Just before February half-term we launched a competition to students from all Year Groups to create an inspiring and informative poster about an acclaimed Scientist.

The posters had to showcase how the chosen scientist has contributed to the scientific community, with a minimum of 100 words and illustrations to support this.

Mr Jones and our Science staff have had a tough time decided on winners from all of the wonderful entries we received but we finally narrowed it down to these brilliant submissions…

Year 11, Mika Eaton
Year 10, Aleena Zahra
Year 9, Hayden Thorpe
Year 8, Kate Jones
Year 7, Tayla Brodiak

We are celebrating National Careers Week (6-11 March) across all subjects this week here at Co-op Academy Swinton and our focus is ‘Careers across the Curriculum’.

English

Today our Year 11 English students were looking at the careers of Emma Watson and Stephen Fry and how their work and backgrounds link to English. The students then wrote about their own ambitions and wrote speeches, in practise for their forthcoming exams. The speeches outlined their ambitions for the next ten years. The excellent extracts here are from Joleen Diamond, Harrison Little, Olivia Mundy and Naomi Adewoyin.

On the last day of term a group of our Year 9 and 10 girls took part in a Beauty Workshop, organised by Manchester United Foundation Hub Officer, Adele Howarth.

Helen Quayle, CEO of Whitefield based company Laser HQ, visited our academy to deliver an inspirational talk to our group about starting her business from scratch and building to the successful operation she has today with four branches. The girls found the afternoon very inspiring and maintained continuous engagement throughout the entire workshop.

Helen has achieved so much and in October 2022 won the 2022 ‘Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ award at The Enterprise Vision Awards. These annual awards recognise and celebrate outstanding ‘female entrepreneurship’ in the North West. The award, sponsored by The University of Central Lancashire, applauded Helen for starting and building her businesses from nothing, hitting a £1m turnover and leading the way with key campaigns to raise awareness of health issues for women so, as you can imagine she was a great inspiration to our students.

I’ve learnt how to be passionate about my work because Helen has showed us from where she started and how much she was able to build herself up. She taught me that it’s not just about laser hair removal but about her clients status. Her company welcomes her clients and makes them welcome and comfortable as much as possible. She is a very confident woman and proved to us that women don’t need men. If I was to look up to someone as an influencer, I would choose Helen because she answered so many questions that I needed to be answered.

Swesn, Year 9 student

At the start of February two of our fantastic studentsrepresented Co-op Academy Swinton at the very firstCo-op Academies Trust Spelling Bee competition attheir headquarters, 1 Angel Square in Manchester.

Accompanied by Teacher of English, Miss Bond, Year 8students Mena and Ariana performed really wellcompeting against other schools in the Trust.

They spelt all of the moderate challenge and high challenge words correctly and it was just one ‘wacky’ word that stopped the girls gaining the third place spot. They did exceptionally well and their confidence on the stage was amazing.

Well done, we are very proud of you!

Last week our Year 8 ‘Social Action’ students took part in the Premier League Inspires Social Action Showcase at Old Trafford.

The girls delivered a presentation about their Social Action project, which they had completed before Christmas, to other hub schools. Their project was then judged by a selection of Manchester United Academy players. The girls were able to stand and reflect on their community-based project whilst being inspired further after listening to the projects other schools had undertaken.

A total of ten schools attended the showcase and really learnt a lot from each other. All of our students thoroughly enjoyed the day and said they had learnt a lot.

I really enjoyed today. It was nice to show other schools our project and how hard we have worked. It was also great to see other people’s projects and be inspired to think about what we can do in the future.

Summer Morris, Year 8 student