Kicking off our #JNAValues challenge

Throughout 2018-2019 we will be raising money to buy a school defibrillator by demonstrating our school values: respect, cooperation, perseverance, responsibility. You can find out about the money we have raised so far or sponsor us by clicking here. 

In the meantime, we have practiced demonstrating our values throughout the summer holidays. Whether making responsible choices, cooperating with TV crews and universities, or showing perseverance on the way to Everest Base Camp, our values are evident in everything we do!

Find out more by following us on Twitter or searching for #JNAValues. 

Goodbye 2017-2018. It's been champion!

It's the end of term and to celebrate all our hard work we've handed out a multitude of certificates and created positivitrees! The leaves on these trees share all the things we have enjoyed this year and all the things of which we are proud. Have a great summer everyone.

The Great Yorkshire Show

On Tuesday the 10th July three students from Joseph Norton visited the Great Yorkshire Show.  They were chosen because they have worked tirelessly on the school farm both this year and from its humble beginnings. The weather was fantastic and set a beautiful backdrop for arguably the best agricultural show in the world.

We watched the farrier and sheep shearing competitions then made our way over to the woodland craft and forest skills area. We could see throughout the day that many aspects of the show are just scaled-up versions of the skills learned at school such as selective animal breeding and hands on wood working. The students were amazed by the size of the cows and bulls and how much they loved being jet washed ready for judging. After ordering ourselves an ice cream we watched the show jumping before getting a free ride on a golf buggy back to our mini bus.

All in all, it was a fantastic day and our students did themselves and Joseph Norton proud!

Feeling Enriched

As 2017-2018 draws to a close we are delighted to announce that we have achieved the School Games Bronze Award. The School Games Mark is a Government led award scheme launched in 2012, facilitated by the Youth Sport Trust to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community, and we are delighted to have been recognised for our success.

This year we have taken part in numerous competitions and events with both special and mainstream schools and we are extremely proud of our pupils for their dedication to all aspects of school sport. A special thanks goes to the staff and parents who have volunteered to support after-school matches - without you this could not have happened! We look forward to applying once again in 2019.

Time For Transition!

Group 6 have been spending time over the last week, getting to know each other, getting to know their new staff and bonding together as a group. We have settled in really well, embedding our class routines and modelling the school's Ways of Working.

We have hit the ground running, following our new timetable and engaging with our Core, Vocational and SEMH lessons. We have completed topical work around the World Cup, researching different countries and comparing the wages of different people in the football industry. We have continued our geometry topic from before transition, continually building on our learning and have even had a go at beating some world records!

Some of our group had the opportunity to go to Alton Towers this week, as a reward for our fantastic attendance! We had a brilliant day, exploring and trying out new experiences!

Although we are having lots of fun we are looking forward to a rest, to get ready for all of our learning and progression next year!

The 2018-2019 #JNAValues Challenge

Over the course of 2018-2019, our school will be undertaking a series of challenges to help raise money for a Heartstart HS1 Semi-Automatic Defibrillator.  

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When a heart stops, you're up against the clock. Without action, survival rates fall by 10% every minute, yet using a defibrillator within three minutes can improve a person's chance of survival by as much as 70%. Within the UK, however, there just aren't enough of them and there are currently no defibrillators close to our school.

To raise money, each of our groups is being asked to set themselves a challenge over the course of the year that demonstrates one of our core values: respect, cooperation, perseverance, responsibility. To kick us off, Ruth and Sarah ran the Leeds 10k on Sunday demonstrating #perseverance in 29 degrees of heat.

To help us think about our values during the holidays, our pupils will be waving the Joseph Norton flag when they demonstrate or spot someone demonstrating our values.  Photos of these champions will be shared on Twitter with the hastag #JNAvalues. We'd love you to join in! Click on the photo to the right for more information.

If you would like to sponsor one of our challenges, please click here.

Healthy Living Award

Yesterday, Aiden and Ryan represented our school at the Examiner Schools Awards where they received a runner-up certificate for the Healthy Living Award.

We are extremely proud of the work undertaken at Joseph Norton to help our pupils maintain a healthy lifestyle. Over the last two years, the pupils have transformed the school’s catering facility to establish a healthy farm-to-table meal service that is organised and run by the pupils, for the pupils, with the support of two amazing instructors. 

Pupils are now planting, growing and harvesting crops; looking after chickens, goats and pigs; planing, preparing and cooking healthy meals; before serving each other through the school’s family dining initiative.  

The qualifications some of our pupils have achieved on the farm and in the kitchen are the icing on the cake! Well done everyone and thank you to those who represented the school at the awards ceremony.

