I hope you enjoyed the wonderful weather over the weekend and to families who were celebrating Eid, I wish you ‘Eid Mubarak!’
We had a lovely feature article written about our journey so far on Birmingham Live. We are proud of the progress we have made over the last 3 years and see the ‘good’ judgement as a platform to make even more progress together.
It’s a busy penultimate week of the year across the Academy. The hot weather means we have set ‘Shirt Sleeve Order’ – please do not send your child in a coat or a jumper. The expected dress in ‘Shirt Sleeve Order’ is shirt and gold tie. If students require an additional layer, they must wear their blazer. Hot weather is not an excuse to flaunt uniform standards by replacing a blazer with another item of clothing. As expected, I saw so many students looking smart in blue shirts and gold ties this morning when I was at the gate – with their blazers in hand. too. Our students are amazing and always rise to our challenges.
We welcomed 8 new teachers who are starting with us in September to the Academy on Tuesday for their induction day. We are delighted to say that we are fully staffed for September and Miss Jacques who has a first class degree in Music will also join us for her induction this week. Across the site, we are seeing our two big projects accelerate towards completion: the astroturf and the music recording studio.
We also welcomed a full complement of Year 6 students on Wednesday as part of the city-wide Transition Day. It was great to see so many families who have chosen JQA. We are full for September 2022 and have a waiting list in Year 7. We look forward to many of our new Year 7s joining us for 4 days of Summer School on Monday July 25th. A letter inviting them to this is here and the shortlink to sign up to Summer School is: https://tinyurl.com/JQASummerSchool22
As one cohort comes in, another leaves and we celebrate the achievements of our Year 11 students at the annual Prom on Thursday at Birmingham City Football Club.
Year 10 students have their final week with us this week before starting Work Experience and there is much to do and celebrate. Students have been applying to form the cabinet of the next Student Parliament – an apt time for a leadership contest – and I look forward to recognising some excellent performances in the recent mock exams in their final assembly of the academic year on Friday before they head out on their reward trip too.
Speaking of trips, some of our students from Brilliant Club are heading out to Oxford University today. I’m looking forward to seeing pictures of them online later.
It was great to see Ife in Year 10 share his video calling for social justice and equality as part of the CORE Leaders of Tomorrow project last week. We have many students who have such potential to go on and shine in society and become the leaders of tomorrow. I am looking forward to Ife inspiring the next generation of CORE Leaders of Tomorrow as we look to expand the programme into new year.
Finally, I would love to invite you all to our termly Parent Symposium on Thursday 14th July at 5pm. It is an opportunity to take feedback and offer ideas and, of course, the termly survey will go live online from Friday.
As always, please call us on 0121 729 7220, leaving a message if lines are busy, and we will support you.
You can always contact me directly at: [email protected]