Well we are three weeks into our last term and my goodness we have had a busy week.

After the excitement of exams last week we have to continue with our preparations for Speaking and Listening exams next week.  All students will be partaking in the preparation of these exams but not necessarily taking them this year. The students are expected to be able to speak to their group for at least four minutes on a topic they are happy to talk about, usually a hobby or an experience they have had (speak without notes but keep to the topic). They will then be expected to answer relevant questions from their peers.  Four minutes is a lot longer than you think!!  Great work has been produced and we look forward to doing more on this next week prior to exams. 

Work experience continues to be both fulfilling and great fun for many.  We know those going to mainsite to work in classes have been exceptionally praised for their work and engagement.  Some students are working in charity shops in New Ash Green and they are getting some great bargains to boot!!!

Despite the rising temperatures we have just had the best week with the outstanding feature being going up to London to see the Science Museum.  Thankfully we had a lovely air conditioned minibus which made the trip very comfortable - and we got there in relatively good time to spend a few hours looking at various different exhibitions.

We were given a guided tour by Mr Jeffreys of all the engines in the main hall.  Frank got to experience what it would be like to be an IBM code bot!!  The main attraction for us was the Power Up Experience - students were able to interact with all the equipment in this room, playing games, using the virtual reality headsets and having new experiences.

More photos will be added on Monday... 

And just like that the written exams are over!!  All of the students who experienced exams at M@W this week and they should be incredibly proud of themselves. They behaved in the best way possible whilst in exam conditions and they all did their absolute best.  We await the results!

That said, we have got to the end of week three of this module.  Even though we have had exams which can be difficult for students we tried to ensure that there was plenty of down time too.

As you may have been told by the students our lunch time is now on a carousel basis which allows us sole use of the different areas both on and off site.  This has encouraged students to work more as a team, playing games and actually talking to each other on a very chilled and social level.  This is so important as much of our time at school is directed and we feel it is an  important social skill to be able to entertain yourself with just a game or a conversation with someone you might not generally sit beside during lessons and to be outdoors.

Not sure how we find the time for everything we do - but in between all the exams we had to plant out some of our sunflowers and other plants into our newly dug over bed.  This is now looking fabulous - we have sunflowers and potentially pumpkins, or they could be cucumbers - just not sure!!???

We also have a lot of tomato plants kindly given to us from Bluewater. We have basil growing and we very much hope to be able to showcase all our students' work when you come and visit us next.

Our drama students are rehearsing at every opportunity and Cire has taken on designing the costumes for the Wizard of Oz.  We are incredibly impressed with her creativity and how she has created this project for herself and is absolutely excelling.  You will be able to see all her work at the show on the 16th July.

The fun never stops in Hever, we had the challenge of making a new storage unit to safely store some of our new printing machinery.  The unit was not as vertically challenging as we had hoped but it certainly challenged our students to follow the instructions!! 

Welcome back to all our students - everyone seems to have had a great break and have come back refreshed. 

It's going to be an extra busy term with lots of exciting events and activities:

• Work experience

• Visit to the Science Museum - 19th June

• M@W Prom to be held in Longfield Community Centre - 4th July

• Leavers Assembly - 15th July

• Visit to the Royal Academy of Art - some students only 16th July

• M@W Wicked performance -16th July

• We will be having a summer fair at M@W 

• Day at the seaside

We were very excited to have Ofsted come and visit us this week.  Students excelled in their learning and working and showed M@W in a fantastic light - we are immensely proud of all our students, as always.

However, despite all the fun planned we still have to get over the hill with our exam season which will start next week.  We will have a record number of students sitting exams this year and we are very confident that they will smash them.

Students continue to practice exam papers so they get used to the format and feel confident with the style of paper they will receive.

Our business enterprise groups will be selling produce at the Summer fair.  All of Hever had to learn from the computing group about how we produce our T-shirts, pencil cases, and bags so the learning can be shared.  Those experienced in using the computer programmes and the pressing machinery were able to show their peers how it all worked.  Ensuring health and safety is taken into account and giving students time to ask questions and make decisions on what design to use on what product was all part of our shared learning. 

Well we’ve made it to the last week of term!!!   What a packed week we have had and how lucky were we with the weather!? As the different classes have come together for the majority of our activities the pictures this week will reflect that. 

With the excitement of the residential students leaving on Wednesday it was harder to focus on work at the start of the week.  It was really good to see how involved everyone got with our Poetry Slam.

