Hever Class

Waterfall Pathway

Welcome to the 2025/26 academic year

Module Two

Getting ready for a busy Christmas business season.

We are looking forward to what promises to be a busy term leading up to the Christmas season of fairs and festivities. The students will be busy producing items to be sold as part of our M@W business enterprise and ASDAN activities. They will continue to be supported in developing a wide range of functional maths and english skills throughout this term with a focus being placed on them being able to generalise these outside of the classroom. We will of course have our traditional trip to watch a pantomime and the Christmas meal.

Week Three - Module Two

Well what a surprising change in temperature - the week not only started very cold but with a lot of students missing the day due to terrible road traffic conditions - these things can’t be helped but thankfully it doesn’t happen too often!

Hever Class continues to work on their maths and English in preparation for mock exams coming up - students have really applied themselves to their learning this term and it is really starting to show in their confidence and their manner when we start new topics.

We had a bit of time out to focus on some of our Christmas crafts. Students are progressing onto designing some Christmas tote bags, bookmarks, and other items that we can print. They are also finishing off the Christmas trees and looking at how we can decorate them by adding a pom pom! Oliver proved himself master of the pom pom making and made some lovely combinations of coloured pompoms! Jason made himself busy with making some fabulous candles, all items we hope will resell easily at market.

Our Wednesday ASDAN groups are doing some fantastic work - the computing group are continuing with designing sprites for their games. Reloved preloved are still sanding down items for refurbishment. Woodwork spent their morning finessing their snowmen ready for local markets next week.

All students are now regularly practising Makaton sign language. This has become our weekly routine and it is great to see how all our students are losing their inhibitions and starting to really engage with this task.

With the dropping of temperatures outside we focused our maths on taking the temperature in different places, oddly some students picked the toilets!! But, generally we measured both outside and inside spaces and the polytunnels - however, students had to be patient while the temperatures on the thermometers dropped!!! Interesting results to say the least.

Week Two - Module Two

What a great week - seems like a lot of our students managed to get to see lots of firework displays over the weekend and lovely to hear them all talking about it.

Before we move on to our Christmas preparations we must first recognise Remembrance Day - Hever were lucky enough to be out shopping on Tuesday so we were able to join in on the service at the memorial in Dartford. All students were just terrific in their stance and attention throughout the minute silence after listening to the Last Post played beautifully on the bugle. A truly memorable day for Hever.

Andrew then recited a poem about a young lad, similar to the age of our students, who didn’t make it back to his family after the war. This was a very emotional reading and the students we believe felt true emotion with the words read out.

To lift the mood and totally unexpected we were greeted by the Lord Mayor of Dartford who came over for some photos and to talk and thank our students for attending and being so respectful.

Students prepared a powerpoint presentation on different aspects of the war. Oliver and Cire were very happy to present their work and did an excellent research.

We had our usual visit to Ali’s cafe which was, as always, a pure delight. Students are made so welcome and treated with such care and kindness that we are very grateful to all his staff. No Hever trip would be complete without a drop-in to the Comic Shop - some serious purchases were made by students to much admiration from peers.

Students who do Woodwork ASDAN were treated to a trip over to mainsite to have a look at the outside area - we have been asked to create some outdoor items. Students took some measurements and came up with some great ideas for items to make to improve this area for fellow students - more to follow on this.

Thursday - Link 19 - a small group of students visited Link 19 in Gravesend. They were treated to a great talk and tour of the building and a very informative chat about the requirements for entry and what they have to offer. A very worthwhile visit and certainly a college we promote for a lot of students.

The week ended with a great day working on our short course ASDAN and rec choices for the afternoon. What a great end to our second week.

Week One - Module Two

Welcome back everyone,

Great to see all our students back in class - they are revived and ready for our second term. We hope that the holidays proved restful and restorative as we head into the shorter darker days of the year - but fear not we are still bright and eager to keep everyone engaged and learning.

