Noadswood Weekly Bulletin week commencing 3rd february 2025

Events coming up

February

10th Brockenhurst College Cooking Event

10th Lights Camera Action

10th Year 11 Brockenhurst college Interviews

11th Year 11 Brockenhurst college interviews

11th KS3 & 4 Gym festival

12th Options evening for Year 9

14th Wear Something different day

14th Save a Heart Day with Air Ambulance – places must have been pre-booked

14th Year 7 & 8 PSA Disco

17th HALF TERM HOLIDAY for 1 week

24th All students return to school

24th Kinda Week (all week)

28th Year 11 BTEC Child Development trip

Message from the Leadership Team

Dear Noadswood families,

We have some highlights of an excellent week of enrichment and professional development at Noadswood to share with you as we reach another weekend. We’d like to start by thanking the History department and especially Miss Rawlinson who took over 40 historians to attend the ‘Doctors Show’ produced by the History Scene. This was an invaluable trip for our historians exploring medicine through time. I bumped into one of the students as the trip got back, who said it was genuinely both useful and enjoyable; it’s great when we can bring subjects to life like that.

Miss Skinner and Mrs Way also took a group of students to Fawley for an event that focused on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) and career opportunities down at ESSO. The opportunity to view the site and learn more about what actually happens there, as well as consider future opportunities impressed the students, and we thank everyone involved for a good day.

Miss Clews, our Careers Lead, writes below about the successful assemblies with Year 9 and 10 from SETA, Southampton Engineering Training Association, giving our students real insight into apprenticeship opportunities in our local area. Both year groups did us proud and I am grateful to Miss Clews and Mr Lewis for setting up this opportunity for them, because apprenticeships really can launch incredibly successful careers, as many of you will know.

We will have doubtlessly heard from former students whose apprenticeships have sprung them into great success in the superb response we have had to our ‘Awesome Alumni’ project, and we are delighted to feature our first one this week. Maybe you know someone who came here, or you did yourself, and you’d be happy to share something of your story to inspire our students for life after Noadswood? This is a powerful community and our young people would learn so much from your experience.

Another current student to celebrate now: our congratulations to Declan, who became the Southern indoor athletic Champion, a few weeks back, competing at Lee Valley track, London in the 60m sprint. It was the SEAA championship with 4 heats, 2 semi-finals and then the final at 8:40pm - a long day, and Dec sustained an injury in the process, but he showed that stickability to win! He also came 2nd in the long jump. Like his club, we are sending him a big cheer and we are very proud. Maybe your child has achieved something outside of school, something small but important, something musical or sporty, or creative or just kind? We love to hear about it and we can share it here, celebrate in school, quietly, or both. It's just great for the students to know – I and we are so proud of their efforts as people.

There are no great schools without great staff. and so we always strive to model a commitment to our own learning that we expect and applaud in our students. In that spirit, a group of Noadswood staff were this week involved in some brilliant professional learning led by Kit Messenger based on her book ‘Curious Not Furious: Empowering children to take charge of their brains and behaviour - a practical toolkit.’ We have been learning more about how young people's brains work and how we can help them to be at their brain best, rather than making assumptions about how they show up. The better they and we understand ourselves and our reactions, the better able we are to relate brilliantly to one another and make progress. There is always more to learn about this, in this challenging world young people are growing up in, that’s for certain.

Still on professional development, we’d also like to congratulate Miss Walker for successfully completing her National Professional Qualification (NPQ) in ‘Leading Literacy’. Miss Walker alongside Mrs Preston takes a lead on whole school literacy interventions. If you are worried or you wonder about your child's reading or writing or have a question that you’d like to ask, please contact Miss Walker - ewalker@noadswood.hants.sch.uk or Mrs Preston - cpreston@noadswood.hants.sch.uk

This week sees the launch of 'Love Your Library' month (when we love our Library even more than we usually do!), in the run-up to World Book Day on Thursday March 6th.

This year we have a Bookmark Competition, and Design a Pin Badge for World Book Day competition, as well as one of our ever-popular Raffles. We’d like to thank our Learning Resource Manager, Mrs Eldridge for all that she does, from making our library the heart of the school, to clubs, to library leaders, to competitions and working alongside teachers, we know that the Noadswood family are so lucky to have her!

Don't forget to book your space for the 'Save A Heart' Air Ambulance lifesaving skills and CPR training on 14th February, which will be held in Our Lovely Library!