6C visited ‘Safety Works!’ to learn all about being safe both at home and in the community. As part of the PSHE curriculum, students were able to receive a high quality experience and learn these essential skills whilst learning outside of the classroom. The curriculum recommends that it is important to learn about citizenship and being able to visit these workshops allowed the children to see the significance of being a sensible and safe member of society, and how to react if they are ever in an unsafe situation.

Whilst at the workshops, the students experienced many situations involving the emergency services. One of the circumstances involved the police and was regarding stealing. It was explained to the children the consequences of what would happen if anybody was caught stealing, this was demonstrated, like all of the scenarios, by role playing. The important message that the children were able to take away from this was that everybody can make mistakes, but if this was a repeat situation, they were able to comprehend how serious it would be.

The children also received information regarding road safety and were able to put this knowledge into practice in the road area of the workshop. This also reiterated what had been covered in school assemblies concerning how to be safe. The children also experienced a workshop on rail line safety and learnt that under no circumstances are they ever to go on a train line.  They also learnt that if there was ever a situation where they thought they might need to; such as dropping their phone on the line or if somebody fell onto the line, what to do in that situation.

Another scenario was about fire in the home; what could start fires and how to avoid this and what steps to take if a fire ever broke out in the home. Finally, the students completed a workshop with St Johns Ambulance about what to do if somebody was unresponsive and learnt how to put somebody in the recovery position. This was in a hospital setting and another great piece of advice they received was, if they were ever scared in a hospital situation to ask two questions: “why am I here?” and “what will make me better?”; this piece of advice seemed to reassure the students, as they can learn how to take some control in what could be a scary situation for them.

Overall there were many opportunities to learn about safety from all of the emergency services and the children not only enjoyed, but took a lot of advice from all of the mock situations.

Over the past 4 weeks, Mr Shaw has arranged for 6W to visit Foxton Court Residential Care Home in Morpeth. The home is for residents with a variety of needs with their primary specialism being dementia.

Recent media and research has identified how elderly people can show significant signs of health improvements when they spend a period of time with young children. Interacting with people of a different generation can be very valuable to both parties. The children benefit from the praise and feedback they receive from the care home residents, and the residents themselves, who could be lonely and socially isolated, enjoy the interaction with the children.

So far the pupils have been a credit to themselves and the school, fully embracing in the event which takes place every Friday afternoon. The pupils have so far met various residents, played games, told stories and last week we were asked to help decorate all the christmas trees for the home – of which there were many!

Everytime we leave the pupils talk about their afternoons and have a genuine enthusiasm in what they have discussed and achieved. They are always very excited for their next visit and some of the class certainly have their favourite residents, who they have already built positive friendships with.

The initiative has also been very well supported by parents with one taking the time to say;

‘I think the children attending Foxton Care Home is a wonderful idea and I would like to congratulate Chantry for considering the visits and what outcomes/differences this will achieve for the older people. As a Service Manager for Adult and Older People’s Services for Newcastle City Council, I know what a difference this will make to the residents’ day. They will talk about it long after the children have left and although they have support 24 hours a day it doesn’t mean some of them don’t still feel lonely and isolated, so I’m sure this will be well received by all the residents and their families. I hope some schools in Newcastle follow suit, if they haven’t done so already!’

Mr Shaw is hoping to continue this invaluable community partnership throughout this academic year.

Dear Musician,

You are invited to the Chantry and Newminster Ceilidh Band Christmas Music Party

On: Tuesday 5th December
Time :  3.30 – 4.30pm
At: Chantry Middle School Music Room

Please bring some tasty party food and your musical instrument.

Merry Christmas Wishes,
Mrs A. Hedley, Ms C. Jones and Mrs C. Wilson

Chantry Middle School will be inspected by Ofsted on Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 November.

It would be much appreciated if, as requested by Jim McGrath, the Lead Inspector, parents of children at Chantry Middle School could find time to access Parent View online and answer the questions asked.

The inspection team will take note of the number of responses made, so the more parents that complete Parent View the better for our school.

Click to visit the Parent View website.

Click here to see the letter to parents from Ofsted.

Ofsted would also like to hear the views of Students. You can do this by completing an online pupil questionnaire.

Your views are really important to Ofsted and, will help inspectors understand your experience of school. The questionnaire will close at 11am on 28 November 2017, to give the inspector time to look at the results. The questionnaires work in Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer 11, and on mobiles and tablets when you copy and paste the link into the browser.

It does not ask for your name, so you will not be identified from the responses you make.

Your continued support is much appreciated.

Mr Steven Johnson
Head of School

The pupils from Chantry and Newminster Middle Schools were invited to participate in a Heritage Lottery funded drama based on a new book written for children by Bridget Gubbins called ‘The Conquest of Morpeth’. They have been attending drama club on Tuesdays after school and working really hard this term. Students have examined different drama techniques including: freeze frames, script writing, prop making, costume design, movement, music and shadow puppetry.

They staged a performance of their own self-devised work based on ‘The Conquest of Morpeth’ on Thursday 23rd November 2017 in the Chantry Middle School Hall. It was extremely well received by the packed out audience which included the author, illustrator and Mrs Patricia Murray, consort of the Civic Head of Northumberland County Council.

Signed versions of the children’s book, ‘The Conquest of Morpeth’ by Bridget Gubbins, were on sale at the event.

​Quote from Bridget Gubbins – ​I was overwhelmed by the magnificent interpretation of the stories in the book.  From the terrifying devil masks to the unhappy Juliana obliged to marry Ranulph de Merlay.  From the battle scenes to the poor village girl who had to work at the castle.  The children made these stories about Morpeth’s history all their own.  As a writer and researcher, seeing the stories being brought alive by these youngsters makes all the work worthwhile.”

With colourful illustrations by local artist Susan Dibben, the book is available for sale in Morpeth bookshops, just in time for Christmas, and costs only £5.

The Morpeth Electric Bicycle Company opened it’s doors earlier this month and the showroom will be officially opened by the Mayor of Morpeth on Saturday 9 December.

Please click here to see a one year variation of the Admissions Policy for Year 5 entry into Chantry Middle School, September 2018.

The Published Admission Number will increase from 128 to 158 for one year only.

The consultation for proposed changes to the Learning Trust governance arrangements in order to accept Church of England schools to join the Trust has now closed.

Thank you for sharing your views at the meetings or by completing a response form. We will now take some time to consider these responses and issue a summary of the consultation and our planned way forward in late December.