Newsletter, 8th March 2024

Good afternoon,

I hope that you and your family are well and that you are enjoying the first days of spring. There is a lot to report once again from a very busy Westfield School!

Year 11 Apprenticeships

On Thursday 20 of our Y11 students visited Hillsborough for one of Sheffield’s biggest apprenticeship events. The students were a credit to themselves and the school and found the day an incredibly useful opportunity to meet prospective employers, handing out CVs, networking and making some important contacts which will really help them next year.

Mr Rastall (our newly appointed Work Related Learning Advisor) was really impressed by the range of opportunities presented, the quality of the event and the conduct and positivity of our students, and looks forward to supporting our current Y10 students at the event next year.

Immunisations in School

The immunisation team were in school today for the Year 8 HPV vaccinations – thank you to our Year 8s for their mature response. As ever, the feedback from our visitors was that our students were polite and positive, even when they were nervous about the immunisations.

On Thursday the team will be back in school for the Year 9s catch up session for anyone who missed their TDP booster.

Westfield School Choir

Our school choir was successfully launched last week and we saw great attendance which included students from all year groups. We saw performances from solo artists and groups and were thrilled with the level of confidence our children displayed. This week there will also be some staff joining in. Don’t forget Mrs Kon will also be offering our children singing lessons. For more information and a free taster lesson, students should attend the music department after school on Monday.

GCSE Photography Taster Lessons

In year 9 we offer our students the opportunity to study a one-year, early entry GCSE Photography qualification. This is part of our expressive arts mini options process which year 8 students will take part in next term. For our students to understand the required elements of the photography course we will be running a four-week project in Year 8 art lessons. This project will give students a taster of the work required to achieve the qualification. They will cover elements such as image analysis, photo manipulation and creating a final response.

Those students who enjoy the project and would like to be considered for the early entry GCSE will then be asked to complete an additional homelearning task via TEAMS. This will enable staff to judge students’ suitability for the course. Photography always proves to be very popular with our students and we look forward to seeing the quality of work our current year 8 students will produce. Further information on the expressive arts options process will be available next half term.

TV and Acting Workshop

This week we were lucky enough to have Inspire Academy in school delivering a TV and Screen Acting workshop to our students. Each year group had an opportunity to work with the academy on an inspiring session which focused on a variety of acting skills. Students engaged exceptionally in the workshop and produced high quality confident performances, well done to all the students who participated!

Westfield Are Premier League!

Congratulations to our former student, Oliver Arblaster, who made his Premier League debut for Sheffield United earlier this week. Oliver is a real inspiration to our budding athletes at Westfield, and is one of many former students who have achieved their dream of being a professional sportsperson. Oliver showed an incredibly positive attitude whilst he was a student here that has helped him to his success as an adult. We are excited about what the future will hold for him and wish him all the best!

Climbing Trip

Well done to our fantastic group of Year 11 students who last weekend enjoyed the challenge of going climbing as part of their GCSE PE course. Our PE teachers who led the trip were full of praise for our students who showed great determination and resilience.

Uniform Reminder

Whilst the weather is still quite chilly at the beginning of spring, some of our more hardy students have taken the option to wear shorts to school, no doubt filled with optimism by the changing of the seasons! Any student may wear shorts to school, but please be reminded that these must be plain black school shorts with no logos, not sports shorts. Students should also not wear their PE kit to school even if they have PE lesson 1. We ask all students to bring kit to change into. And a further reminder that leggings are not school uniform. Students arriving in any non-uniform items will be asked to report to the ‘ready gate’ where we will arrange for them to change into clean spares provided either by school or from home.

With many thanks for your excellent ongoing support.

Joe Birkbeck

Head of Westfield School