Pupils from Baileys Court Primary School are the latest local children to have visited Bristol’s Lifeskills Safety Education Centre, which receives grant funding support from Bradley Stoke Town Council.

This year marks a special milestone for the centre as it celebrates its 20th year of teaching thousands of primary school children how to stay safe in everyday situations.

Lifeskills provides a unique and interactive learning experience to children aged 10 to 11 years, and almost 300 pupils from Bradley Stoke will visit with their Year 6 classes this year.

Based at the Create Centre, near the Cumberland Basin, Lifeskills realistically replicates a village setting with 19 different ‘film set’ scenarios, all of which have safety themes. In small groups of three to four, children navigate their way around the centre with a volunteer tour guide and they’re encouraged to spot and discuss lots of common hazardous day-to-day situations. Scenes include a street named ‘Green Cross Road’, homes, a beach, a dark alleyway and even a railway platform!

During their visit, children make practise emergency 999 calls, discover and react to a house fire, carry out first aid and learn about the consequences of trespassing on a railway line – all made realistic with the use of props and special effects.

More: Baileys Court pupils have been visiting the centre since 2002 »

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Children from St Mary’s Roman Catholic Primary School in Bradley Stoke have been presented with certificates and £300 for their school after winning a district-wide, litter pick competition.

The competition was arranged by South Gloucestershire Council and funded through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s High Street Community Clean-Up scheme.

Every school in South Gloucestershire was provided with a kit including litter pickers, hoops, bin bags, gloves and hi-vis vests. Schools were then encouraged to organise their own litter picks and report back on their activity to enter the competition.

Children at St Mary’s school made posters about the environmental and social impact of littering and recorded the rubbish they collected. Their analysis enabled them to identify and target specific locations where litter was causing an issue.

The school reinforced the importance of looking after the environment through assemblies, recycling schemes and by offering to lend equipment to other groups in the community.

South Gloucestershire Council’s Cabinet member for schools, skills and employment, Cllr Erica Williams attended the school to present the certificates. She said:

“I’m delighted to present these children with their certificates following our first inter-school, litter pick competition which has been a huge success. I’d like to congratulate the winners here today and everyone who participated.”

“Tackling issues such as litter make a big impact on local communities and this competition has inspired pupils to learn about the wider environmental problems associated with waste and to develop solutions for the future.

“Schools are our top priority and schemes such as this enable pupils to learn while also making a positive impact on their local community.”

More: How to take part in this year’s Spring Clean campaign »

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Staff, governors and pupils at Bradley Stoke’s Holy Trinity (Church of England & Methodist) Primary School are celebrating after receiving a ‘good’ grading from Ofsted in an inspection which took place on 24th and 25th October. It was the first primary school in South Gloucestershire to have a short ‘Section 8’ inspection under Ofsted’s new framework, which came into force at the beginning of September 2019.

In her report, the Ofsted inspector says Holy Trinity is a “friendly and welcoming school,” where pupils are “kind and supportive of each other,” and have “positive attitudes to learning and want to do well.”

Parents were found to be positive about the school with the inspector noting how they “appreciate the high standards and pastoral support”. In the online ParentView survey, 96 percent of the 45 respondents said they would recommend the school to another parent.

On the quality of teaching, the report states: “Teachers plan exciting lessons that ignite pupils’ curiosity”, adding that “the teaching of reading in all year groups is well planned” and that “pupils learn to read well because the teaching of phonics is effective”.

The inspector observed that pupils use a wide range of resources to help them understand complex concepts in mathematics.

The report also notes that pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) “receive tailored support to ensure that they can learn well”.

Janet Dickson who became the new headteacher at the school in September 2017, said:

“I am really pleased with the comments that the inspector made about the quality of the education that we offer to our children as it has always been our aim to ensure that our children receive a wide range of experiences in order to enable them to become happy and successful adults. Our broad, exciting curriculum and wide range of extra- curricular learning opportunities give children a fantastic opportunity. I also feel very privileged to work with such a talented, committed staff team and board of governors who always go the extra mile to make sure that we do the very best for all of the children at our school.”

More: Actions already in place to address areas for improvement »

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Staff and students at Bradley Stoke Community School (BSCS) are celebrating the achievement of an award which recognises excellent practice in the promotion of health and wellbeing for everyone within the school community.

South Gloucestershire Council’s ‘Health in Schools’ programme brings together the best evidence-based health promotion practice and sets achievable challenges to improve health and wellbeing. The potential benefits of the scheme also go beyond health, as research shows that when children are happy at school,
they achieve more.

The Bradley Stoke school had already been recognised with the Bronze (2016) and Silver (2017) awards, but it has now become one of only three schools across the local authority area to achieve the top Gold award.

One of the main initiatives to have been introduced at the school is the training of Year 11 peer mentors, focussed on supporting incoming Year 7 students during their transition between primary and secondary school. The older students attend transition days in the summer, as well as parent events. When initially launched, the scheme saw around ten students volunteering to be mentors, but this year the number has risen to over 30.

Other strands of student leadership that have been introduced at the school include anti-bullying ambassadors, time-to-talk mentors and EAL (English as an additional language) mentors.

In an effort to challenge the stigma around mental health, the school promotes the concept that body and mind are connected and it encourages conversations about health in general, defined to include both physical health and emotional health. Wellbeing ambassadors are recognisable to other students around the school as they all wear a distinctive pink lanyard.

Elsewhere, the school’s Student Council has had a say in changing the food supplier in order to improve the range of food options and a student support group has been established that meets weekly.

As part of their work towards achieving the Gold award, the student leaders created a video which explores the training they underwent and gathers feedback from some of the peer students they have supported.

Staff: "We couldn’t be prouder of the student leadership team" »

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