News from Abbeywood Community School Aug/Sept 2023 edition
September 1st, 2023
Welcome to our new Deputy Headteacher…. Andy Poole
‘I am delighted to be starting at Abbeywood in September and am really looking forward to getting to know the staff, students and parents at the school. I am currently a Deputy Headteacher in a school in Oxford and have previously worked at schools in Bournemouth, Bristol, Auckland (New Zealand) and Cheltenham. My areas of responsibility will be behaviour and attendance and I bring a broad range of experience with me to this role having been involved in pastoral work and behaviour management in one form or another for 25 years. I believe very strongly that all students deserve to have disruption-free classrooms in which to learn and that every student has a responsibility to ensure they do not disrupt the learning of others.
Alongside this, we as teachers have a responsibility to ensure we are always delivering well-planned and engaging lessons. I know from experience that helping students to be successful at school involves working in partnership with parents and carers and I am looking forward to working with all members of the Abbeywood community to help the students achieve their potential. I also have a keen interest in developing character education as a means to helping young people develop the key characteristics and values that will help them in their adult lives such as resilience, honesty, motivation and humility. When I visited Abbeywood I was struck by how focused the school is on providing as many opportunities to its students as possible. It was this community-focused approach which made me feel that I wanted to join the team at Abbeywood and I am really looking forward to meeting you all in September’.
Simon Connell & Jack Lopresti visit the Engineering Centre at Abbeywood
We were pleased to welcome Simon Connell, CEO of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, and Jack Lopresti, Conservative MP for Filton and Bradley Stoke, to the Engineering Centre at Abbeywood on Friday 30th June.
You can find out more about the Baker Dearing Educational Trust here.
We were sad that Lord Baker was unable to join us due to ill health as he has championed engineering education for the last 15 years. Our visitors’ involvement was influential in some local employers choosing to come and talk about partnering with us on an ongoing basis.
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) Work Experience
Students in Post 16 studying Engineering recently took part in the DSTL Callisto Activity. Students were tasked to work in teams to develop a base to put onto Callisto, Jupiter’s second largest moon. They had to consider issues such as how to create power, heat, oxygen, food, keep the team healthy, communications, crew members, how they will build the base and how they would live in it.
The feedback given from DSTL was amazing. They said it was a lot of fun to engage with the different presentations! They said they were interesting, thorough, and spoke to a promising generation of possible STEM careers, as judges they were very impressed by the quality of the students and their work, especially given the short time available to them. Picking their winner was hard, and they agreed on two runners up who they felt were very close. The overall winner was Abbeywood !
Well done to everyone who took part in this activity, you did really well.
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