Ash Manor Blog
Ash Manor Remembrance Week
During Remembrance Week, cadets from Ash Manor and Court Moor School have dedicated their time and efforts to support the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal and to represent their schools at Remembrance events and parades.
Their preparation began with standard bearers practising their movements and the contingent working together on parade marching - an entirely new experience for many cadets.
Three cadets devoted two hours every evening collecting donations for the Poppy Appeal outside the North Lane CO-OP, raising funds and promoting the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) within the local community. Many of the Court Moor Cadets collected at Morrisons, Fleet on 03.11.24 for the whole day.
On Saturday, November 9, thirteen cadets attended a special Remembrance Football Game at Aldershot Football Stadium. They served as the Honour Guard for community veterans’ groups and other military youth organisations. Following an Act of Remembrance led by senior officers, Aldershot’s MP, and the Mayor of Rushmoor, the cadets contributed as ball boys and girls for the match.
The following day, on November 10, the majority of the contingent, representing both the Royal Navy and Army sections, paraded at the Ash Parish Community Centre. They led the procession with CSgt Rehman carrying the Union Flag. It was a well-attended event, with Ash Manor Head Boy Xavier Yassin and Sgt Probert respectfully laying wreaths on behalf of Ash Manor School and the CCF, and Head Girl Olivia Lambert giving a moving passage reading. The parade concluded with a salute to Ash Parish’s MP and other dignitaries, followed by tea and biscuits with the community.
Meanwhile, a smaller group of cadets paraded at the Garrison Church in Aldershot, joining members of the Grenadier Guards and other military youth groups in remembrance. Afterwards, they visited the church’s “Longest Yarn” exhibit, a unique display of World War I and II history created entirely from crochet and knitting.
Later that day, Court Moor cadets attended the Fleet Remembrance Parade, which included over 500 participants from the community, youth groups, and active military personnel. Cpl Conway proudly carried the Ash Manor standard, while Lcpl Dulla laid the CCF wreath. It was a long day for many, but the cadets represented their schools and the CCF with dignity and pride.
On November 11, just before 11 a.m., cadets and students from local youth organizations, including Cubs, Scouts, Guides, Rangers, and St John’s Ambulance, gathered on the playground at Ash Manor for an Armistice parade. Silence fell across the school at 11:00 for two minutes of reflection, honouring those who gave their lives, and reminding us all: “When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today.”
Cadets out in the Field
24 Cadets from Ash Manor and Court Moor CCF participated in an inaugural field exercise with the aim of understanding Bramshot Farm County Park and giving back to the community. The exercise proved to be a valuable experience, with cadets from all experience levels – from Yr.8 recruits to advanced two and three-star cadets – engaging in a range of practical and challenging activities.
The exercise began on Friday afternoon as teams of five cadets, used their map-reading skills to navigate from the car park to the campsite. Once there, they worked together to erect their tents and prepare an evening meal using Army ration packs. With mild and dry weather on their side, the cadets settled in well.
Saturday started with personal and oral hygiene routines, followed by a lesson on field maintenance, where the cadets learned the importance of keeping boots clean and equipment organised for quick deployment. Emphasising the discipline of readiness, cadets were encouraged to keep essentials readily accessible in preparation for their next task or movement.
Throughout the day, cadets participated in a variety of practical exercises, including learning about the Basha and Sleeping System Setup where they practised assembling their field shelters and sleeping systems. They also completed an orienteering competition testing their navigation skills. The competition was designed to enhance cadets ability to traverse unfamiliar terrain, while solving word riddles to find the next location. 
Later, the cadets practised their patrolling drills, rehearsing hand signals, contact drills, and essential patrolling techniques to improve their team coordination and general skills.
Part of the activity involved an environmental contribution back for the community. During this two-hour litter-picking session, the cadets contributed to keeping the area clean and collected a large haul of litter, reflecting the value of community engagement in the maintenance of such a large Country Park.
By the end of the weekend, the cadets had gained valuable experience and skills; their enthusiasm and teamwork were commendable, and we are proud to see their dedication to both personal development and community service.
Improvements in Learning & Teaching at Ash Manor School
At Ash Manor, we are always striving for excellence: not just for the students but also for the staff. We are incredibly lucky to have a team of very skilled teachers who teach fantastic lessons every day but we recognise that it is important for teachers to continually develop their professional skills. To that end, we have undertaken a number of initiatives in order to improve learning and teaching which we want to tell you about.
Adaptive Teaching
This year our whole school improvement theme is adaptive teaching. This means teachers having high expectations for all students and utilising different strategies to enable every student to reach these goals. For example, teachers are using ‘sentence starters’ and ‘writing frames’ to prompt students when they are completing longer written responses. Teachers are also encouraging students to ‘talk for writing’ by discussing responses orally in small groups or as a class before independently writing these down. Teachers are able to listen to these discussions and correct, prompt and support where necessary.
Whole Class Monitoring
Part of adaptive teaching involves carefully evaluating the progress of the whole class throughout the lesson and then responding to their progress. One way to do this is using mini white boards. These are hand-held plastic boards that each student can write on with an erasable pen and the teacher is able to glance at a whole group’s response to a question in just a moment. Every classroom now has a set of mini white boards and whilst some departments already use these every lesson, training is being provided to others to effectively use these in their subject areas.
Modelling
Furthermore, every classroom now has a visualiser. This is a camera that looks at the teacher’s desk and projects onto the screen at the front of the classroom for all students to see. A teacher might use the visualiser to model how to construct an answer to a question or how to draw a tricky diagram or image. The visualiser can also be used to ‘live-mark’ an individual student’s work (with their permission, of course) so the whole class is able to see the work’s strengths and discuss areas for improvement. Teachers are receiving training on the ‘I do, we do, you do’ approach to learning which involves the teacher modelling a response, narrating the thought process and ideas, followed by the construction of another example with input from the class before students independently complete the task. We hope that visualisers will facilitate this process more easily.
Knowing the Students
To successfully adapt the teaching in a classroom, teachers must understand their students as individuals. This year began with training on how to access different information about classes including students’ assessment results from primary school and previous years at Ash Manor and any special educational needs. Teachers have also had a training session on specific strategies to support students with ADHD, dyslexia and those on the autistic spectrum. This will be further explored in January with a training session led by a SEND expert from Surrey County Council where will work with departments to ensure schemes of learning embrace the adaptive teaching principles.
Incremental Coaching
We are now in our second year of utilising coaching as a tool for the professional development of teachers. All teachers in the first two years of their career follow the Department of Education’s Early Career Teacher programme with an experienced mentor. All other teachers at Ash Manor have a coach who will drop in to their lessons throughout the year and help the teacher develop a precise and specific aspect of their practice. Extensive training was provided in 2023-2024 to support coaches and the Learning and Teaching team (a group of experienced lead practitioners) monitor the coaching foci and provide additional training and support where it is required. Teachers have responded very positively to the coaching programme as it enables them to independently develop aspects of their own classroom practice as needed.
We hope this has given you a small insight into how we are developing the professional practice of the teachers at Ash Manor. We aim for every child to be the best they can be and we want the same for every member of staff too.
Previous Blogs:
PE Blog - Autumn 2024 11.11.24
Year 9 Geographers Explore the Tropical Rainforest 19.10.24
Cadet RSM Neame and WO2 Chalmers Honoured 17.10.24
PD Day 15.10.24
Brooklands 11.10.24
Silver Duke of Edinburgh 7.10.24
Community and Excellence on show at Open Evening 30.9.24
Geography Year 11 GCSE Residential Field Trip 23.9.24
