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TMBS News May 2023

Year 10 Berlin/Krakow Residential

During the final week before the Easter holidays, 44 Year 10 students and 5 members of staff all boarded a British Airways flight destined for Berlin. After a busy term in school, what a way to round it off with a… 3am start! First stop – Heathrow! Thankfully, everyone had their passports and so did I! Despite the early start, we had no grumpy faces just excited 14/15 year olds anticipating a foreign ‘holiday’ away from parents!

On arrival to Berlin Brandenburg airport, we were a little confused to begin with and found it difficult to locate our coach that would take us to the hotel. After a little searching, we soon found it but that would not be the end to our transport issues…

On arrival to our hotel in the Alexanderplatz area of the city, staff and students alike were more than pleased with the standard of the hotel, with many of us having views from the 20th floor and more. This now Radisson Park Inn was the former hotel that all western guests stayed at during the days of the cold war – as Alexanderplatz was in the eastern sector of Berlin. I don’t think our hotel rooms were bugged but I’m sure they must have been at some point in the hotel's history! Aside of the views and the lovely rooms, the breakfast at the hotel went down very well too. It was not uncommon to witness some of the group enjoying a 3 course breakfast!

This visit to Berlin and later Krakow had a purpose other than good food and accommodation. During our 2 ½ days in Berlin we visited numerous sites of historical interest, such as Checkpoint Charlie, the TV tower, the Brandenburg Gate and the Olympic Stadium. Students visited a number of fantastic and thought provoking memorials and museums in Berlin. Some of the highlights included the German Resistance Memorial Centre (this memorial and museum is located in what was a German military headquarters building but now documents the brave challenges of individuals and groups who opposed the Nazis from within Germany) and the Topography of Terror exhibition that focuses upon the crimes, torture and atrocities of the Nazi Party (eerily this is located on the site of what was the Gestapo headquarters!).

Back to the transport issues… it was in Berlin where we had a few difficulties. Due to industrial strike action the overground trains were not running on one day and this had a knock-on effect with the underground. On a few occasions we had to walk the 2 or 3 stops as the city was running limited services. We (or rather mostly me) didn’t realise that most of the underground trains we were using stopped 1 stop short of Alexanderplatz despite it being a continuous line. On some occasions, we made the mistake of staying on the train and would find ourselves going back in the opposite direction needed. Other times there was a chorus of Market Bosworth students calling “Is it this one? Should we get off?” This created some amusement for the native and seasoned Berliners!

As well as Berlin we also visited the city of Krakow in Poland but before that we visited Stalag Luft III. This is where a number of British servicemen made their escape attempts from a German POW camp. This is the place and the story that was turned into The Great Escape starring Steve McQueen. This visit and transit from Berlin took up a whole day. Onto our 2nd day in Poland and we made our way to visit the two sites of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the infamous former Nazi concentration camp. If you ever have the opportunity to visit this part of Europe then I’m pretty sure every student who attended would insist you go here. Large parts of Auschwitz-Birkenau still remain as it once did with buildings, barbed wire and places of torture still intact. Speaking for everyone, the site certainly portrays just what happened here – a concentration (of people) camp for the purpose of enforced labour and extermination of over 1 million men, women and children. I’m confident that all the students will never forget the feeling they had when walking amongst their footsteps.

Our time in Krakow was finished with a tour of the amazing and beautiful Salt Mines and a guided tour of the city centre, taking in the historic Jewish Quarter. Students (just as we did in Berlin) were able to do some shopping here and many of us returned with heavier bags than when we departed!

To finish, our students were a credit to the school and their families whilst we were away. Their actions and empathy were a marvel to witness when speaking to individuals affected and being around memorial sites of such importance. Mr Woodhouse.

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo.....

As part of our science curriculum, on Thursday 27th April, all Year 7 students visited Twycross Zoo. Throughout the day, students had the opportunity to explore the zoo and learn about over 400 animals.

Twycross Zoo is also the only place in the UK home to the four great apes and has the largest collection of apes and monkeys in the Western World.

Students really enjoyed and valued the experience and their attitude and behaviour throughout the trip was excellent. Great work Year 7! Mr Arnold

News from the Maths department

Year 11 Exams

Well done to the Year 11s who have shown great commitment to learning in preparation for their GCSE exams so far, attending extra revision sessions after school and even coming in early the morning of paper 1 for some last minute revision! Special mention to Max who arrived before some of the teachers!