We had some of the most outstanding submissions from students.   It is just incredible how creative and emotive their work can be with many of the students left in tears as they listened to each other's stories, written within an iambic pentameter, or simple prose. 

Once the excited residential students left we got straight into science.  Our learning objective was to see who could get the best propulsion from their homemade rocket.  Hours were literally spent designing and building all sorts of rockets.  Once complete we were all summoned to watch as the air was pumped into them and they were rocketed up into the air. 

The science was clear - too much water meant it didn't fly, but just the right amount allowed it to soar up into the air and in some cases remained lost to us forever in the trees of Wilmington!!

Keeping all activities creative,  light and fun we spent the day at Hayden Park.  This is just the best facility which offers so much to the community.  They could not have been more accommodating towards us - we had full access to all the facilities which allowed us to play football, do archery, and generally have such a fun day.  

Students were able to choose their own lunch and it is fair to say I do not think a single chip was left anywhere!!!  Once we walked back to school we had some down time watching a film and some students were able to chill and socialise playing pool, etc. 

The end of the week was in keeping with the start focusing on creativity.  Students were invited to do a short drama sketch of their own choice.  Some decided to do a presentation of their art, or a dance routine while others entertained us with impressions, jokes and one or two monologues. The students returned from their residential just in time to see the finale of the talent competition and it was clear that a good time was had by all whilst learning about themselves, others and a range of subjects in a different context to the classroom setting. 

Well, we are now in our penultimate week of the term, and it is just flying by.  The weather has been just brilliant this week giving our students loads of time to be outside and soak up all that vitamin D which is so important for their health and wellbeing.

Some of our class will be going on residential next week which is incredibly exciting but we also have a very packed programme of fun and games planned for those students not attending.

The sunflowers we planted a few weeks back have been planted into the flower bed and the students are watering these regularly and we look forward to seeing how tall they will grow!!

However, we still need to focus on our learning.  We will be doing exams next month so our maths and English need to continue on a regular basis but we are focusing these few weeks on exam questions - students need to become familiar with the methods needed to answer questions.  We are practising recognising the steps that need to be taken in maths questions - the answers are not always as simple as they initially appear - but require two or three steps.  Students have got plenty of time to practice but also lots of time in their exams so managing time and checking over answers is also a very important skill to practise.

We have been informed that we have been given a gift of £200 per class to spend on an event.  The students were sent on a research project to see what we could do with this money  that would benefit all our students.  They then had to present this to the class for discussion.  The ideas and research into pricing and accessibility was an excellent exercise incorporating initiative, maths, english, speaking and listening, etc.  Many students decided to work in groups but others did this individually, ideas were:  Visit: Dartford F.C., Swanley Park to do a lot of activities, bowling, science museum.  We have yet to decide what we will do.

Regular exposure to speaking and listening activities where students prepare work and present it to the class is a very important skill that we work on throughout the year.  As last week was VE Day the students prepared a powerpoint presentation on any aspect they choose to focus on and presented it to the class this week.  It is always interesting to see where the students go when given free reign to choose their own topic. We had a food presentation showing us recipes from the war and what they would have done to celebrate VE despite limited rations.   We had a few students looking at events such as the last survivor or the aeroplanes flown at the time of WWII.  Students were, as always, very respectful of each other and listened while they presented to the class asking relevant questions at the end, thus practising their speaking and listening skills. 

We continue to work on angles with a focus on how we use them in everyday life which is so important to understand and why we need to learn how to measure them.  Using a protractor students were working hard this week to get to grips with the basics of lining up to the zero degree line with the vertices centred on the protractor and then reading off the measure/size of the angle. 

With the prospect of glorious weather this week students were in great form - nice to see short sleeves and shorts on keeping cool and hydrated is very important over the coming weeks as we enter into the (hopefully) higher temperatures.

School work however never stops - but we had a bit of a fun day using our maths on a more physical level - we had to build a bridge that had a span of at least 30 cm which could support the weight of a can of beans.  Students have built many bridges in the past so to have to make one that spanned a certain distance was a new concept and one that needed some careful consideration.  

Despite many designs and attempts one team where the hands down winners - by using supports under the bridge as well as suspension - ensured both sides of the bridge were supported. The bridge in fact managed to support 3 cans of beans, very impressive and well done to team Millie, Cire and Millie!

