Busines Name

The Thomas Hepburn cluster is made up of the following schools;

· Thomas Hepburn Community School
· Colegate Primary School
· Carr Hill Primary School
· South Street Primary
· Brandling Primary
· Bede Primary
· Falla Park Primary
· Fell Dyke Primary
· Larkspur Primary
· Windy Nook Primary
· Furrowfield School
· Hilltop School

Most of the schools have worked together successfully over a number of years. These partnerships have developed through Education Action Zone work, Specialist School status work and transition activities.

All the schools have offered aspects of the Extended Schools core offer and across the cluster parents can access Childcare and parenting support. An adult learning programme is on offer and all of the schools provide a whole range of after school activities

The Extended Services Co-ordinator for the Thomas Hepburn Cluster is Sharon Sims-Brydon. Sharon is responsible for co-ordinating activities and services throughout each school in the Thomas Hepburn Cluster to ensure that each element of the Extended Services Core Offer is being met within the Cluster. Sharon can be contacted for any queries regarding Extended Services in the Thomas Hepburn Cluster. Sharon's contact details are:

Sharon Sims-Brydon
Thomas Hepburn Community School
Swards Road
Felling
Gateshead
NE10 9UZ
(0191) 420 4499
sharonsims-brydon@gateshead.gov.uk

The Thomas Hepburn Cluster are currently part of the Subsidy Pathfinder. From 2008-2010 all schools in the Thomas Hepburn Cluster will benefit from £550,000 worth of funding, which has come to be known as 'Willy Wonka's magic ticket', as it provides out-of-school activities for children and young people in the cluster who could not afford to attend otherwise.

Children and young people from the cluster were invited to a Market Place Event at Thomas Hepburn Community School, which introduced them to an array of various activity providers, for example Stepney Bank Stables, Newcastle United Community Football Foundation and The Soundroom Music Project to name a few. Feedback from the children and young people attending the event was used to inform decisions made by the schools as to what activities to commission.

TELL US WHAT YOU WANT!!!!!!

REMEMBER we want to put on activities, trips or visits that you want to attend, so if you are a pupil at one of the schools in the Thomas Hepburn Cluster why not TELL US WHAT YOU WANT?

All you have to do to feedback what you want is to go to the homepage and post your comments by leaving your leave your age, school that you attend and area that you live in and of course WHAT YOU THINK!!!!

Thomas Hepburn Community School have used their share of the Subsidy Pathfinder funding to put on a wide range of after school activities, visits and trips, all free of charge. Activities include cheerleading, street dancing, first aid, cookery, digital photography, Bollywood dancing, film club, arts and crafts and fashion and beauty.

If pupils register for an activity and attend all sessions, they are entitled to participate in an organised trip such as go-karting, paintballing, trips to the beach and the theatre.

Whole year groups have also been on various trips; Year 7 went to the cinema, Year 8 went to a pantomime, Years 9 and 10 went go-karting and Year 10 also went to Spinebreakers at The Sage Gateshead.

“At February Half Term I went to the Sage to do a day course called Spinebreakers. It was brilliant. Really enjoyed it”. – Amy Bruce

“Go-Karting was MINT!!!!! The First Aid Course is FAB Woop Woop!! Thomas Hepburn is a MINT Place to be”. – Rachel Smith

One year group even visited The Clothes Show.

“I thought the Clothes Show was really great!! I would love to go again next year’ Thomas Hepburn is the BEST”. - Robbie Oakley

“There were loads of cool things to buy and it was really really good. I would so recommend it to anyone that hasn’t been before. I would never ever had the chance to go if it wasn’t for school’ about the Clothes Show”. - Katie Barr

After Easter pupils can look forward to doing caricature cartoons with Paul Slattery, who has previously held the Guinness World Record for the largest caricature he did of Alan Shearer.

After Easter students will also have the opportunity to do ceramics classes with the award winning Carolyn Hanley.

Community

Thomas Hepburn Community School are the only designated community school in the Gateshead. They provide a multi-facetted service to the local community seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year. The school attempts to embrace all aspects of community provision and currently on site they provide a wide range of courses and activities for all ages for example Childminder Drop-In, Mobility and Chair Aerobics, Luncheon Club, Bingo, Ju Jitsu, Women’s Group, Senior Citizen’s Party and weekend and holiday day trips to name just a few.

Thomas Hepburn have a range of events aimed at providing many layers of support for students and their families to make the move from Primary to Secondary school run smoothly.

From the 1st June, our Transition Team will spend two weeks visiting primary schools with a view to meeting every child who will be coming to us in September

Induction Day takes place on Tuesday 30th June. This is an opportunity to spent the entire day at Thomas Hepburn - Students will meet their new classmates and group tutor, and experience life in a secondary school. Students are also invited to bring their Parents/Carers back to school that evening to meet the Year 7 Achievement Team.

