Last Thursday year 9 students had the opportunity to visit Bletchley Park, the home of the codebreakers. This was the site that Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman and Bill Tutte along with over 8,000 other people during the Second World War worked tirelessly to decrypt German, Japanese and Italian communication. Their work was vital for the Allies to understand the positions and movements of enemy troops all throughout the war.

Students got a guided tour of the facility which included the main manor building where operations started. They also got to visit the garages that contained motorbikes of Dispatch Riders as well as cars of the Special Liaison Units that contained hidden radios for high ranking officers connecting them straight to Bletchley Park. Students also got to explore the extra communication huts built throughout the war which had various displays, exhibits and projections explaining more of Bletchley Parks role in the war. As well as seeing the Polish memorial honouring Polish mathematicians on their early work breaking Engima.

Finally, was a session put together by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) on the 6 most important things for keeping safe online. Students looked at creating strong, memorable passwords, the importance of privacy on social media websites, keeping data secure using password managers and how biometrics can help secure our information using a variety of interactive tasks.

On Wednesday 17^th and Thursday 18^th April, a group of 50 Year 7 and Year 8 pupils visited the University of Birmingham in order to find out more information about university life. Pupils had a tour of the historic campus, as well as experiencing all of the different aspects of life as a university student from lectures and seminars to the vast range of clubs and societies on offer.

A wonderful example of “self-motivated to achieve” from C Hopley in year 8 today. His diagram clearly shows the greenhouse effect (both natural and exacerbated by carbon dioxide emissions). He was also first in the class to finish and want to show off his work. Excellent effort, keep it up!

Our reading rewards vending machine continues to be a focal point of our celebrations on a Friday lunchtime. Pupils from all year groups are considered and selected for a range of approaches to demonstrating our TURVES Values.

Winners this week include:

Y7 K Smith – consistent improvement in interventions

Y8 T Colder – continued improvement in lessons and valuable contributions.

Y9 N Thompson – improved ethic and attitude

Y10 M Singh – consistent improvement in English.

Y11 J Paskin – excellent additional revision and approach to GCSEs

Y7 J Allabush – taught choir sign language – performed in showcase.

Y8 E Foyle –  most merits in his year group

Y9 Qaid – improved behaviour and effort in class.

Year 10 G Worrall – excellent effort and most amount of praise points for year 10 Boulton House

Year 11 M Prince – great effort with revision during form time and great start to the summer term.

We are looking forward to welcoming Pierce Kiembi from Fútbol Lingo to Turves Green Boys’ School in July. Pierce has a wealth of experience in the football industry as both a professional player and a coach and will be working with Year 9 and 10 pupils. There will be a motivational talk on the value of languages followed by practical football sessions which will be done in French! For more information on how Pierce helps football players and coaches overcome language barriers across the world, please download the app:

https://futbollingo.com

The app will show you how to understand football-related language and give you an insight into the importance of languages in the sporting world!

Year 7 and 8 pupils showcased their athletic prowess at the recent indoor athletics event held at Birmingham University. Their exemplary performance and sportsmanship not only secured a commendable position overall but also brought pride to the school community.

The indoor athletics event at Birmingham University gathered young athletes from various schools, providing them with a platform to demonstrate their skills across a range of running, jumping and throwing disciplines.

Despite stiff competition, the Year 7 and 8 pupils from displayed exceptional talent and determination throughout the event. Their dedication to training and teamwork translated into impressive results across all the events.

Out of the competing schools, the pupils secured a notable sixth place overall. This achievement underscores the commitment and hard work of the pupils.

More than just securing a position, the pupils represented themselves and their school with utmost pride and integrity. Their conduct on and off the track exemplified the values of sportsmanship, respect, and camaraderie.

The participation of Year 7 and 8 pupils in the indoor athletics event at Birmingham University was not only a testament to their athletic abilities but also a reflection of their character and dedication. Their success serves as inspiration for future generations of pupils come up through the school and highlights the importance of perseverance and teamwork in achieving goals.

We are excited to launch our brand-new Careers Guidance Pupil Website. 

Pupils need to be prepared for the evolving working world and so, at the heart of our Careers Programme, is a focus on building up essential lifelong employability skills.

Visit our new website to access a wealth of careers guidance, designed to support both pupils and parents.

With our brand-new resources, you can…

• Choose a subject you love and see where it might lead
• Explore your options for when you leave school
• Gain valuable advice on applying to university, apprenticeships and jobs
• Practice your interview skills
• Discover alternative options like gap years or starting your own business

Visit https://matrixcareersguide.co.uk/

On Thursday a team of 4 year 10 students competed in this year’s AMSP Maths Feast. Students from 10 different schools comprising of 16 different teams tested their maths knowledge, logic and problem-solving skills against each other in 4 different rounds.

In the first round, students answered maths questions in the style of Only Connect, Richard Osman’s House of Games and The 1% Club.

Round two was a cross number which had a variety of questions that all fit together into a diamond shaped grid with overlapping answers getting all but 1 question correct and scoring very highly.

The Maths Hatters round was third where students were given computer science logical rules on what coloured hat one of three people had to wear and investigated how many different possible combinations there where. 

Finally, the team created 2 different 3D shapes out of paper and had to investigate the mathematical properties that link a cube and an icosahedron. A round where W.Cornick 10T1 came into his own having done origami since he was 7.

Though unfortunately we didn’t not win a round, our team did fantastically at working together as a team and working of each other’s strengths. They did well to manage the short 20-minutes for each round and having a go at every question put to them.

Year 7 students have been using the laser cutter to create acrylic “dog tags”, learning about our dependence on plastics and developing their practical skills with hand tools and machinery. They have also been learning about electronics and using soldering techniques to join metals together.

Year 8 students have been creating console controller holders using the 3 main material categories. Learning about the properties of different material groups and their uses in the “real world” of Engineering. They have cold forged metals using hand tools, used heat to form plastics and adhesives to laminate woods.

This week the maths department has run themed lessons for KS3 classes discuss career opportunities that maths can lead you to. Students had a brief overview of several different career opportunities in their lesson and then got a deep dive into one of the 4 following jobs completing activities related to it.

Students looking at being a games designer found out more about the maths involved in creating loot boxes and market places in the game and got to design their own games.

Architect students looked at the plans and elevations of different famous buildings to try and guess what the building was as well as creating their own plans and elevations of building blocks.

Programmer students looked at how vectors are used to move characters in video games and moved their own characters earning points on a paper map.

Finally, codebreaker students looked at codebreaking throughout history and how ciphers have been used since the ancient Egyptian times to hide messages.

Students also talked about a variety of different jobs in maths including stockbrokers, quantity surveyors, sales associates and accountants.