Staff and students have been thinking about what they like about The Beacon Centre. From the amazing Staff team we have to the school’s dogs or the relationships between staff and young people.
Sometimes it’s great to take a minute to be grateful for the things that make you feel happy, in our case it’s being like a family and creative a supportive and caring environment for staff and young people.
We are so proud of all of our staff and young people. We strive to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to achieve all they can and that everyone is able to be the best “them” that they can be….. Most of all…. “We are family!”
Thanks to the Christmas fundraising raffle, Beacon Primary were able to buy some new sledges… Just in time for all the snow!
Children have been able to demonstrate soft skills of team work, turn taking and, consideration.
No learning opportunity was missed either, with young people and staff discussing forces, mass and velocity.
It was great to see all of the children getting stuck in and having a great time in the snow!
What’s the benefit? Where’s the value?
Not only is sledging a fantastic form of exercise for children, repeatedly climbing up the slopes, the fact children have fun doing it is motivation to exercise for longer.
Sledging also helps to improve our endurance levels, cardiovascular fitness and total body strength, all that lugging up the hills and trudging through the snow. It also encourages core stability and control during the descent.
Getting up from falling off demonstrates skills in resilience as well as further developing all the large muscle groups.
Being outside in general, but especially in winter, boosts the heart rate, refreshes the mind and helps to calm children through the day.
The Beacon Centre is rapidly developing its technology offer and its highly integrated use of ICT within all aspects of learning. To that end the children at Beacon Primary have been using a variety of platforms to help with both English and Maths skills.
The girls using the Chrome Books to access Bug Club.
Today in Class 1 Mrs Simpson was making good use of Bug Club (a link can be found in the Remote Learning Links section of the website – see below) to help Lacey and Millie improve their reading and comprehension.
Bug club is a platform that allows the children to be assigned texts that are appropriate for their individual reading level with tasks attached that aim to help make reading fun.
Sometimes the children need some additional personalised tasks to complete before they can engage with their more independent online learning. Here Mr Hall is working with Matthew on his phonics sounds, whilst Mrs Roberts worked with Malaki on their language skills.
Meanwhile in Class 2, Mr Popple was using some more of the schools Google Chrome Books to allow the children to access Times Tables Rockstars (a link can be found in the Remote Learning Links section of the website – see below).
TT Rockstars allows children to practise their timetables, complete challenges to each coins to purchase items to personalise their profile. Children are able to challenge each other to see who can achieve the highest scores for a given timestable.
In Class 3, some more fantastic maths was taking place today with Jack looking at his “Number of the Day” today that number was 312! This process helps to build Jack’s confidence so he can better engage with Timetables Rockstars and other online Maths learning platforms. Well done Jack!
Like most of the schools across the country, at The Beacon Centre, we will be completing a whole range of activities at both the Primary and Secondary sites. This is to help encourage positive conversations around Mental Health and to help improve all of our mental health. This year the theme for Children’s Mental Health Week is self expression.
What is Self-Expression, and why is it important?
Self-expression is about communicating your individuality. This can be through words, clothing and hairstyle, or through art forms such as writing, drawing, music and dance.
Self-expression can help you to showcase your true self – your story, your thoughts, feelings and emotions. But this can also make us feel vulnerable, so you might want to take things one step at a time.
We often get told by our family, friends, school, communities and through social media how we ‘should’ look, think, speak, and act. These constant messages about what we ought to do, and who we out to be, can make it difficult to let go of expectations and express our true selves.
Self-Expression helps us connect to our true self.
Self-expression is a great way to relieve yourself of stress and free your mind. Self-expression can help you to reflect on your life, actions, decisions, relationships, beliefs, and thoughts – rather than keep them buried deep down.
Self-Expression helps us connect to each other – in good times and bad.
By expressing ourselves thoughtfully, we can better communicate, collaborate and build a community with others. At times of crisis, people come together to express themselves individually, and as a group, through the arts.
Here are some examples:
Gareth Malone’s online choir — bringing self-isolating singers together during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Grayson’s Art Club —a series of online masterclasses to help unleash creativity during the Covid-19 lockdown.
