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.

Fifty Year 9 pupils engaged in a STEM event organised by HS2 and the SmallPeice Trust. They delved into the engineering marvels of HS2 and met with the dedicated engineers involved. Through a series of challenges and immersive activities, they gained valuable insights into the diverse skillset of engineers.

Congratulations to Year 9! Your exceptional attitude, engagement, and enthusiasm throughout the day were truly commendable. You are shining examples and bring great credit to the school!

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!