It has been a humbling experience for me this week to witness the generosity and good will of our pupils and staff as they celebrated the build up to Christmas by exploring the themes of giving, looking after each other and helping others. There are too many special moments that have happened for me to mention here but those involved, you know who you are. So to give you a flavour of the Christmas spirit that has gripped New Bridge this week, I’ll hand you over to our wonderful Mr Hanif who led our Super Learning Day on Thursday, supported by our amazing staff team..

The theme for the Autumn Super Learning Day was ‘giving’. The morning started with an assembly and we explored the idea of giving, whether this is gifts, time or companionship. We all finished by giving each other a high five and a handshake, which bought a smile to everyone’s face.

Pupils then went back to class and explored giving through a number of religions. The classes then spent the morning making kindness calendars, putting on acts of kindness they could do during the day or throughout the next year, and other gifts..

We also launched a Shoebox Appeal earlier in the month. As some of our young people will be in hospital over the Christmas holiday, we thought it would be nice to make some presents for those children at Manchester Children’s Hospital. The response has been overwhelming and we manged to make a huge number of boxes for the hospital. I would personally like to thank all the young people, parents, carers and staff for all their generous donations. These things can’t happen without everyone’s kindness and generosity..

We have been lucky enough to go and drop the presents off at Manchester Children’s Hospital today. We were kindly invited onto Joseph’s ward at the hospital and were able to donate the presents in person. Some of the young people from Joseph’s class went as well and we were met by Joseph’s parents and some of his nurses from the hospital, who were extremely grateful for the gifts as sadly a large number of children will have to spend their time in hospital over Christmas..

As part of the Super Learning Day, the Activ8 pathway chose to donate their time to the less fortunate people on the streets of Manchester. The young people on the pathway created a number of care packages which they then spent the day distributing to people across Manchester City Centre..

The Super Learning Day also encouraged healthy bodies and minds – the staff and young people rowed all the way to Lapland! Mr Smith has been keeping a tally of how many miles we managed to row, although I’m not quite sure we managed the whole 2200 miles..

The Creative Arts team also got in on the act and we practised Christmas Carols in the morning and showcased them as a whole school in the afternoon. The afternoon culminated in New Bridge School’s own version of the Christmas Markets. This including the selling of items made by the Nurture Group…

There were plenty of refreshments for everyone including a hot dog stall, a cakes and biscuit stall as well as a drinks stall (only soft drinks though, despite staff requests for something stronger).

All in all a brilliant day for everyone! A huge thank you to the whole staff team, these days would not happen without your continued hard work and dedication to the young people.

Our eagerly awaited Christmas dinner was another highlight of the week thanks to the efforts of the staff, in particular Mr Fieldhouse and our fantastic kitchen team..

A few special mentions to add before I finish. Firstly, our Carol Singers, led by Ms Wilson, took to the foyer of a local supermarket to entertain the customers and staff. Well done to everyone involved..

Second goes to our Sarah who has been on work experience at the Forget Me Not charity shop in Royton where she has clearly impressed the staff, as she has been given a part time voluntary post in which she will work every Sunday. Brilliant job Sarah.

Third mention goes to Mr Thompson’s talent show, an annual event on the last day of term and an opportunity for budding performers and singers to belt out their favourite tunes to a packed audience of pupils and staff. Big shout out goes to Saifin who, having composed his own rap earlier in the week, bravely performed it in front of everyone. Amazing effort Saifin.

Mr Smith also awarded Robyn a trophy and a Man City t-shirt for being the most outstanding girl footballer at New Bridge!

Finally, we were visited by Mr Claus himself on Friday, who promptly zoomed around the school giving out gifts to those of us who are still true believers! Thank you for the visit Santa, hope all goes to plan next week – I’ll be sure to leave you out a sherry and mince pie.

Which just leaves me to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and I look forward to seeing you all again in 2019.

Gavin

You can find Dawn’s blog for the Learning Centre here

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