October 2017

St

Ma

rtin

s N

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Welcome to our Autumn Newsletter!

The different groups in our school community have been

reflecting on what St Martins means to them. We have made

Wordles from everyone’s collective ideas. Connor from GLO

thoughtfully wrote that ’St Martins is your destiny’s path’.

Here are the Top 3 words from each Wordle –

Thanks to all those of you who contributed. You can see the

full Wordles at the top of the stairs in school.

I hope you enjoy reading about what each pastoral group has

been up to on the following pages…

Have a lovely relaxing half term holiday with your

wonderful children.

Debbie Gerring - Headteacher

Students Staff Parents and

Carers

Governors

Cool Family Friendly Supportive

Fun Learning Caring Inspirational

Happy Supportive Understanding Nurturing

Josh from GLO gorge walking in the Peak District

Attendance

Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 Year 12 Year 13

Sky James Lennon Matthew C Jamie Lewis Ally

Thomas Aaron Jamie Cindy Kieran Richard Harrison

Charley Josh C Tia Sufyaan Bradley William Cl Jack

Joe Zakary Arjan Michael Marcus William

Co Lilee-Rose

Sam H Fizaan Kristian Noah Lavina Matthew Matthew

Ellouise Krzysztof James Oliver Alex Adil Meghan

Evie Reidyn Leah Euan William Michael Ricky

Harry Dominic Jaden Cameron Brandon Azaid Kayleigh

Brooklyn Nathan Lukas

Charlie Josh T Thomas

Kiyomi Sammie Sean

Liam

Kelsey

Makenzie

Sam W

The following students have achieved an amazing 100%

attendance since the start of the academic year in

September. Well done!

Please remember to keep school informed if your child

is absent.

Celebration Day

In September, we spent a day celebrating our recent OFSTED

success. We hired a Fun Fair for the day and had dodgems, a

carousel, a climbing wall, a bouncy castle and a BBQ.

We were joined by more than 100 members of our school com-

munity - families, governors and people who work in school with

us. The Mayor of Derby, Councillor John Whitby came along, as

well as Derby South MP Margaret Beckett.

Dave Wells came out of retirement (for one afternoon only!) to

hand our Send My Friend to School jigsaws to Margaret Beck-

ett. Dave and the students talked with Margaret about the

campaign for children all over the world to be able to receive a

quality education.

Leah on the dodgems

Send My Friend to School presentation

KS3B ‘B’ most definitely stands for BRILLIANT!! What a start at St

Martins the Year 7s have had. We have worked hard in Maths and

English showing what we know and how clever we are. It has been fun

learning new things and getting to know each other.

We visited the Hindu Temple!

Our topic this half term has

been looking at religions,

specifically Hinduism. To learn

more about this we visited

their place of worship.

KS3C The Year 7 students in KS3C have quickly settled in to their new

routines here at St Martins. It has been a really exciting first half

term and we have already achieved so much!

KS3MB

We have all been improving

our number work in maths too.

In KS3MB Maths we have

been learning more about

Fractions and have played a

fraction domino game, frac-

tion pizza game and have

been matching the written

fractions with images.

In Topic lessons this half term

we have been learning more

about Sikhism. Arjan has been

helping with the lessons. We

will visit the Gurdwara at the

end of October.

KS3S KS3S have had a busy start to the Autumn term! The whole class have

made an exceptional transition into Year 9. Everyone has been working

hard in school to make good progress in the core subjects such as

Mathematics, English and Science. We have had the opportunity to

take part in some fishing coaching run by FISH 2013 (Fishing in Safe

Hands). The students have so far learnt a great deal from this coach-

ing and most importantly had fun at the same time.

In November we are all excited to be heading off on a two-night resi-

dential to Kingswood Activity Centre in the Dearne Valley where we will

be taking part in some adventurous activities and building our team

work skills.

The class have also started their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award this

term where they will take part in a number of activities that cover vol-

unteering, physical exercise, skills and expedition. The Duke of Edin-

burgh award is challenging but rewarding and the students have all

started by putting their best into it.

KS3T

KS3T have had a busy half term! All the students joined in the activities for

the OFSTED celebration day. KS3T enjoyed clashing on the bumper cars,

climbing the rock walls and jumping around on the bouncy castle!

We have also visited the Gurdwara for our Topic lesson. KS3T had a great

time exploring the Sikh temple and trying some of the cultural cuisine!

We have had a cross curricular link between Maths and English this half

term; using ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’. In English we have been creat-

ing recipes using alliteration, similes, verbs and adverbs. With these, we

have been creating these ‘marvellous’ medicines in Maths and learning

about measurements of capacity.

Well done this half term KS3T!!!

KS3V

Dominic said “I really en-

joyed our class trip to the

Sikh Temple, I liked looking

at all the artefacts”.