BBC Lockdown Orchestra – as part of a ten-day creative challenge, nearly 1,500 members of the
public joined the newly formed BBC Lockdown Orchestra as part of a huge virtual performance.
Create 2030 Solidarity Art Shows – The World Health Organisation, Create2030 and a group of international working artists collaborated on a project to showcase films, music, poetry and visual art about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Te Rito Toi — using art to help children when they first return back to school in New Zealand following a traumatic or life-changing event.
Get Involved
Why not get involved at home and send us some photographs of what you are up to at home in relation to #ChildrensMentalHealthWeek. Whether it’s dressing up, creating posters, writing stories or drawing pictures, we would love to see them and share them with the world!
You can find loads of ideas to help you get involved at the #ChildrensMentalHealthWeek website!
Audible are giving away audio books! All you have to do is click on the link and follow the on screen instructions. Enjoy!
For as long as schools are closed, we’re open. Right now, kids everywhere can instantly stream an incredible collection of stories, including titles across eight different languages, that will help them continue dreaming, learning, and just being kids.
All stories are free to stream on your desktop, laptop, phone or tablet.
Explore the collection, select a title and start listening.
All of the staff at the Beacon Centre are performing random acts of kindness to help look after one another. These can be something small like a making someone a cup of coffee, or something as big a gift.
At Beacon Primary for example Mr Wemyss made sausage sandwiches, and Mrs Roberts made teas and coffees for all of the staff in Beacon Primary.
The sandwiches were greatly appreciate by all, and put a smile on everyone’s face for a Friday morning which is always nice!
At Beacon Secondary the Kitchen staff all enjoyed a bacon sandwich with teas and coffees made by members of the SLT.
Ms Huse went so far as to create Mr O’Neill’s name out of item’s with a note for each letter!
Miss Lambert decided to bring in some Biscoff Cheesecake for staff with a personal note which was a lovely thing to do!
I think we all want to be like Mrs Hudson when we grow up. The queen of the Beacon Centre is always there to take care of all of us, staff and young people, any time, day or night. I am sure we all feel the same way in wanting to offer a huge thank you for everything that she does for us all every single day. THANK YOU MRS HUDSON!!!
If you have anyone you would like to thank, or if you have received a random act of kindness, let us know on Facebook! Send us a photo! We would love to see them!
Our whole school focus is on words: reading them, spelling them, understanding them, saying them, listening to them, using them kindly and correctly. James in class 2 has demonstrated that he is a wordsmith today who rises to meet our ever high expectations. Not only has he spelled all of his technical word spellings correctly, but he can give a definition and has correctly punctuated proper nouns. Great job James!
Gross motor skills involve movements of the large muscles of the arms, legs, and torso.
Children need to use their gross motor skills for everyday activities at school, at home and in the community.
Children who struggle with gross motor skills have trouble doing whole-body movements like climbing and star jumps.
Why is it important?
Gross motor skills are linked to many other key aspects of development:
Balance
Coordination
Body awareness
Physical strength
Reaction time
All of these abilities help children participate successfully in activities at school, at home, and in the community. Linked gross motor skill development can have an additional impact on self-esteem and self-worth.
What is The Beacon Centre doing to help?
Both Beacon Primary and Beacon Secondary have put in place resources and activities to aid in the development of Gross Motor Skills in children and young people in our care. For instance at Beacon Secondary, weekly activities which involve balance, strength building and physical exercise are all designed to include elements are gross motor skill development.
At Beacon Primary, daily gross motor skill activities are set up to help the younger children to continue with the early stages of gross motor skill development. This includes obstacle courses, activities which focus on balance, dancing and co-ordinated playground play.
For those of you who don’t know. Beacon Primary has a new member of staff! Lyla!
Lyla is a 5 month old Cockapoo.
Lyla is here to help calm the children when they are upset and for them to read too. Children and staff love to take Lyla out for walks and to have her in class to see what the children are doing throughout the day.
Lyla is very excited to start work!
She even has her own One Page Profile
Lyla loves to listen to children read
but it has always made her sleepy.
Sometimes Lyla likes to dress up,
she hopes that you will enjoy reading about her adventures.
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