We're planning some fantastic activities that will take place during the summer holidays - more information will be made available nearer the time.

During November, we will be holding our Year 7 Family Evening. Families are invited along to school to take part in an informal evening that focuses on assisting parents with supporting their child's learning. It is also and opportunity to meet the child's tutor for a brief chat about how they've settled in since September.

We look forward to meeting all of our New Year7 and hope that with out support; the transition from primary to secondary school will be a successful and enjoyable one!

Whitthough Park Transition Trip

As part of the transition programme at Thomas Hepburn School, Children from the Cluster’s primaries in Year 6 who were to become Year 7’s this September attended a residential to Whitthough Park Outward Bound Centre in Scotland during the first week of the summer holidays. Not only did the children get to take part in fun outdoor activities such as rock climbing and canoeing, they all got to make friends with their new class mates before their first year at Thomas Hepburn. Even though there was heavy rain, everyone really enjoyed it and said meeting their new friends made them less nervous about starting their new school.

To see the rest of the photos check out the photo gallery below!!!!

During the Easter holidays, Thomas Hepburn School opened its doors to young children in the community. The school hosted a number of activities to give children the opportunity to have fun whilst keeping fit. The school hired a number of professional coaches so the children could have the best experience that they could. Throughout the day different activities ran such as footballm trampolining and cheerleading. The children fully enjoyed all of the activities that ran and there was a very positive feed back from all of them.

Reported by Matthew Ternent - V talent Volunteer

At Thomas Hepburn Community School younger and older generations have been learning together to make crafts such as cards, Christmas decorations and gift boxes. The young and old swapped ideas and techniques to create an array of crafty delights.

Through funding provided by the Government’s Building Schools for the Future Programme, Thomas Hepburn Community School will undergo a massive refurbishment to create, through a radically improved physical environment, an educational climate that will lead to transformational improvements in outcomes for learners.

David Mitchell, Gateshead’s Director of Learning and Schools was accompanied by children from Thomas Hepburn and members of the community who make regular use of the schools facilities in a ceremony to dig up the first piece of turf where a part of the school will be re-built.

As part of a culmination of heritage work, which begun whilst children were still in their primary schools, Year 7 children were accompanied by members of the community on a trip to Beamish Museum to learn about the Victorian Times.

Jean Pollard is the School Nurse based at Thomas Hepburn Community School. Jean provides a varied public health role within both the Comprehensive and each of the cluster Primary Schools.

The information leaflet explains in more detail the services the School Nurses can offer you and your child / teenager to support their health and wellbeing.

Please do not hesitate to contact Jean to obtain any further information or access support.

Jean can be contacted through your School Secretary or directly at Thomas Hepburn Community School on (0191) 420 4555.

To read more on the School Nurse Service in Gateshead click on the link below:

Download file School Nurses Gateshead

As part of our drive to develop pupils’ independent learning and to use every available moment of the school day, we have recently developed a new initiative called “Study Buddies”.

The project uses Y6 pupils in peer mentor role to support Y2 children carry out additional research during lunchtimes. Supported by a teacher, the Study Buddies set up safe web-links to interactive learning sites appropriate to the topics currently being studied by the younger children.

Every lunchtime the Y6 pupils set up a mobile ICT suite and invite their Y2 buddies to join in some extra learning!

We’re in the early days, having run the system for only a few weeks, but so far all of the children involved are very enthusiastic, and the plan is to roll-out the project to cater for children of more year groups.

Similarly, discussions are currently underway to apply the same principle but diversify the audience, and invite senior citizens from the sheltered accommodation close by to find out about how the Internet can help them!

Here at Brandling we aim to offer as wide a range of activities as possible to include all children, whatever their circumstances, age or interests. Throughout the year we have a variety of opportunities for the children to extend their learning and development and to participate in activities that they will find fun, challenging and rewarding.

Younger children can join an activity club where they take part in a range of activities from art and crafts to baking. There is also a dance club and a fitness club which, in a fun and inclusive way, develops the children's balance, agility, strength and speed.

Older children can take part in many sporting clubs such as table tennis, dance, football and cheerleading. For those who prefer to look after themselves in a different way there is the cookery club, which often uses the produce grown by our own gardening club.

We are always on the lookout for new opportunities to extend our school in this way. Our cheerleading club was the result of a visit by the school council to an extended schools fair. They saw what was on offer and put the choices to the children. Cheerleading came out on top and now the club is going from strength to strength.

