Pamper Yourself for Free

Students studying Beauty need models for their assessments over the following few Thursdays. A variety of treatments are available to book for free.


Dates available:
Thursday 27th March
Thursday 3rd April
Thursday 24th April
Thursday 1st May
Thursday 8th May
Thursday 8th May

Treatments available:
Manicure (1 hour)
Pedicure (1 hour)
Facial (1 hour)
Make-Up (45 mins)
Eyebrow tinting and shaping (30 mins)
Nail Art (30 mins) 

Times available on all days:
9.50    - all 1 hour and 45 min appointments
12.30  - all 1 hour and 45 min appointments
2.45    - 45 min and 30 min appointments

If you would like any of the following treatments please email me on d.taylor@wcsc.org.uk


Debbie Taylor

Spend as usual and raise money for Winston

Shop through the PTA orgainsed Spend and Raise e-store. Get all your usual favourites and a lot more. It won't cost you anything extra, but you will be raising money for the school.

Please go to the PTA Spend and Raise E-Store and take a look at the huge choice. Don't forget to take a look at the special offers while you are there.

To see what else the PTA are up to please visit their website

A Visit to the Inspiring Workshop of Theo Fennell

Following on from our inspirational Technology Department Master Class with Theo Fennell in October, Theo was so impressed with the calibre of work produced that he opened the doors of his prestigious Fulham Road Store to eight of year 10 students who study GCSE Resistant Materials or GCSE Graphic Products as well as Mr Mohammed and I.  Located in South Kensington, Theo’s shop is regularly frequented by the likes of Elton John, The Beckham’s and the cast of Made in Chelsea.  

 To prepare us for our afternoon with Theo we first took in some culture at the V&A museum where the students: Daniel Bowman, Aidan Mailes, Ryan King, Joanna Rotherham, Rhiannon Dallow, Yasmin Denham, Tino Mungoshi and Freddie Fisk took in the opulent jewellery exhibit, the metal work exhibit and other exhibits from around the world .  The students had time to observe and create work in their jewellery design sketchbooks that have been ongoing since Octobers Master Class.

 

Theo was extremely generous with his time, firstly showing us around his shop then upstairs into the design studio. There his team were busy drawing up new designs on Photoshop ready for his craftsmen to make in the workshop that we were shown next.  Once in the workshop we did not want to leave the surroundings of such creativity and craftsmanship. Theo talked about his designs with such passion and even let the students try on some of the jewellery and handle the trophies created in the workshop. 

 

 

After such a great day, how do we follow this up? Well Theo has taken samples of all eight students work to look over, very soon he will return to Winston to feedback his thoughts on how their designs have progressed and mentor them further. Finally Theo will be offering one, or maybe two lucky work experience positions for the young designers that impress him the most.

Miss Blackman

Winston wins the Woking region Science Challenge and are through to the regional finals.

 

Last night some of our year 9’s competed in the Science Challenge at Christ’s College. This is a university challenge style competition and our students once again were an absolute credit to the school.


The schools competing last night were Gordons, Christ’s College, BDB and Woking High.

Winston A beat Christ's College A by a staggering 90-10 in the first round and went on to win the Woking region. They will be competing again in the regional finals which will include competitors such as Guildford County.

Winston B came in an honourable 4th.

Congratulations to all the students who took part.

 

 


Winston A

Ajanth Sutharsan (Captain)
David Stacey
Sarah Bindschedler
Patricia Medina









Winston B

Yusuf Ismail (Captain)
Edward Phillips
Timmy Knox
Rachel Muir
Sarvar Rzayev

Proposed New School Day

The Governors and Senior Leadership Team felt that this year was the time to re-evaluate the teaching day at the Winston Churchill School.  The school needed to evaluate whether or not our current school day is the best mechanism for providing the quality curriculum time essential for outstanding progress and academic achievement, and for producing young people who are ready for their next step in life once they leave our school.

Our current school day has been with Winston for decades; indeed, it is a legacy from the reaction to the teacher strikes of the 1980s.  It has some benefits:  parents like the fact that the younger students are able to get home in the light, even in the shortest days of the year; some parents use their children to pick up younger siblings from junior schools who finish later than 2.30pm; some very busy youngsters who have evening activities are able to have enough time to complete all homework prior to their evening commitments.

