In March, pupils across Matrix were invited to enter a Maths competition to celebrate Pi Day. Pupils were asked to use their imagination to bring Pi to life and to illustrate a real life example of Pi. We received entries from Smestow Academy, Etone College and Turves Green Boys School. M Harris from Smestow was our overall winner and has received a £30 Amazon voucher. C Bettison from Etone College and E Keegan from Turves Green Boys’ School received a £10 Amazon voucher for runner up prizes.

Huge congratulations to all three pupils!

This week science club were carrying out experiments around pressure. Dr Patchett demonstrated how to crush a can without touching it using the pressure created by steam – steam takes up 1,600 times the volume of water!

We then used our new knowledge about pressure to figure out how to suck a boiled egg into a conical flask using boiling water. Have a look at the pictures and see if you can figure out how we did it.

Next week we will be carrying out experiments to celebrate British Science Week based on this years theme of “time”.

Year 7 and year 8 took part in the UK Maths Trusts’ Junior Maths Challenge. In exam conditions, with just a pencil and scrap paper students had an hour to complete 25 challenging questions.  The results will be back in a couple of weeks and students will receive their certificate for participating and any Bronze, Silver or Gold awards students managed to achieve.

In the meantime, why not have a go at some of the questions yourself:

Saltmine put on a fantastic performance for our pupils; the recent preventative education production and workshop that took place for KS3 pupils was informative and brilliantly delivered. The production focused on important topics such as social media use, sexual harassment, consent, cyberbullying, AI, and pornography.

The performance centred around the story of Samantha, a typical "IT girl" whose life revolved around TikTok dances, selfies, and staying up-to-date with the latest trends. Samantha had a large online following and big dreams. However, as the story unfolded, cracks began to form in her once unbreakable friendship group.

The production highlighted the dangers of the digital world, where truths can easily become distorted and personal images can be exposed online without consent. Samantha found herself in a situation where she had no control over the dissemination of an explicit image of herself. This led to a crisis where she had to decide whether to try and repair the damage to her online persona or watch everything around her unravel.

As the story progressed, it became clear that filters and illusions could no longer mask the mess that had been created. Samantha and her friends were forced to confront the issues in their own lives and deal with the consequences.

The performance served as a powerful reminder of the importance of responsible online behaviour, the need for consent in all aspects of life, and the potential dangers of social media and technology. It encouraged pupils to reflect on their own online presence and consider the impact their actions can have on themselves and others.

We are incredibly proud of our talented performers who brought this thought-provoking production to life. Their dedication and commitment to raising awareness about these important issues were truly commendable.

We hope that this production has sparked meaningful conversations among our pupils, leading to a greater understanding and empathy towards the challenges faced in the digital age.

Turves Green Boys' School welcomes inspiring guest speaker Alison Cope to educate pupils on youth violence.

In a captivating and heartfelt event, we had the privilege of hosting Alison Cope, a remarkable guest speaker and mother of Joshua Ribera, who tragically lost his life to violence in 2013. Alison's unwavering commitment to preventing youth violence by sharing her son's unique life and death story has made a profound impact on countless young people.

Alison's visit provided our KS4 pupils with a valuable opportunity to learn about the realities and consequences of youth violence. Through her powerful storytelling, she not only shed light on the devastating loss she experienced but also highlighted the importance of making positive choices and the far-reaching impact of violence on individuals, families, and communities.

Alison's talk was both educational and thought-provoking, leaving a lasting impression on our pupils. Her ability to connect with the audience on an emotional level truly captivated their attention and sparked meaningful conversations about the issue of youth violence.

Through her tireless efforts, Alison has become a beacon of hope and inspiration, working tirelessly to create awareness and drive change. By sharing her personal journey, she strives to empower young people to make informed decisions and choose non-violence over aggression.

The impact of Alison's visit extended beyond the event itself. Our KS4 pupils expressed their appreciation for the time and educational opportunities that Alison provided. Her story touched their hearts and left them with a deeper understanding of the consequences of violence.

When Ms Parker heard about how well the pupils vegetables were doing in the garden (progress pictures to be shared next week when we’ve done the last of the planting) she asked if we had thought about growing herbs.

Luckily, the seed box the pupils received contained many different varieties and the first has germinated! Here you can see the start of the curly cress which Ms Parker requested so the catering team can use not only our home grown fruit and veg in the pupils food, but also add a bit of flavour with our fresh herbs! We are all about collaboration and sustainability here at TGBS and can’t wait until our produce are ready to harvest so Ms Parker and her team can cook us up something tasty!

This week our triple science Y10 students had the opportunity to take part in the National Scientific Thinking Challenge this is an online quiz that has been written by staff from 

Warwick, Southampton, Bristol, Newcastle, Manchester and Oxford Universities.

The questions are decoupled from the GCSE curriculum; they have been created by taking 6 current areas of scientific research and development and presenting the students with data and information for them to interpret and analyse. This really gave our student to use the transferrable science skills that they have developed over the last four years.

Students marks will be ranked and those in the top 10% are awarded Gold, the top 25%, silver and the top 40% bronze certificates later this year. 

Well done to all of our students who took on the challenge and showed off their fantastic thinking and analytical skills.

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: C Grundy -For excellent behaviour record

Y8: L Turner - continued perseverance with learning.  

Year 9: W Charles-Tracey – Excellent effort and most praise points in Boulton this week.  

Year 10: J Inman – Improved effort and attitude this week.  

Year 11: M Beach – improved attitude to GCSEs

Katch 22 Production performed Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ to our Year 10 and 11 pupils last week. The actors drew out key themes and characters to deepen our pupils’ understanding of the play and bring it to life. Our Year pupils have just finished studying the play and were able to link their learning to dramatic techniques in the play. For our Year 11 pupils, it precedes their GCSE English Literature Exam in two weeks’ time and proved to be perfect revision for them. Katch 22 will return to us next year for more performances.

"This is a school transformed." - Turves Green Boys' School Ofsted Report, April 2024

Pupils, parents, staff and trustees are celebrating the publication of our Ofsted report which has graded us Good with Outstanding Behaviour & Attitudes and Leadership & Management.

Ofsted observed that "pupils are rightfully proud of this unique school" and "staff enjoy their work and feel supported to grow professionally".

We were delighted that inspectors were able to capture in words the scale of the transformation that has taken place at our school less than three years since joining Matrix. It's fantastic that Ofsted saw what we see every day and recognised the work everyone has done to get to this point. This Ofsted outcome will support Turves in getting even better. 

When Mr Till took on the school as headteacher in April 2021, the school had previously been Inadequate and placed in Special Measures. Fast forward almost three years and Ofsted not only judged the school to be Good overall but recognised the Outstanding Behaviour and Attitudes of pupils and the Outstanding Leadership and Management which has effected this transformation.

Inspectors were very impressed with the warm, supportive and inclusive culture of our school, citing "very strong relationships" between staff and pupils. Turves Green Boys' School's pupils "support each other very well" and "pupils know that any adult in the school will be able to help them".

Ofsted observed that trustees "are robust in their support and challenge" and that "those working for the trust support developments effectively and share the high-quality practice developed at the school more widely."

So much of what works so well at Turves has already been shared with other trust schools - and beyond.

Well done everyone.