Year 5 Class at Bede have put together a presentation to show what great things are going on in their school. Click on the link below to read more:

Download file Bede

Fell Dyke Community Primary School serves the children, families and community of Wrekenton and hosts High Fell Children's Centre and The Village Montessori at Fell Dyke. The school provides high quality teaching and learning and out-of-school activities for all pre-school and primary aged children, alongside baby clinics; parent/carer and toddler sessions; speech and language programmes; adult education and wrap-around-care.

“I really enjoy going to nursery and playing with the other boys and girls. I also like playing in the playdough a lot there are lots of activities for the children to play with”. – Brandon, Natalie Meldrum’s little brother

Fell Dyke has a Breakfast Club every day from 8:30 - 8:50. Children from Year 2 may attend by themselves. Younger children are also very welcome to attend, but they must be accompanied by an adult. Every morning, a wide range of food and drinks (including Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Cornflakes, Weetabix, fruit juice, hot chocolate, and toast with jam, marmalade, beans or spaghetti) is available to the children - FREE OF CHARGE! When the children have finished their breakfast, they play board games and read newspapers and comics until school begins. Greggs the Bakers sponsor the Breakfast Club.

Following a very successful course during last term, Fell Dyke along with their partner Family Learning in Gateshead, are running two further, six week long, silk painting courses for parents/carers and their children. In addition, parents/carers are working in school every Monday afternoon to make story sacks and number sacks for use in Nursery and Reception.

“Hello Mrs Scott. Thank you for the bag of ingredients. I really enjoyed making healthy burgers with my brothers Lewis and Kyle and my best friend Courtney. Courtney and me mixed the mince and vegetables together .My dad helped us cook them. We had a choice of what salad we wanted on them. Lewis kept eating all the cucumber. We have some left and my dad’s going to help us cook some more tomorrow. See you tomorrow at school.” – Lucy Bramwell, Year 5

Here are just a few examples of the great out-of-school clubs on offer at Fell Dyke:

Gymbobs Gymnastics Club on Saturday mornings for children aged 3-7 years old.

Line Dancing Club on Tuesday afternoons, from 3:20 – 4:30, for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 children as well as the community.

“Hi I really like the new garden in the playground, it makes the playground look better. P.S. The dance festival was great.” – Jodie, Year 6

Multi-Sports Club on Monday afternoons, from 3:20- 4:30, where children take part in a range of team games including hockey, basketball and cricket.

“We can't wait until Wednesday ‘cause we are going to Lightwater Valley. Fell Dyke is the best school eva!” – Terri Cooney and Natasha Stark, Year 6

Art Club on Wednesday afternoons, from 3:20-4:30, is attended by Year 3 and 4 children.

Homework Club on Wednesday lunchtimes, from 12noon to 1pm, help with homework is provided or just somewhere quiet to work.

Choir on from Wednesday lunchtimes, between 12noon and 12:30.

“I'm joining the choir in our school and I think it is great! I look forward every Wednesday to it! Miss Greenwood and Miss Smith are working really hard with us! And we are getting so much better every week!” – Hannah McRae, Year 6

Karate Club on Thursday lunchtimes, from 12noon to 1pm, for Year 5 and 6 children.

“I think this school is really good for my kids.” – Sharna. Parent

Fell Dyke Community Primary School is participating in a Community Access Pilot this summer term. From 1 June - 31 August 2009, members of the local community will have free, unsupervised access to the school grounds to play during the evenings, weekends and summer holidays, from 9am to 8pm. The community will have access to an outdoor multi use games area (the MUGA); an outdoor amphitheatre for performances; a multi-sensory garden; two trim trails; climbing frames and parallel bars.

Falla Park are host to a wide range of after school activities including Football, Hip-Hop Street Dance, Cookery Club, Karate, Team Sports, Film Club, Creative Dance, Drama, Arts and Crafts, Chess Club and Magic Club.

As well as activities for pupils at Falla Park, families of students can also attend family learning classes where the whole family learns together, classes include Family Spanish and Family ‘Reality Based Self-Defence’.

