Woodlands Meed were delighted to be shortlisted as a finalist for the Acumen People Awards and were invited to attend the awards ceremony held at The Old Ship Hotel in Brighton on Friday evening.

The Acumen People Awards set out to recognise and showcase 7 – 17 year olds within the local community who have gone above and beyond and had a positive impact on the lives around them and the School of the Year Award recognises a school that has demonstrated excellence in academics, extracurricular, and/or community involvement.

Other awards included, Fundraiser of the Year, Bravery Award, Best Friend of the Year, Sibling of the Year, Young Carer Award and Sporting Achievement Award.

Our College House Captains, Luke, Tara and Jess attended the Awards to represent Woodlands Meed, along with Deputy Head Teacher Nola Bennett and Fundraiser Anna Hull. The students represented Woodlands Meed brilliantly and we all enjoyed a fantastic evening.

The students particularly enjoyed hearing from Penina Shepherd, Acumen’s CEO and founder, who gave a heartening and motivating and talk about why she decided to set up Acumen. She shared how facing fear and not being afraid to try new things and think differently, helped her achieve her goals. Penina’s talk and seeing and hearing about the other nominees and winners was inspirational and very moving and we all felt in awe of the remarkable people we met and the amazing things that go on in our community.

For science week, Ali Khan, a STEM specialist from ‘STEM Innovations’, visited the College to run STEM workshops for KS4 and KS5. During the sessions, pupils made paper buckets and used a leaf blower to shoot balls into the buckets. The team of pupils with the bucket which retained the most balls won – a lot of fun was had with this activity!

The leaf blower was used to blow up a large ball and the pupils got to throw this back and forth whilst it shrunk. He also showed us his amazing robot and how he coded it to do different things like dance, exercise and speaking. During the week we were also visited by ‘Sublime’ who were discovered on Dragon's Den. They held a fun science assembly and showed us a variety of experiments such as elephant's toothpaste, plasma balls, an electric stick and a sound hose. Pupils were invited up from the audience to participate in the different activities and experiments and a lot of interest was generated amongst the students.

One of the most popular sporting activities returned to Woodlands Meed as our current year 8 students had the opportunity to explore and learn to ride a range of different bikes over the course of a week.

Students thoroughly enjoyed riding round the track on site and exploring the different bikes available which included trikes, two-wheelers, hand-bikes and even tandems!

All students have exceeded the highest of expectations with every student developing their cycling skills to a level we could only dream of.  All students have ridden at least two types of bike unaided, with many now able to ride a two-wheeler.  Some students even took on the challenge of riding their bikes in our car park and on the quiet surrounding roads; well done, we are very proud of you!  What a massively successful week!

The construction of the new college reached a significant milestone recently. Please watch the below video for an update. 

https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/news/new-woodlands-meed-college-nears-completion/ 

On Wednesday 1st March, our table cricketers travelled the short distance to The 1st Central County Ground, the home of Sussex Cricket, to represent Woodlands Meed in the annual table cricket competition.  After the successes of last year, there was a lot of excitement surrounding this competition as we fielded 6 students from last year’s     triumphant team, and welcomed two students who were making their competitive debut.

In addition to our superstars there were six other teams competing, including teams from Manor Green College, Downsview and St Piers. 

We started strongly in our first match against Downsview Link College where our students put into practice what they have learnt during their coaching sessions.  Some great fielding and bowling was demonstrated, but it was our expert batting that resulted in a deserved victory, winning by 24 runs!

Our final match was against Manor Green College who had won their first match so we knew only a win would see us through to the regionals.  Again, our students gave everything against a very tough opponent, and finished with a very respectable 228 runs.  Despite some heroic fielding and committed bowling, we eventually lost our second game.   Although we were disappointed not to progress to the regionals, our students should be extremely proud of how they played, and take a lot of heart that they lost to the eventual winners.  

All our students demonstrated great teamwork and sportsmanship throughout.  They were an absolute credit to the school! 

Special mention to Jadon who epitomised what sport should be about; skill, pride and most importantly enjoyment!  Well done Jadon!

A massive thank you to Jan James for leading this trip only hours after The Hawth performance celebrating 10 years of Woodlands Meed that she was so heavily involved in! 

Congratulations everyone, we are so proud of you all!

Ridgeview recently treated a group of enthusiastic Woodlands Meed students to a day of inspirational insights into what goes into making their award winning wines

Students accessed a unique behind the scenes tour of the operation and followed the whole production journey from grape to glass. The day was jam packed with information about the company, some hands on work experience and finding out about the different roles within the organisation from Ridgeview employees.

Since 1995, Ridgeview has been producing world-class English sparkling wine in Sussex.  They are a purpose-driven business committed to making a positive impact on the world.  They are a family run business who profoundly believe in treating everyone fairly, equally, with respect and encouragement.  They support equality and diversity employment practices and are a member of Disability Confident.

This progressive company ethos is a great fit for what Woodlands Meed is working to achieve with breaking down barriers to disability employment and supporting their students and potential employers to find strategies to make working with some one with additional needs work successfully.

The day began with a tour of the vineyard, seeing the different jobs and processes that are carried in the early stages of growing the grapes to produce award winning wines.

Student then took part in cutting and collecting the grapes from the vines. They heard from Toby Loxton who shared his experience of being employed by Ridgeview and inspired the students to not give up in their search for employment as he had found a great fit with Ridgeview. The mechanical process was explained and students got to see the production line from where the grapes enter the factory to the end product bottled and boxed.

The student tasted juice from grapes that were taken off the vine the day before as well as honey from the vineyards own hive. They were walked through the role of the bee keeper and had the opportunity to try on a keepers outfit.   To finish the day the students worked on the Ridgeview Bug House which is being built to encourage and protect insects and wildlife and support Ridgeview’s ecological environment.

Alex Watts from the Meeds Job Club said “Days like today at Ridgeview have a lasting impact on our students.  Actually being able to see, talk to and have hands on experience what a job might look like is so important in firing their ambition to find a future role in employment of something they have a genuine interest and passion for.  The students had a brilliant varied day, experiencing the whole process from grape to glass – the a wide range of jobs they saw and heard about, hearing and seeing the company’s end product, trying their hand at a role that exists within the organisation, creating the bug house and to top it off having the chance to sample the juice from the grapes that were on the vine the day before! It well and truly met all our objectives for a work place visit and clearly helped the students better their understanding of the bigger picture of what goes into the production of an award winning wine.’

Katharine Archer, People Manager at Ridgeview said who organised and ran the day for Woodlands Meed said ‘I thoroughly enjoyed my day with the students, it was a pleasure and a privilege to spend the time with them. Partnerships with local schools such as Woodlands Meed are so important to Ridgeview as we are passionate about supporting education and our community. We also want to do all that we can to remove barriers, create pathways and welcome everyone who has passion and purpose. We look forward to building our partnership with Woodlands Meed.’