Embedding our learning from last term we revisited our maths symmetry - using both graphs, mirrors and counting method to complete the whole image. We constantly revisit different topics so that the learning is not too overwhelming and students can learn better knowing they have done it before and this time they do it even better. Clear improvement in just the visual realisation of what symmetry is was very obvious to us but more importantly to the students who actually stated they ‘enjoyed’ the worksheets!!

Although we might not wish to acknowledge it, Christmas is just around the corner. We have got many markets booked in to sell products and we are now starting in earnest to prepare goods for sale. Amy was paramount in persuading us to make some Christmas trees and this is proving to be a rather time consuming task but also very engaging. We have used a round robin of activities to do this, some cutting, some bending, some sticking and some just burning their fingers with the glue guns!

The other activity we have is candle making - we trialled this with two students and it seems it could be rolled out to the rest of the class so this is something we potentially will also have for sale.

ASDAN Wednesdays is really starting to make some exciting progress with the computer group making what looks like a fabulous game, the woodwork group continuing to cut wood and paint! And reloved preloved seem to be constantly collecting furniture!!

We had a welcome jaunt out of class this week when we popped down to the Wilmington market - just because we could - sometimes it's just nice to get out for a walk where students can just relax and chat to each other. As there are a lot of stalls at the market its nice for students to have a look around and hopefully pick up some ideas themselves on what could sell.

On our return we were blown away by Jason almost, but not quiet, pipping the 1st place podium on our blooket challenge - never have Hever been so animated playing a game and it was an absolute joy hearing them all destroy each other in their sleuth methods of winning each others hoards - long may this challenge continue!!!

We welcomed our Alumni back to Milestone this week which was wonderful to hear stories of their successes and hopefully inspired and comforted our current Year 13 & 14 students who have to make the difficult next steps choices for their future.

Module One

Week Seven - Module One

Hello everyone, and welcome to the last week of Module 1. We have had a week of triangles!! In so many ways - everything connects!!

We have been working on the physical triangle, getting to grips with the different types of angles and how they all affect each other to make up the 180 degrees needed!

Christmas design inspiration is using a cone - and we have to cut out pieces of pipe cleaner to specific sizes and then adhering them to the cone using a glue gun. All these fine motor skills are incredibly important to continue to use despite the age of the person.

Our aim is always to inform our students as much as possible so they can make educated and informed choices when thinking about their next steps.

We also did the cafe this week which was a lot of fun as we had a lot of students out and it meant all students needed to do at least two tasks - to be fair to them they work fantastically well as a team and no toast was burnt in the process!!

And closing the third side of our ‘next steps’ triangle, we have:

1. Visited Grow 19 site to see what they do previously.

2. This week we had a talk from the manager of Grow 19 who came to us to explain about the qualification criteria and how they would support our students.

3. We went out this week to see Hadlow College.

We hope you enjoy the pictures of the different activities adventure & learning that has taken place this week.

Week Six - Module One

Hello,

Welcome to another exciting week in Hever. We have done so much this week it is hard to write it all down.

Monday - we started with a very challenging English comprehension - the texts are much more challenging and there is a lot of inference and questioning - which can be very difficult initially. Thinking about the text as a whole is important and this challenges our students to think more widely and try and gain confidence in both their reading and understanding of text.

In a similar vein we moved onto a new maths challenge – the area of a compound shape - what is that you say?! Well let me tell you - it is where there are ‘two shapes put together’!

Students have to find the missing measurements from the limited information given and then work out the full area of both shapes together. This is returning to our two/three step maths questioning which we practice again and again.

The highlight for sure this week was our trip to the Cinema. What an amazing opportunity it was to take all students from all our four classes and enjoy a film in the comfort of plush seats and sitting next to our friends. It truly was a very lovely trip out and one we hope to repeat later in the academic year.

