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TMBS News May 2022

Young People From TMBS Trained Up To Tackle Bullying With The Diana Award

On 27th April 2022, we were lucky enough to be chosen to take part in a one-day anti-bullying training session run by The Diana Award at King’s High School in Warwick. We worked with other young people, aged 11-16, working together to acquire vital skills to change the attitudes and behaviours of bullying in our schools. The day supported us in building our skills and confidence to address different situations, both online and off, around bullying.

The Diana Award’s Anti-Bullying Ambassador Programme, which is available to all schools across the UK, sees trainers working with students and other young people. The programme has a strong peer-to-peer focus, with trainers giving young people the skills and confidence to become Anti-Bullying Ambassadors to tackle bullying in their schools long after the training has finished. The Diana Award’s anti-bullying work is recognised as world-class thanks to this sustainable approach.

Throughout the day we looked at bullying in different situations, including face-to-face and online. At the end of the day, we made an action plan of how to approach bullying issues that may arise in our school, and committed to the roles of Anti-Bullying Ambassadors.

We feel privileged to have taken part in the training. The training was inspiring, fun, educational and full of kindness. We are already working on our action plan and can’t wait to get started.

Make sure to look out for upcoming events and activities! Anti-bullying Ambassadors

From Stitch to Stage!

During the Year 10 Ski trip, the Textiles students that stayed at home put their skills into practice when asked to respond to a real client brief. The client was Karen Loomes Dance Academy and the brief was to produce a set of transformative costumes that would change shape mid-way through performance.

The performance would be themed around climate change, recycling and sustainability and the Year 10s were given refuse sacks as their material to work with.

As you can see in the image, the Year 10s managed to produce a set of reversible black skirts that would wrap around the neck to begin with and be released to reveal the green underside of the skirt to finish.

The Year 10s responded to the brief perfectly and the academy were thrilled with their new costumes!

Year 8 residential trip to Kingswood

We had a fantastic week with Year 8 on their visit to Kingswood. We arrived on Tuesday 6th May to glorious sunshine and the weather did not disappoint for the rest of our stay. We had a week of wide ranging activities with some of the most popular being abseiling, Jacob's ladder and the side by side buggy racers. It was so great to see students conquering their fears, but also showcasing excellent teamwork skills and encouraging each other to push further and achieve their goals. As staff it really was heartwarming to see the camaraderie develop throughout the week. Group 9 received a reward for many of these skills as well as being the most organised group at meal times, in the dormitories and in preparation for activities. They were given time on the climbing wall where many students reached the top.

On our final evening we all sat around the campfire where we enjoyed hot chocolate and music, this led to an impromptu talent show performed by some of our students. The talent show included some interesting dance moves, singing to Oasis and 13-second hand stands to name just a few. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the students for their excellent conduct throughout the week and all of the staff involved in making the trip such a success. Well done Year 8!

Future trip opportunity

We are pleased to inform you of an exciting opportunity for current Year 9 students to visit Berlin & Auschwitz-Birkenau. This trip will take place in Year 10 and is open to all students in the year group, no matter what they have chosen to study in their recent options process. Although the trip has many historical elements to it, we will also be visiting many other cultural places of interest. We are aiming for this educational trip to take place in March/April 2023 during term time. This will be an exciting trip that takes in two European nations.

Throughout the tour, students will visit many cultural and historical sites in Berlin related to the era of Nazi control, the Cold War and life for Berliners in the 20th century. They will also visit Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland and experience a 3 hour guided tour.

There are a limited number of places available on this trip and if it is oversubscribed, we will conduct a fair and confidential ballot. A non-refundable deposit of £200 is required in the form of a cheque, to reserve a place along with the completed permission slip by Friday 27th May 2022.

This should prove to be an exciting and enriching trip for our students!

Success outside of school

Year 7 are working on celebrating diversity and success. We would love to hear from any students who have achievements outside of school to celebrate, so that we can congratulate them. Please let either Mrs Holmes or their tutor know.

On that note....... Year 7 Tia recently attended the All Nations Latin and Ballroom competition in Oldham. She took part in 4 dances for the paso doble, the jive, the tango and came away with 2nd place, 3rd place and two 4th places. That's amazing - Congratulations Tia!

