Seahouses Middle School Newsletter
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June 2009 (with Community Days round-up)
Pupils' Eye extracts
March 2009
Doing something funny for money?
By Stuart Hyde
Red Nose Day - what is it all about, celebration, remembrance or suffering?
A lot of people all around the country try to celebrate Red Nose Day in aid of Comic Relief, which helps charities in the UK and Africa.
Some people are not as fortunate as us: people who live in Africa, who have to scrimp and scrape just to survive.
For us, buying a red nose or red nose top, coming in non-uniform or buying a biscuit or cake and hot chocolate, will hopefully make a big difference to their lives.
At school we have done all of these things, together with holding a Joke and Fancy Dress Competition.
The winners of the Fancy Dress Competition were: Euan Dawson in Year 5, Thomas Thompson in Year 6, Lauren De’Lay In Year 7 and Chloe Openshaw and Nadine Cavener and in Year 8.
The winner of the Joke Competition was Stuart Hyde.
The school also held a Netball match where the Year 8 girls took on the teachers of Seahouses Middle, (with Mr. Robson at the side line making sure they were all hydrated with an over-sized water pistol!)
The match ended with the final score of 4-2 to the teachers.
I’m sure they all had fun.
A big thank you to everyone’s generosity with buying and making cakes. We had an amazing array of cakes and biscuits, (thank you to all who did bring them in).
Miss Harris gets ready to pass the ball in the Red Nose Day staff versus Year 8 netball match.
Anna Darcy from Year 8 even made a special Red Nose cake!
Thanks to everyone who decided to raise money for Red Nose Day. We made a fantastic £296.20!
Peer Mentoring to prevent bullying
By Emily Hanvey
Over the past few weeks, School Council representatives have decided to set up a Peer Mentoring system that will allow pupils to talk to a person of their choice, and discuss any situation that is troubling them.
We think bullying is one such situation.
It happens in and out of schools and we want to be able to tackle bullying issues promptly and efficiently.
Bullying can be both verbal and physical.
We also think that bullying includes questions like: Why do people bully? Who bullies? Where do people get bullied?
We think the reason for bullying is because the bully may be going through problems themselves or they may be jealous of the person they are bullying.
The main point here is that it is possible for a person to get bullied throughout the school day and a Peer Mentor would try to prevent this from happening.
Pupils in school were invited to apply for the Peer Mentor role and interviews were held where pupils answered questions about the skills, attitudes and roles they would have to take on if they were to be a Peer Mentor.
As many people applied for the roles on offer, not all were successful.
Only the people who gave the most specific and accurate answers, were the ones to be chosen to be official Peer Mentors.
After successfully making it through the interview, pupils underwent training which gave ideas and suggestions of what to do and what to look out for if someone was being bullied.
All Peer Mentors wear an identification badge and now own a pass that will allow them to enter the school at any time of the day if they need a private place to discuss issues.
A Problems’ Post Box is located beside the water fountain, where pupils can put their problems down on paper, which will be opened by a chosen Peer Mentor, to deal with the situation.
Posters are in place around various areas in school which advertise what the scheme is aiming to do, which is to prevent any case of bullying in school.
All Peer Mentors are hoping for the scheme to be successful, as they want to feel as though they can be accepted by anyone who is in need.
Peer Mentors have been selected from a variety of different year groups so that hopefully, there is someone everyone can comfortably talk to throughout any time within the school day.
Peer Mentors are:
Stuart Hyde, Jordan Shiel, Nadine Cavener, Chloe Openshaw, Anna Darcy, Emily Hanvey, Georgia Stephenson, Matilda Cornall, Romney Gwynn, Natalie Rogerson, Jason Rogerson & Angus Atkin.
