Five of our students were selected to take part in a ‘Young Leaders, Sports Leaders’ course at Old Trafford this week.
The course gave a great introduction to leadership and is aimed at giving young people, aged 11 and over knowledge of how to organise and lead small games and activities that can be used as a part of uniformed organisation, community club or sports club sessions.
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
Last week we welcomed teams from our feeder primary schools, Mossfield and St Peter’s CofE, as we hosted our 2023 Dragons’ Den Final.
The teams from Mossfield and St Peter’s CofE, who had fought their way to the final during heats held at their school, joined us for the morning to pitched their final product ideas to our team of ‘Dragons’!.
The day we hosted the final also happened to be World Book Day and some of the children arrived in some fantastic costumes, along with banners and their best screaming voices to encourage their classmates on.
Adele Howarth, Manchester Foundation Hub Officer presented the event, alongside a special appearance from Fred the Red and our panel of ‘not so scary’ dragons were Mrs Ali, Mr Stanley, Miss Worth and Mr Bowcott poised to challenge the teams with questions about their products. Our panel were overjoyed with the teams’ pitches and continuously congratulated them on their knowledge, effort and organisation throughout the morning.
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’.
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 Thursday 2 February, Co-op Academy Swinton students met Manchester United first team football players on a trip to the training ground and headquarters of Manchester United Football Club.
Filmed by the BBC and Manchester United F.C, the Year 7-10 students took part in special activities focussed on supporting mental and physical wellbeing. The students met first team players; Bruno Fernandes, Frederico Rodrigues, Alejandro Garnacho and Ella Toone who took part in football activities with the students and shared inspiring stories about their personal and professional journeys, aired on Match of the Day on 5 March.
Watch the full feature from Match of the Day here:
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
Our week long ‘Masked Reader’ competition in celebration of World Book Day 2023 will begin on Monday 27 February. Can you guess our daily masked readers?
Watch this space for our daily videos!
So here it is! Can you guess who are very first Masked Reader is? Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Homer…
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 a group of our Year 10s enjoyed a visit to Eccles College to experience the BTEC Football Programme with the assistance of Manchester United Foundation and find out what’s involved.
Our group enjoyed a 30 minute presentation detailing the content of the course, its’ outcomes and the possible career options this course could lead to. They then had the amazing opportunity to take part in a 90 minute training session with the college instructors doing a range of football drills and games.
The boys behaved impeccably and were extremely mature during the session. They all said it was a great experience…huge thanks to Miss Howarth and Mr Frankham for organising this opportunity.
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
Last week our Year 10 BTEC Dance students, along with Dance teacher Miss Hughes, headed out for the evening to watch an incredible show called ‘Encounters’.Not only did they watch the show they were privileged to have the opportunity to take part in a pre-show workshop with some of the choreographers.
What a night! Congratulations to our Year 7 students who took part in the Co-op Academies Trust Year 7 Football Tournament last night at Co-op Academy Failsworth.
Our teams had a fantastic time, played some excellent football and showed our ‘Ways of Being’ in every match they played #SucceedTogether
A special mention must go to our Year 7 girls’ team who were, deservingly, crowned joint winners of the tournament along with Co-op Academy North Manchester. Well done everyone, we’re so proud of your effort, determination and sportsmanship.
Mrs Hulton and Mr West