It was our turn to get the weekly shop done. We were glad of the opportunity to go off site, especially in such lovely weather. Students once again excelled in their task of completing their shopping lists and are getting much more confident in being independent shoppers.  It turns out that Frank is a bit of a demon when it comes to packing the shopping - no-one could keep up with his skills!

Ali’s cafe in Dartford always does us a solid turn by hosting us and giving us the best service and attention, forgetting no-one and allowing our students the time needed to work out the money to pay for their food.  A very valuable lesson and not all shops are that patient with us and the students really appreciate it.  All students were treated to an ice-cream in the park which was very welcome and a lovely chance to just chill with their friends.

During lunch Cire and other students helped to plant out the sunflower seedlings into a more permanent bed - hopefully these will grow as tall as Cire!

With the weekly shop completed our next task was to prepare the cafe food for break time.  The lovely warm weather inspired us to go light and served pancakes/waffles with freshly prepared fruit salad.  All students participated in the preparation of the food and setting up/tidying away.  They all did exceptionally well requiring little instruction and are now much more independent students when it comes to doing the weekly special.

It was really nice to see all of the students back after the holiday. We started as we mean to carry on with the students taking part in completing a functional skills maths past paper, they were asked to indicate how they found each of the sections of the paper. This will be used in conjunction with gap analysis to identify areas to concentrate on this term. 

The arrival of some Martians and an astronaut was rather unexpected but it did give us the opportunity to be creative and use any materials available to us to make ‘something of use’ in a dystopian world.  Students managed to make all sorts of equipment from a control panel to a planet finder along with many rockets.

This was followed up by a small theatre group providing us with a show that was astounding on so many levels.  But, thankfully, the alien animals managed to communicate with the astronaut and all was well with Space.

I’m not sure how we've managed to get to the last week of term so quickly?

We started our week with a fantastic afternoon running our juice bar! Having trialled our drinks last week using different measurements and types of glasses we had to launch our juice bar to the whole of M@W. 

Canterbury, Rochester and Upnor were all invited for a drink of their choice made using very exact measurements of the tried and tested drinks that had been approved by our very rigorous testing staff. The overall feeling was of approval with a few students thoroughly enjoying the randomness and the colours of the drinks they were extremely brave to taste!

Moving on rapidly we had another day of science experiments - the focus of this experiment was to test their abilities to make careful and detailed observations.  Students were required to make their own boat to a specific design ensuring the exact template was followed.  Many students used rulers and other aids to help them draw out the boat before very carefully cutting them out.  Once cut the ‘notch’ left on the back of the boat had to be coated on the edges with washing up liquid. Water trays were then introduced and the result had to be recorded and the test repeated again in order to be able to analyse what had happened.  

We have been reflecting on the  religions represented at M@W over the past few months and during Ramadan Islam. To mark and celebrate the end of Ramadan we had our own Eid-ul-Fitr celebration with a fantastic vegetable tagine, flatbreads, samosas, onion bhajis, sauces, olives and also, very lovely cakes supplied by a couple of parents, thank you. All students were invited to join in with the celebrations and taste the wonderfully flavoured food and cakes.  It was very welcomed by all. 

It's hard to imagine that we could possibly fit anymore into our week - but we have!!! Once we had celebrated Ramadan we went out for a walk the purpose of which was to do map reading.  Students were given a map and a compass and we went out to look at what all the symbols might mean.  Coming back to class we were able to look at the map in more detail - many students were able to recognise many of the local amenities, campsites, parking, local parks, motorways, schools, etc.  Students were introduced to the points of the compass and introduced to the grid lines which help to identify specific points on the map - all linking in nicely to our english and maths and also general life skills and it will also help students when we move on to our travel training.

This week started pretty much like all other weeks with a full on  curriculum of maths, English and a bit of brain stretching thrown in! 

We continue to visit the library weekly - and students are getting used to changing and getting new books regularly which is a skill in itself: “The library plays a key role in developing literacy and the pleasure of reading, so it is the perfect place for thinking and learning”.

Lateral thinking challenges have been introduced to make students think outside the box and try to use a different part of their brain to figure out the answers. This is a really important exercise and one we will be doing more often as the weeks go on. 

Having started on some Science last week we continue to use new skills such as measuring liquids to incorporate science with our maths and our English to some degree. Learning how we measure in cm, metres, grams, kilograms and millilitres and litres is all part of the learning as we head into exams and need to have this knowledge fresh to hand when it comes to answering maths questions.

