International Women in Engineering Day

13th June 2019Sarah Hall

International Women in Engineering Day is an international awareness campaign to raise the profile of women in engineering and focuses attention on the amazing career opportunities available to girls in this exciting industry.

We celebrated this day on 11th June involving 90 girls across key stage three to take part in the ‘Gimme’ event hosted by Nissan. Gimme (Girls in Monozukuri, Manufacturing and Engineering) is a set of focused activities to encourage girls to consider careers in manufacturing and engineering. The girls learned about some of the alarming statistics about the uptake of engineering by girls and the fact that the North East alone is expected to have 20,000 vacancies in Manufacturing and Engineering in the next 5 years.

In the afternoon the girls came back to school for an afternoon of activities building spaghetti towers (which were later tested by an earthquake and wind test for stability) with the assistance of 3 engineers who talked about their pathways and inspirations for embarking on their chosen career pathways.

Here are some quotes for the day:-

“I am more aware that women can be engineers’

“Today showed me all of the jobs that you can do in the engineering industry”

“It was nice seeing women in engineering roles today”

“We learned about the different jobs at Nissan and some history about the company”

Morpeth Junior Netball Club

7th June 2019Sarah Hall

If you enjoy playing or are interested in playing Netball and in Year 5 or below Morpeth Junior Netball Club are looking to set up a new High 5 section.

Please here for further information.

Newminster Bike Week

5th June 2019Sarah Hall

Free Biker’s Breakfast for every pupil or staff member who rides their bike or scooter to school – (please refer to p.16 in the school planner to ensure you are following safe cycling)- and remember to wear your helmet, stay safe near roads and bring a lock!

Click here for further information.

 

 

Year 6 Meet Dippy at Great North Museum: Hancock

4th June 2019Sarah Hall

On Monday 20th May we took Year 6 pupils to visit The Natural History Museum’s famous Dippy the dinosaur as he visits Great North Museum: Hancock as part of his UK tour. Unveiled to the British public in 1905, Dippy was cast from the a specimen found in America. The full skeleton is 21.3 metres long, 4.3 metres wide and 4.25 metres high. When visiting the museum, pupils had time to explore the Dippy About exhibition, visit Dippy the dinosaur himself, took part in some fossil handling activities and explored the rest of the exhibitions.

This was a very special visit for pupils and staff to enjoy and we hope pupils felt inspired by the natural world.

Pupils shared their thoughts after the visit;

“Today, I learned that plants can be fossilised and that if we use too much energy, half of the North East could be covered in water. I liked Dippy because I could understand how big a real life dinosaur would have been.”

“I enjoyed seeing Dippy because he was so big! I learned that people who look at fossils learn a lot about that species. I would like to study fossils because they are interesting.”

“I enjoyed seeing Dippy as it was a once in a lifetime experience. The length of Dippy was amazing

and that was the actual size, as it was a fully casted model.

Year 5 Durham University Planetarium Visit

4th June 2019Sarah Hall

On Friday 3rd May Year 5 pupils had the opportunity to enter a StarLab: a portable, inflatable planetarium. A Senior Mechanical Engineer from Durham University’s Department of Physics volunteered to bring the StarLab into Newminster and set it up in the gym for form classes to crawl inside and be transported into space!

Pupils shared their thoughts after the visit;

“I enjoyed the planetarium as I learned about space today. While I was in it I felt excited and amazed about how much I did not know about space for example how pressure and gravity act upon stars and how stars can live and die. The visit has made me more interested in space and I would like to find out more.”

“My experience at the planetarium was incredible. We are so lucky that Marc gave up his time just to help us learn more about the Solar System.”

 

Newminster Health & Well-being Day

4th June 2019Sarah Hall
Our Year 5 and 6 students enjoyed their recent Health and Well-being Day. Louisa said that she learnt how to keep her body and healthy, Maisy stated that she learnt how to communicate and collaborate in large groups and Sam liked meeting the lady from the Blue Cross Charity as he says he wanted a new dog. They all had different ideas on which was their favourite session.
Activities included frisbee throwing, den building, Djembe drumming, puppet workshop, smoothie tasting, staying safe near animals, hoopstarz and Rockout workout with beat sticks.

Our visitors commented once again on how well our pupils behave and what a joy they are to run workshops with.

Year 8 ‘Poets in Residence’

23rd May 2019Andrew Baxter

Our Year 8 pupils have been studying the powerful World War 1 play ‘Journey’s End,’ by R.C Sherriff, which follows the lives of a group of British officers on the front line. In addition, our students have explored the presentation of war, through four poems: ‘Dulce et Decorum est,’ by Wilfred Owen; ‘Suicide in the Trenches,’ by Siegfried Sassoon; ‘Who’s for the Game,’ written by Jessie Pope and Rupert Brooke’s famous sonnet, ‘The Soldier.’ Pupils were challenged to write their own sonnet, in the style of Brooke, producing incredible poetry which conveyed a sensitivity to the theme of ‘honourable sacrifice and love of England.’

In order to extend the learning experience, pupils were presented with an opportunity to perform their sonnets ‘to camera,’ in a World War 1 trench dugout. See the videos below of our ‘Poets in Residence’ at Newminster Middle School.