February - St Johns | Catholic School for the Deaf
Transcription
February - St Johns | Catholic School for the Deaf
Page 1 Community Voice ST JOHN’S CATHOLIC SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF February 2014 Interfaith Week at St John’s We’re collecting! Inside this issue: RE News 2 SENSE Pom Pom Challenge 4 Internet Safety 5 Sports News 6 School News 7 Dates for your diary 8 COMMUNITY VOICE RE News—Interfaith Week Walking around our Kabah We celebrated Interfaith week this half term with a week of special themed assemblies. On Monday we travelled to Mecca to visit the Kabah and made a chain of thoughts and prayers. On Tuesday we went to the Buddhist Temple to bathe and offer lotus flowers to the baby Buddha. It was really calm in the chapel as the children meditated. Wednesday there was Hinduism and we donned CSI style suits, to celebrate Holi, the Festival of Colour, by throwing powder paint over the playground. On Thursday we looked at Judaism and shared a Passover meal with bread baked by the pupils. Here are some pictures of our activities. Meditation Page 2 Open Day for Families 25th April 11—3 Families are warmly invited to visit our centre of excellence in the oral education of deaf children Observe lessons Tour the school & residential facilities Talk with pupils and staff Visit audiology and speech and language therapy Contact Mandy Dowson to book on 01937 842144 The pupils shared home made bread, hummus and grapes as part of a Passover feast. Page 3 SENSE Pompom Challenge SENSE, the charity for deafblind people, has been holding a pompom challenge. Our pupils have risen to the challenge and the front office is a riot of colour. SENSE wants to collect as many pompoms as they can in any colour, any material, any size to raise awareness of sight and hearing loss and connect existing supporters and friends of Sense with new ones. When you have difficulties with both sight and hearing, other senses such as touch can become even more significant and friendship really counts. The charity supports a number of our pupils so we were delighted to be able to join in. Pictured L-R Alex, Dan, Mandy, Iman, Becky, Miles, Arbaaz and Tia St John’s School for the Deaf—Serrekunda, The Gambia The Gambian Schools Trust has now delivered all the books and resources we donated last year to St John’s School for the Deaf in Serrekunda, Gambia. They were thrilled! The school started in 1978 in Banjul and is part of the Catholic Secretariat. It moved to its current site in the 1990s. They have 256 pupils aged from 7 to 21, and like ourselves have small classes so that they can concentrate on learning. They get good results, and sometimes exceptional ones. They also do technical training to equip the pupils for work, such as metalwork, woodwork, art, and tailoring. As well as books, they need donations of material, thread and tools. The head teacher, Mr Mendy, studied Audiology at the University of London, and also spent some time at a hearing aid manufacturers. Their biggest problem (apart from money) is hearing aids. If they can get old ones they can make the earpiece as they have the only facility in the Gambia to make them. We are currently looking into the possibility of setting up a recycling scheme to help them, and also a similar project in India, in partnership with the Sylvia Wright Trust. Page 4 COMMUNITY VOICE Safer Internet Day 2014 At St John’s we place great emphasis on the online safety of our students, and two members of staff have been on CEOP courses (Child exploitation & online protection). National Safer Internet Day was 11th February, however at St John’s, we decided to spread the activities over an entire week to really get the message home to our students. The theme this year was ‘Let’s create a better internet together’. This theme covers the responsibility that all users have in making the internet a better place. Whether children and young people, parents and carers or educators, industry and policy makers, everyone has a role to play. In championing a better internet, it recognises the balance between encouraging users to embrace, and empowering them to make the most of, the positive opportunities offered online, while responding to, dealing with and moving past the negatives. At St John’s we concentrated on how children and young people can help. Children and young people can help to create a better internet by being kind and respectful to others online and seeking positive and safe opportunities to create, engage and share online, particularly when using social media sites such as facebook and snapchat. Parents and carers can help to create a better internet by maintaining an open and honest dialogue with their children about their online lives, supporting them with their online activity (as appropriate to their age), particularly any concerns and issues, and seeking out positive opportunities to share with their children online. They can help to respond to the negative by modelling positive online behaviours themselves, and also by reporting any inappropriate or illegal content they find. Educators and social care workers can help to empower children and young people to embrace the positive by equipping them with the digital literacy skills they require for today’s world, and giving them opportunities to use – and create – positive content online. They can help to respond to the negative by supporting young people if they encounter problems online, and by giving them the confidence and skills to seek help from others. http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/safer-internet-day/2014 School policy on internet use St John’s uses LEA approved internet web content filtering software on the school network. This gives a high degree of protection and means our pupils cannot access sites such as Facebook or YouTube. The school’s own Facebook page is only used to promote school events such as open days, or celebrate pupil achievement, and only two members of staff have administrator rights. Social Media We have always promoted the school and pupils’ achievements in newspapers, and the school blog and newsletters. As an extension of this, to coincide with the launch of the new website, we would now like to include the newer medium of social media, specifically the official school Facebook page and Twitter feed. @stjohns4thedeaf All our publicity