National Numeracy Day

We celebrated National Numeracy Day on Wednesday 17th May. Year 7 danced with Katya Jones, Year 8 made numerical raps and Year 10 went down memory lane and practised Numeracy Ninjas!

To see how you can build more maths into your home lives, click the link https://www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/helping-children-maths/family-maths-toolkit

You can also challenge yourself with the National Numeracy Challenge https://www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/challenge/confidence-scale?utm_source=nnsite&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=internal_link

A reminder that all entries for the Number Heroes Competition must be submitted by 31st May if you have not handed them into school!

Numeracy Ninjas

Our Key Stage 3 students have continued to work hard and improve each week in Numeracy Ninjas. Here are the winners from May! Congratulations!

Mathematician of the month

This month's winners were: Summer Theobald for her outstanding commitment to helping other students to understand the current topic of fractions and Emily Kirby for excellent work in every maths lesson. Congratulations! And well done to all the nominees.

Primary School Network

Over this half term we welcomed staff from Witherley Primary school to view Year 7 learning Fractions. We also had the second meeting of The Primary School Network where we shared ideas on teaching the topic of fractions. We really enjoy learning about Key Stage 2 maths and sharing best practice.

Peer Mentoring

Each week, 18 Year 9 students have been giving up their lunch time to support Year 7 students in developing their maths skills. We have been blown away by their commitment to helping younger students learn! Thank you for your hard work!

DofE Expedition

Some of our Yr 10 students had a hugely successful training weekend and expedition where they took part in first aid, meal planning, route planning and safe cooking sessions. All students were amazing over the two days' training and I'm sure the parents enjoyed some peace and quiet, especially Sunday evening. Well done to all participants. Mr Marshall

The Hive

This academic year we have been busy with our new inclusion space set up in school, ‘The Hive’. ‘The Hive’ is a brand new inclusion room which seeks to develop students’ broader life skills alongside the national curriculum.

This is a bespoke, calm space and not like any other classroom in the school with plants, beanbags and wonderful Artwork designed by the students. Thank you Bea, Ellen and Jasmine, they are quite special and receive lots of compliments with staff, parents and students thinking they have been professionally commissioned for the room.

Intervention sessions are offered to selected students led by two experienced teaching practitioners (Mrs Lodge and Mrs Fairbrother) who run a range of interventions across Key Stage Three and Key Stage Four.

‘The Hive’ offers a personalised and bespoke curriculum to support our most vulnerable students so that they can more easily achieve their potential. It is to act as a stepping stone to ease reintegration back to the classroom.

The intervention programmes that have ran this year include the Friendship Programme which looked at developing the younger students’ social confidence teaching them communicative skills to help start conversations. This included understanding body language and social cues, looking at building and maintaining positive, respectful friendships and understanding complex social boundaries, all within a nurturing, small-group setting.

The Oracy and Social Communication programme looked to develop students’ social confidence and teach communicative skills to help initiate and build conversations with new people, use body language to help them communicate confidently, and understand the importance of dialogic spoken language. Students practised and developed all of these tools whilst working on a collaborative art project which is displayed in the courtyard looking at climate change.

We have also led Reading for Pleasure for all of the Key Stage three groups where the students read the text within a nurturing small-group setting, giving them the opportunity to really enjoy and engage with the story. We carried out a range of activities based on the novel, including role play, research tasks, creative writing and craft projects. The students had the opportunity to develop their literacy skills in a practical and creative way.

The Year 7s are currently working on a Wellbeing and Emotional Literacy intervention looking at exploring students’ wellbeing and positive mindset through a range of creative and engaging activities, including art and gardening. They have been designing the scarecrow for the Market Bosworth Scarecrow competition and are in the process of clearing the learning garden ready for planting in the flower beds. The Year 8s are looking at Responsible Decision Making Programme developing students’ abilities to make positive choices and to encourage good mental and physical health. Using social stories and other resources, students will explore both the complexities and importance of making responsible decisions as a teenager, linked to social media, vulnerability and exploitation and substance misuse. The Year 9 IT Literacy Programme is a consolidation of IT skills for life. The course aims to develop students’ digital literacy skills to enable them to communicate more effectively and to experiment with using current and emerging technologies in a variety of ways. All of the interventions have been successful and enjoyable.

