In early September, Great Barr School took part in its annual Coffee Morning, to raise money to support the Macmillan initiative to raise money for people living with cancer.

Pupils and staff were very passionate about making the most of this event, thus raising as much money as possible and at the same time having fun!  Many staff and pupils made their own cakes and coffee which were sold around school.

Some very daring members of staff took part in a ’soak the teacher’ event, where pupils were given the opportunity to throw a wet sponge at a teacher, for a small donation!

The day was energising, exciting, and most importantly . . . effective!

Community Ambassador students attended an event run by the Birmingham Road Safety Partnership in collaboration with the West Midlands Fire Service, to prevent Road Kills.

There were several rather moving talks given by people whose lives had been devastated by the impact of road accidents.  We heard about the quest of a family to return home following the death of their son; a sister’s story of her brothers young life cut short and of Stuart, whose life had been changed forever, following a serious accident whilst on holiday in Blackpool.  The students are pictured with Stuart, who attended the event in person and was a real inspiration for his courage and determination to overcome his injuries.

During the morning pupils were given expert and professional guidance in all manner of road safety.  Students experienced motorbike simulators, learnt about the perils of driving under the influence of drugs and even had a go driving a car with the BSM.  During the first session in the afternoon, everyone gathered in a large warehouse to witness the Crash Vehicle Display – where the RTC demostration involved all emergency services in attendance at the scene, trying to save those involved.  As part of the event students were given first hand accounts of the life of a prison inmate, to understand the consequences of ending up behind bars.

School children to witness rail crashes, explosions and fires on trains as British Transport Police hammer home rail safety message.  STAY OFF THE RAILS – that is the simple and stark warning British Transport Police (BTP) sent to schoolchildren from the West Midlands, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Swindon and Worle, near Weston-super-Mare, at a special event being held ahead of the summer holidays.

Around 1,500 youngsters aged 12-15 from the West Midlands area witnessed explosions, fires and train crashes – all of which were staged by British Transport Police and Great Barr School drama students, to highlight the shocking consequences of playing on or near railway lines.

BTP receives reports almost every day of youngsters involved in line of route offences. These include: trespassing by running across the tracks; endangering safety by sitting on the edge of platforms with their legs dangling over the edge; throwing stones and other missiles at passing trains; spraying graffiti or placing obstructions such as bikes, shopping trolleys or concrete blocks on the line.

The project is the brainchild of Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) Dan Luczak of BTP’s Neighbourhood Policing Team and former pupil of Great Barr School.  Daniel regularly attends school assemblies and has launched competitions at schools in an effort to educate children about the dangers of the railway environment. 

Each scenario was supported by the excellent work of the drama students from Great Barr School, who reenacted the scenes alongside the BTP and other emergency services.  The project’s hard hitting acting and the input from the young people from GB drama department added to the realism of each disaster.   The drama students worked hard to set up each scene to get other young people to think before they act and by the end of each day, this certainly was evident.  All the students from Great Barr who took part in the ‘Off the Rails Event’, were a real credit to the school.

This year’s Off the Rails 2 event saw BTP and partner organizations including Network Rail, Motorail Logistics, West Midlands Fire Service, Warwickshire Fire Service and West Midlands Ambulance Service, stage the following four hard-hitting mock-up disasters:

1. On board fire – Smoking Inferno

2. Obstruction – Train smashes into debris placed on line

3. Electrocution – The Shocking Truth

4. Train crash at level crossing – Major incident: Off the Rails

 “The scene with the electrocution was visibly moving, students who were chatting earlier, stopped gripped by the situation unfolding of two boys, who five minutes before had been full of life and now one may be dead and the other seriously injured.  The final disaster involving the railway crossing was so shocking that you felt you were actually witnessing a real event.”  Mrs. Davies 

We would like to thank the British Transport Police and all those who put such a lot of effort into the days.  

An annual event, Green Britain Day is a focal point for people to take action towards a more sustainable lifestyle. The landmark initiative aims to inspire the nation to work together and lower the UK’s carbon footprint by the time the Olympic and Paralympic Games arrive in London in 2012. Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing humankind and EDF Energy believes that we can only tackle the issues we face by ensuring that all of us act together now.

Pupils at our school took part in a ‘Leaf Pledge’ activity. A pledge stating specifically how one would help the environment was written on a paper leaf. The leaves were then used to make a ‘Pledge Tree’. Lessons on sustainability and climate change were also taught throughout the day.