is intended to celebrate pupils’ successes and make the work we do here at St John’s known to a wider audience. Using social media is an effective way to help us build upon this and encourage new families to consider St John’s when choosing the right school for their child. Search “St John’s Catholic School for the Deaf” to view the page. Page 5 Sporting News Indoor Caving A special open day was attended by some of our pupils at the new indoor Caving Centre at Leeds Sailing and Outdoor Centre. After not quite knowing what to expect, the pupils had a great time crawling through the dark caves and tight tunnels without the damp, wet, cold conditions of real caves. A great experience for some of our pupils who do not normally participate in such activities. Pictured are Tom, Thomas, Jack and Arbaaz. West Yorkshire Disability Football A mixed team of secondary pupils represented the school at the Disability Football event in Huddersfield. It proved to be a great day out with some good football being played and great team spirit shown by all. The team played four games, winning two and narrowly being beaten in the other two meaning they finished 3rd in the group, with all players receiving medals for their efforts. Hopefully this will now become a regular event in the calendar so we can look forward to a rematch. The team was Ryan, Tom, Miles, Colby, John, James, Bailey, Suriya and Arbaaz. A new event in the sporting calendar this term has been the Junior Swimming Gala, which was attended by our Year 9 pupils. With each pupil entering 2 events, we had a very enjoyable and successful day. Demi led the way with a 1st in 25m freestyle with Michaela 2nd in the same event, but a different race. Erin came 1st in the 50m backstroke and 2nd in the 50m freestyle. Catherine came 3rd in 25m backstroke, and Rebecca was 3rd in both the 50m Breaststroke and 50m freestyle. Well done girls! John Charles Aquatics Centre Leeds Derby National Deaf Football Competition Top: Tia, Nikita, Victoria, Lyla, Lara & Megan Below: Louis, James, Ellis, Liam, Peter, Bailey, Jonathan and Uzair Last week saw the much anticipated annual National Deaf schools football competition in Derby. It is the main event in most of the pupils’ calendar, and one which they talk about all year! This year we took a senior boys and girls team to represent the school. The boys were put in a very strong group against competition from all over the country. They eventually finished 4th with 2 wins, 1 draw and 2 narrow defeats . The girls played in a larger league playing against 8 other teams, and finished in a very successful 3rd position. They won 2 games, drew 5 and lost 1. All of the games for both teams were close affairs and everyone battled well. After the days efforts the mini bus was very quiet for the journey home! Well done to Megan, Nikita, Tia, Lara, Lyla, Victoria, Ellis, Louis, Liam, Bailey, Jonathan, James, Peter and Uzair. Page 6 COMMUNITY VOICE Robot Arm Competition Mike Smith, our Electronics tutor held a small competition after school for the residential pupils. Arbaaz, John, Hollie, Lyla, Lily and Jack all entered. They had to control a robotic arm via a computer mouse to pick up 7 wooden blocks and carefully place them on top of each other without knocking them over, against the clock. The other pupils watched but had to remain quiet and not interrupt the roboteer. Interestingly they were better during practice but felt the competition stress and blocks were knocked over in the final. The eventual winner was Lyla who made the whole tower in the correct place narrowly beating Jack—well done to both of them. Trips to the Theatre Mrs Skalski and Pete from Care took Year 7 to the West Yorkshire Playhouse to see Jungle Book. The performance was amazing and the children loved it. A BIG thank you to Helen On 9th January the residential pupils visited Harrogate Theatre to see the pantomime Sleeping Beauty. It was Ellie’s birthday, and Helen from Care managed to arrange for the cast to sing happy birthday to her! Well done and thank you to Helen for making Ellie’s evening. Year 10 Work Experience Just a quick reminder to return the permission slips allowing your child to go on a work experience placement. School has contacts with a number of companies in the local area who provide work experience. However, many parents prefer to arrange their child’s placement themselves with an employer they know in their home area as it can sometimes lead to a Saturday or holiday job . If you would like to do this, please can you let Lisa Robinson the school Work ExperiencePage 7 Co-ordinator know as soon as possible so we can do the health and safety checks—these can take up to 3 months to get back so the earlier they are in the better. [email protected] 100 Club St John’s run a 100 Club to raise funds for the extras that make school trips more fun and exciting. For £15.00 per year you can be a member. You may have more than one member per family if you wish. Each month (excluding August) we will have a draw. 1st prize will be £20, 2nd prize will be £15 and 3rd prize will be £10. Also twice a year in July and December there will be an extra prize of £50. ‘100 Club’ Winners January Winners Mrs Dohery £20 Mrs Crellin £15 Mrs Bradbury £10 If you would like to support this and become a member please contact the school office for more information. @stjohns4thedeaf School Trips This summer our Year 10 students will be heading off to Rome on May 12th for 5 days. Once the exams are over, our Year 11 students will enjoy a well earned break in France from June 30th to July 4th. Dates for your diary - Y9 Parents Information Day 14th March - School closed for TRAINING DAY 3rd April - School closes 12.30pm for Easter holidays 22nd April - School re-opens 25th April - Open Day for Families 11-3 pm 26th April - Secondary Parents Day 5th May - May Bank Holiday 23rd May - School closes at 2.55 for Half Term Holidays 2nd June - School re-opens 6th June - Open Day for Professionals 11-3 pm 27th June - School closed for TRAINING DAY 28th June - Garden Fete 1-4 pm 9th July - Primary Parents Evening 4 pm 24th July - School closes 12.30pm for Summer Holidays ST JOHN’S C ATHOLI C SC HOOL FOR THE D EAF Church Street Boston Spa Phone: 01937 842144 Fax: 01937 541471 www.stjohns.org.uk 13th March all new website yet? - School re-opens Have you looked at our 24th February