However, there are some major issues in the school day for both teaching and learning: 

·         Lunch is very short (30 minutes) - this leaves precious little social time for our students, and therefore students do miss out on learning some of the softer social skills needed for life.

·         Due to this, the day is extremely condensed.  This means that for both students and teachers there are 6 hours of schooling, with high impact teaching and learning, with just one 30 minute break.  Staff find this hard as there is no setting up time (or, indeed, convenience breaks).  Students find it hard to be the active, engaged learners that we encourage them to be in this concentrated period of time.  We have noticed on our Climate Walks of lessons this year that behaviour and engagement falls away during periods 4 and 5.

·         Our school site is large - we are the largest 11-16 school in the whole of Surrey.  Students are encouraged to ensure their punctuality is excellent, and almost all strive to do this; however, this is very difficult when it takes 5 minutes to walk from one side of our site to the other.  Therefore, our one-hour lessons are often 50-55 minute lessons by the time all students have arrived.  Cumulatively, this means that many hours of education are being lost through the course of the academic year with the current school day system.

 

What has happened so far this year

A Working Party was set up to review the school day, with representation sort from a complete cross-section of staff, both teaching and non-teaching.  The Working Party consisted of 18 volunteers, from a variety of backgrounds within the school:

·         Class teachers

·         Learning Support Assistants

·         Science Technicians

·         The Site Team

·         Cover supervisor / organiser

·         Year Leaders

·         Subject Leaders

·         A teacher governor

·         Member of the SLT

Among the group were colleagues who were also parents at the school; colleagues who had experience of different school days at other schools; some of the teachers with the fullest timetable in the school; and some teachers who, due to teaching more than one subject, are very peripatetic during the school day.

This meeting had the agenda of stripping the school day away and starting from scratch - how would we create a school day that best fits the core purpose of the school.

The working part met for two long meetings to put together a proposal for a new school day.

 

After this, the proposal was taken to the Senior Leadership Team, who discussed it in two meetings.  It was then taken to a Student Voice meeting, where the representatives of the student body were shown the proposed new school day, and they were given time to reflect on the changes and give their initial feedback.  The Head Boy and Girl then came to an SLT meeting to give further feedback.

 

The proposed new school day was then discussed at a Teaching and Learning governors meeting in January, where they gave their support to further consultation.

 

It was then shown to the whole school staff during the whole school inset on January 24th 2014.  Staff were also provided with the opportunity to feedback on their thoughts of the proposal.

 

What does the Proposed New School Day look like?

It was decided to not change the current system of lunchtime, as any change would lead to too long a lunch.  It was decided to include a morning break of 20 minutes for the whole school instead.  Movement time of 5 minutes was added between lessons (when required) so that students are ready for the start of every one hour lesson. 

 

  8.25am - Initial bell sounds

  8.30 - 8.50 - AM Registration Period / Assembly

  8.50 - 8.55 - Movement time

  8.55 - 9.55 - Period 1

  9.55 - 10.00 - Movement time

10.00 - 11.00 - Period 2

11.00 - 11.20 - Morning Break

11.20 - 12.20 - Period 3

12.20 - 13.50 - Period 4 / Lunch (with the same pattern of split-breaks as we currently have)

13.50 - 13.55 - Movement Time

13.55 - 14.05 - PM Registration

14.05 - 14.10 - Movement Time

14.10 - 15.10 - Period 5

15.10 - End of school day

 

What are the Advantages of this School Day?

·        Movement time will allow for hour-long lessons to actually be hour long learning experiences. 

·        The movement time will allow staff to set up their lessons so that they run smoother and will be 'higher impact'. This will inevitably lead to better teaching and better learning.

·        The morning break will allow for more social time, as well as meeting times, and time for students who need to 'play' - so sports facilities will be open each day.  It will also enable small amounts of practice time for key events (sports teams/orchestras, etc).  It will also be a punitive time for students if needed.

·        There will be opportunities for eating at break, but the majority of the lunches will now be eaten at a time much more suitable for a traditional lunch (between 12.20pm and 1.50pm as opposed to starting at 10.50am as we currently do)

·        There will be potentially less time when students arrive home after school where they are left to their own devices as parents are working so cannot be there to receive them.