Our turn to do the special again this week which meant we had to do the shopping also. All students took an active part in shopping and this enabled us to spend a bit more time than we usually do in both the Comic Shop and various other stores. Students were able to buy items from their own contribution money if they wished. All students treated themselves to food and drink in Ali’s cafe. Great to see how well they manage in these social situations. They are all encouraged to order and pay for their own food and I do believe the majority of students are now well versed and confident in carrying this out.

We decided that this week's special would be ‘Mac & Cheese’ - no-one really knows why this was the choice but we went with it and managed to produce a somewhat dubiously edible meal for everyone who was brave enough to give it a go!!

Week Five - Module One

Another great week of activities in Hever. Our focus in English this week has been to write a news article making it relevant to something we are interested in. Students had to lay out the material in a newspaper column fashion, use photographs, different style of headings and make the text lively and to the point. We then explored the role of a copy-writer in proofreading an article to try to identify and correct different mistakes that had been made.

Later all students were asked to present a powerpoint presentation to the whole class ‘All about me’ - we always revisit this at the start of the academic year as it helps us to get to know our new students in the class and allows those already in Hever to introduce themselves to others. This is an excellent social skill and often very enlightening as we learn about each others interests and families, etc.

The excitement of the week was our coffee morning. Here we welcomed so many parents that it was wonderful to see. We had spent quite a bit of time this week researching food that we could prepare that would have an element of health in it!! We choose to make carrot, courgette and banana muffins with a butter cream icing topping. Students had to prepare everything themselves. New skills such as grating (sorry Sean that you grated your finger) and using equipment that we commonly have in the kitchen. But, more importantly looking at using vegetables as a sweet food source rather than just what we have with our roast dinners!!

The students excelled as always. It was great to see our new parents and a great morning was had by all.

Week Four - Module One

Monday started with a fantastic trip to Grow 19 in East Malling. We took 11 students who represented M@W impeccably. We were shown around the three courses; Hospitality, Horticulture and Construction. We were able to see first hand the work the construction group were doing / or it might have been the horticulture group as they were preparing a growing plant bed and it looked like they might be building some borders to go around it.

We met up with some of our ex-pupils who seemed to be really enjoying their choice of course and were very happy to tell us all about it.

On our return we discussed what was available and some considered doing one of these courses. We did a bit of research into the practicalities of getting there, either by public transport or private taxi, and looked at what they need to apply for their course.

Our PSPD this week was Social networks & chatrooms, advantages and risks: Ways in which a chatroom could potentially be misused by an adult(s)? A really important topic and one that should always be discussed to ensure that all students (who are adults or very soon to be) are aware that they are of an age that inappropriate activity can be deemed as a criminal offence.

We did the cafe again this week - which was seamless and it might be said that the students actually enjoyed it. This is made easy by the regularity of the event and the familiarity with the tasks involved enabling all students to do different stations each week.

Maths had a new challenge this week - use of a protractor to draw angles - this can be a very tricky skill as there is a lot of measurement involved and the use of a protractor and ruler is imperative to the operation but most students did this very diligently. This is a topic we will return to again and again.

Although we don’t like to admit it Christmas market is just around the corner and as we know from bitter experience, we need to think, prepare and action our ideas. With that in mind all students were asked to prepare a mood board of ideas but also extend that learning into grouping the ideas (similar to our data collection last week) in different sections, craft, woodwork, computing, hospitality. Students are drawing on the skills they are learning in their chosen Wednesday and Friday groups to feed into the choices they are making.

Week Three - Module One

Our week started with an English exercise where students had to use the given text but also their own knowledge of the world around them to practice ‘inference’. This meant that not all the information was available in the given text and the questioning was such that they had to think about what they personally felt the answer might be? ‘Why is the spider bite story a popular myth?’

