Blackfriars / Coppice Federation Bench Ball Competition

Two Y11 Coppice teams and two Y12 Blackfriars teams arrived at Blackfriars Newcastle to play a Bench Ball Competition organised by 8CH Sports Leaders group.

They had planned the tournament over the last three weeks, everyone knew what they had to do and got on with it very well. Roles were varied, ranging from collecting the score card from the ref at the end of each game and taking it to the scorers table to keeping sole control and order of the scoring (a very big responsibility and one carried out by with tremendous professionalism).

The atmosphere was tremendous, with everyone playing in a friendly way, win or lose!

One member of staff commented that he was very impressed with the efficiency of the Sports Leaders and our neutral referee, Alex Morris, said that he, ‘really enjoyed the afternoon’

Our Headteacher, Clive Lilley, came over to present the cup to the wining team, Coppice White, who actually drew on points with Coppice Blue team, but won overall on number of goals scored in all of their games.

Many, many thanks to everyone who took part, helped with the organisation of the event in any way or who cheered the players on.

Carol Palin
Blackfriars, Newcastle

Pupil Makes the Grade

A pupil had cause to celebrate in December by being the first at Blackfriars to achieve a Vocational Diploma in ICT. She passed all of the five modules to complete work for the qualification. The pupil commented 'I’m really pleased and can’t wait to start the next step of the course'. Mr Gilbert said 'I’m delighted that we have our first pupil achieving a Diploma, and I'm looking forward to seeing other pupils gaining the Diploma this year'.

8CH London Trip

Stoke station hasn’t seen anything like it for a long time: Eleven teenagers from 8CH descended on the Station Café from 8 a.m. ready to invade the Big Smoke. By 8.30 most had already eaten their packed lunches and were raring to go. When the train arrived two assistants from Travelcare helped us with ramps and within a minute we were safely on board and settling into our seats.
The journey was brilliant, the café on the train served drinks and it didn’t take long before other passengers were chatting away with us. A few of the youngsters had never travelled on a train before and they were very impressed by the speed and comfort even when the train tilted as it travelled round some of the bends. It was smooth and quiet.
Once at Euston Travelcare helped us off and we walked to the concourse ready to begin our trek to the British Museum. The group stuck tightly together through the heavy rain, crossing the six lanes of Euston Road in two groups (The pedestrian refuge in the middle of the road was too small for all of us together.). We traversed Southampton Row and Tavistock Square without ropes but totally saturated as the heavens opened while we passed the sad location of the 2007 bus bomb.
Five minutes later we sailed into the Montague Street entrance. It was a pity we never got to enter via the Grand Façade at the front of the British Museum but cold, wet and hunger is a powerful force for common sense. We quickly reassembled in the Great Court café and bought soup and hot drinks, cakes and sandwiches, as one pupil was heard to say; “this place is awesome”
The Ancient Egyptian gallery was packed as our steaming party pondered the vastness of time since the mummies breathed and walked in the sunshine. We marvelled at the ancient craftsmanship and artistry. Around us a whole Babel of languages filled the galleries: English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Hungarian, and a dozen others. Where had all these people come from? We knew why.
The next stage of the trip was the shopping phase. The museum shops have some fantastic items that are unique and excellent quality but some of the prices gave us interesting conversations, would you eat off a £200 plate? Or buy a handbag for £600?
Once the shopping urge had been sated 8CH circulated the ground floor, Josh posing next to a giant carved fist from 2000 BC, and everyone awed by the scale, the antiquity and the grandeur.
The weather was kinder on our walk back to Euston in the dark but the rush hour bustle kept our little group tight knit and wary.
Inside the station more food and drink was bought, the youngsters going themselves to order and pay for their choices, scattered in groups of three or four. All within sight of each other inside the café atrium and assisted where necessary by Blackfriars staff.
At 7.00 p.m we had boarded the train to go home only to find that all our reserved seating and wheelchair places were occupied. Our youngsters bravely and politely asked people to relinquish their places and apart from a couple of grumps they did so with good grace and humour.
Soon it was 8.30 and with Travelcare and parents waiting we alighted the train in under a minute. What a brilliant day.

Chris Hughes Form Teacher

First Aid

The secondary department have become the 'New First Aiders' with help from the British Red Cross. A lottery fund has provided scheme to support pupils in school to attain An Emergency First Aid Certificate. The course was delivered by an excellent representative from the organisation called Tulsa McClain, who met the differentiated needs of our pupils with enormous professionalism.

The course ran for a complete school day and included lots of practical situations and when required required quick thinking by our pupils to solve an emergency calmly and summon the correct emergency service. The pupils were able to verbalise the incident to the services, assess the casualty, care for an unconscious casualty and immediate help for a person not breathing. All of the pupils could either put a casualty in the recovery position or instruct a bystander to do this for them. The pupils particularly enjoyed bandaging the staff and role playing situations such as choking, bleeding, treating burns and removing a bee from someone's ear!

The pupils had a small certificate to take home and an assessment book to work through.

The pupils all enjoyed the experience and if they could just take away one piece of learning from that day, could save a person's life and that is immeasurable learning.

Sports Across Staffordshire Games - 2nd July 2009

On 02/07/09 a group of pupils traveled to the Sport Across Staffordshire Games at Shobnall Leisure Centre.

We had decided before we went that we would like to take part in the athletics activities as our focus in school that term had been around 'outwitting our opponents' through 'Kwik Cricket' and we wanted to try something different. The pupils took part in various events including two favourites; the obstacle races and the javelin (sponge variety!). The obstacle races proved very popular as the whole group could take part. They also enjoyed the experience of the long jump pit as this was completely new to some of our pupils as we don't have a long jump pit at our school. A couple of the girls decided afterwards to take off their trainers and socks and to wiggle their toes in the sand, so a sensory experience as well.

Everyone received a T-shirt to wear on the day which they could keep. When asked what they thought about the organisers giving out T-shirts, one of the pupils said that 'it made us feel like a real team' and they did look very smart too.

The whole group thoroughly enjoyed the day and agreed unanimously that the experience was great and they are all hopeful that the games will take place again next year and that they will be chosen to go.