 

Whenever change such as this is proposed, it is often hard to look beyond the immediate impacts to one's self; however, the job of leading a school means that some decisions will need to happen that create changes that do not please everyone, but are essential for the growth and improvement of the whole school.  This is certainly one of those; and although there will be some parents who will feel that the change will negatively impact on their lives and routines, the benefits to the students and their learning has been the driving force behind this proposal, and we are sure that anyone who studies this document can recognise that.

What are the next steps

We warmly invite you to an afternoon session of discussions about the proposed changes on Monday 10^th March from 4.30 – 6pm.  This will be an informal setting with tables chaired by the Headteacher, the Senior staff, and also the Student Voice (including the Head Boy and Head Girl).  At this time you will be able to discuss the changes and bring any concerns you may have to our attention.

The school is in communication with the Bus Company, to ensure that bus timings take into account the change to the school day timings.

The school will be taking the proposed day to the Full Governors meeting at the end of March for ratification, ready for its commencement in September 2014.

Download a copy of this information

Start the Day Right Breakfast

On 13^th February the students who attend the Start the Day Right breakfast with Mrs Bracher and Mr Davis went to Sainsbury’s to buy supplies for the breakfast they were going to cook for their tutors, Mr Reed and Mrs Alexander. The trip was a great success with the students understanding how to budget for a meal and buying the necessary items.

 

On Friday 14^th they came in early to cook a range of breakfast goodies including pancakes with fresh fruit, expertly flipped by the students, sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs and range of hot and cold drinks. The feedback from the tutors and year team was very complimentary. “I thought it was brilliant, great to see the students taking on the responsibility. I think they got a sense of pride and achievement from planning, making and serving us a meal. The students I have seen today have all been glowing with pride and put a lot of extra effort into their work!”

  

 

 

Mrs Bracher and Mr Davis are really proud of all the students and look forward to the next cooking venture.

 

 

The Sound of Music

Audience reviews of highly successful Winston Churchill School production of The Sound of Music. 

 

 

Audience Reviews

 

“…Congratulations to you both on another marvellous production. Once again the Winston kids did themselves, and the school, proud. Clearly a lot of hard work has gone into rehearsals and it is great to see all the kids performing with such energy and enthusiasm…”

“…Just had to say what a stunning production you put on last week.  It truly was fantastic – the directing, producing, orchestra, casting etc were all outstanding.  You really should go on tour!!  I didn’t think any show would beat Annie but this did – they just get better and better.   Whatever are you going to do next time?!!!...”

“…What an absolutely wonderful performance I witnessed on Friday night!

Hannah was simply sublime, and all the other cast all shone brightly.

The lighting, sound, direction, costumes, pit-band... everything - was of such a tremendous standard... once again, an incredible indictment of the skill and dedication of your Drama department, and of the talent of our students. Absolutely outstanding. Thank you so much.”

“…Just wanted to say the production was absolutely fantastic. We both really enjoyed it….”

“…Had a lovely evening and was so proud of the students. What amazing young people they all are…”

“…We absolutely loved the performance on Wednesday, thank you. Uncle Max was once again a favourite character- what a natural he is. I hope the performances have gone well.  It is a credit to you, the staff and all the children that you can put on such a professional performance. Thanks again…”

“…Thank you for my ticket to attend the School production of Sound of Music. Last night's performance lived up to my previous experience of Winston Churchill's high calibre of drama and music students. This can only happen through having expert guidance and involvement from their teachers. Please pass on my thanks to all those involved, including front house and behind scenes for putting on a splendid show….”

“… Many congratulations on a wonderful performance yesterday evening!  We thoroughly enjoyed it. Please pass on our congratulations to everyone involved – so much hard work by everyone, but very much appreciated….”

“…Just to say congratulations and a huge thank you for a wonderful production of The Sound of Music.  As always I am so very impressed by the quality and professionalism and the enormous amount of time you obviously dedicate to these things.  I know my son enjoyed it to the extent that he cannot now cope with ordinary life!...”

“…Have kept meaning to drop you a line to say how superb and professional The Sound Of Music was on Saturday night. We thoroughly enjoyed it and want to say a big thank you for all your hard work in putting the production together. We are left wondering what you will come up with for next year, our last one at the school!..."

“…Congratulations to all the students and staff involved in all aspects of The Sound of Music...."
 

 
 







It was a delightful show and yet again showcasing the many talented students we have.

Thank you to everyone involved.

Simon Donaldson