Students had to learn about insulation - they spent all morning doing experiments using water, thermometers, different types of insulation and hot water - tracking the data throughout timed phases before analysing it to see what was the best material to keep the water warm. Needless to say the results were inconclusive but that's why we do these experiments so we can discuss why different groups may have got different results.

Using skills and knowledge learnt we moved on to making fresh fruit drinks.  Students had to consider what measures of different drinks they could use to make an interesting and palatable tasting drink that we can share with  other classes next week.  A huge variety of drinks was made available for students to use and taste.  Measuring and collecting data was used to create and record the ingredients and then reviewed and adjusted after tasting.  Some students had to abandon their drinks due to the foul taste but others considered how to improve them by adding more syrup or other drinks.  Its fair to say everyone was on a bit of a sugar high for a while!

We were lucky enough to be able to visit Wilmington market where Rochester students were selling our business enterprise products such as pencil cases, bags, food gifts, reloved furniture, etc.  All students were given the opportunity to buy at the market and to enjoy some food if they wished. Apart from anything else we had a really great walk down there and back on a glorious sunny day!

Mother’s day - students were encouraged to make a card if they wished.  Some students were challenged to cut out the design which was interesting to see the different skill levels with what would initially seem to be a simple task - but for some students this is actually very difficult to manoeuvre the scissors in one hand and paper in the other. So when you do get a card appreciate the fact that actually this took a lot of time and focus to create, and made with love.

Yet another busy week!!

We had such a great visit from Ben from the Learning Shop in Bluewater. The purpose of the visit was to inform and educate all our students into the processes around getting a job, from expectations at an interview to conduct on the shop floor.  He was very informative and judging by the interaction with the students they got a lot from this visit.

We also had a visit from Skills 360 - there was only availability for a few students from each class.  Skills 360 are The Kent and Medway Careers Hub - and they are to help students to find jobs.  This was a great experience and the same students are invited to a bigger event in a few weeks.

Hever class are once again responsible for the weekly special.  As usual, nothing is plain with our students, and we have decided on Nachos.  Students had to do the shopping, pay for the products and pack their shopping independently before carrying it back to the bus.  

Whilst we were in Dartford and it was such a lovely day we took advantage and went for a fabulous walk to the Tunnel along the river Dart.  Students thoroughly enjoyed being out in the fresh air and it's fair to say we were reluctant to return to school!! But we did!

Our special had to be prepared by the students - four willing chefs took responsibility for making the best chilli con carne sauce (without kidney beans!).  A lot of preparation was needed with chopping of onions and peppers, peeling and crushing garlics, and using our maths to measure out the herbs. Whilst the majority of the class were involved with the preparation the rest were researching and creating fact sheets on Mexico and a little surprise. 

It was really nice to see all of the students enjoying the 'special'  and extra entertainment of a Mariachi band. 

On Thursday the students were involved in a couple of experiments looking at different types of reactions including chemical, exothermic and nucleation. We explored the process of sonducitig and effectively recording scientific experiments. 

We  have also been very busy preparing items to be sold during the 'Spring Fair' at Mainsite on Tuesday. We look forward to seeing any of you who are able to support. We will also have another opportunity for you to view and/or purchase items at the local farmers/craft market in Wilmington. 

Well what a busy week we have had!  So much to do and so little time!

We continue to work on our English and maths, in particular we are looking at the ‘area’ of different shapes and working out the answers using manipulatives and class discussions to help us.

We have our Easter Enterprise market coming up so we are all incredibly busy preparing products for sale.  The Computing class has invested heavily in printmaking machines thus allowing us to venture into a new area - Printing. 

All students created some designs that could be reproduced and we are working towards creating items for sale such as shopping bags, pencil cases, etc.  Watch this space. 

Hever Class were made very welcome at the local Mosque in Crayford.  Our purpose was to support those in our school who observe Ramadan and to give us a greater understanding of this vibrant community.  We had such a good day, shown around by Syed who gave us a brief introduction into Islam.  He showed us how members were cleansed before prayer and we were then taken into the prayer room.  Students were allowed to walk around and see for themselves what a lovely place of worship it is with beautiful carpets and the Qur’an on display in both Arabic and English. There was a lot to see and learn.  

I guess probably the best part was coming back to school where students enjoyed some wonderfully cooked pancakes with lemon and honey - delicious!

