It has been quite a bittersweet time for us here in school this week. On Monday we were very sad to learn that one of our Interactive Base pupils, Muhammad Samuel, passed away at the weekend following a long period of illness. Losing a valued and well-loved member of our community has been an upsetting time for the pupils and members of the team that knew him best. We know, however, that he passed peacefully surrounded by his family and friends who loved him dearly and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time. It’s important to us that we don’t forget the many happy times spent with Samuel here at New Bridge, so to help us to honour his memory our IB team will soon be leading a short service supported by his classmates.

As always though, life continues and this was the week that The Greatest Show finally arrived here in school featuring amazingly talented performers from schools across our Trust. The cast performed no less than six sold out performances across the week and received a standing ovation every night. It was a fantastically uplifting show that led you on an emotional rollercoaster and left you truly inspired by the hard work and dedication of the children and young people and incredibly proud of their achievement in putting on such a brilliant performance.

Thank you to all the families and friends of the school for coming along and supporting the show, your participation as audience members only added to the electric atmosphere each night and I know the children and young people always love performing in front of you. A big thank you to all the staff from both New Bridge School and across the Trust, whose hard work behind the scenes over many months, brought to fruition the vision to hold our first ever Trust wide show. I think for both the cast and the crew, the Bank Holiday weekend couldn’t have come at a better time! I hope you all enjoy a well-earned rest. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with some pictures which will hopefully bring back some happy memories of earlier this week..

I am delighted to bring you news from Miss Silvester’s class of Joseph who is continuing his recovery..

Joseph has been reintegrating into our group, via a series of transition days, since February. His transition has gone really well, after his long illness. He is enjoying being back with his friends and his teachers and they have all been very glad to have him back..

Joseph is engaging really well and joining in with the rest of the group. He is extending his hours with us and his transition has been a great success. We’ve even had him wearing his glasses during lessons!

It is wonderful to have Joseph back in school, we have all missed him.

Miss Dunkerley has an update for us now from the Science department..

In Science, some of the students have really enjoyed carrying out practical work and developing their fine motor skills..

Other groups have been developing their design skills, building and testing parachutes, developing a working windmill and looking at car designs for the most streamlined. Year 7 have been looking at adaptations in plants and animals and what they need to survive, while other students have been looking at pollution and how this affects the environment.

The pond in our Science garden is now home to some very lively tadpoles. The pupils have been able to get a closer look under the microscope and we will be showing you some fascinating footage next week (don’t worry, the tadpole in question returned unharmed to the pond).

Enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend and I look forward to welcoming you to Parents’ Evening on Wednesday.

Gavin

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

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Click here to read this week’s news from Graham

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