Goodness, what a week! We have managed to pack in teacher lesson observations, a basketball tournament in Trafford and Oldham’s Local Area SEND Review with an inspector and HMI visiting New Bridge….all alongside running the normal school day. It has been very full on!

‘Wow moments’ make our week and this week was no exception, with Miss Silvester’s class impressing us all. The group have developed their signing and singing skills and produced an amazing rendition of ‘I can sing a rainbow’. It bought tears to Mrs Lamb’s eyes and a smile to her face..

The group have been working hard on their signing too..

Although Miss Silvester has a Year 9 class, they were joined by one of our newest Year 7 pupils for the session and we were delighted by how confidently she settled into the group and thoroughly enjoyed herself – as you can see!

On Wednesday Mr Lawrence and Mr Smith took a group to Manor Academy in Sale where they competed with schools from across the Greater Manchester Area in a basketball tournament. As usual our players were a credit to the school, displaying fantastic teamwork and gamesmanship..

The competition was of a high calibre and all our pupils played very well, displaying good technique and showing skills they have been developing in their PE lessons. We had 2 teams in the competition, Team 1 with players from New Bridge and Hollinwood and Team 2 with players from Hollinwood and Spring Brook. Both teams showed fantastic teamwork and won the majority of their games. Team 1 just missed out on the semi finals on baskets scored while Team 2 made it all the way to the final, losing a well fought game against Egerton School..

The pupils were fortunate to meet Manchester Giants player David Akiri and show off their skills to him during the lunch break!!

Mr Lawrence would like to congratulate all the players who represented school and thank the staff who supported them on the day. Well done to everyone who took part!

Touch Down Dance were back in school on Friday working with Lumenus and the Key Stage 3 children with sensory needs. The group were in tune with their emotions, incorporating dance, movement and music. It looked wonderful, we will have to bring you pictures next week!

This week is the turn of our Maths department to share some of the work our young people have been doing across the school and Learning Centre, from our new Year 7s..

..to our students at the Learning Centre..

This Year 14 class have particularly enjoyed using the touchscreen to do their online shopping..

You can find out more about all the exciting work that’s taking place in Maths across our Trust here.

We often focus our attention on our key curriculum areas of literacy, numeracy, Living Skills and ICT which are, of course, important and the current round of lesson observations are part of our ongoing drive to continually improve our curriculum offer. However, we also work to support our young people in developing a wide range of personal and social skills. Our assemblies, Super Learning days, options, targeted individual and group interventions and our pastoral support systems all seek to promote the health and well-being of our young people, preparing them for their adult lives.

This week we have observed our young people showing care and support for others in several ways. The pupils in AB3, one of our Autism Base classes, have been concentrating on friendship this term and they have done some lovely work which you can read more about here..

A number of our Learning Centre students have handled some difficult situations in a calm and mature manner, showing just how far they have grown in self-confidence and maturity. As we mentioned in last week’s blog, we now have our Learning Centre student council in place and we are looking forward to sharing the outcomes of their meetings with you. We are considering including a regular student section within this blog and we will be asking the student council for their views at the next meeting. We’re sure they’ll have some interesting suggestions – watch this space!

Next week (9th-15th October) is SeeAbility Week where the charity comes together with local communities and partners to raise awareness and funds for SeeAbility’s life changing work. SeeAbility Week also includes World Sight Day on 12th October which just happens to coincide with the day that they will be helping to carry out the weekly eye tests at New Bridge! You can find out more about their partnership with us here and read about how they have helped Joseph..

This year, SeeAbility will be raising awareness for their work to prevent avoidable sight loss using the hashtag #GetYourGlassesOn – if you would like to get involved in raising awareness, they are asking people to take a selfie with your glasses, sunglasses, or wacky specs on and post it online on your social media at #GetYourGlassesOn You can find out more about the work SeeAbility do on their website here and we’ll bring you more news on World Sight Day next week.

Please could we remind parents and carers collecting students from the Learning Centre at the end of the day to park at the side or the back of the building. We appreciate that parking is tight whilst the building work continues but the spaces in the front parking bays are reserved for adapted buses and cars only. Thank you for your ongoing co-operation.

We hope you have a lovely weekend,

Judith and Dawn

For news on our Key Stage 5 pathway groups at Medtia Square please click here

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