Data collection is a topic we return to again and again - this term is no different but it did allow us to go out and do a traffic survey. All students were suitably armed with clipboard and pen and we did a data collection for 8 minutes at two different sites. The route between the two sites took us through the wonderful woodland that is right on our doorstep. The students thoroughly enjoyed just being out and about and chatting with their friends as we walked from one location to another whilst experiencing maths in a ‘real world’ situation. The data collection itself was probably a bit suspect with some of the results varying, this gave us the opportunity to explore the concept of finding the ‘mean’ (average) result. Great to be able to take our class out like this and we hope to do a lot more this year.

Moving on from our personal grooming last week - this week it was on how we present ourselves and what we might be able to do to keep and maintain our footwear. Students got the opportunity to wax and polish some leather shoes if they wished - putting on the polish and then buffing it off to make the leather shiny and protected.

We had a real treat this week with a Graffiti artist coming in to replace the artwork in the main building and in the kitchen. All students were invited to partake in this exercise by taking turns in spray painting. This was a whole M@W activity so everyone has had a chance to be part of this installation. Look out on the website for a fuller picture of the paintings the students made.

Week Two - Module One

Students are now getting into the routine of our new day/week in Hever.

With lots of adjustments for everyone we feel that Hever Class is settling in really well and it is lovely to see such eager students coming in everyday ready to learn.

Our early morning work is set to help the students to settle into the day and give them that time for a general low level chat whilst quietly working on whatever work has been set as we wait for all the students to arrive in the morning. This can be maths, English, or something that may be topic based for that day or week. Although students may feel that this is really easy work it is not meant to be too challenging but a reassertion of their abilities and it enables us to gauge how the students are doing both socially and emotionally on a day to day basis.

The shopping for the cafe is done weekly and shared out among the four classes. Hever were lucky enough to be able to do it this week and in the glorious sunshine we departed for Dartford. With an initial browse of many shops including the comic shop and stationery shop to buy those all important highlighters we proceeded to do the food shopping. All students are given a shopping list of their own and were met at the tills once all items had been found. Hever class excelled at this - clearly a very adept group of shoppers!!!

Once the shopping was completed we went to Ali’s cafe who always welcomes us and gives us the best portions no matter what we order!! Students can either use their weekly contributions or their own money to purchase food and drinks.

Before leaving Dartford we had a little mingle around the museum. Students had a really good time just checking out the exhibits and had a good look around the library, we will certainly be returning.

Thursday was our day for cooking the special for all students. We prepared and cooked Toad in the Hole with vegetables and gravy. It went down very well!!

We started our ASDAN work in earnest this week with our Employability work being done on Tuesday’s and our choices on Wednesday. [Pre-loved re-loved, Computing, Woodwork and Horticulture]. Our Friday choices are short courses but no less important [Construction, Computing, Sciences, Hospitality, Expressive Arts, and Sports & Fitness.],

Week One - Module One

Welcome back to everyone.

What a great start to the week we have had welcoming into Hever class are several new students from main site alongside some students from other classes within M@W, and of course some Hever students from last year.

We have got some lovely events planned for this year with plenty of opportunities to go off site and have experiences elsewhere. Our focus is always on learning and our Maths and English will be our core learning which will scaffold our ASDAN’s once again.

Students have been very busy choosing what ASDAN ( Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network) they wish to take:

Tuesday will be class based ASDAN.
Wednesday is student choice: Woodwork, Computing, Horticulture, and pre-love Reloved.
Friday will also have a lot of choices, these are our Short Course ASDAN and are based more on life/social skills: construction, sport & fitness, hospitality, science, computing, drama.

Students choose at the start of the year which course they wish to follow and are entered into this course accordingly. Lessons and evidence is syllabus based and a portfolio of work/evidence is created and reviewed termly as the learning carries on throughout the year.

Hever were on cafe duty this week and it looks like we have a really good working team this year with lots of students showing our new students the routine in the kitchen and we had a very smooth first day in the kitchen.

So, that's it, the end of our first week back. Looking forwards to next week when we can start our term choices and focused learning.