Newsletters

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to our new look newsletter.  As you will see, the spring term has been a busy but rewarding one, particularly within our specialism areas of Performing Arts and Business & Enterprise.  It all began in January with a full scale musical production of ‘Fame’ and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff and students who worked tirelessly to make this such a success as well as all those people who made the effort to come out in the cold weather to support the show.  Also in January I was honoured to attend the BIG Challenge Awards Ceremony to watch Rebecca Jackson receive the BIG Challenge Marketing and Promotion Award for her business venture ‘Funky Sprout’.  I am sure you will all want to join me in congratulating Rebecca on this fantastic achievement.

In March all the Year 7, 8 and 9 students who consistently comply with Academy expectations and continue to work hard in lessons were rewarded by an acoustic concert from chart-toppers, The Hoosiers.  The band sounded amazing, making the most of the Academy’s state-of-the-art facilities and spent time after the performance answering questions and signing autographs.  This was the first in a series of reward events and I hope that increasing numbers of students will qualify for future opportunities.

The VLE or Virtual Learning Environment continues to be an exciting development as a tool for learning.   The VLE is playing a growing part in enhancing the learning for all our students with Curriculum Areas working hard to build up resources, extension activities and homework accessible for students via this forum.   All students have received instructions on how to log on to the VLE and I would encourage all parents and carers to take a look at what our VLE has to offer. 

Looking forward to next term, our Y11, Y12 and Y13 students have the challenge of their final exams to face.  They are currently working hard to consolidate previous learning, finalise coursework and prepare for exams.  Many of our Y11 students have already secured GCSE or equivalent grades and are looking to stretch themselves further in order to achieve the best possible outcomes.   I would like to thank all our parents and carers for their ongoing support; by continuing to work together I am confident that we can ensure all the young people in our care have the best possible opportunities available to achieve.