Another great week at New Bridge has flown past! At last week’s school assembly we spoke to the young people about the ‘small things’ that make a difference. We talked about being kind and helpful, smiling and saying something nice about someone. Discussions like this have a real impact and the children respond very well, so this week we continued with the same message ‘small things make a difference’ but this time with the emphasis on behaviour. We talked about the school rules, and why it is important to wear the correct uniform, line up outside classrooms quietly, walk on the left hand side of the corridor and not bring chewing gum into school. Our young people respond positively to boundaries as it provides them with a safe framework to operate within.

Our older students have been sharing their experiences of working on some of our Key Stage 5 pathways with us. In assembly at school this morning Mr Bright showed us a promotional trailer created by the students in Digit4ll, our IT pathway. It gives a flavour of the topics they cover including creative media and technical support and it will be available on the New Bridge Facebook page here next week – definitely worth a quick view. Digit4ll have recently been awarded a grant from the Karten Foundation which will be invested in state-of-the-art video production equipment, so we can look forward to plenty more high quality material produced by our young people.

Our existing New Bridge Printers enterprise which is run by our young people had a very busy time before Christmas and successfully printed canvases, t-shirts, mugs and a variety of other items. They are very proud of their £900 turnover – a fantastic achievement, thank you all for your tremendous support! Don’t forget that orders can be placed throughout the year, so if you are looking for a perfect present for someone special please get in touch with us here.

Year 13 students at the Learning Centre were given a taste of what our Year 14 ‘Bridging the Gap’ students have been doing on their placements at the Royal Oldham Hospital. Who better to tell them what working life is really like there and answer lots of questions than our ‘Bridging the Gap’ students themselves..

Letters will be going home to Year 13 families next week inviting them to a meeting where they will be able to hear first hand what ‘Bridging the Gap’ entails and the opportunities it can offer our young people.

This week has seen our student councils getting the year off to a flying start. The school council met this week with representation from our governors and we were very proud of the contribution our young people made to the democratic process. We discussed charities and open evenings for new parents as well as items from the national agenda such as ‘Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week and ‘Safer Internet Day.

Student voice is an integral part of Learning Centre life and concerns raised by student representatives at the previous meeting have led to a number of actions including the installation of brighter lighting outside the Learning Centre and alterations to the entrance which have made it easier for our students using wheelchairs.

We know that our students have a great sense of care and consideration for others, we see it in the way they support each other on a daily basis, so it should come as no surprise that this is reflected in the areas they covered in the meeting. The council agreed that we should continue to support both ‘Children in Need’ and ‘Comic Relief’, and student representatives are going to speak to fellow students to canvas opinion on which other charity they wish to support. They also discussed fundraising ideas for our own organisation which they felt was important – please watch this space!

The students suggested reporting back the relevant issues from meetings to fellow students within our Learning Centre assemblies. We would like to thank all our Student Councillors for their continued hard work and commitment. Mohammed from Year 14 deserves a special mention for being the first student to ‘bite the bullet’ and address the whole Learning Centre – he spoke with clarity and eloquence, well done!

An important update to finish with: ‘Hitch’,  the Learning Centre’s resident crow, seems to be enjoying his spell in the limelight and has now brought along a friend!

We hope you have a lovely weekend,

Judith and Dawn

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