TMBS 'Summer Supplies Mountain' Challenge

No one can escape the news that food prices continue to rise and this is affecting more families as the cost of living crisis continues. During term time, school children can be provided with free school meals and breakfast clubs which support families with food provision throughout the majority of the year. However, during the summer, more children go hungry without this support from schools. Shocking statistics from the Trussell Trust show that 1 million food parcels were given out to children over the last year, and the numbers are increasing. Schools nationwide are reporting that children are stealing food and money to eat or pretending to eat from empty lunch boxes through embarrassment of having no food for lunch.

We want to help out our local food banks to provide for as many families as possible who are experiencing food poverty this summer, and we need your help! The science department are collecting long life food and sanitary supplies from Monday 5th June until Friday 30th June 2023. We look forward to welcoming representatives from the food bank into our school to discuss the issues they experience first hand and launch our 'Summer Supplies Mountain' Challenge. We would be so grateful for your support in reaching our goal of donating 'a mountain' of supplies this summer.

If you have any questions, please contact the TMBS science department at: nbutler@tmbs.org.uk. Thank you.

Items that are currently needed:

  • Tinned meat
  • Tinned fish
  • Tinned veg
  • Tinned fruit
  • Tinned or cartons of custard
  • Dried instant potatoes
  • Jam
  • Packet pasta or noodle snacks
  • Squash
  • UHT milk
  • UHT Juice
  • Toiletries
  • Shampoo
  • Shower gel
  • Deodorant
  • Shaving foam
  • Razors

Freya's glowing report

Year 11 student Freya has loved football since she was a young girl and while she no longer plays, she has recently found a new way to continue her love for the sport, by writing about it. Freya has just had her first article published for Impetus, a women's football website. Freya's bio explains how she found her love for writing:

I only started watching women’s football in the past year but I very quickly fell in love with the sport and knew it was something that I wanted to base my life around. I have grown up watching men’s football with my dad and I have followed Nottingham Forest my entire life, but never really found myself looking up to players due to the obvious factor that they were men and I was just a little girl, which led to me losing my love for the game for a while. So when the Lionesses won the Euros I felt really inspired, I felt it was too late to actually begin playing football again which is where I really started to look into the media aspect of things. I soon realised that this is what I wanted to start doing. I am still young but I am about to begin studying business and management and am so thrilled to bring my love for women’s football into my future career path and am very excited to be a part of Impetus, where I have the opportunity to write about the sport I love whilst gaining vital experience for my future.

If you'd like to read Freya's full article on the Nottingham Forest V Watford match, you can access it here: https://impetusfootball.org/2023/05/20/watford-seal-instant-championship-return-over-hard-working-forest/

Living the dream

Here at TMBS we are following, with interest, the England Women's U17 UEFA Championships. This is because one of our former students, Ava Baker, is a Young Lioness, living her dream of playing for her country. At the time of writing, England have progressed through the group stages, after beating Poland 2-1, Sweden 3 - 1 (with a goal from Ava) and a 1-1 draw against France. They are now into the semi finals and will face Spain. If you want to follow the action you can watch the Championships on the BBC red button.

TMBS are so proud of Ava for pursuing her passion and wish her all the best for a long and successful career.

Messages from the Office

Uniform

We would be very grateful to have items of school uniform that have been outgrown. Please drop good quality items to the school office so they can be loaned out or passed on to our students.

We may be able to help you if you need support to buy uniform. Please contact the school office for more details.

Forgotten Items

We want to encourage students to take responsibility for being prepared for school each day. We ask that students check their planner each evening to make sure they have what they need for the following day. Please encourage them to double check everything before they leave home in the morning.

We kindly request that forgotten items are NOT dropped off during the school day.

Learning from the experience of having to deal with the situation themselves will help our students grow in character and develop independence.

Contact Details

Any change of contact or medical details for a student should be sent to office@tmbs.org.uk as soon as possible for us to update our system.

Lost Property

Please ensure all items of uniform, coats, shoes, bags and equipment (including pencil cases, water bottles, aprons and ingredients) are clearly labelled with the student name. We have many items in lost property which we cannot return to students as they are not named.

At the end of each full term, the lost property contents will be emptied and items will either be recycled for use by TMBS students, donated to charity or disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner.

Lost property is now kept in reception.

Summer Holiday Activities

If your child is looking to stay active and have fun during the summer holidays, Leicester Outdoor Pursuits Centre is running a holiday scheme. See the poster below for contact information if you would like to find out more.