newsletter - easter 2017 - north ridge high...

Head Teacher Bernice Kostick / Deputy Head Teacher Gill Foord

http://www.northridge.manchester.sch.uk

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Newsletter - Easter 2017

Welcome to our Easter 2017 newsletter! I hope you enjoy

reading about the work our staff and pupils have been doing this

term.

Staff: Miss Fitzgerald left school last week. We wish her the very best

of luck in her new job. Miss Opoku leaves at the end of the week and we

wish her the very best of luck.

Congratulations to Miss Bradford who is getting married this week.

We have 3 new teaching assistants starting after the Easter Break; Mrs

Boniface and Mrs Graham will be in class Scott and Miss Fraser will be in

class Tenzing.

Pupil activity: I hope you enjoy reading about the many varied activities

your children have been involved in this term. A big thank you to Mr

Mullineux for organising Comic relief with the Duke of Edinburgh group.

Please remember to check out our school website for up to date

information about school.

Don’t forget to visit our café and shop on the Abraham Moss site. This

enterprise is run by our sixth form students. I think it’s better than

some very well-known coffee shops!!



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School Developments

Some pupils will be attending our Easter play scheme for the first

week of the holiday. Thank you to Gareth Hall and team for

organising all the fun activities.

Our focus this term has been to develop reading, Film it and Cook

it. Hopefully you have enjoyed the lovely food pupils have been

taking home!

We plan to hold a Big Tea Party for parents, pupils and staff on

Friday 12th May at 1.30pm.

The school calendar for 2016/17 has now been agreed by Governors

and is published on the school website

REMINDER OF SCHOOL PROCEDURES

We ask that all drivers co-operate and drive at a safe slow speed when

dropping off or picking up from school. We also ask that drivers are

mindful where they park so that pupils are safe when they are dropped

off.

A MEMBER OF THE LEADERSHIP TEAM WILL BE PRESENT TO

GUIDE YOU WHEN PARKING PLEASE CO-OPERATE AT ALL TIMES.

Pupils are required to wear full school uniform - please ensure that

your child is dressed appropriately when they come to school.

Please keep your children safe during holiday time by monitoring their

use of mobile phones, tablets and use of the internet. We will be

holding a workshop the first week back on Thursday 27th April at

9.15am to discuss our sex relationship education sessions with

parents to help support learning.

Easter assembly is on Friday 7th April 2017 at 1.30pm. School will

close after the assembly and reopen on Monday 24th April 2017.

Thank you for your continued support. On behalf of the staff I wish

all pupils and their families a very happy Easter break.

Bernice Kostick



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Bernice Kostick

Happy Easter, From Class Nightingale

Class Nightingale had a very productive term. Students in their

new placements at North Manchester General Hospital have learnt

the new roles and built great relationships with the NHS staff.

Not only have they continued to shine in their individual work

placements, they have worked very hard towards their ASDAN

award.



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This half term, Class Henson have been learning about where we live. We have

been exploring different types of building materials for houses.

In maths the children have been learning about and exploring different shapes.

During this term we joined in the fun and dressed up for World

Book Day. We enjoyed lots of fun activities and shared our

favourite stories.



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Since returning to school from the Christmas

holidays our students have been working incredibly

hard in our shop, 2nd Handmade. They have created a

range of quality Valentines and Easter gifts. Our

young people take great pride in their work and get

an immense sense of satisfaction seeing a product

they have made chosen for purchase by a customer.

The input they have given into gift ideas and production has been

fantastic and it has been empowering for all the students to contribute

and sell the wonderful items they have created.

We hope you can come down and look around for yourselves and to see

the student’s enjoy responsibility, whilst developing the skill to adapt to

real life social interactions and gain invaluable work experience. You will

without a doubt pick up some great bargains at our shop and a wonderful

customer service from school and its students.

From all the staff & students at 2nd Handmade have a great Easter!



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Soft Play With Maths This half term, Class MacArthur has accessed soft play

as part of Maths. We have been busy looking at patterns and learning all about

position and direction. Blue and Green Group have been using the balls and ball

pool. They have made patterns using two, three or four different colours. Red

group have been learning about position and direction.

