Forget the Pound or the Euro – one school in Fishponds has issued its very own currency.

Pupils at Frome Vale Academy (FVA) can now spend Penguin Pounds – school money designed by Year 5 teacher Ross Fossard and featuring the academy mascot.

Penguin Pounds are the brainchild of the entrepreneurial Principal of Frome Vale Jan Saunders, and are designed to help prepare pupils for life beyond school.

Pupils can earn Penguin Pounds by carrying out jobs they can apply for, including first aid monitors, lunch trolley monitors, play buddies and recyclers. Initially they need to earn Frome Vale citizen cards for good behaviours and carrying out their jobs. When they have 10 Frome Vale citizen cards, they can convert them to one Penguin Pound.

They can spend their pounds on goods in a prize box from Principal’s office that include toys, rubbers, funky pencils, and Frome Vale citizen pens, plus they can buy cakes or sweets when they are on sale. If they save up their pounds, ten can be exchanged for a Frome Vale hoodie.

All this might sound like great fun but there is a serious side to this initiative. It’s all about becoming a Frome Vale citizen, holding down a job, earning a salary, and realising if you don’t work you don’t get paid. It also supports pupils to take responsibility for their money, and to look after it.

School leaders hope this will make them better citizens when they enter the wider world, by teaching them life skills that will stay with them and to prepare them for what lies ahead.

Principal Jan Saunders said: “This is a natural step in the development of Frome Vale Citizen and how we develop children as both citizens at FVA and in the wider community. It is key to our main curriculum aims of developing self-agency.”

An academy in Fishponds has been celebrating Black History Month throughout October. Bristol Metropolitan Academy has delivered a range of educational and inspiring activities for the whole school to get involved in.

The Renewal Gospel Choir launched Black History Month by delivering powerful workshops for students. This concluded with staff, parents and carers being invited to join students and take part in a community performance to commemorate Windrush. The music theme continued, with a spectacular set played by DJ Lady Sanchez at lunchtime.

As part of Black History Month, a portrait photobooth was set up to honour World Afro Day. Students from a range of cultural backgrounds took selfies together to express pride in their identity and take a unified stance against afro hair discrimination.

Visitors from Zamble, a London-based African dance and drumming school, staged a workshop. They worked with nearly 100 of Bristol Met students over the course of the day.

Throughout Black History Month learning activities focused on the 60^th Anniversary of the Bristol Bus Boycott and the 2023 Black History Month UK theme of ‘Saluting our sisters’. Past and present influencers of social change and pioneering female trailblazers were highlighted for their fundamental contributions to British society and positive impact in the world today.

To close Black History Month, a non-school uniform day, was organised by students where they were encouraged to wear something red to raise money for the Sickle Cell Society. Nearly £700 was raised for the cause.

John Price, Associate Assistant Principal, and Natasha Williams, Assistant Principal, organised these events with colleagues at the school. They said: “Celebrating Black History Month marks the start of our commitment to creating an authentic culture of belonging throughout our school community, all year round.

“Everyone’s history is valuable and of equal importance. Learning about the richness of your past helps you connect with your present and shape a positive future. That’s what we want for all our students.”

What began as a learning process for a Weston-super-Mare mother and daughter has turned into a YouTube channel with more than 11,000 subscribers and inspired a book dedication by author Dame Jacqueline Wilson.

BBC Points West went along to find out more.

A team of seven students and two members of staff from Hans Price Academy took part in a fiercely contested race at the national Greenpower E-Car race day at Castle Combe. The aim of the race was to do as many laps in 90mins as possible on two 12V batteries.

The club started pre pandemic by the previous Head of Design & Technology so post pandemic the club was restarted by Iain Milford (Exams Officer) and Alex Young (Science Teacher)

Meeting weekly the club built the car bought by our sponsor National Grid from Greenpower Education Trust which is a UK based charity which gets young people enthusiastic about science and engineering by challenging them to design, build and race an electric car.

The age-appropriate Kit Cars can be built in school, college or elsewhere and raced at motorsport venues at Greenpower organised events. Alternatively, older participants can design and build their own car to our regulations. The Greenpower challenge uses the excitement of motorsport to inspire young people to excel in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM).

Finely tuned pit stops allowed all students in the race team to drive for at least 30 mins completing 5 laps of the circuit each. The car the students built was simple, but it was fast, enabling the drivers to be able to overtake a lot of other cars in some of the most exciting manoeuvres of the race. In the end their car managed to travel almost 80 miles around the Castle Combe track which gave them an admiral top 40 finish out of nearly 80 teams.

Iain and Alex said: “It was a lot of hard work but a great day out, hopefully we have inspired our students to get into engineering and motorsport, next time out we are hoping for a top 20 finish.”