A charity which supports individuals living with lifelong mental health conditions and learning disabilities has partnered up with a local primary school to help transform part of its playing field into a forest school.

Blyth Star Enterprises, which provides living support and day services that replicate real working environments to over 350 people living across Northumberland, has been working with NCEA Thomas Bewick C of E Primary School in Ashington to help bring their vision for a state-of-the-art forest school to life.

Popular across the country as a means of encouraging pupils to learn personal, social and technical skills by engaging with the natural world, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, forest schools have also become important tools in the promotion of positive mental health and wellbeing through time spent in the great outdoors.

Working alongside staff and pupils to ensure that as many of their ideas were captured in the final design as possible, service users and support staff from Blyth Star Enterprises’ woodwork department set to work building a series of outdoor workstations, wooden benches, mud kitchens complete with secret fairy doors and a fire pit area for the forest school.

In total, the build took four weeks to complete off-site, with the groundwork and installation taking place over four days within the school holidays.

This is the second forest school that Blyth Star Enterprises has created for schools within NCEA Trust, having supported NCEA Warkworth C of E Primary School with the construction of its new forest school site last summer after vandals destroyed the original site during lockdown.

Kevin Alexander, Supervisor at Blyth Star Enterprises’ woodwork department, said:

“We were delighted to be invited by NCEA Trust to create another forest school for one of its primary schools. It’s really beneficial for our service users to work on projects which take them out into the community where they can see the positive impact of their hard work – it’s good for their morale and their own mental health.

“The staff and pupils at Thomas Bewick Primary were an absolute joy to work with and it was brilliant to see the children’s faces when they saw the finished forest school for the first time. We hope that they will enjoy the site for years to come.”

When asked what they thought of the new forest school, pupils at NCEA Thomas Bewick C of E Primary School, commented:

“I think it’s really cool because there is so much new stuff on the field which we can use now. It’s not just an empty area anymore; we will be able to have really interesting lessons using the outdoors,” said Meredith, Year 4.

“It seems like it could be a nice place to relax now! The team have worked really well and we should appreciate it that they’ve given us such a special place to use!” said Logan, Year 4.

“It’s really good because it will be good to use for fun activities. It’s really nice to have a space to learn outside. I am excited to see the onions, beetroot and the carrots grow too!” said Perry, Year 6.

“I think I am most excited about the fire pit where we could safely do some really interesting learning. I think when all of the new trees and wildflowers have grown it’ll look really beautiful. It will be good for the younger children to learn more consistently outside as we’ll be using it every week,” said Amber, Year 6.

Jess Williamson, Headteacher at NCEA Thomas Bewick C of E Primary School, added:

“From the day that pupils start school in our nursery provision, we promote outdoor education as a crucial part of our primary curriculum so that they grow up aware of the natural world around them and the benefits associated with spending time outdoors.

“We are fortunate at Thomas Bewick to have such a big school field, but that was all it was – empty space! The creation of a dedicated forest school area is a real win for the school and we really can’t thank Kevin and the team at Blyth Star Enterprises enough for their hard work in making it all possible.”

For more information about Thomas Bewick C of E Primary School, visit www.thomasbewick.ncea.org.uk or to find out more about Blyth Star Enterprises or commissioning a woodwork or gardening project, visit www.blythstar.org.uk.

Since World Book Day, children at NCEA Thomas Bewick C of E Primary School have been competing against other primary schools within the NCEA Trust to see how much they could read over a 3 week period.

After an intense battle, Thomas Bewick won by clocking up 38 minutes of engaged reading time a day and by reading over 1,300 books!

As a reward for this phenomenal achievement, Vashti Hardy (the author of the award-winning children’s book, Brightstorm) came to our school to give a talk about being a writer. The children were given tips such as: write what you know about and what you are interested in, use a Writing Journal (where you can write and plan whatever you like), collect pictures of what you are writing about to help inspire you and of course, draw a map (because all good books contain a map!)

The children absolutely loved listening to Vashti and were really inspired by her talk – we couldn’t stop them asking so many questions afterwards!

Last week, Thomas Bewick C of E Primary School received a very special visit from the Archdeacon of Lindisfarne, Catherine Sourbut Groves.

