The young people at Beacon Secondary have been completing a project over the course of the autumn term about knife crime and its affects.
The young people are engaged extremely well with the project and produced some excellent work. They had the opportunity to speak to uindividuals from the emergency services as well as relatives of victims of knife crime.
This experience has culminated in a showcase of work, which included sculpture, art work, music and poetry, to the school and wider local community including the Police Commissioner Kim McGuinness and the Mayor of South Shields.
We are all very proud of the young people for the work they have completed as well as for their excellent behaviour during the showcase.
KEY was the first charity in South Tyneside to run a food bank, when people from local churches began making food bags for young people in 1992. They work in partnership with Churches Together, to collect food donations and distribute them across South Tyneside to anyone who is experiencing hardship. The bags contain enough food for up to 3 days. They also include toiletries and other household items depending on need. In March 2019, the food bank moved to its new home on Boldon Lane and was rechristened KEY 2 Life. They have a team of 35 dedicated volunteers who welcome people, offer support, sort and pack food bags, collect donations from local churches, supermarkets and schools.
Beacon Centre’s New Head Shows His Support.
The Beacon Centre’s new and energetic Head Teacher, Mr Gray, took time out of his extremely busy schedule to help sort food packages with young people from the Secondary site. All involved found the experience rewarding and worth while with one young person stating “It’s nice to be able to do something to help others”.
The group who attended with Mr Gray spent their time sorting packages of food, organiasing products and ensuring that they were in date order and organised to make putting hampers together as easy and staightforward as possible.
Mr Gray and Jack helping out.
The Beacon helps in Santa’s Workshop.
Earlier in the day, a group of young people from the secondary site attended the food bank to support in the sorting of Christmas gifts. Staff and young people spent a rewarding morning sorting LEGO packs for children to open on Christmas day. Again, students found this experience rewarding stating they hoped “the kids like opening their Christmas toys”. The students were so enthusiastic about helping sort the gifts that the job was completed quickly and efficiently meaning that they could do more to help by transporting donations to the storage room.
Aspens and Redwoods went to Blyth beach on Friday 24th September. The visit was inspired by the book ‘Holes’ which Key Stage 3 are currently studying in English; students were tasked with attempting to dig a five foot wide and five foot deep hole just as the characters were made to do in the book. We didn’t make it to five foot deep but we certainly have sympathy for the characters following our experience!
We are writing to request permission to video your child taking part in a series of lessons in The Beacon Centre and this video will then be used for training purposes in other educational establishments.
Young People will engage in a variety of vocational lessons which will help them to get first hand experience of relevant, significant cultural issues. The project based learning will run as an ongoing event on Wednesdays up until Christmas.
If you do not want your child to be filmed in this course of this project please inform school before Wednesday 29th September.
Every Friday, the Young People at Beacon Secondary go off site with staff to engage in experiential learning. That is learning out of the classroom environment, developing their social and interpersonal as well as their self-esteem and confidence.
On Friday 17th September:
Aspens and Redwoods visited St Mary’s Lighthouse in the hope of spotting some seals, unfortunately they couldn’t cross the causeway to the island to look for seals but they found quite a few creatures in the rockpools and a caterpillar in the car park! Staff would like to give a special shout out to Kai for helping to keep the beach clean by picking up litter he found and disposing of it correctly in the bin.
Some of the Young People from Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 took part in national beach cleaning week. The students went to Horden beach to help keep our beaches clean. The Group worked well and collected a lot of rubbish! Well done everyone!
We are delighted to welcome back all of the Young People to The Beacon Centre across both sites! IT has been an excellent first week back with some fantastic learning taking place already!
Here is a snapshot of what we have been up to already!
We have just received the printed books containing the published work of three of our young people! A huge well done to Shane, Sam and Isaac! Each of whom have received a copy of the book and a certificate from Young Writers. If you would like to read their fantastic stories, you can do so below.
Sam – Innocent?
Nobody believed he was innocent, everyone though he did it. There was all the proof you needed. The body, the gun, the witnesses, even what’d happened in the past. Everyone knew about their big fight and he hit her straight across the face and walked out on her. He says that night never happened. Anyway, back to the present now. He was found next to her body on his hands and knees, covered in blood. The cops stormed into the room. He ran straight out the window and has been running since.
Young Writers – Case Files: Unsolved, On the Run – Page 130
Shane – The Wrong Crowd
People think the dead can’t talk, but what people don’t know is the so-called dead are alive. I’m thirty-three years old, I’ve been on the run since I was seventeen as I got involved with the wrong crowd, which ended up in a bad situation. One night the gang and I was involved with decided they were going to rob a bank. I’m now FBI’s most wanted as all my accomplices got caught at the scene. I had been a fugitive for sixteen years until the courtroom drama in which I was found not guilty, the case is left unsolved…
Young Writers – Case Files: Unsolved, On the Run – Page 131
Isaac – Mistaken Identity
His body lay on the floor in a puddle of his own blood, his body still gasping for air with a bullet in his lung. This was the third gang-related shooting this week.
He was walking through the street he walked through every day to get to his nan’s from school but he was a little bit late, he walked past a few people and noticed that he was getting followed, they started shouting at him, then they chased him, he was running for about five minutes. He turned a corner. All he heard was bang!
Young Writers – Case Files: Unsolved, On the Run – Page 132
If you are feeling inspired by these great stories, you can enter the current Young Writers Competition ” Spine-Chillers” by following this link:
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