World Book Day - students had the best day going from class to class doing different activities focused around the Roald Dahl book Charlie & the Chocolate Factory including making bookmarks or music that represented a scene of the book, creating a character, designing the ultimate chocolate bar and exploring the style of illustrator Quentin Blake in Hever class. I am really proud of the artwork that was produced and it was lovely today to see all of the students tracking time to view and share their artwork with others during today’s cafe time. 

Welcome back after half term. 

I definitely think there is a clear sign that Spring is on its way - our garden is showing great potential and we cannot wait to get out there soon. 

In the meantime we continue with our lessons - we focused a lot this week on ‘area’. Students were asked to go and measure as many items around the school as they could and then find the area - so a lot of physical measuring was done along with working out the answers.  

We have spent the last few months on our Career Asdan which is almost complete, but interesting to look back over the students progress in this.  Some students had very clear ideas of what their next steps were but through our Asdan learning we have also had to think of an alternative career that we may not have considered in the past.

  It is always interesting to see how students have evolved into thinking of other potential careers through the introduction of lectures, such as Grow 19, visits to Colleges, completing Government search engine surveys online, and doing some general research activities made available to them in their classrooms - broadening their horizons as it were.

  Students, hopefully, now have an awareness of other careers that could be available to them and they are aware of how they might achieve these - through further education, college courses, specialist training, work experience, volunteering, etc. 

Many students took part in the football tournament over at Sir Geoffrey Leigh academy.  Although it was a very wet and cold day there was no dampening down of spirits when it came to actually playing.  It was a very mixed pool of talent and students were incredibly respectful of each other and the opposition - they played with great gusto and skill and the cheering from the spectators kept the games very much alive.  

This week's focus was exams for the year 14’s - however we still have to complete our English and maths work regularly. Students are getting to grips with exam style questions - getting used to having to do several steps within the same question in maths, and constantly reminding students to use capital letters and full stops when writing.

We will have an Enterprise Easter Market at the end of March.  Students had to consider what would sell, what we could make and generally gathered ideas of what we can work on over the next few weeks. Some good ideas were produced but we still need to do some work on this!!

Following on from Chinese New Year last week students were asked to complete their presentation and present to the class.  It always amazes us of how good our students are at researching information and making a slide presentation.  Many students found interesting images and fun facts.  However, some students really excelled by adding arrows and text boxes, colours and different fonts and then presented them to all their peers in the class.  A really well done to all. 

Our Thursday enterprise classes continue with the Gardening group doing some serious Spring work with weeding, clearing, sowing and general maintenance.

This week the focus was on practicing for exams - maths in particular.  Students were walked through several exam papers to learn how to read the question and to understand what is being asked.  Often there are several steps to be followed and by practising our number sentences this will help us to gain marks on our paper.

We had to do Cafe on Monday this week - it was just toast and tea/coffee but students are now able to do this without much effort and once again they were challenged to do a task they had not done for a while. This was achieved very confidently which was great to see and students were able to draw on these skills of communication, listening, and teamwork/  

When working on their ‘Career Asdan’ students had to identify different skills and qualities that they would need for their specific career choice. They were required to show examples of using these skills in their everyday life, both at home and at school - students often struggle to realise that the skills they learn whilst doing cafe, shopping, sport, meeting friends, etc, are all transferable skills that they will need for their future career.

We continue to read our very moving book ‘The boy at the back of the class’ - this is a very thought provoking book and one we would recommend all parents and students to read if the opportunity arises.

The computing group continued to work on their uniforms and were able to add the lettering to the back of their T’Shirts whilst reflecting on and recording the process as part of the learning through work experience ASDAN. 

With the upcoming exams for Year 14 students we are focusing on how to read and complete a formal test paper.  We will be visiting this regularly throughout the weeks and year to ensure all students get the best possible outcome from their exams. 

In case any of you wonder what we do on Friday afternoons.  We can assure you that a lot of fun is being had whilst learning in a different environment. 

We have a:

• Dancing group

• Sports group

• Reading group

• Music group

• Gaming group 

All of these are part of  our enrichment programme which is enjoyed by all the students. 

This week it is Hever’s turn to do the special on Wednesday.  We decided to go Italian and with that to do a pasta bolognese.  Students had to do some research into finding a recipe that we could make, listing the ingredients. Using our maths we had to look at the quantities for the recipe and multiply it by 35 students!! This was no mean feat!