Val and Alice welcome you to KS3V, we

are very much looking forward to the

year ahead!

Katelyn said “I really en-

joyed going to visit The

Gurdwara and going into

the langar and trying the

lentil curry.

Louis said “I think it is

good of them to feed

people for free”.

Jack said “I enjoyed learn-

ing about Sikhism but I

didn’t enjoy the curry!”

GLC Throughout this half term GLC have been getting to know each other and have been building

friendships and relationships with each other. We have been thinking about class rules and

settling into the class routines.

Topic

We have been car-

rying out work relat-

ing to belonging.

We are thinking

about groups that

we belong to inside

and outside school,

what it feels like to

belong and the

benefits of belong-

ing to a group.

English

We continue to

work on key litera-

cy skills, using cor-

rect punctuation

marks, finger spac-

es and thinking

about spelling pat-

terns and phonics.

We are developing

our use of story

maps to organise

thinking and prac-

ticing and working

on report writing.

Working styles

We work in different ways de-

pending on our learning styles.

Sometimes we work alone, some-

times we work together and

sometimes we work in pairs.

Trampolining

This half term we

have enjoyed trampo-

lining sessions. We

have been learning

basic trampolining

techniques. We

enjoy using balls and

the parachute on

the trampoline.

PSHE

We place great emphasis

on working together,

sharing thoughts and

ideas and having fun

together. We are also

learning how to initiate

interaction and how

to interact socially

with others.

OFSTED Celebration

We enjoyed celebrating our out-

standing OFSTED inspection

and had a great day. We were

really pleased to be able to

share the celebrations with

parents and carers.

GLH

Some of GLH enjoying Ofsted celebration day!

GLH have had an exciting and busy start to the

new academic year. They have all settled into life at St Martins marvellously and have begun to

work together as a team really well. There have been various changes that the students have

needed to adapt to and they have taken them all in their strides. They have also begun to develop great relationships with various members of staff throughout the school including their specialist

teachers – well done!

In PSHE we have been exploring our emotions, identities and responsibilities. We have all fol-

lowed the PSHE rules and shared our thoughts and ideas respectfully. We have also been devel-oping our listening skills which is great! Exploring

our feelings and emotions will help us during adult life and it has helped us think about how it can

affect others.

In English we have been writing using a variety of genres to showcase what we learnt in our

previous schools. We wrote a poem in the style of ‘The Sound Collector’, wrote instructions for making sandwiches, re-wrote the story of ‘The

Three Little Pigs’ and wrote a newspaper report. We were all resilient and tried our best.

We recently wrote some setting descriptions about a scary forest and the chocolate room in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Heather has

introduced ‘rainbow writing’ and this means that we now use blue for our capital letters and

full stops and red for our adjectives. Using this helps us to remember the features we need

to include.

Have a look at our rainbow writing wall word bank … we can’t wait to add lots of interesting

vocabulary to it!

In Maths we have been completing different as-sessments to help us in the future at St Martins.

We have also been exploring the properties of 2D and 3D shapes. We even used our practical skills to

build and construct some 3D shapes so that we could name the properties.

GLO

Our highlights so far have been the Outstanding Ofsted celebration day. We

loved the dodgems, bouncy castle and climbing wall.

In Outdoor Education this half term we have done lots

of exciting activities!

GLO met the MP Dame Margaret

Beckett to give her the ‘Send My

Friend to School’ petition.

Our Highlights

GLP Carly is GLP’s teacher and Trudie is their teaching assistant. The

class is made up of six students, three year 8 and three year 9.

We have been having fun getting to know each other during

pastoral times.

This term we are learning about friendships in Topic, emotions and

feelings in PSHE and all about ourselves in Citizenship.

In English we are enjoying the story of Peter Pan, finding out the

different characters and discussing the plot.

In Design and Technology we are designing and making a wooden toy

that will be suitable for a young child. We have learnt about axles

and how they work.

In Art we are learning about art his-

tory, exploring various artists and

their work.

The students also access a variety of

opportunities including horse riding

and positive support.

KS4C We have welcomed back the students to a new year. We have lost Ricky and Thomas to Horizons, but gained Matt C, Matt P, Mia and Sufyaan. Lyndsey has joined the class as part of the mentoring team. Cole has been voted Head Boy, and Matthew C is now a member of the stu-dent council, along with Mia. This is fantastic for the students’ confidence and we know they will do well. During the previous year, Clayton has been completing GCSE PE through Noel-Baker. He is attending independently and joining in all the classes. He will be attending a Rock Climbing residential trip with his Noel-Baker class later this month. This is the final year for some of the boys, and we have soon jumped back into the pressure of their GCSEs. We have visited the National Videogames Arcade in Nottingham, to introduce the students to programming, and how to plan and make video games. This forms a major part of this year’s Computing curriculum.

