Today I took the opportunity to visit a couple of learning environments. First of all I went at lunchtime to the Eco Committee to see what they got up to. I'd already met some of them last Saturday when they held a community gardening event to spruce up a bit of overgrown garden. The morning had been great - bacon rolls and hot drinks to warm us in the pouring rain (or course it rained!!). We weeded, replanted, cleared and re-laid a path. It was a great opportunity for parents to get involved (and younger brothers and sister). At the meeting they divided up tasks to do (compost collection; re-designing a form to use less paper; designing a poster to alert people to recycling boxes; and deciding who'd speak to which teachers to ask about their use of the recycling boxes). Some went off to the greenhouses to pot some herbs they are growing to sell at parents evening. These were polite, engaged, studious pupils - mostly seniors, with a few younger ones. And the conversations were even about environmental issues - what the most environmentally friendly school uniform would look like.
Later that day I spent a period at the support base, helping one of the pupils from my supported set third years. Total opposite end of the spectrum!! She'd been excluded from one of her classes so went to the base to do alternative work. Covered in red pen (which burst in the last period, staining the desk and her hands - hopefully no-one else). The base is a friendly, safe, homely environment and pupils can help themselves to drinks of water. At the end of the period (last period) they played a game together, a bit like Jenga. Wow - this overexcited them so much that they were hysterically laughing and unable to calm down - they bounced out of the base when the bell went, only just managing to keep it together while their sheets were signed.
Great to see the school able to support both types of pupil, and another experience which underlined the huge range of young people at this school.
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