Archdeacon Catherine enjoyed a tour of the school and our Pupil Voice forum prepared some questions to ask her such as, “What is an Archdeacon?” “What do you enjoy most about your job?” and “What do you least like about your job?”

Pupils at Thomas Bewick C of E Primary School enjoyed a non-uniform day to help raise funds and awareness about the crisis in Ukraine. The children also got stuck in helping to organise the incredible number of donations the school received from the local community. We have been overwhelmed with the generosity of our community and we are extremely grateful to you for helping us to make a difference.

Click on any of the photos below to view in a slideshow

NCEAT’s primary schools, including Thomas Bewick, have been recognised in the UK’s top 50 schools for Accelerated Reader usage.

Accelerated Reader is an online platform which supports pupils’ reading skills. When they first start using the platform, pupils complete a STAR reading test which gives them a level based on their reading ability and advises on the books they should be reading. This allows teachers to ensure that pupils are challenged with an appropriate text and develops their reading fluency.

Once they have finished reading their book, they can then complete a comprehension quiz to assess whether they have understood what they have read. This gives teachers valuable information about pupils reading ages and also reading comprehension ability.

Prior to the summer holidays, the primary schools within the Trust had a big push on reading for pleasure, encouraging pupils to read at home with parents and carers. This push has seen pupils carry out over 28,537 Accelerated Reader quizzes online since August – that’s 28,537 books read across Bishop’s, Grace Darling, James Knott, Thomas Bewick and William Leech C of E Primary Schools!

Jack Christophers, Director of Literacy, commented:

“We’re absolutely blown away by what our pupils have achieved through Accelerated Reader. The statistics speak for themselves – our pupils have put in an amazing amount of effort and we’re extremely proud of each and every one of them.”

To find out more about reading in the primary curriculum, visit our Reading Corner!

Pupils at a Primary School in Ashington, South East Northumberland, have quizzed their way into the Top 100 in a nationwide maths competition to find the country’s ‘Times Tables Rock Stars’.

The Year 6 pupils from Bishop’s Primary School’s Thomas Bewick Campus placed 66th overall in the virtual contest, which saw entries from over 30,000 primary and secondary schools across the UK.

The children, aged 10-11, worked incredibly hard over the course of the week-long competition, using their break times, lunch times, evenings and weekends to log into the online platform to answer quick-fire multiplication questions against the clock to score points for their school.

Having been challenged by teachers to aim for the top 500, staff at the school were overwhelmed at the dedication shown by the pupils to keep climbing the charts.

Jessica Williamson, Head of Campus at Thomas Bewick, said:

“We have been using the Times Tables Rock Stars programme for a couple of years to help support our pupils’ knowledge of mathematical times tables.

“Because it’s like a game, the children love it and get really competitive within their classes and year groups. When we saw that the company who develops the programme was launching a national competition, we spurred the children on to aim for the top 500, never dreaming that they would get so into it!

“Within days, they’d hit the top 500 target, so with a bit more encouragement and the promise of a socially-distanced school disco in the New Year, we challenged them to aim for the top 200. When they soared past that goal, I said that they could have a disco and a McDonald’s Happy Meal each if they got into the top 100, and here we are!

“We’re so incredibly proud of what the pupils have achieved. They all worked so hard and the progress that they’ve all made with their maths skills is incredible. Their quick recall ability is well above average for their age group and they’ve really grown in confidence, even when tackling tricky topics like fractions.”

Bishop’s Primary School, which has campuses located throughout Ashington, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea and Lynemouth is part of the wider Northumberland Church of England Academy Trust (NCEAT); which also includes Castle School, Duke’s Secondary and Warkworth C of E Primary School.

Alan Hardie, Chief Executive Officer at NCEAT, commented:

“Across all of our Trust schools, pupils are encouraged to ‘Let their light shine’ (Matthew 5:16) and to aspire to be the best that they can be. What the Year 6 pupils have achieved in the Times Tables Rock Stars competition is the absolute embodiment of our vision and we couldn’t be more proud! A huge well done to all of the pupils and staff involved!”