After going out to Dartford to do the food shop - and a little visit to the Cafe - we had a bit of time to do some shopping with groups breaking out to visit Primark and the Comic shop for some naughty but nice purchases!

So, food bought all we had to do was make the bolognese - how difficult can that be?!  As it turned out not difficult at all as some great teamwork and listening skills were used.

All students had to participate and having been split up into teams, one group had to do all the chopping of the vegetables: onions, garlic, peppers, carrots.  Another group had to do the actual cooking which was difficult as they had to jungle many pots of bolognaise, vegetarian sauce, pasta pans - we also had some olives for students to try and we had some italian flags on the tables.  Following on with the research students find interesting facts about Italy which was shown as a powerpoint during break over some classic italian music.

Our Life Skills Challenge [Discrimination & Prejudice] was a particularly difficult one for students this week as they were asked about “language I have experienced, stating why it is offensive” - this was very personal to most students and it was really good to be able to talk to them about language and how it made them feel.

In our Careers Asdan we had to identify skills that we would need to carry out our chosen career.  Many students had already identified what they would like to do when they leave Milestone - but it is so important to know what skills they will need moving forward so we can help students achieve their ambitions.

For our Speaking & Listening  practice we had a very hotly contested debate on ‘Should animal testing be banned’ - there was many different views on this which was very interesting to hear and really good speaking and listening skills were used to reply to statements from the opposition.  We will continue to practice these skills throughout the year. 

In our English we continue to learn about punctuation and grammar and how to use symbols in our writing, ensuring all sentences begin with a capital letter, using a comma and the correct use of an apostrophe. 

The history group had to do research on past monarchs and prepare a mood board showing us facts about the ones the had chosen:

Our maths this week was a bit different.  It was learning how a sequence of events, even with numbers, gives us the answer we are looking for. So, we had a secret letter code and by answering the sums we could work out the letter - once we had a sequence of letters we could work out the word - the sequence of words gave us the Christmas Cracker answer!

What does the snowman have for dinner?   Ice burgers and chilli sauce!

We had a great visit to Christmas Tree Farm and all students that were able to attend got the opportunity to feed the animals.  It was a very sensory experience and although some students were very anxious initially to feed the animals from their hand they all eventually managed to feed all kinds of animals, Lama’s, lambs, cows, donkeys, guinea pigs, etc

Our Christmas dinner was a great success with all students enjoying a two course meal with all the trimmings. All the food was prepared by students who thoroughly enjoyed the occasion and some having a bit of a dance after!!. 

We would all love to wish you all a happy Christmas and excellent New Year. 

It's week six, oh no it isn't...     Oh yes it is!

We did a little bit of research into what a Pantomime is and why it is called a pantomime!! This is a precursor to our visit on Wednesday when we go to see Jack in the Beanstalk @ Gravesend. Oh no your not! Once we had returned from the pantomime they were challenged to write a review of the panto following the genre having made observations from reviews written of other pantomimes. 

We have our Social Media presentation for all parents -shown on Monday.

We stretched our minds and our patience with a Santa Spy mystery where we had to exercise a lot of maths, english and what little logic there was to be had to solve the clues!!

Our ASDAN groups were finalising Computer games, painting furniture, planting winter bulbs - basically a hive of activity!

This week is going to be very busy!

We had to finalise all our products for the Milestone Academy Fair on Tuesday and our M@W fair on Wednesday which was enormously successful and we are very grateful and thrilled to see so many parents come along and support our students. 

With our ‘Retro Arcade' booth in mind we duplicated our original design x 3 so all students can get a feel for our game created individually by the computing group. The whole class contributed to duplicating this design with various tasks required such as drilling, sanding, securing the different parts onto the base, etc. 

All our products had to be priced and labeled to be in line with value - students had to consider what the product was worth (saleable value) and create signage accordingly.

Our PSPD [Online communication - short film storyboard]. Students had to make short films about bullying online which will be presented to parents. 

We continued to discuss the Equalities Act with each student making their own poster highlighting a particular topic that appeals to them. 

This week we looked at starting a new Asdan which looks at how we communicate ONLINE and the impact it has on us and others - especially as nearly always happens when we are outside of school.

We revised the Equalities Act and talked about what it does for us - who it protects and why we need to have it. We revisited bullying and hate crime and talked as a whole group about how it affects us.  