Another of our talented Year 7 students, Rosie, also took part in the All Nations competition. She placed in the top five for five of her six dances against some tough competition! Well done Rosie!

Jakob, in Year 7, recently had cause for celebration as his football team won the Leicestershire U12 football league. Congratulations to Jakob and his team mates.

Year 7 student Erin, competed in the West Midlands Regional Championships over 5 days during April and May picking up 3 medals! On Saturday 30th April Erin competed in the first day of the championships doing the 100 fly. She went into this final in 4th place and then managed to achieve 3rd place in the final with a time of 1.12.18. On Saturday 7th May Erin competed in one of her favourite races, the 200 fly. She went into this final in 2nd place and, in the final, held on to that 2nd place with a time of 2.40.24 which qualifies her for the summer National in August. Also on 7th May Erin competed in her favourite race, the 400 free race. She came 3rd, making it to the finals and coming out with a silver medal with a time of 4.49.62, qualifying her for the English Nationals. Huge congratulations Erin and good luck for the next stage!

One Footprint for TMBS, One Giant Leap for Mankind

Our Footprint ambassadors have been busy this month: designing and ordering a batch of sustainable, reusable water bottles that students will be able to purchase from the canteen or the vending machines.

The bottles are made of aluminium, which is recyclable as well as reusable and hard wearing. The aluminium can keep water refreshingly cool and the bottles come with a carabiner to clip on to the outside of school bags (thus avoiding accidental leakage onto school books!)

The bottles will be priced at £2.00 each, 30p of which will go towards Footprint for future projects.

The decision to order these was made following a series of Footprint assemblies to raise awareness of the harm caused by single use plastic bottles. We hope to implement more water refill stations as the only available taps are in the D&T classrooms and English 5.

We know that small steps taken as individuals make big impacts as a collective. Our aim is to help people live more sustainably and to contribute to our school mission: ‘Educating with care’. After all, the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.

Farewell from the founders

Founding and running Student Footprint has been a privilege. We have been honoured to work with dedicated members of staff and students to help reduce our impact on global warming, an issue we both care passionately about. We hope this club can continue to do amazing work as we feel it has only just started. Our only regret is not starting it earlier so we had more time to make an even bigger difference. However, we are more than confident that the club will continue to thrive under the leadership of Ivy, Dan and Thomas.

Considering we founded this club along with Ivy in 2021, we feel we have already made a positive difference through schemes like the buses engine sign, water bottle refill stations, crisp packet recycling boxes and more recently, these amazing water bottles.

Hopefully, Student Footprint will continue to inspire change and leave a lasting impact on this school for the better. Most importantly, we are sure that all future Footprint members will make us proud. Alice Cleaver and Alice Dodd

Update from the Learning Garden

The learning garden is beginning to blossom quite literally over 'thyme.' We have been very busy in the garden and it’s taking shape. We have had lots of people getting involved and we have been up cycling baked bean tins to make retro plant pots. Mr Palmer very kindly saved the canteen baked bean tins and then Mr Cook and his Year 8 students repurposed them into plant pots by drilling drainage holes. Here are some pictures of the students preparing the bean tins!

We have planted in them and they’re on display in the learning garden.

We have a herb garden and dwarf beans planted in our raised garden beds and these are continuing to grow. They were kindly planted by Daniel A and Thomas C, Roxy, Sophie B and Alexis. We would like to thank Mrs Wright for her wealth of plant knowledge and for passing on her skills to the students of how to nurture the plants successfully. We would also like to thank Mrs Jones and her mum for the kind donation of plants; Mr Palmer and Mr Cook for our fantastic retro bean tin plant pots and, of course, another sincere thank you to Bosworth in Bloom and Peter Bailiss and Tom Bailiss for all their hard work and continued efforts.

Projects in the pipeline include pallets on the wall, the water butt being looked into and we have the promise of a compost bin. Hopefully Miss Hartland and the textiles team will repurpose some cushions and seat pads for our planned pallet furniture and we are also going to enter some competitions.

A really big "thank you" for everyone helping to make this a school community garden so far.

Top up reminder

Please continue to check your child's catering account regularly and top up if needed. There are an increasing number of students with insufficient funds on their accounts when purchasing food at break or lunch time. Thank you.