World Book Day 2017

We celebrated World Book Day on Friday 10th March 2017. In Class

MacArthur we read a book called ‘I don’t want curly hair’. We made curly hair

pictures using wool and ribbon. Class MacArthur dressed up as characters from

their favourite story. We had lots of fun as you can see from our photographs!!

Percy the Pug

We really enjoyed a visit from ‘Percy the Pug’. We got to stroke

Percy and have our picture taken with him. Percy’s owner told us

all about what Percy likes to eat and how he likes to be stroked

gently on his head.



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This term our topic has been

‘Where We Live’. We have been

learning about different kinds of

homes all around the world. We

have been finding out what our

homes look like and where our

families come from.

As part of the topic we

invited families into school to

cook some family foods with

us. We have made pizza,

tarte-de-nata, cheese salad

wraps, biriyani and curry.

We had lots of fun cooking with

families in school. We explored

lots of different smells and

tastes and we practised our

cooking skills.



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Busy hands make light work and it is a big job preparing

the ground for this year’s planting. Classes have begun

the weeding process and planting seeds. It won’t be long

until we see shoots for vegetables to nurture over the

summer term. In the meantime we can enjoy seeing last

year’s hard work bulb planting with these gorgeous

flowers like crocuses and tulips in our playground.



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This term in English we have been doing lots of

guided reading, sentence building and phonics

work. Our topics for this term have been Charlie

and the Chocolate Factory, and information

texts.

This half term pupils have been

practicing their life skills by

making healthy snacks. Pupils have

learned how to chop safely and

follow a recipe with step by step

instructions.

The class favourite was fruit

smoothies made in our new Nutri

Bullet’s!

We hope you have a great Easter!

From class Tenzing

We took part in internet

safety day. We learned

about what is safe to look

at on the internet. We

completed a quiz using the

iPad to test our knowledge!



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Class Ross have had a fantastic Spring term. All of the pupils have

worked really hard. Here are two of our favourite activities from this

half term.

Science

In science, we have been learning all about plants. We have enjoyed

dissecting plants and labelling the different parts. We investigated what

plants need to live and how to help them grow.

Maths

In maths we have been developing our skills in measurement. We have

taken part in lots of practical activities to investigate and compare

weight, capacity and size.

Class Ross pupils and staff wish you a fun and relaxing Easter break!



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DR ABC

In our PHSCE lessons we have

been learning about personal

safety. We learnt basic first

aid by using DR ABC. We were

all really good at this and hope

that we would be able to help in

a real life emergency with our

new skills.

Vocational

On Thursdays all Key

Stage 4 students take

part in a range of

vocational activities. The

activities include:

Grow it

Cook it

Work experience

Museum trips

Life skills



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In maths this term we have been learning about division. We have been

practicing sharing and dividing into equal groups and then writing our

number sums

This term in History our topic has been ‘The Ancient Egyptians’. We’ve learned

how important the River Nile was to the Ancient Egyptians and we’ve also been

learning about mummification - even finding out how to do it ourselves! We

made some papyrus paper and painted Tutankhamun’s death mask on it.

In Carousel and in DT we have been getting plenty of cooking practice. We’ve

made delicious pizzas, pasta and cakes.



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Class Mallory

Class Mallory have had a fantastic Spring Term. We have all worked very hard and produced

some lovely work. We have been doing some fantastic reading and answering questions about

the stories we have read.

In Ask It we have been looking at different stimuli and learning how to ask and answer

questions relating to it. We have explored different pieces of equipment to help us with

our work. We have enjoyed taking part in these sessions.

In Life Skills one of our topics this term has been Skills for Work. We explored

hygienic and practical skills around the home. We have been developing these skills in

the school bungalow every week.

In RE we have been looking at celebrations. We have covered the importance of festivals in

the Jewish and Christian community. We explored Rosh Hashanah the Jewish New Year

festival. We ate a slice of apple dipped in honey. Jewish people do this to express their

hopes for a sweet and fruitful year.



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World Book Day

For World Book Day Class

Flinders read the story

Grandad’s Island. It was a

brilliant story that we all

enjoyed listening to and

talking about.

