Today we have raised money for Comic Relief - a charity that supports young people and families here in the UK and overseas, and this year is its 40^th year!

We have had a samosa sale, a photo booth, a basketball and penalty shootout and an opportunity to "soak the teacher" featuring our 3 Heads of House and our Headteacher, Mr Chamberlain.  Pupils and staff were also invited to wear their red socks for free!

Thank you to all of you who have taken part.  We will share total monies raised when the buckets are in!

#SmestowAcademy #SuccessAchievedTogether #ComicRelief #RedNoseDay

The theme for the 2025 Turing visits was ‘not just tourists’. We wanted to encourage our pupils to not just visit a place, but experience the cultures within it immersing themselves in daily life through food, religion and cultural activities.

Our first Turing visit for 2024-2025 was for Year 12 pupils travelling to Morocco. We spent a week in Marrakesh and the surrounding areas learning about life in this country. 

Food plays an important part in any culture. During our visit, we attended a cooking class where we learned about traditional Moroccan dishes, what the Common ingredients in Morocco are and how these are prepared in line with religious rules. We enjoyed trying the dishes, with Chicken Pastilla (a sugary pastry filled with chicken) and Beef Tagine being particular favourites. Some pupils experienced their first McDonalds ever as Moroccan McDonalds serves Halal meat which is not common in the UK.

We tried our hand at using Arabic to communicate with locals. We also attended a calligraphy class where we learnt about the types of Arabic script, the traditional inks and pens before having a go at writing our names in Arabic. The biggest challenge was remembering to write right to left! 

We travelled to Marrakesh during the holy month of Ramadan, and so we were able to experience the regular call to prayer. Many of our tour guides and hosts were able to talk about the importance of Ramadan to Muslims and we were able to respect our tour guides by not eating and drinking in front of them and allowing them to break fast in the evening. A number of pupils were able to enter the Koutubia Mosque in Marrakesh to pray and were blown away by the sheer scale and size of the mosques with hundreds of Muslims praying together. 

Marrakesh is very different to the cities and towns that we live in, it is much busier and noisier! We were able to experience the souks and markets seeing differences in the ways that goods are sold - we didn't see one supermarket ! Many of us tried our hand at bartering for souvenirs and sunglasses, with the Wednesfield pupils in particular discovering new haggling talents. We found it tricky as it involved a lot of confidence but we did manage to get some real bargains!

Thankfully we were able to escape the hustle and bustle of Marrakesh for the calm of the Jardin Marjorelle, a peaceful garden once owned by Yves Saint Laurent , a great space to regather our thoughts before heading back out into the city.

Over our last 2 days, we ventured out of Marrakesh to experience rural Morocco. We headed into the Atlas Mountains where we hiked up the Imlil valley to see the highest peak in Morocco, Mount Toubkal. Whilst on our hike it started to snow – which was totally unexpected. We all had to show a lot of reliance climbing the steep hill but were greeted with amazing views. We were able to discuss the similarities and differences between life in the UK and life in Morocco with our guides. We were surprised on the way up the mountain to get stuck in a traffic jam of sheep! On the way down we found a common language with some local boys playing a quick game of football.

Our final night was spent in the desert. A complete contrast to life in the mountains, we enjoyed an off road adventure to get to our campsite where we were able to relax in the comfort of luxury tents. We were treated to Moroccan music on the Oud and drums before we tried some of the moves! We especially enjoyed the traditional hats with tassels to spin around our heads.

By immersing ourselves in Moroccan life, we learnt lots about this remarkable part of the world as well as gaining a greater understanding about our own cultures and practices. We didn't just visit Morocco - we lived Morocco! 

Year 10 French students have been learning how to order food and drink in a café this week. Pupils created and performed their role plays in front of the class. For homework, pupils were asked to create a role play of their own, including questions from a waiter or waitress. Some superb work has been handed in! A special mention goes to R. Kaur in 10D1 for her excellent and funny role play which involved quite a lot of research. Well done for demonstrating our value of ‘Strive to improve to be your best’ in your homework. It was an absolute pleasure to read!

What a great start to British science week ! Bae systems roadshow visited Smestow Academy to give both year 7 and year 8 pupils a fantastic opportunity to see what the world of science, technology, engineering and Maths is like in the real world. The roadshow involved exploring the science of Artificial intelligence (AI) and pupils also were able to interact with a 'cobot' (robotic dog called Lexi) and also used AI to generate song lyrics and a music video. 

It was a brilliant roadshow that definitely sparked excitement and interest from the pupils.

 

Every year maths enthusiasts celebrate Pi Day on March 14^th (3.14) and this date also marks International Day of Maths. This year to celebrate Smestow Academy are running several competitions.

During form time each form was challenged to create a tessellating design out of Pi symbols. The form with the most creative design will win a prize. In addition pupils were asked to write a Piku, a poem similar in structure to a Japanese Haiku but following the structure of the number Pi. All entries should be submitted to Mrs Butler by Monday 17^th March and will receive 10 house points. The overall winner will receive 100 house points.

In the Library there are some Pi symbol mazes to test pupils problem solving skills and during lunch on Friday there will be a Pi day themed word search.

In addition on Pi Day KS3 will take part in a short Pi day themed activity during their maths lesson.

We’re rolling into a whole new way of learning with Spheros!These little robots are about to take our lessons to the next level - coding, creativity, and problem-solving all in one! Can’t wait to see what we can program them to do!  #Sphero #Computing #CodingFun #FutureEngineers