Winter Term

What a fantastic start it has been to this academic year at Muntham House School.  I have been impressed with the effort and behaviour of our pupils so far this term. We have had some great successes.

We achieved the Arts Mark as an organisation, in recognition of the fantastic art work which Miss Coutts is leading across the school.  We have also become a recognised centre for the Duke of Edinburgh Award.  With our older pupils now working towards the Bronze Award, which will be completed during education and care time.

We opened our new Pre Primary Centre, which caters for pupils aged 5-7, and is a wonderful facility which will continue to support and help pupils and families for years to come.  

We have also become the first special school in the country to achieve the Investors in People Platinum Award.  Which is in recognition of the outstanding work of our fantastic staff team.  Pupils are extremely lucky to work with such a dedicated and committed team of staff.

Mrs Purdy and all of the pupils have worked extremely hard on the Christmas performance.  I am sure you will all appreciate the extra work which went on behind the scenes in order to make this such a magical performance.

I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and give you my best wishes for the New Year!    

Mr Anderson
Principal

This term pupils from Muntham House School worked hard to present a Christmas Performance. The show titled Muntham Rocks at Christmas was a performance based around X factor allowing pupils to showcase their individual talents in groups or as solos.

There were a total of 34 pupils involved in the show, making it the largest showcase Muntham has ever held.

The pupils presented the show in aid of Music for All, a local charity who has donated the majority of instruments in the music department. As always the Muntham Band was fantastic and the show was a brilliant success.

Sadly, after nine years of excellent leadership of the school, our chair of governors Mrs Eileen Vose will be stepping down this Christmas, as her and her family are relocating.

Mrs Vose has dedicated a huge amount of her own time in supporting the school in various improvement projects. She has always gone above and beyond ensuring that pupils and staff alike are listened to, and have been fully included in each and every part of the school.

Mrs Vose will be truly missed by everybody within the Muntham community, and we thank her for all of her outstanding work.

Mr John Knightly will be succeeding Mrs Vose, taking over as Chair of Governors, after Christmas.

This month Muntham House School became the first special school in the country to achieve the Investors In People Platinum Award.

This is a truly fantastic achievement for the whole staff team, which recognises the high level of support, guidance and training which our staff are constantly provided with. All of the pupils at Muntham House School are lucky to have such a dedicated caring team of staff who go over and above for our pupils.

The New Media Room is now open for pupils at Muntham House School.

This great new space has enabled us to double our capacity for Media across the school, providing a truly inspirational learning space. Mr Shambrook our Head of Media Studies is now able to deliver the full course within his new Media room. Pupils can also access this room at break time and lunchtime. 

Muntham House School are now a recognised centre delivering the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Mr Kenny and Mr Miller-New are our accredited instructors who will be delivering the DofE course in Education and Care time for our post 16 pupils in the Extended Education Unit. 

This course will provide our pupils with great opportunities to develop their confidence, resilience, communication and team working skills. This course will help to raise the aspirations of our pupils and help them to become work ready.

We have been extremely lucky and have been donated a Poly Tunnel for our new Muntham Farm. This will provide our pupils with the invaluable opportunity of being able to grow their own vegetables all year round.

This generous donation has been kindly made by Polybuild Ltd and XL Horticulture. Polybuild Ltd donated the structure/framework and XL Horticulture donated the polythene covering (through Polybuild) and will enable pupils to support the school kitchen in our fork to fork project.

Thank you very much to Clive Williams for donating this so generously to Muntham House School. This fantastic equipment will make a real difference for our pupils. 

Ardingly hosted the Big Bang Science Fair which our year 10 pupils attended. Hundreds of mainstream and SEN schools were in attendance with stalls set up by a plethora of science, engineering and technology firms displaying everything from zoo-keeping to satellite imaging. There were many competitions and challenges for our pupils to take part in. 