Food Technology

KS3/Galaxy

This term students will be working on basic hygiene in the kitchen, personal

safety, and making and preparing simple snacks.

KS4

Within KS4 Students will be working on their Aim Award accreditation, this

year each student will be covering 2 of the following courses:

Basic Food Preparation

Meeting Special Dietary Needs

Students who choose Food tech as one of their options will be covering an

additional, more involved unit: Food Preparation and Cooking.

KS4M

KS4RC

Kimberly appointed on to the

School Council

Lavina appointed as

Head Girl

A busy start to our final year in

school has already included;

Options – settling into new groups

and trying new experiences

Drop Everything And Read

sessions (DEAR). Everyone taking

part each morning.

Visiting Derby College Skills Festi-

val and thinking about next steps

for next year and transition.

Celebration Day

KS4RK Our options have started well…..

Three of our students have started Animal Care at Broomfield College,

which they are really enjoying. They have been learning how to handle small

animals, doing health checks on them, and cleaning their pens out.

Two students have chosen PE as their option, which is focusing on team

games such as bench ball and basketball, which has been great fun.

A couple of our students have chosen Duke of Edinburgh. Between now

and December the students are focusing on two sections of the award, the

Physical section and the Skills section. For the physical section they have

chosen multiple activities on a rotational basis: Free-running, cycling and

Derby College gym. For the Skills section they are currently learning how to

use the camping stoves to prepare small meals independently.

GLL During the first half term GLL have shown a nurturing, responsible and

mature attitude by being good role models to younger Galaxy KS3 stu-

dents through a ‘Peer Reading’ scheme.

Once a week the group of Year 11 students in GLL offer a supportive

and caring ear to listen to, and assist, younger students in the develop-

ment of both their reading skills and self-confidence. The sessions

have also had a positive impact upon developing all of the student’s

communication skills.

The KS3 Galaxy students selected their own Year 11 students and have

so far expressed how much they enjoy having someone older to guide

them to improve their Literacy skills further.

GLM We have been looking at all the Science equipment we need to use for our experi-

ments they include: Microscopes and Bunsen Burners. Here’s what some of us had

to say:

Jessica – I really liked heating the wa-

ter in a test tube with the different

flames and microscopes

Rasan – I like the different flames on

the Bunsen burner – yellow for safety,

blue for heating.

Adam – I liked making a cheek cell and

using the microscopes.

Joe – The Bunsen Burners are hot

and cool!

Euan – The microscopes were good we

made onion skin cells

Cindy – I like being in the Science lab.

Noah – I like using the Bunsen Burners

and the Microscopes .

Nathaniel – Science is fun!

We all can’t wait to see what we are doing next half term.

GLV

Community activities

As part of accessing the local and wider community GLV students visited

the Council House to apply for their Gold cards. These cards allow the stu-

dents to travel on public transport for free and are an integral part of aid-

ing the development of their social skills.

(From left to right- Adil, Lille-Rose, William and Azaid)

Using their Gold cards on the bus each week, students have also

visited museums in Derby as well as the library and shops.

HORIZONS - H1

Film trip!

Year 12 went to the Quad and we did some filmmaking. Our filming was

based on cyberbullying and we met a man called Jenson who works there

as a filmmaker. For our film we had a victim, a friend who helped the

victim and a bully. The experience was good and interesting. We would

like to go back again to watch films, visit the museum or take part in

more workshops.

HORIZONS - H2

Employability On Mondays we learn about employability - we look at different jobs and dif-

ferent roles within hospitality.

On Monday the 9th of October 2017 we went to the Holiday Inn to focus on

housekeeping, reception and catering.

As part of our employability sessions we looked at mock interviews and

learnt how to do a proper interview for example; appearance, body lan-

guage and eye contact.

Term Dates 2017-2018 Autumn 2017

School Opens to

Students

Thursday 7th

September School Closes Friday 20th October

School Opens Monday 30th

October School Closes

Tuesday 19th

December

Spring Term 2018

School Opens Wednesday 3rd

January School Closes

Friday 16th

February

School Opens Monday 26th

February School Closes Thursday 22nd March

Summer Term 2018

School Opens Monday 9th April School Closes Friday 25th May

School Opens Monday 4th June School Closes Wednesday 25th July

INSET Days Bank Holidays

Friday 17th November 2017 Monday 7th May 2018

Monday 29th January 2018 Keep up to date with term dates

on our website at:

www.stmartins.derby.sch.uk

Friday 23rd March 2018

Monday 16th July 2018

St Martins School, The Derwent Campus,

Bracknell Drive, Alvaston, Derby, DE24 0BT

t: 01332 571151 e: admin@stmartins.derby.sch.uk