We hope that you all had a wonderful half term and managed to make the most of the glorious weather we have been having. It is a new record for the number of hours of sunshine the UK has received over the months of Spring.

Following on from last week, we are continuing to separate our CV19 information and our newsletter as this will focus on positive things that we have been doing or can recommend to keep us engaged during this time. Thank you to the members of the PVS community who have contributed to date but we would love to hear from more of you.

If you have anything that you wish to share; whether it be ideas to keep people entertained, examples of work, good news stories, etc. please contact Mss Dean cde@pewsey-vale.wilts.sch.uk. so, we can share it in our communications.

• Events and Activities & Other Things to Try

This week has marked the start of Mental Health Awareness month with the theme for 2020 being centred around kindness. There is lots of interesting and uplifting reading about why this theme was chosen on the website https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness- week/why-kindness-theme.

We asked you to let us know if you had done any small acts of kindness during the course of this week.

Ffion B has been incredibly brave and undertaken the ‘Brave the Shave’ challenge. As the name suggests this means shaving off all of her hair in the name of charity, the charity being Macmillan Cancer Support. She has currently raised £450 or her £500 target a truly fantastic effort

A quick update, Jack S, was raising money for Marie Curie by walking the height of Snowdon on his stairs has now reached a total of £980 an amazing achievement.

Georgia W has been busy with more culinary adventures. This time she has been making a giant burger for her brother, instead of a cake. This consisted of 16 quarter pounders. 20 slices of cheese, a block of cheddar, a jar of burger sauce and bread mix for a large loaf. It looks delicious and according to Georgia it tasted even better than it looked.

If you have any exciting or interesting things you have been doing, new skills you have been developing, then please let us know.

• Learning Resources and New skills

Pewsey’s Got Talent

Soon we will be advertising for entries for the up-coming virtual talent show ‘Pewsey’s Got Talent’. Keep your eyes open for news and in the meantime why not start thinking about what you could do as a performance – remember practise makes progress!

First News

First News is a weekly newspaper aimed at 7 to 14-year-olds that aims to get kids talking about the news in an easy to understand and non-threatening way.

We cover issues which are relevant to children and which specifically affect them. Inside you’ll find a mix of world news and UK news, but also loads of fun stuff, such as entertainment, games, animals, sport and puzzles.

https://subscribe.firstnews.co.uk/free-downloadable-issue/

Life skills

Speakers for schools continue to run their online programme of guest speakers. Over the coming week the following timetable will run. Perhaps there is something that interests you linked to your super north star.

Take an Open University Course: 

It’s free, takes anything from 2-30 hours, and you can study subjects from sociology to biotools!

Visit https://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses/full- catalogue

• Competitions

Star baker
Thank you for all of your wonderful entries from the last week – the rainbow cakes look beautiful, and hearing your stories of how they have been shared with family and neighbours (whilst social distancing) has been lovely.

Here are some of the entries from last week, they certainly look colourful.

The winner for last week was Eleanor M with Mrs K’s effort receiving the highly commended award from Mrs Sparke. Eleanor is currently in year 6 and will be joining us in September – I think Mrs Sparke may have a new star in the making. We are really pleased to see our new students already joining in and becoming part of our community.

Why not have a go and join in with the weekly star baker competition. Bake something of your choice or have a go at this wonderful classic sponge cake. Why not send us your favourite recipe, you never know, it may get featured next week.

Recipe of the week:
For those of you who are keen bakers and have access to flour and eggs perhaps you would like to try the recipe of the week. Or maybe you can suggest a vegan or gluten free alternative

Pizza Rolls

Ingredients:

• • 300g strong white flour 50g margarine
  • 1 envelop of yeast
  • A pinch of salt
  • A few basil leaves Tomato paste
  • 1 ball of mozzarella
  • A few pieces of chorizo

Method:

• • Put the oven on 160oc
  • Put the flour into a bowl- rub in the margarine
  • Add the salt and the yeast
  • Mix to a soft dough with warm water(about 200mls )
  • Turn out onto a floury work surface
  • Knead thoroughly for 5 mins
  • Leave to “prove” in a warm place cover with greased cling film or just a tea towel
  • Grease a baking tray ready
  • When dough has risen in size “knock-back” (means to knead again )
  • Divide dough into 2 pieces
  • Roll dough into an rectangle as long as your rolling pin and about 120cms wide
  • Cut the edges straight with a sharp knife
  • Spread tomato paste evenly all over the dough
  • Slice mozzarella on place on dough
  • Tear chorizo and place on top of cheese
  • Tear a few basil leaves and place o dough
  • Roll dough up long side.
  • Cut into small pieces 30 to 40 cms
  • Leave to prove again for about 15mins before baking at 160oc for 15mins

• Subject-Specific Activities

Science:

Cheltenham Science Festival - June 2nd - 7th 2020

This year’s Cheltenham Science Festival is going ahead as a virtual festival streamed for free via Cheltenham Festivals YouTube Channel. Events will be available online for 30 days after the festival ends 

https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science

STEM Learning

There are lots of fantastic resources available through the STEM learning website. With those activities suitable for home learning clearly marked. https://www.stem.org.uk/secondary-science

• Weekly challenges

Tim Henman and Compass for Life

Don’t forget every Wednesday on the Tin Henman foundation homepage three new challenges will be launched around the themes of being fulfilled, having fun and staying topical. There will be plenty of things for everyone so get involved and share what you are doing. This week the challenge focuses on the motivations and next steps. How many songs can you think up that have lyrics relating to life? Can you make up your own song?

Take a look on the website for the coming challenges: https://thfonline.org/home/ and don’t forget to share your work with #THFOnline2020 @PewseyValeSch (twitter).
Look out for the Wimbledon themed challenges that will be coming up in the next few weeks.

• Exercise and Well-being

Below are some useful websites for accessing ideas to support with accessing the PE curriculum. For those of you who have chosen PE as one of your options you might want to have a look at Seneca. For more general PE learning check out the other link provided for ideas.

Seneca

Website: https://app.senecalearning.com/courses?Price=Free&Age+Group=GCSE&Subject=Physical +Education
Key stages: key stage 4
Description: digital revision materials focussing on the GCSE PE curriculum

#ThisIsPE

Website: https://www.afpe.org.uk/physical-education/thisispe-supporting-parents-to-teach-pe-at- home/
Key stages: key stage 3 and key stage 4
Description: videos delivered by teachers focussing on the PE curriculum which are accessible on YouTube.

Mental Health

There are lots of resources around to help with mental health – we have been trying to suggest a wide range of sites in order to provide something for everyone.

• • Rise Above

Website: https://riseabove.org.uk/topic/my-mind/

Description: videos with tips on gaining confidence, dealing with anxiety and coping strategies from other young people.

• • Children’s Society

Website: https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/coronavirus-information-and-support

Key stages: key stage 3 to key stage 5

Description: information and support on different aspects of mental health and wellbeing.

• • For a list of all resources to support with mental health and well being you can find a comprehensive list on this webpage https://www.wiltshirehealthyschools.org/new-mental-health-resources-and- covid-19-support-materials-/

• National book tokens