Harry (pictured) entered the McLaren 'Guess the Mass' competition where pupils were invited to guess the mass of a titanium car part and WON!  His prize was a scale model of the McLaren P1 race car. Congratulations Harry, it always pleases me when Muntham pupils beat pupils from mainstream schools.

The Year 11 pupils undertook their Mock Exams in November. These are practice exams that help pupils prepare for their real GCSE exams next year. They are intended to give pupils a clear indication of the structure and content of the actual exams, as well as a snapshot of their current performance.

All the Year 11 pupils sat and understood how the GCSE exams will take place next year. 

Lets give them lots of encouragement to do revision throughout the Christmas Holidays.

Anyone that wants to do a little revision over the Xmas Period please go to the following link and sign in. 

BBC Bitesize

On Thursday 12th December, year 10 class 4a went to watch a fantastic performance of Dick Whittington at The Hawth in Crawley. Although initially a little overwhelmed by the noise and somewhat ‘out of their comfort zone’, the pupils soon settled and thoroughly enjoyed the show.

It was an utter delight to see our tutor group laughing, rolling their eyes at the terrible jokes and predictable punchlines, and exchanging amused glances at each other. Each pupil got something very unique from the show, some getting the ‘adult humour’, others revelling in the ‘disappearing trick’, and those with good musical taste (and older ones like me!) loving the choice of the cat being called ‘Eileen’ so that every time Dick and his feline left the stage, predictable words could be sung!

Thank you Muntham, and thank you Governors for making this joy available to us, especially at Christmas time. (Miss Hofton)

Ice Skating Tilgate Park

For our Christmas trip we took our pupils Ice Skating at Tilgate Park. All the pupils had a fabulous time.

All behaved extremely well and really enjoyed their time on the ice. 

On Monday 16th December the Primary pupils went to see the Christmas Circus at Squires Garden Centre in Washington, all the pupils really enjoyed the show where they had to “Help Rudolf shine“ as Rudolph was having trouble making his nose light up!

The primary pupils enjoyed a wonderful festive show involving acrobatics, a strong man, tightrope walker and a very funny clown called Pip.

After the show they got to meet some of the stars and then to top it off they went to see Father Christmas and all received a present, a wonderful way to finish the day.

On Saturday 7th December, the pupils had a fantastic day out at Brighton Pavilions Ice Rink, after a wobbly start on the ice they gained courage and built up their confidence and enjoyed themselves and had fun. The pupils were a credit to Muntham House School, all were respectful and well behaved whilst out in the community, and appreciative to have been part of the all welcome weekend.

Sunday 8th December involved Worthing beach, a Christmas Circus and Pottery decorating. Most of the pupils were up and lively at around 7:30am as they were looking forward to the day ahead.

All the pupils were doing the same activities for the weekend. We started with a chilled out film on floor before we headed down to Worthing beach to let off some steam and have some fresh air. They all played in the park and had a walk along the beach. 

After the beach we headed to the Christmas Circus at Squires Garden Centre in Washington, they all had a great time watching interesting acts and the funny bits in between. They all watched and listened really well and all seemed to enjoy this very much.

After this it was time to meet Santa, they all went via his grotto and all told Santa what they wanted for Christmas, each pupil received a present from Santa which they all thanked him for and took away with them.

After the circus it was onto pottery decorating, they all chose a different item to paint and all listened to the ladies explaining it really well. All pupils took part and painted their own piece. After they had finished there was a little park outside so they had a run around before having a look at all the Christmas decorations and little animals in the garden centre.

We headed back to school for around 16:30pm where they all prepared to head home, they went outside and played a game of man hunt whilst waiting for their parents to turn up. All the day pupils were picked up on time and all said how much fun they had had during the weekend.

Another very successful weekend for all that attended and all the staff that helped out. 

Wednesday 29th January 2020

10 until 12pm

Restorative and De-Escalation Language Parent Workshop

All are welcome, we will be serving refreshments.  

If you are interested in joining us please contact FIT on 01403 739413 to book a space.