It's Our Wonderful Parents' Turn to Shine

As much as we rave about all the brilliant work our children do within school, we must not forget our wonderful parents! This week marked the second session of our latest Family Thrive course.

We have 8 parents who have joined us to learn about the Thrive Approach and how we use it with the children in school. The course teaches us about brain development and how children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health difficulties need extra support to build solid connections in their brain. 

One of our parents already completed the course last year but has kindly volunteered to attend as a parent champion to share her experiences and support other parents. 

So far we have learnt about different stages of development and some strategies that staff use in school to support children to move through these stages. We have also started to discuss what school staff do to support pupil's when they are in crisis and also how we start to promote self regulation. Parents are evaluating ways that we can work more closely together to ensure the greatest consistency between school and home. 

This is not your typical parenting course where we teach about boundaries and rewards charts, but instead we are looking at the children's SEN needs and starting to understand why they behave in certain ways and what we can do as trusted adults to support their development.

In this photo, parents are mapping out their family tree. Our parents are inspirational and it is great to have the opportunity to share some of our work in school with them each week!"

Joseph Norton in the National Press

As you will know, we are very proud of our approach to behaviour and our use of restorative practice.  Over the last few years, our restorative approach has helped us to dramatically reduce our use of exclusions with only 6 incidents of exclusion last year and none so far in 2017-2018!  

Restorative practice helps our pupils reflect on and take responsibility for their actions, rebuild relationships when they break down and make amends for harm caused.  Indeed, it has a very important role in daily school life.

In December, our work in this area was featured in the Guardian newspaper.  In the article Chris Straker from the Restorative Justice Council describes how restorative practice can be used to foster good relationships and resolve conflicts in a way that enhances insight and understanding in pupils and shapes better future behaviour. You can access the article in full by clicking here.

More importantly, the Restorative Practice Council has recently released three three short films to promote the use of restorative practice in schools and one of these films features our very own Jaheim - a school leader in year 11!

We are very proud of Jaheim, who has improved his own behaviour through the use of restorative practice and is now supporting other pupils to do the same.  You can watch the video below:

Happy New Year !

Group 3A have had an amazing start to 2018 in their first week back at school. We have all been sharing what we have been up to over Christmas and we have been thinking about goals for 2018, working together using chatterboxes.

We have jumped straight into working on our new topic, Asia. We have thought about what Asian animals need to survive and have had fun making models of habitats for snakes, elephants, and rhinos to name a few. We showed just how creative we can be

On a similar note, as part of our SEMH curriculum, we have also been thinking about what we, as people need to survive and thrive.  We had a great discussion about things that we need, e.g. food, water and shelter, and things that we want, e.g. computers, phones and designer clothes, and how sometimes there is a conflict between what we want and actually need.

In outdoor education this week we all enjoyed archery and low ropes. We had a great day and our aim improved as the day went on. We are looking forward to going climbing and bouldering next week.

A huge congratulations goes to Dominic. He has given us a reason to celebrate this week as he is the first person in school to achieve 4500 WOW points! An amazing achievement. Well done, Dominic. He has been presented with a certificate and an Avengers themed prize of his choosing to recognise this.

Indeed, all of our boys have had a great start to the new year. They have come back to school being friendly, helpful and cooperative. Keep it up boys!

A Week of Festive Fare

In the words of Andy Williams, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” Here at Joseph Norton the pupils really have had a wonderful week; enjoying Christmas Dinner complete with all the trimmings each and every day.  Gammon, turkey, pork and beef have adorned the plates on different days accompanied by broccoli, roast parsnips, carrots, peas, pigs in blankets, stuffing, lashings of gravy and either, roast, new or mash potato.  On Thursday we even snuck a cheeky Yorkshire pudding.

Here at Joseph Norton our pupils have the unique opportunity to help prepare, cook and serve the school dinners. Working alongside the Hospitality & Catering Instructor and group staff, pupils in KS3 & KS4 take turns every day to ensure dinners are served to the best standard and are tasty and nutritious. With all groups showing promise in the kitchen and working hard over the autumn terms it seemed unfair to allow only one group the honour, pleasure and responsibility of preparing the Christmas Dinner. The decision was made early on to allow all groups the opportunity to cook a delicious festive feast.

Pupils worked hard and pulled together to achieve something that I’m sure most of you would agree is astounding. As enjoyable as a Christmas Dinner is, most of us would not wish to make it four days in a row. This has only been possible because of the effort pupils have put in over the last months, learning how to use the kitchen equipment safely.

Today the final group will prepare a festive buffet for pupils to enjoy before breaking for the Christmas Holidays. I look forward to the New Year when pupils return and continue to develop their skills in the school kitchen. We have some new tasty dishes joining the menu in January that I know they are keen to try.

In a week when many things begin to ‘wind down’ the pupils of Joseph Norton have gone against the grain and absolutely smashed it!

Merry Christmas!

Group 1AM investigating What Owls Eat

Owl Pellet Dissection

Last half term Group 2 studied predators and Tom from Group 4 kindly brought us some owl pellets to dissect!

At first the boys thought it was disgusting and smelly but quickly realised how interesting and exciting it was. The boys worked well to break up the pellets and discovered different bones from various small mammals. Some boys even managed to try and re-create the mice that they had found! Dillon managed to find 3 skulls in one pellet. That's one greedy owl!

