Doctors and researchers from the University of Birmingham came to Turves this week to show our Year 9’s how they can test the air quality in our school! Linking into their KS3 past curriculum and their future KS4 curriculum, pupils were able to make links between how the quality of the air we breathe affects our health. They have started an experiment where they have set up particle “traps” to be placed around the school in the areas where they think the air pollution would be greatest. Then, when the outreach team return on Wednesday 20^th November, they’ll be able to see which of them was right! The pupils behaved admirably and it was great seeing them take advantage of having such experts in the room by asking lots of questions!

Congratulations to L Thompson and D Da Conceicao in 9X1. They completed a written piece in French and produced an excellent, extended piece on healthy lifestyle. Both students demonstrated our value of being ‘self-motivated to achieve’ and produced a piece that was highly accurate and detailed. Keep up the excellent work!

Some of the KS3 boys who are part of the Tigers programme at TGBS travelled across to Moseley Rugby Club on Thursday 10^th October to take part in a project which was delivered by Sport Birmingham. The Active in Mind project explores strategies that can be used to address stress and anxiety in adolescents, equipping them with personal resilience tools. The boys have now been tasked with becoming well-being ambassadors within school and will run 6 sports sessions aimed at year 7 students who might be struggling to cope with the stresses and anxiety of transitioning from primary to secondary school. Once the well-being ambassadors have completed their 6 sessions with the targeted year 7 students, they will head off to Ninja Warrior, Walsall for a celebration event whereby they will celebrate all of their hard work in supporting their peers. 

Oracy has been a fundamental priority at Turves Boys Green School, with significant emphasis placed on equipping staff with specialised training to foster oracy development within classrooms. It sits at the core of our curriculum, ensuring that students are not only able to articulate their thoughts clearly within the school environment but also develop the skills necessary for effective communication in broader societal contexts. This year, both within the English department and across the school, one of our central objectives is to nurture pupils’ confidence in public speaking.

In line with this, Class 9X2 has been studying Heroes by Robert Cormier, a novel that grapples with intricate themes surrounding war. As part of their oracy development, the students were presented with a provocative statement and assigned specific roles within their groups to stimulate a structured debate. This exercise, centred around the question: Should boys be allowed to enlist for the war at the age of 15?, invited students to engage in thoughtful discourse, critically examining the moral and ethical dimensions of the topic. The discussion was highly engaging, with all pupils contributing meaningfully, embodying our school’s core value of valuable contribution and taking their roles within the debate with great seriousness.

The boys demonstrated considerable dedication and effort, engaging in thoughtful discussions within their groups to produce well-crafted arguments. These were later presented to the class, fostering an environment where their peers could further contribute and enrich the dialogue.

This week, year 10 Engineering students have been given a virtual talk about careers in Casting. They had the opportunity to use VR to tour a working metal foundry, they will be using what they have learnt in their lesson time and to consider their future career choices.

This week our F1 in Schools extra curricular club were lucky enough to meet a member of the Engineering department from Aston University. They were given a presentation about the competition, including how the competition is run, tips and tricks for success and how to operate effectively as an Engineering team. Students will now enter the design phase of the F1 in schools competition.

30 September

After a full month on Mathswatch students have attempted over 2700 questions as part of their homework tasks.

Each month students compete for top of our leaderboard with the total amount of marks they have achieved in Independent Activities and their assigned homeworks. This month our top scorers were:

1) K. Lei Abrahams 7A2

2) D. Pere-Enaregha 9T2

3) A. Imtiaz 10T1

As well as the homework students can attempt questions on any topic they have done (or are about to do) in maths. This means you can find your own revision to refresh yourself on topics you have done previously or look ahead at topics that are about to appear.

Any student stuck on a homework question or questions they are attempting independently can watch the videos attached to any question to help them answer it or leave feedback for their teacher to see.

Science homework on Seneca is live again! Those in year 8 and above will remember the platform and be used to it’s well chunked, animated design. For those of you who are new or need a refresh, here’s the detail.

You go to senecalearning.com and log in with your school email and password. If you have forgotten your password, you can reset it using your school email and follow the instructions in the email link. If you haven’t logged on before, check your emails. Once you have been placed in a class, you will receive an email giving details of how to log on. Still not sure or having trouble? Speak to your science teacher, we can reset passwords for you!

The benefits of Seneca?

1. Your homework is nicely chunked so you don’t get overloaded with lots of text in one go and it won’t move on until you’ve achieved the previous section.
2. You can do it on the go! Seneca has a mobile app you can download. If you don’t have internet access at home, homework club is available after school every day in the success centre.
3. Your results are available immediately! You know exactly where your areas of strength and development are so you (and we) know exactly where you need tailored support

As an added extra, you can revisit any past topics covered and even complete sections in your own time if you fancy an extra challenge. Happy learning!

We are very much looking forward to welcoming the Onatti Theatre Group to Turves Green Boys’ School on February 12^th 2025. Our Key Stage 4 pupils will have the opportunity to watch a French play, Prendre Sa Revanche. This will help pupils to improve their listening skills in French as well as enjoying the performance. Prior to watching the play, pupils will receive a workbook with all of the key vocabulary and a synopsis of the play.

What is the play about?

It’s not all about the really entertaining story or the twisting plot, although they are very funny, no, it is all about the participation from our students.

Two antique dealers try to fool customers by passing off fake artefacts as real, but this time it is them who are made to be the fools!  Revenge comes when they try to con someone who’s quick thinking turns the tables on these two unscrupulous dealers.

This very amusing play can only be performed with the help of the audience who will help the actors in various ways during the performance. We are looking forward to seeing how our pupils engage with the performance!

We continue our ‘feel good’ Friday lunch time rewards this week. Heads of House select one pupil per year group for a multitude of reasons to be celebrated at lunch time and presented with a token to select a book from our reading rewards vending machine.   Senior Leaders then select one pupil from each year group. 

 This week’s winners were selected for the most class charts points in their first week? 

• Y7 Z Franklin for making a Valuable Contribution  
• Y8 L Fothergill Exemplifying our Turves Values every day 
• Y9 M Eaton Being a model pupils and role model for others 
• Y10 Ayaan Imitiaz Pupils of the week with most positives 
• Y11 C Brookes working hard despite the pressures of Y11 and being resilient 

An additional award was given this week for F Grainger for his exemplification of the Turves Values in the community and helping a member of the public in distress.