Saints Foundation - Competition Time

Competition Time:)

As this is a tough time for everybody we must make sure we take care of our mental wellbeing! There are lots of things we can do to increase our happiness whilst isolated and also when we eventually are not!

Being Creative is a huge and varying way to keep your mind busy. So…Saints Connect would like to run a competition all to do with Mental Wellbeing.

Task: Create a poster to encourage people of all ages to take care of their minds. You can have drawings, ways of looking after yourself (do some research it could be things like eating well, exercising, communicating), short stories of your own experiences and what helps you, and you could even include online links for places to go online for help.  Whatever you feel will make people stop and think!

Time: The closing date for the competition is Friday 3^rd April!

How to enter:  Details have been assigned to all pupil accounts on Doddle.

Prize: The most effective poster will then be put on our Saints Foundation social media pages to encourage everyone to take care of themselves!

Surrey Hills Residential

On Monday 9th March, a group of 8 pupils and 3 staff travelled to YHA Holmbury St Mary in Surrey Hills for a 3 day residential. Before leaving Southampton, the group had a team building session at Woodmill Outdoor Activities Centre. Everyone had a go at 
Crate Stacking, which involved a lot of teamwork and a lot of screaming from staff!

Some of the boys went so high that we ran out of crates! And even Mr Harvey was unable to reach the top.

Holmbury St Marys Youth Hostel is set amongst woodland in the Surrey Hills. As well as having the experience of being away from home and sharing dormitories, the pupils also benefited from taking part in a number of activities with So Sussex. Activities included
team challenges, such as a 'stretcher' race, Samurai, Watch Tower - the ultimate game of hide and seek - and building and then attempting to float in a Coracle boat across a very muddy and cold pond! This last activity also involved a lot of screaming from staff! 

We could finally strike each other with a samurai sword without getting a consequence!

We worked very well as a team and built a coracle which did not sink.

Miss HP and Liam saw it as a competition but both ended up in the cold pond eventually!

On our final evening, we had a fireside talk from a local wildlife expert, followed by roasting marshmallows.Daily room inspections were an important (and competitive!) part of the visit. Pupils (and some staff) took great pride in preparing their bedrooms for these inspections and the winners were rewarded in our end of residential awards ceremony.

Miss HP was harsh with rooms' tidiness scoring, checking every nook and cranny.
 But it turned out that her and Miss Fornal had the messiest room of all!

The residential was a really positive experience for everyone involved. Many of the pupils do not get the chance to be away from home, and they all benefited from this opportunity. Living together and being able to be outside all day and enjoy the woodlands gave pupils and staff the chance to build on positive relationships and enjoy themselves. This is certainly a residential that we would like to do again. Hopefully, the Surrey Hills 2020 Residential will be the first of many more!

Continued achievements with our Doddle results!

We continue to build on the amazing start to this academic year with our Doddle results!  

Going from strength to strength at The Polygon School
Being a Doddle Advocate Partner School we were asked to produce a case study for Doddle.  Please clink on the link to read it - https://www.doddlelearn.co.uk/going-from-strength-to-strength-at-the-polygon-school/

We did not make the top ten nationally this time for the Doddle competitions.  These are designed to reward top using students, both through their homework tasks and any independent learning.  However, within our school the top three are:

Well done and remember, the more independent learning you partake in the more likely you will be to win some Doddle prizes!

After the success of an incentive we ran in March, during this academic year we are expanding this for each month to track the monthly totals for each pupil and tutor group.  Will anybody dislodge 4SK from winning the monthly totals competition after they have won six in a row?!

A message from Doddle:

You may have noticed that Doddle is running slowly at the moment. As you can imagine, like internet providers and all other online services, we are experiencing much higher levels of usage than normal. Since the school closures, we have been doing everything we can to increase our server capacity in order to get Doddle running effectively.

We are continuing to work on this and will update you with any changes. In the meantime, you can help us to keep Doddle running smoothly by…

1.   Heading straight to www.doddlelearn.co.uk/app when you log in (add the URL to your favourites to ensure you always hit this page first).

2.    Informing your students to use www.doddlelearn.co.uk/app every time they log in.

British Council School Exchange Programme - The Polygon (UK) and Húsaskóli (Iceland) 2020

 

Day 5: Rounding up of the trip before heading back to the UK.

With our project work completed and our bags packed, we headed to the local geothermal heated pool for one last piece of Iceland relaxation.  We still could not get used to the pools being 26 degrees, having hot pots and steam rooms all outside!
We said our good-byes to Mr Patchell and away we went on our home journey...thank you Iceland!

Have we got everything?