At Great Barr School, we endeavour to work together to achieve our ’sustainability’ goals.

A groups of dedicated members of staff have set up a Sustainability Working Party which meets regularly to discuss ideas for new initiatives around school.  The party believes that sustainability cannot be ‘top-down’ initiative. Rather it it must involve a joint effort from all stake-holders; pupils, parents, and teachers alike.

Swapping Books for Sustainability!

At Great Barr we encourage sustainability in all aspects . . . Being the largest school in the UK with over 300 staff, it became apparent that we can make much use of old items, particularly books and magazines! To maximise the sharing of these, we set up a ‘book-swap-meet’.

At the side of our main staff room, is a box to put old books/magazines in. Staff who desire old books or magazines simply help themselves to the books, and make a donation, or just place their own books in the box instead. This means that books are never thrown away, (thereby saving paper), and all donations go to charity!

Students from Great Barr School worked alongside students from North Birmingham Academy, selected as they had shown a great deal of community spirit and keen interest in the work of social media.  Students took part in the project in conjunction with Aston Villa FC and Connecting Communities Team, via the website ’socialbreakfast‘.  This governmental website was created to give young people ‘a voice’ on issues that concern them at a local level, which filters through to government at a national level. 

The students received excellent training and were given the tools to attack the areas of local concern, generated through discourse which they could then use to begin their own campaigns.   Students were supported by Ashram Housing Association, who linked pupils to their school’s own community cohesion strategies, with each pupil represented their local community through the Connecting Communities Team, of Ian, Emily, Victoria and Zoe.  Each of whom are nationally recognized for the work they do around the community cohesion objectives.

Students received in-depth training on the use of social media technologies to influence decision making and learnt skills in interview techniques, before finally having the opportunity to interview local decision makers in their area.  The students had by this stage become ‘expert’ at getting the best out of the interview and a great deal of confidence was built by such experiences.  The students – ALL thoroughly enjoyed taking part in this project and have established links to governmental bodies and highly influencial decision makers.

The success of the project, will be evaluted on the success of the campaign generating sufficient media attention as to make changes in the locality.  Students will remain in contact with the Connecting Communities Team and in the short term conduct local based studies, on what is necessary to improve the quality of services for local residents, particularly in the Erdington and Great Barr areas of the city.

We have been going to the Aldridge Road Allotments for just over a term but
we have done a lot.  There are nice people that help us do the plot each time we visit and this small community really helps each other out.  Many different people have plots at the allotments and we know we are
extremely lucky to get a plot and we do try to keep care of it as
much as we can.  The things that we have planted so far, include
leeks, onion,  runner and broad beans and pototoes, though this week we are hoping to plant a lot more crops.  We are really pleased that the weather is on our side.  We hope to carry it on throughout our years at school and overall it been a great experience and hopefully other people will enjoy this experience too and take over when we move on.

At Great Barr, we endeavour to demonstrate sustainability on our school site.

One crucial aspect of sustainability is water conservation. Why?

Did you know:

• Water is not as abundant in England and Wales as you would think. We only have 1,334 cubic metres (m³) per person a year – much less than France (3,065 m³) or even the hotter Mediterranean countries of Italy (2,785 m³) and Spain (2,775 m³).
• Water shortages don’t just affect us: they can also seriously harm our environment. Our water comes from rivers and groundwater so every drop we use has a direct effect on the environment.
• Fish, wetland birds and other wildlife that rely on ponds, rivers and streams struggle to survive when these dry up or run low. Sources of food and breeding sites for wildlife can be lost and fish can die through lack of oxygen.
• The average person in England and Wales uses 150 litres of water every day. Most of it is used for washing and toilet flushing, but it also includes drinking, cooking, car washing and watering the garden. We use almost 50% more water than 25 years ago, partly because of the use of power showers and other water using household appliances.

Water must be conserved!

Our dedicated site staff have set up water drums which lead to the roof of the green house; rainwater falling from these will then fill up the drums! This water can then be used to water the plants in the greenhouse!

This is the icon on our badges.

We met with two cyber mentors trainers Matt and Joel they taught us all about mentoring and how to help someone being bullied. We did a 2 day course including role play, talking about child protection and discussed how to be safe online, in school and outside of school. We now know how to be a mentor correctly. We are all in KS3 and KS4 and as mentors we have special cards if we see someone bullied we will give one to that person so they can go on the mentoring site: cybermentors.org.uk