Enterprise day took place on Friday 10th February and this year the theme was ‘The Wedding’. The event saw the entire school involved and working with students from all year groups in teams. The full day challenge was delivered by an expert team 26 Business Ambassadors from the HMRC, DWP, Barclays, Northumberland County Council as well as Carole Richards from Northumberland Education Business Partnership, who organised this event.

The aim of the day was for students to be part of the Leisure Sector and set up a hotel which would offer a wedding package to the Business Ambassador. The students had the opportunity to pitch their ideas to the Business Ambassadors in the afternoon session after being given a master class in presentation and communication skills.

Click continue reading for pictures from the day, a message from the assistant headteacher and student quotes.

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On Thursday 9th February, NMS and CMS Bronze Arts Awards students went to work with the Laing Learning team and a professional artist, as part of the ARTiculate Project, to develop their ability to interpret the work on display in the exhibition Modern Visionaries: Van Dyck & the Artists’ Eye. They learnt about how artists communicate stories and ideas through their work. 

Students participated in a visual literacy workshop at the gallery, worked with a photography artist to develop and refine ideas for their own interpretive artworks and took a self led tour of the work on display in the ‘Out of Chaos’ exhibition. This exhibition included powerful works by 50 international artists such as Frank Auerbach, David Bomberg, Marc Chagall, Chaïm Soutine and Alfred Wolmark, which address the universality of migration and resulting issues of identity and belonging.

An exhibition of the students work will be displayed at the gallery at the end of the project, with the opportunity to take part in a preview event for all participants involved towards the end of April. 

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On Tuesday 18th October, the Year 8 students entered the world of work at AIS connect. Students traded their uniform for smart workwear as they stepped into the shoes of a ‘conference delegate’ for the day.

The purpose of the day is to prepare our students to make informed career choices for the future. The event highlights alternative careers pathways such as apprenticeships as well as the more traditional routes into employment.

We want our CEIAG programme to support learning and the important decisions that young people make about subjects, pathways, future learning and job opportunities. At Newminster we believe in supporting the development of skills learning, skills for life and skills for work.

To read more click ‘continue reading’.

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This was the first time that we trialed a mini careers event for our year five students. The event took place on Friday 1st July where the students had a special assembly facilitated by Mrs Bowler involving a ‘What’s my line?’ theme.

The event was supported by ‘Primary futures’ who kindly recruited the visitors which included the following representatives:

• Wendy Bland, Accountant, BIS
• Steve Bullock, Welder/Safety Advisor, Express Engineering  
• Kelly Green, Change Finance Apprentice, DWP
• Emma Youngs, Occupational Therapist
• Andy Jaycott, Tax Analyst, Deloitte

The year five’s thoroughly enjoyed grilling the guests!

To view pictures of the day click ‘continue reading’.

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A group of 28 year seven students went along to the annual Big Bang Fair at Northumbria University to present their science projects. All the students have been accredited with a Bronze crest award and they had the opportunity to showcase their fantastic work amongst other schools in the North East.

The year seven’s also had the opportunity to attend inspiring STEM workshops and take part in a variety of challenges such as chocolate welding, bug eating challenges and one of our students Max Davidson won the Formula 1 challenge which was run by the NAC group.

On 11th March we had our annual British Science Week celebrations.

The day was packed with fun activities to engage students with the STEM subjects. We had a host of external STEM ambassadors who came in to share their expertise and passion for their given specialism . The purpose of the day was to engage all the students with a wide range of STEM activities.

Here is a flavour of the activities that took place during the day.

Year 5  

• Mrs Urwin delivered a solar mechanics activity.
• Technology Tom gave an interactive workshop about scientific developments.
• Alan Jones from the National Energy Alliance worked on a drama based energy workshop.
• Year 5 staff had the students working on Baskerville linked circuits

Year 6

• Michelle Payne a biomedical scientist from Sunderland university ran an infection workshop
• Tracy Atkins launched the pedometer challenge
• Mrs Brown (one of our parents) volunteered to run an engaging physics workshop
• Fran Mockford from IHC got the students bridge building in her engineering workshop
• The much loved Creepy Crawley roadshow offered the students to get up close to some of their favourite minibeast including a snake!

Year 7 activities were co-ordinated by Northumberland Education Business Partnership.

• The egg rocket challenge was enjoyed by all
• The digital Skills workshop was delivered by Newcastle College and the students designed their own games
• Piramal delivered a workshop which gave an insight into the pharmaceutical industry
• The roller coaster engineering workshop gave students an opportunity to work at their engineering skills.

Year 8

• Jess Stangward travelled all the way from London to discuss animal researching
• Teeside university delivered a forensics workshop and a bridge building activity
• Hannah from Newcastle University talked about chemistry in your world
• ICE (Institute of Civil Engineers) delivered a water filtration workshop

To view a gallery of images from the day click ‘continue reading’.

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We are very pleased to announce that all of our Brilliant Club 2016 students graduated from their Scholars Programme on Thursday 4^th February. They attended Durham University for the evening, along with all the other successful graduates from the programme.  It was a very proud moment for everyone and it was wonderful to see parents and carers sharing the special occasion. Well done!

On Thursday 28th January 20 Key Stage 3 girls took part in a fantastic STEM event specifically for girls in our region, at The Sage Gateshead. The event was organised and run by the Stemettes and Accenture.

We attended the event last year and had a really brilliant and informative day, so expectations were high for this years “bigger and better” event.

We weren’t disappointed. This year the event was on a larger scale and The Sage was not the only venue. There were other events running in Birmingham, Manchester and London simultaneously on the day. At one point we were even “Trending” on Twitter.

Read more about what the girls learned, click ‘continue reading’.

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We had a successful drop down day on January 29th. The day was supported by 21 Business Ambassadors from various organisations in the North East along with Carole Richards from Northumberland Education Business Partnership.
The students worked in house teams comprising vertical groups. Throughout the day the Business Ambassadors set challenges and tasks to encourage enterprise and entrepreneurship. The aim of the day was for students to participate in manufacturing simulations and set up their own companies. The intended outcome for the day was that the students will develop their team and communication skills as well as raising employability skills and financial awareness.

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