Our Commitment to Our Primary Feeder Schools

As an academy we are committed to supporting our primary feeder schools to deliver the very best education to the young people of East Cleveland.

To do this we offer a wide variety of support to them both here in the academy and in their own schools.  This high level of contact with our primary schools ensures that students are familiar with the academy well before they make the transition here at the end of year 6.

Please read on to find out more.

Specialist teaching, delivered by our experts

At the academy we have many teachers who are specialists in their subject area.  These teachers are able to go out to primary schools to deliver workshops and master classes on a one off or half termly basis.

Mr Hukin (Advanced Skills Teacher for English)

Literacy and Creative Writing

Using well known Literature extracts as inspiration primary students have been encouraged to develop their literacy and creative writing skills.

An extract from Morpurgo’s ‘Private Peaceful’ combined with the challenging Wilfred Owen poem, ‘Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori’, were used to inspire students to perform scenes and then to write creatively in role. Students also completed activities on language analysis, demonstrated their abilities to comment on the structure of the extracts and were able to explain the viewpoint of the character and then the writer.

Storytelling

Mr Hukin also organised for Skelton Primary (Y5) to visit The Bowes Museum where they met author and professional storyteller Adam Bushnell. This allowed students an insight into how stories are created and structured. The teachers at Skelton Primary have since commented on how this has had a positive impact on students’ story writing in school.

Business and Enterprise – Miss Newton (Director of Business and Enterprise)

Zenny Zeebrough’s Enterprise Masterclass

Zenny Zeebrough (Freebrough Enterprise Mascot) has a mission – he wants everyone to be as enterprising as he is! Over 5 weeks Zennys master class teaches year 5 students about the enterprise skills, why they are important and how they are used. Students learn about and practice the enterprise skills each week, leading up to them taking part in Zenny’s Swop Shop competition in week 5. The competition will require all students to use their enterprise skills to try and win the challenge and take home the stripy crown!

Who wants to be an entrepreneur?

In this series of sessions Zenny is on the lookout for new enterprise apprentices. He needs a team of enterprising young people to become part of his new business venture – Double Z Enterprise. Over 5 weeks the students learn about key aspects of the business world such as creating a company, making a profit and advertising whilst creating, designing and making a new product for Double Z Enterprise to launch into the marketplace.

Transporter Bridge Competition – Mr Donnison (Director of Technology and ICT)

Towards the end of the autumn term we welcomed 45 year five students to the academy to take part in the Transporter Bridge Centenary competition which was organised by Mr Donnison and Mr Cuthbert, in partnership with our lead sponsor, Teesside University.

Teams of 5 students were set the challenge to construct a robust yet attractive bridge using only a select range materials including; cardboard, drinking straws, newspaper and string.  The teams were given two hours to construct their bridge which had to have a span of 600mm with no central structures to support the span. Their bridge also had to be strong enough to support a 200g weight in the middle for over a minute.

Judges were looking for team work, organisation, creative ideas, accurate construction, strong and stable design and a bridge that was aesthetically pleasing.  Each team was supported by a year 10 Engineer from Freebrough Academy.

Every student who took part received a certificate and the teams in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place were awarded gold, silver and bronze medals.

The winning teams were:

1st – The New Brunels (Skelton Primary)

2nd – Lingdale Legends (Lingdale Primary)

3rd – The Fantastic Bridge Builders (St Peters C of E Primary)

Other opportunities we offer to our Primary Schools

Promoting Primary PE

Mrs Bell, School Sports Co-ordinator, who is based part time in Freebrough Academy, will be continuing her work in our primary feeder schools this term through the Cleveland School Sports Partnership.

Activities on offer this half term include: basketball, football (in collaboration with Skelton United at Cleveland Potash), netball, swimming trials and cross country.

Mrs Bell is supported in her work with our primary schools by a number of Freebrough Academy students who have undertaken training as Sports Leaders.

Humanutopia

On 5 January 2012 our Freebrough Academy Heroes worked alongside Humanutopia to deliver the fantastic HU R U? intervention to year 5 students from our feeder primary schools.

Our Freebrough Heroes are students from years 9, 10 and 11 who have chosen to participate in the Heroes Journey; a leadership programme which helps them to develop personal, social, workplace and creative skills.  Throughout their journey the Heroes are encouraged to work with younger students in the academy and in our feeder schools in a role model capacity.  Humanutopia, the company helping us to deliver the Heroes Journey and other interventions are a people-first development company who encourage students to stop and reflect on their lives so far.

During the year 5 HU R U? session primary students were encouraged to think about how their actions affect others and about their hopes and dreams for the future. Humanutopia and the Freebrough Heroes will continue to work with our primary schools to develop positive relationships and to help primary students make the transition to the academy.