The boys learnt about food chains and what owls eat. They learnt how owls digest food and regurgitate the owl pellets. Group 1 even got in on the action!

Positive feedback

We love receiving feedback when people spot us out and about.  Please find below a lovely email we received recently regarding Josh in year 8.  Well done, Josh!  We are very proud of you.

Hi there, I’m sending this email to let you know about a really positive experience I had when I bumped into some people from your school.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Huddersfield shopping with a friend. We were in the butchers when a young lad walked in and waited really patiently to be served. He asked if he could buy a pheasant and was so well mannered when asking the butcher questions about it. I then asked the boy questions about what he was going to do with it, and he told us how he would butcher it himself and then cook something with it. He was really lovely to talk to! I could see a couple of other boys of a similar age waiting just outside with two adults. I recognised the logo on their tops. When the boy left the shop, the other customers and the staff were talking about how impressive the boy's passion was. The younger member of staff was told to watch out or his job could be taken!!

I think it’s fantastic that the young people are being given the opportunity and are being encouraged to build on the skills they are passionate about or naturally gifted in. The boys and staff I met, are a credit to the school and you should be extremely proud of the great work you are doing, taking the time and making the effort to look for, and draw out the gold in these young people!!

Kind regards, Charlene

Group 9 - Preparing for Adult Life

This term has seen a big focus on independence and work skills for our Group 9 students. There are two areas of their regular timetable that they have really excelled at.

Firstly, they have been attending Leeds College of Building one day a week to learn construction skills, working towards a Diploma in Construction. So far they have done half a term on brickwork, and are now a few weeks into learning joinery.

Group 9 have done a great job helping Rawthorpe Amateur Boxing Club move to their new gym in Milnsbridge. From moving equipment, to painting and finishing, and learning how the club works. When the work is done, they work even harder in the fitness training sessions.

Team JNA

The KS2 children have been participating in Football for their P.E lessons with the end goal to attend a tournament at the end of term. The boys worked endlessly going above and beyond, practising at break times, lunch times and after school during enrichment.

Due to their commitments and efforts they were entered into an Under 11’s Football tournament at The Zone Huddersfield which was also attended by All Hallows, Oak, Rowley Lane and Dalton. Each game the boys dug deep showing fantastic team spirit and after all games were played Joseph Norton Academy were rightly crowned the winners, winning every game!

1BS Exploring our Natural Environment

Group 1BS have been spending some time outside the classroom this week in order to find inspiration for their work and explore the natural environment. They have been using nature to give them ideas about using comparisons for their simile poems in English. This has allowed them to collect all their ideas and produce a group poem.

During the Farm lesson they located an active fox den and watched clips from a time lapse video which captured the fox, a pheasant and a magpie. They also cleaned and fed the animals in the farm and took the goats for their daily walk around the woods.

3B Have Come Back with A Bang!

Group 3B have had an amazing start to the new half-term in their first week back at school.

We have enjoyed carving pumpkins to celebrate Halloween. We designed our pumpkins and brought them to life using Quiver on our ipads. Everyone engaged really well as we created our amazing designs, adding a flickering led tealight for the final spooky touch.

In outdoor education this week we were all very excited to go swimming at Doncaster Dome. We had an amazing time on the excellent slides; the snake slide being our favourite and we also enjoyed being outside in the Wild Waters.

Back in school we started our new topic, inventions. We had a go at inventing our own snack delivery zip wire, and worked well together as a team, sharing ideas and helping each other. We have also started reading George’s Marvellous Medicine and will be thinking about the story of George’s crazy invention over the half term.

In maths, we have been working on the properties of shapes and will continue with this work over the next few weeks, looking at real life shape problems.

We have had lots to celebrate this week. On Friday, we had celebration breakfast as a reward for our behaviour and excellent uniform this week. 3 of our boys reached 1500 WOW points this week, and received a prize and a certificate each to celebrate this. Well done boys, we are all really proud of you!

We hope you all have a happy and safe bonfire night. 

Magic and Mystery

This might all seem like a bit of gruesome fun but dressing up in costumes is actually an important type of play that every child needs to experience as part of their development.  While some children seek it out naturally, other children are reluctant to dress up as pirates, superheroes or lords and ladies.  So, once a year, our staff team show the pupils exactly how it's done and we're really pleased that more and more of them are joining in!  

Here are just some of the benefits of playing with costumes:

• Dressing up play fosters the imagination
• Dressing up lets children explore themselves
• Dressing up strengthens relationships and helps children to understand other people's feelings
• Dressing up improves communication and gives children the chance to practice words and phrases they wouldn't normally use

Harvest Time on the Farm

As we enter a cold wet and windy Autumn on the Joseph Norton farm we're as busy as ever!

After a fantastic first harvest we managed to supply the school kitchens with onions, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and peppers. The land has now been cleared for winter and our thoughts have moved to improving the site and helping our local wildlife. Toads, frogs and squirrels have all benefited from our recent habitat creation around the pond. The pig pen is being cleared and grass sown as we prepare for a our curly tailed visitors in the new year.

It's not all work though as Gordon and Billy have had many walks around school and the woods. They particularly enjoyed eating the fallen oak leaves and brambles as we hunt for fungus, wildlife and conkers!