The global pandemic has not stopped the superb creative teaching at Melland and our high tech resources have allowed us like many of our academies to continue to celebrate achievement in style.

Well done to everyone involved in this year’s Virtual Celebration of Whole School Improvement and Christmas Talent show. All the staff and pupils came together this week on Microsoft ‘Teams’ to celebrate the achievement of the 2019-2020 School Improvement Priorities.

During the show Mrs Warner thanked all the staff and students, parents and carers and our amazing Governing Body she shared supportive messages from John our CEO and the Central Team, our Chair of Governors Peter Tite, our Vice Chair Chris Beswick and all our highly skilled and supportive governors. Mrs Jordan our Head of Outreach described all the work of the Outreach and BFET EPSO Teams this year in support of our mainstream schools. Mrs Barnett shared some of the ‘Lockdown Highlights’ which ranged from the staff ‘Tea bag Challenge’ to the inspiring Alliance for Learning Lockdown photography competition. Mr Hughes updated us on the website and remote education and showed us film clips from our productions of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. Mrs Roberts and Mrs Mellows shared all the Careers and WRL highlights and we had a lovely message from Rosie our Career Connect Careers Advisor. Mrs Jordan then described the positive impact of the whole cross-curricular Communication focus and our Heads of Key Stages 3, 4 & 6^thForm celebrated the achievements from their departments and announced Armadeep the winner of the Helaina Stone Bravery Award and Remmi the winner of the Ahsan Raza Achievement Award. 

Mr Barlow counted the votes and announced the winners of the House Captain competition for Galileo, Marie Curie and DaVinci Houses. He also celebrated the fantastic attendance figures this term especially in our 6^th Form department and Mr Gleeson described how our students took part in the Make your Mark campaign 2020. The Celebration was finished off with a superbly entertaining Talent show which saw staff and students demonstrating their creative skills and talents. Well done everyone involved it was a huge team effort with both staff and students involved at every level and worth every minute!

As part of the Entry 3 Media accreditation our talented 6^th Formers have been researching jobs in media as well as making animations and creating and enhancing the sounds as ‘Foley’ artists. They need to be able to record a sound clip for their own media product and edit them in line with feedback that they have gathered. 

They have been using ‘Lego MovieMaker’ to create their animations, developing the techniques that they have been learning. The process called Stop Frame Animation,they have found, takes a lot of patience to master and is a very slow process with big rewards. 

A second group of 6th Formers have been accessing both iMovie and Garageband to record sounds for Shaun the Sheep. They have been using objects around the learning zones to replicate sounds that would be in the short clip. They will use the skills that they develop here to incorporate into their Lego Animations in January.

LZ1 Which includes the 3B/3C/3D/3E/4E groups are taking part in a national games competition called ‘Panathlon’. Students will participate in skill based sessions focused on multi skills’ challenges such as balance and agility, target aiming and throwing. Activities aim to build confidence and self-belief in all our students as well as providing the 4E’s with opportunities to develop team and leadership skills as they peer mentor Key Stage 3 pupils.

This week the A2s have been celebrating Diwali through interactive art and sensory encounters. 

During our Attention Autism sessions, pupils build their engagement through modelled sensory activities. Pupils watched a modelled activity Before working independently to recreate their own experiments, works of art or recipes. 

In line with Diwali, pupils used powder paint to create Rangoli patterns. Pupils enjoyed taking turns to shake the colours of their preference before revealing their artwork and decorating further with glitter and sequins. All pupils enjoyed experimenting with art and exploring Diwali together.

This term, the M group have made an enthusiastic return to School. We have been celebrating our pupils by exploring our topic of “I am unique”. Here pupils are empowered to show their preferences and use their communication skills to make choices, share activities and explore their senses. 

To complement our topic, we have introduced pupils to sensory experiences that celebrate and build an awareness of colour. This supports our pupils understanding of the world around them whilst building recognition and vocabulary through engaging sensory activities. 

We have enjoyed showcasing our unique preferences through our colour themed days with art, cooking and sensory stories.

On 20 November 2020, hundreds of cast members from every corner of the UK will take part, in one unique night of theatre. The Shakespeare Schools Festival will attempt to break a world record and show the world how children in the UK and our schools are the best hope for the future.

During lockdown Mr Hughes and staff from across our Trust have been in contact with SSF to discuss students who are finding new ways to be creative. One Night of Shakespeare will give students the opportunity to showcase their achievements, develop their literacy skills, reinvigorate their communication and performance skills and work as a team.

With the temporary closure of the UK’s theatres, Melland High School and other schools in the Trust that are taking part in this fantastic spectacle, will be pre-recording their performances and uploading to their school websites. This year Melland students will be performing the tragedy Hamlet. They have begun their rehearsal process and have already used many drama techniques such as Still Image, Space and Levels. They are getting to know the characters and the story and will be given their roles this week which has generated much excitement. Keep an eye on Melland High School Twitter for updates on their progress.

ICT Research and Development, digital culture and the development of digital literacy skills is alive and well at Melland with the ICT and Media Team conducting some research into new technologies that can enhance teaching and learning in the classroom and beyond. We have recently invested in lots of new high tech products such as an Oculus Rift to provide students with a virtual reality (VR) experience, a high powered PC to run the oculus effectively plus some iPad pros for the students to demonstrate their creativity in image manipulation and editing.  

We have also been able to invest in new equipment to enhance our multi-media performances making them as imaginative, high tech, creative and effective as possible which includes equipment for video/image capture and software to enhance the productions. The students have really enjoyed using some of the equipment as part of the testing process and are excited in anticipation of the next stage of the process when we introduce these contemporary, digital learning tools into the classroom on a regular basis. 

As outstanding educators we know that when teachers are digitally literate and trained to use ICT, these approaches can, lead to the development of higher order thinking skills, provide creative and individualised options for students to express their understandings and leave students better prepared to deal with ongoing, fast moving technological change in society and in the workplace. 

The team will be evaluating the impact on teaching, learning, progress and achievement, engagement and enjoyment and feeding back and sharing good practice so the whole school can benefit from the use of the new equipment and the innovative projects developed.