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!!

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.

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.

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.

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.], 

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.