Pre-boarding

UK at night

The Patchell family putting mattresses away

Pupils thoughts on the School Exchange:
Marley - "The Blue Lagoon was phenomenal and the best bit.  Sleeping on matrresses in a scout hall was not as bad as I thought it was going to be."

Rio - "The school staff and pupils at Húsaskóli were so friendly it is unreal.  We realised the card games we were learning are very similar to the ones we have learnt in the UK but with a different name."

A parent from Húsaskóli:
"Frábært að börnin í 6. bekk fái tækifæri til að æfa enskuna sína á þínu fólki :)  JH var mjög ánægður með daginn. Takk fyrir að skipuleggja þetta svona vel."

Thank you to...

• All staff at The Polygon and Húsaskóli for making this British Council School Exchange visit possible and such a great success for all.  
• The British Council School Exchange programme
• The pupils at The Polygon and Húsaskóli 
• The Saints Foundation for their gifts
• The Major of Southampton and Reykjavik and the President of Iceland for their gifts

British Council School Exchange Programme - The Polygon (UK) and Húsaskóli (Iceland) 2020

 

Day 4:  School Exchange visit day 2 working with 6th grade at Húsaskóli.

With months of preparation the day had arrived for both sets of pupils to meet each other, exchange ideas and present to each other about their own countries.  Smiles, laughter, exchanging information and our pupils learning how schools in Iceland work and are different to the UK.  It was lovely to see the pupils work and play together, finishing off by all tasting traditional Icelandic food.

After recharging the batteries with a bit of sledging, the battle began on the first Polygon Bowling Open.  It was a closely fought game with; strikes, spares, a teacher slipping as part of his bowling routine and a few balls heading down the sides for zero points:)  

How do we bowl Sir?!

A lovely dinner sat around talking before a film and bed!

British Council School Exchange Programme - The Polygon (UK) and Húsaskóli (Iceland) 2020

Day 3:  School Exchange visit

We met Katrin the headteacher of Húsaskóli and presented her with the gift from the Major of Southampton.  After being welcomes we attended Mr Patchell´s sports lessons and learnt many different Icelandic games with classes from Húsaskóli.  We ran (Stórfiskaleikur), threw balls (Skotbolti), played team games (grifjubolti) and learnt some mindfulness.

   

A spot of lunch before heading downtown to the Flyover Iceland experience.  The smiles coming off the ride said it all, with discussions continuing on the bus about how amazing it was and how did they film it all!  

Even though the wind was blowing we ventured further in to the city of Reykjavik to see that you really can touch the Parliament building.  Puffin shops, street art and Viking pictures made the boys hungry and ready for our dinner out.

The boys were a credit to themselves, the teachers and our school in their exemplary behaviour at dinner.

British Council School Exchange Programme - The Polygon (UK) and Húsaskóli (Iceland) 2020

 

Day 2:  We had such a busy day today!

With the weather in Iceland being unpredictable, high winds in the south prevented our planned day of exploring the Golden Circle.  However, with our very flexible schedule we just swapped the days around and went out exploring sights away from the tourist track in Reykjavik.  

First stop was Þúfa (th-oo-fha), meaning the Tussock.  This was created by artist Ólöf Nordal in 2013. The 8m-tall grassy mound was constructed out of 4500 tons of gravel and is one of the biggest artworks ever made in Iceland.

With a pit stop taking a group picture at the Viking ship we went to Hallgrímskirkja (Icelandic pronunciation: ​[ˈhatl̥krimsˌcʰɪr̥ca], church of Hallgrímur) is a Lutheran (Church of Iceland) parish church in Reykjavík, Iceland. At 74.5 metres (244 ft) high, it is the largest church in Iceland and among the tallest structures in the country.  It has an amazing tower to see the stunning 360 views of Reykjavik. 

After thawing out in the mini-bus we headed to Perlan to explore; the planetarium show about the northern lights, ice cave experience, volcano interactive displays and a another 360 view being able to see Snæfellsjökull glacier!

The experience continued with building a snow man, a small snow ball game, relaxing with a game of football and a zip-wire before heading back for another delicious meal prepared by the Patchell family.

A day filled with so many experiences, we were all ready for bed.

British Council School Exchange Programme - The Polygon (UK) and Húsaskóli (Iceland) 2020

Day 1: Travelling to Iceland and everyone was very impressed with Icelandair and their entertainment. Only three people had to borrow headphones from Mrs Ash and we have already planned what we are watching on the journey back.

After meeting Mr Patchell at Keflavik airport our first stop was to experience the Blue Lagoon. We have all the seen adverts for it, but no one was prepared for how amazing it was.  Mud masks, drinks and it was so hot, yet there was snow all around the outside of the lagoon!

Nobody wanted to leave but Mr Patchell's family were preparing our dinner.