New Beginnings

While it's the end of an era for us and one or two tears were shed, we were excited to wish our year 11s goodbye and good luck last Friday.  Lydia, Carl and Sarah spoke to pupils, families and staff at our leavers assembly sharing everything they will remember about the group and wishing them well for the future.  Lydia talked about the fantastic progress the boys have made and Carl shared some funny stories.  Sarah shared how grateful we all are for the part we have played on their journey to adulthood and thanked staff and parents for the support they have given the school.  All of our leavers have exciting placements to start between now and the end of September - we'll be keeping an eye on all the great things they do!

Healthy Lifestyles Roadshow

Last week The Bridge Community Hub hosted a Healthy Lifestyles Roadshow. This was an opportunity for all 20 schools in our local area to come together at one event and share expertise around different aspects of a healthy living.

Our very own hospitality and catering instructor, Stephen Wilson, delivered the popular 'Healthy Diet' session, which helped parents and pupils appreciate the amount of sugar and fat in our food.There were also talks from the Fire Service, the Police, a session on Mental Health and a gang awareness talk. 

In addition there was a market place with stall holders from agencies across Kirklees including Kirklees Active Leisure, School Nursing and PCAN, which is an agency supporting parents of children with special educational needs. 

For the children, there were sporting activities including archery and skateboarding and Huddersfield Town's Terrier made a celebratory appearance to support their 'beat the goalie' activity! And of course some healthy fruit snacks.

It was great to welcome over 80 families and have all our schools together at one event. Thank you to Kirkburton Middle school for hosting us. We look forward to future community events!

If anyone missed the Roadshow but would like further information from any of the talks or stalls then please contact your Pastoral Leader who will be able to forward leaflets and phone numbers from each agency for your support. 

Out and About with Group 5

Group 5 have been hard at work this term. We have traveled to York to learn about the history of the area and enjoyed watching Mr Wardle having a medieval operation! We have also been experiencing exciting sports outside of school such as bowling, foot-tennis and biking.

We've enjoyed preparing food for the school lunches (as well as eating them) and sharing smoothies that we have made. Some of us were able to come to Open Farm Sunday and loved showing members of the public our school.

We spent a morning at Greenhead park, experimenting with photography and looking at the different styles of graffiti art we could find. We learnt about composition and how to use framing, the rule of thirds, and focus. 

In our core subjects we have been concentrating on fractions, decimals and percentages and have been able to use our previous learning of algebra to answer GCSE level questions. We really liked reaching that goal and achieving more than we thought. We also looked at the different techniques used to put rap lyrics together and linked this with our previous knowledge of poetry. For our science work we have been looking at the transfer of power from power stations to homes and linked this to home budgeting, supply and demand affecting prices and renewable energies.

There have been many discussions this half term including: A.I. a threat to humans; diversity in the U.K; digital games as part of the Olympics; online safety; and many more. We are getting more used to listening to others' points of view and doing so carefully. Also, through the game Chinatown, we have improved our abilities to resolve conflict through negotiation and appropriate compromise. It's been a fun term and we are all looking forward to moving to Key Stage 4 next year.

Updates from Key Stage 4

The KS4 team are incredibly proud of all of our year 10 and 11 students who have successfully completed their GCSE examinations over the past two weeks. This period of time can be very stressful so it was great to see our boys not only working really hard, but supporting each other. In total they sat well over 60 examinations.

This week the Duke of Edinburgh team set out on their first expedition. The expedition entails hiking on two days with an overnight camp. As we waved them off, it is fair to say that they appeared to have packed for every eventuality. 

In a couple of weeks our year 11s will be leaving us and although we will be sad to say goodbye it is a lovely to reflect on the considerable progress that they have made whist at JNA. We wish them every happiness and success in the future. 

Open Farm Sunday

On Sunday 10th June, we were delighted to welcome over 400 visitors to our school as part of Open Farm Sunday.  

Open Farm Sunday, managed by LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming), provides an opportunity for farms across the UK to open their gates and welcome people onto their farm for one Sunday each year. Since the first Open Farm Sunday in 2006, over 1000 farms across the UK have supported this national initiative.

The whole day was absolutely fantastic! Staff, pupils and Friends of Joseph Norton enjoyed hosting the event and visitors, including members of the local community and MP Paula Sherriff, were able to meet and feed the animals, enjoy home cooked food and compete on our very own sheep rodeo :)

We hope you enjoy the video we made at the start of the event and some of the photos we took during the day.

On 10th June Joseph Norton Academy opened its gates to the community as part of national initiative Open Farm Sunday...