Grow It

Class Flinders have been working hard in both

Science and Carousel to learn all about plants and

how they grow. We have been growing lots of

different plants in our classroom and planted some

outside in the school allotment!



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Healthy Eating

This half term the pupils have learnt how to prepare and cook different

meals in Cook It. They have all enjoyed preparing and cooking a variety of

dishes.

E Safety Role Plays

Class Fiennes planned and created some role plays about the importance of

keeping safe online. The pupils showed excellent team work as they

developed their role plays and their message is very important.

Never accept messages from strangers online.

Aboriginal Art

We have been inspired by Aboriginal art this half term. The pupils have

created mixed media compositions, choosing from a variety of materials

including paint, pastels, felt tips and tissue paper.



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English

In our English lessons we have been learning

about The Jungle Book. We learnt about

Mowgli, the man cub who was raised by the

wolves. We have been using adjectives to

describe the characters and what was

happening in the story. We have been

starting to write our own adventure stories.

Science

In Science we have been looking at how oil

viscosity affects the speed of a car. We

completed an experiment where we used a

toy race car to go down a race track which

had different types of oil on it to see how

this affected the speed.

Work Experience

On Thursdays, some pupils go to the

Beefeater, Heaton Park for their work

experience placement. They work very hard

completing various jobs! These include:

setting the tables, washing pots, greeting

customers and taking orders.



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Class Armstrong

really enjoyed

taking part in

Comic Relief.

Students came

dressed to

impressed with

red items of

clothing which

they paid 50p to

wear in school.

All proceeds were

donated to comic

relief.

Students from class

Armstrong also took

part in a radio

karaoke session.

Students were able

to pick their

favourite song to

sing along to whilst

it was broadcasted

to the rest of the

school.

A good day was had

by all and lots of

money raised for a

good cause.



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Class baker has been learning about healthy life styles. We have made smoothies and we did

lots of exercise in the gym.

We have been making Easter arts and craft in religious education. We ripped some

tissue paper up and stuck it down on different images.

In English we have been learning about the London Blitz during World War 2. We have

explored facts and different objects reference that relate to the London blitz.

In maths we have been learning about money and exploring the different types of coins.



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Our students have been getting out and

about for their ASDAN work in Sixth Form

this term. This has included trips to the

local library, local shops and Sure Start

Centre.



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Attendance

This term pupils have been working hard to come into school on time,

every day. Pupils who have reached 100% attendance received an

individual attendance certificate, a whole class attendance certificate

and will take part in a special treat when they return to school after the

Easter holidays.

This Spring term, a big well done for those pupils who attended every

sensibly and achieved all their lunchtime club

behaviour targets.

These pupils have received a certificate and will attend a special

celebration morning after the Easter holidays with treats!!

Pupils who achieved 100% attendance since the start of this

academic year are going to be placed into the big prize draw at

the end of this year for a special prize!!



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As part of this year’s Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award program the

pupils organised and ran this year’s Comic Relief Fun Day.

The events took four forms:

Wear something red

Sponsored Sing-a-thon

North Ridge Bake Off

Pie the Teacher

Singathon

Starting at 9am, pupils took over the school radio room and sang live on

air throughout the day. The best of Ed Sheeran, One Direction, Drake

and many others rang out across the airways as the pupil’s voices echoed

around school.

North Ridge Bake Off

Pupils and staff got their aprons on and baked their prize cakes to be

judged by our expert team. Once the winner had been decided the cakes

went on sale in our pop up shop, ran by the DofE pupils, much to the

enjoyment of everyone.



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Pie the Teacher

This was the event that appeared to attract the most interest from the

pupils and staff. Four unlucky members of staff; Mr Mullineux, Mr

Errock, Miss Pumphrey & Mr Smith where voted by the school to face

the challenge. Pupils bought raffle tickets and had their chance to “pie

the teachers”! They didn’t let their school friends down, making sure

each of the four teachers were well and truly covered.

The day was a great success and great fun, ending with a

grand total of £370 being raised.

A big thank for your support on the day and a big thank you

to all who organised and ran the event!

newsletter - easter 2017 - north ridge high...

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