance

To encourage keeping up with high attendance over this last week of term and the first full week in the Summer term, we are launching the second round of our Days of Attendance incentive!

All students who have 100% attendance over Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week (25th – 27th March) and the first full week back after the holidays (Monday 15th – Friday 19th April) will go in a draw to win a £100 Westfield voucher. We will award one voucher to a primary-aged student and another to a secondary-aged student.

The families drawn will be notified on Monday 22nd April, at the end of our end-of-term attendance incentive. Please check your Reach More Parents (Weduc) letters for full details.

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

LEARNING AT SCHOOL 21:

Reception

How can we go from here to there? As we near the end of our project, we are hard at work building our final models for our products. We have all chosen a place in the world that we would like to visit, and now we are busy building vehicles to help us to get there. We have brilliant boats, amazing aeroplanes, and terrific trains. We can't wait to share our amazing work at exhibition next week!

Year 1

This week in cooking we made tzatziki! It was so easy and we are so excited to show our adults at home how to make it too!

Year 2

Year 2 have been very fortunate to experience a REAL Victorian lesson from Miss Perkins at The Ragged School Museum in Bethnal Green. We got the tube to Mile End and made our way to the museum, where we experienced a lesson as if it were 1894!

It's safe to say that I think the children were all very grateful that we are in 2024. A great experience for all!

Guitar Club Performance

Year 3 and 4 children were treated to a performance by the guitar club during their music assembly this week! Mr Otis accompanied the children who were confidently playing chords and riffs on their instruments. We also had the chance to learn a little bit about the guitar and to ask Mr Otis some questions about his playing career.

You can hear some clips here:

Year 3

In Year 3, we learnt about how magnets work during our Science lesson this week. We made predictions about the strength of magnets and what parts of a magnets repel and attract. Then we carried out fair tests to investigate our predictions.

Year 4

In Year 4, we have been looking at using ambitious vocabulary to level-up our writing. We have been working on developing our skills of using a thesaurus to find synonyms.

Year 5

Year 5 has commenced their swimming lessons with remarkable progress evident among all students.

The presentation of the Benin bronzes was also a great success, pleasing parents who were delighted to witness the culmination of our collective efforts!

Year 6 Band Project Tea Party Recital 2024

Yesterday on Thursday 21st March our fantastic Y6 students took to the stage for our annual Y6 Tea Party Recital event. This term as part of the Band Project Programme, the students have formed smaller ensembles and learnt pieces of music of their choice in preparation for the event. They showed courage, mastery and superb performance skills to hold their own in the stage, and enjoyed a fantastic selection of cakes after the event.

Thank you to the fantastic audience of parents and family members, and to everyone that provided cakes for the event. We would also like to thank our fantastic instrumental teachers who support the Band Project lessons and run the instrumental lessons, which enable our students to access such a brilliant opportunity and to perform with such confidence.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at the Peacock Theatre

A group of students from Year 7-Year 9 attended the coming of age musical ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie musical at the Peacock Theater.

A student in Year 8 said, “This is the second I have attended the Theatre, I loved that show. It was awesome. I understand that it is all about being yourself and chasing your dreams”.

Another student said “The songs and dances are now totally stuck in your head, the characters are so cool and relatable. Ms. are we going to come back and watch it again?”

Another student said the show was exhilarating and fun. And another said “Ms. that will be me on stage in the next 6 years”.

The performance ended with some of our students meeting the cast and telling them how inspiring they were. It was also lovely to get a compliment from a family sitting behind school 21 telling us that our students behaved incredibly well and were helpful and kind.

Year 7

Y7 Clay Project group have been working hard this term to plan, draft and redraft a pot for someone important to them. We have looked at artists that have been inspired by nature so we have used that and the person they love as influence for their designs. Some students even carved lovely heartfelt messages for their loved ones in their pots. This project has been all about making something for someone else and how we can make something selflessly for others. What a lovely group and excellent work all term! Cant wait to see them once they are out the kiln. Well done potters!

This week, the Year 7 Food Technology project class researched healthy yet tasty pre-packed snacks that they could sell in the ‘School21’ tuck shop, which we envisage opening during break times for the school community. The students also learned how to make cheese and tomato pinwheels, a quick and easy snack to prepare.

Year 8

Earlier this term our Dance projects class immersed themselves in a workshop with the legendary Jonzi D, who came in to work with year 8s and discuss options for students interested in art (Graffitti), dance, music, english and more after GCSEs.

In the workshop Jonzi and Niquelle the artistic director at the new Sadlers Well East’s Academy Breaking Convention used a mixture of hip hop dance and music as well as beatboxing and rhyming which ended in students creating mini musicals retelling classic stories such as the 3 little pigs and my highlight Jonzi freestyling with a very talented year 8 student.

Also this half term, Year 8 have been exploring the topic of electricity and magnetism in their science lessons. Last week, we did some hands on learning with static electricity, watching a Van de Graaf generator in action giving Ms Kyrk a new look, and generating our own with balloons, hole punches and our hair!

In their Food technology lesson this week, the Year 8 Food Technology students learned how to make a pasta dish. This term, they are studying a project on learning how to cook predominantly savoury snacks and main meals.

Year 9

This week, Year 9 Food Technology students completed their final assessment for the Project ‘International Cuisine’. They were expected to design and produce a balanced main course dish for a teenager. The students made impressive dishes from around the world, showcasing their creativity and confidence in cooking skills.

Year 10

This week, Year 10 Hospitality and Catering students designed and shaped a basic dough into different shapes to create bread rolls.

Year 11 & Year 13

Take a look at our weekly 'Steps to Success' updates (Easter break interventions) booklet HERE. The booklet includes the following:

Year 11 Subject topic list
Year 13 Subject topic list
Tool kit for parents
Revision tip of the week (this week's tip is mind maps)
Candidate Exam Booklet

All students have been given a ‘Countdown to Mocks’ which provides them with the exact revision needed from each department. We are suggesting that students should be completing 3-4 blocks of 25 minutes of revision a night.

Year 13

This week Yr13 Historians visited the People’s History Museum in Manchester. The museum immersed them into the struggle for democracy in Britain, 1789-1955, expanding their knowledge on key individuals and key acts.