Over the past few weeks, years 7-9 have been taking part in the ‘Send my Friend to School’ campaign called ‘Go For Gold’.

9SN decided to learn more about the atrocity that is happening in 19 different countries around the world, children being forced to live and work as child soldiers.

Our form is trying to raise awareness about about child soldiers.

Please visit our website www.9snchildsoldiers.wordpress.com for more information and to find out what you can do to help.

Also for more news and updates follow our campaign on twitter @snchildsoldiers.

Our class has been doing different parts of the campaign such as our twitter account, writing to local papers, displays around the school posters, a song and a petition.

It is estimated at over 300,000 child soldiers around the world. Every year the numbers grow as more children are recruited  for use in active combat. Please take the time to find out more and help these poor children in any way you can.

Thank you

9SN

Last week Year 9 were lucky enough to spend a full day working on an engineering challenge looking at wind turbines. The day was provided by The Smallpiece Trust, a charity whose remit is to increase interest of engineering and science in schools, funded by BAA.

Each small group had to come up with a logo, slogan and presentation for the wind turbine. Key to the success of the turbine were the number, size and angle of the blades and how they minimised the shaking in the wind but maximised the power transmitted.

The winning wind turbine managed to generate over 4V which was very impressive for something largely made of paper.

Feedback from the students was tremendous with many of them never having attempted a task like this before.

Mike Mullen, world BMX champion, from the Sky Sports Living For Sport project visited Simon Balle last week and spent time with some year 9 and 10 students.  We are well known at Simon Balle for using sport at school to motivate and inspire our students and this was a fantastic opportunity for the students.

The project aims to inspire students to partake in sport as it ‘helps people think, helps people listen, helps people to speak up and helps people work together.  Different sports inspire different people but one thing is true: there’s a sport for everyone and it can change your life.’

Mike complemented the school, saying, ‘I really had a great time visiting the school and genuinely enjoyed working with both groups. One of the best visits I’ve had this year.’

Saturday 26th May – School Hall – 7:30 for 8 pm start

Teams of up to 8 members.  Team form and tickets are available now from school office. Adults £6, Students £4.

Nibbles are provided and a licensed bar is available – please do not bring your own alcohol. All proceeds from this event will be going towards the refurbishment of the school hall.

Make sure you get your tickets before they are all sold, this is always a very popular event!

Here is the menu for the second of our Olympic-themed weeks.

Please note Friday 4th is blank because this is an INSET day.

On Friday 20th April popular author Sita Brahmachari visited our Library to talk to all Year 8 girls about her new novel Jasmine Skies. This successful event was arranged with Books@Hoddesdon who brought along Sita’s books to sell and for Sita to sign. The girls were inspired by the afternoon presentation – please see this week’s newSBytes for more information.

What a fantastic result – Miss Traynor finished the London Marathon in 05:49:14

We are all very proud of her!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/NICKYTRAYNOR