TVEd Young Journalists – Discovery

A few weeks ago, we moved into our new Sandy Flatts site. Things are going brilliantly! Everyone was feeling a bit nervous for their first day but it all went really well. We were welcomed with a grand entrance into our new site by watching one of our journalists, Lexi-Mae, and another pupil, Charlie, cut a purple ribbon.

We have a lot of new facilities on our new site, including sensory integration rooms and soft play. These provide a great opportunity for children to access therapeutic time. When we are doing sports, we have a brand-new hall and we also have our own changing rooms with lockers! Our school also offers after school clubs, such as our sports club which everyone is welcome to join! During lunch time, we offer different clubs like art, Lego and sports! We really enjoy this as it gives each one of us different options to do at dinner time. Our new building is called the “Pioneer Building”. It has a range of classrooms with some extra ones ready for when we expand! The classrooms are fantastic – they provide us with plenty of space and are full of light, with big windows and interesting displays. We have lovely furniture and new storage spaces for our classroom resources. We also have a new cooking room and an arts and creativity room.

Being together, on one site, means that we get to join primary for lunchtimes and Friday assemblies. When it is lunch time, everyone from each class gathers to have their dinner before going outside for break. We thank the lunchtime staff for cooking our dinner and the other staff around the hall.

To support with our new site, some of the Year 9 pupils now have jobs. These jobs include yard supervisors, librarians, technicians, farm workers and PAs to SLT. Did I mention that the new Mugga has been opened in our playground? We have enjoyed playing football and other team games in here – it’s a fantastic space and gives us plenty of room to run around and get active.

We are looking forward to welcoming some new animals into our school including fluffy, cute rabbits. Stay tuned for them to arrive in a couple of weeks’ time.

On Wednesdays, we have music assemblies. Each class can gather to have a fun time to sing different songs, especially for members of the choir! On Fridays, we have a celebration assembly where we celebrate work that each class has done. If you do something impressive, you might have the chance of being rewarded with Explorer of the Week!

We have a choir group of pupils from Year 6 to Year 9. We regularly get together to practice or rehearse songs for up-andcoming events. We recently went to Guisborough church for a carol service and have more plans, like ‘Shrek the Musical’, in the Summer. We are currently auditioning for roles of Shrek which we are thrilled about. Good luck to everyone involved!

As a thank you to Portakabin, we have made cards for the builders who built our school and had a celebration assembly just for them.

At Discovery we appreciate our outstanding staff, each one has unique strengths. They’re kind and are always there if we need to talk to someone! The fact that we are all on one site is truly incredible!

Journalists: Lexi-Mae Spradbury, Sunni Calliste and Ronan Bullock.