Here’s what some of the club’s participants had to say:

“Self-defence was very informative! I was doing things I never thought I would. The trainer was very patient and helped us all individually. He made me feel I could do it and Ryan and I really enjoyed it. I could defend myself better now”, – Tracey Todd, parent

“Spanish is brillian! Everyone gets to join in, both parents and children and our tutor makes it fun and child friendly. You don’t feel you are in the classroom and being a free club like self-defence, its fabulous”, – Tracey Todd, parent

“I enjoy film club. We see great movies and I like the snacks!! The best film so far has been Herbie Fully Loaded. I loved the car which had lights for his eyes”, – Kyle Martin, Year 2

“My favourite film was Garfield because it was really funny. Its good to watch the films and then talk about them with your friends”, – Georgia Paxton, Year 2

“The Teams Skills acticvities meant that all children had great fun and were practising lots of different ball skills. They were certainly enjoying getting fit and healthy and I bet they all slept well that night”, – David Hauxwell, PE Manager

“I was shown lots of magic and I liked the magician”, Akeesha Gow, Year 1

“I liked Magic Club because I made stuff so that I could do tricks!”, Leonie Collins, Year 1

“I love to do break-dancing and cant wait for the dance festival. It’s good to have dance that boys like too! Streetdance is cool!” – Connor Dryden, Year 6

“In drama we get to do fight scenes and everything. Its real acting and we look at how to be a great actor. Our performance is going to be brilliant!”, - Kayleigh Ellison, Year 6

At South Street Primary School our aim is to ensure we provide a wide range of inviting, engaging and inspiring activities to motivate and promote learning.

We run a breakfast club every morning which is regularly attended by pupils where they can come and have their breakfast and communicate with their friends.

The percussion club runs every week where pupils receive the opportunity to learn how to play the drums.

We offer a range of dance classes for pupils throughout school including modern, line dancing and salsa. This is open to pupils from reception up to year six and is a very popular class. We participated in the dance festival this year at the Sage.

Pupils become chefs in our cookery classes where pupil devise menus and learn the skills to create a range of healthy meals.

At lunchtime football clubs take place where coaches from Newcastle united come to school and teach ball skills and referee matches.

Pupils develop their skills in taekwondo using non contact skills enhancing their hand and foot coordination. Pupils also get the opportunity to promote self discipline and self defence

Each year pupils in year 5/6 get the opportunity to attend Robinwood an outdoor residential centre which focuses upon team work, motivating and challenging pupils to work together to achieve more.

As a school we attended the theatre royal production of Robinson Crusoe which was a wonderful opportunity for pupils to experience a live performance.

Tri golf has been offered to year 5 pupils this term where they have used their skills to control and aim using a golf club.

Pupils have enhanced their environment through the gardening club where they have planted bulbs and seeds which have been entered and won prizes in the Saltwell Park Flower show.

The children enjoy a range of art opportunities including ceramics where they use a range of tools to model and glaze clay.

The pupils also enjoy being creative using a range of materials to create artwork for different themes.

In the Winter and Summer term we have a Fayre where pupils, staff, parents and the local community are all welcome to attend. We have a range of stalls and activities ran by staff and Friends of South Street including the speed goal kick where Newcastle Community Football team run an activity.

Before School - We run a breakfast club from Monday to Friday at 8.10am; Children get their breakfast and participate in art or sporting type activities.

Term Time - During the term we also have started running some lunchtime clubs, this usually relates to what competitions are coming up after school. This term we have been doing dance, Cheerleading, tennis and netball. We take our children hourse riding at Stepney Banks Stables in Newcastle. This is a great opportunity to see and ride a hourse, which most pupils would not otherwise have the chance to do.

After School - Our after school program runs Monday to Friday straight after school to 5pm. We have been running trampolining, Gymnastics, Football, Multi - Sports, Tri-golf and singing. Some of our children are developing very fast and are at advanced stage of trampolining clubs. We have made contact with local centre of excellence clubs who can develop selected children to the next level and enter them into competitions. This will commence in the coming weeks. The children will be transported in the school mini bus on a Friday night and a Sunday afternoon.

Holiday Clubs - We run holidays clubs and do not request a fee for participation. The holidays clubs run fro 10.00 untill 3.00. If we are on a trip we return back to school later. The age range of our children for the holiday club is 8 - 11. In the holidays we look to take our children to locations which are educational, fun and to give them an opportunity that they may never have again. During previous holiday clubs we have visited Beamish Wild, Forbidden Corner North Yorkshire, Whickham Thorns, Alnwick Castle, Alnwick Gardens and many more. We try to arrange trips at least two times per week. Druing the remainder of the week we carry out school based activities including arts and crafts, cooking, a movie club and a wide range of sports activities such as football, tennis and trampolining.

The Thomas Hepburn Cluster wants to know what YOU THINK, whether it be what services or activities you would like to see taking place in the cluster, comments on the Thomas Hepburn Cluster Web page or any comments in general about the Thomas Hepburn Cluster PLEASE TELL US!!!!!!!!

All you have to do to feedback what you want is to go to the homepage and post your comments by leaving your leave your age, school that you attend and area that you live in and of course WHAT YOU THINK!!!!

Whitthough Park Residential

Thomas Hepburn School's Trip tp Beamish

Bede

South Street