With the forthcoming Christmas fair we spent time finalising our products. More chocolates and lip balm had to be made. Posters had to be created and put up around the school. Our LED cards had to be product tested. We had to  decide on pricing during our maths lessons and finally packaging everything up for sale. 

Linking in to communicating with others and our rights we also prepared a presentation on ‘Graffiti - art or crime?’ - interesting to see what the students thought and how they changed their minds once they heard other people's arguments.  One student specifically identified that often graffiti is used as a marketing tool - as in Formula One cars. Excellent arguments were prepared by both sides and some great research was done.

It was also our week to prepare the ‘special’; pancakes with maple syrup and a choice of toppings.  Students had to prepare the tables and empty the dishwasher, while others prepared the food and hot / cold drinks, and then they took turns to serve the food to others. 

With such an emotional week it is important that students have time out to read quietly and play games together.  We have seen a lot more students sitting down and just enjoying playing simple games whether it be nought & crosses, guess who or matching memory games.  Great to see all our students working together during their social times.

Rochester had a stall at Wilmington Market and we had a lovely walk down to see their stall and all the other Christmas stalls.  A great opportunity for students to buy some Christmas presents or just some cake!!

A very exciting week in Hever - beginning with learning all about the Houses of Parliament and what happens there before moving on to voting for our own School Council representative.  All students were given the opportunity to stand but only four were brave enough and they each produced and presented their own manifesto to our class. 

The voting was extremely tight but the voted representatives were Jack and Jess, congratulations and we are sure you will represent Hever very well on the Council. 

We returned to the library to change our books and we learnt how to make different types of charts: bar and pie using our voting numbers as data.  

It was our turn to do the weekly shop for M@W and we split into three groups with our own lists to get, pay for and pack before spending a lovely time in Ali’s cafe with the best cup of tea!!  We also focused on students purchasing their own shopping through the self-checkout - enabling them to be more independent shoppers.

Hadlow College

What can I say - the students had the most aspirational visit to the college.  We specifically looked at areas that Hever students were particularly interested in such as Animal Management (birds, snakes, meerkats, mongoose, etc), Car & Bike Mechanics.   

Students got the opportunity to see how all the students at the College had jobs to do each day - watched them clean out the animals and all students appeared happy and healthy and working outdoors even on a particularly cold day. The stable area was fascinating and although we were not able to go out into the paddocks we were able to see a lot of the horses in their stables which were very clean and tidy. The visit enabled the students to see some potential future courses they may be interested in and complemented the work being done as part of their ASDAN courses. 

Computing

During computing we explored the construction of circuits again, having looked a our previous circuits that were constructed during week one we identified the different components that we had used and how they would be used in the construction of simple circuits to make light up Christmas cards. I was really impressed with how well all of the students did in the construction of their Christmas cards, if you are able to attend one of the upcoming Christmas fairs you will have the opportunity to purchase one. 

This week in Hever we have had a lovely start by discussing Remembrance Day and how we commemorate it. We completed an English comprehension which asked us questions about why we remember the ‘Great War’, and why do we use poppies as a symbol?

Our maths continued to reinforce our learning in lines of symmetry using shapes that need a bit more concentration and using the vertices and the sides, and also rotating the image to see if we can find any more hidden lines of symmetry. 

A 2 minutes silence and we respectfully held to mark Remembrance Day as we watched the  live broadcast on the BBC.  It was very moving and the students showed remarkable respect.

We have been over to  Wilmington Academy to spend some time in their library and had a really good look around. Students took their time and considered what books they might like to borrow. 

Building on our Discrimination and Prejudice of last week - this week we talked about Hate Crime; what they are, what we can do to report them, and how we can help ourselves and others who may be in receipt of bullying behaviour or other acts of violence from others. 

Our Christmas market produce was given a bit of TLC.  Any unfinished cones had to be finished and prepared for sale.  A new item, a candy cane reindeer, had to be produced and made ready for market.  The chocolate factory was busy preparing more sweets and will hopefully be ready to bag up and get ready for sale soon.

We were able to show Noleen our computer games that we have produced and our working circuit board.  Computing has progressed very quickly this term as we continue to build our coding blocks to enable the animation to take to life. 

The week ended with ‘Children in Need’ day - where we did lots of related activities. 

We ended the week with  a movie afternoon and the music group where creating a new tune for Milestone radio - work in progress!!