I hope you had a restful half term break. It was brilliant to welcome all of our gems back today, looking smart and ready to shine!
Year 11 continue their exam season and enter into Week 3 of the exams – we have scheduled the exam alerts and revision reminders for parents. It has been great to see students getting here early for Breakfast Boosters and be ready and prepared for success from the outset. Year 11 can choose to attend CORE Extra on Tuesdays after school or may go home to revise. A full schedule of the exams is here.
I hope you had chance to read our latest newsletter which captured many of the highlights of last half term.
The half term starts with lots going on: 20 Year 9 students will be taking part in an Everfi Thrive programme, which looks at money management on Wednesday 7th June whilst we welcome in engineers from The HS2 Education Programme on Thursday to also work with Year 9. Our Birchfield Harriers will be training at Alexander Stadium in the sunshine on Wednesday afternoon. This week, students will be exploring their role in keeping themselves and siblings safe in Child Safety Week activities. More about this can be found here. The theme of the week is ‘safety made simple’. Elsewhere in our character-based, personal development curriculum, Year 7 will be looking at financial decision making, Year 8 will be exploring digital literacy, Year 9 will be practising employability skills and Year 10 will be preparing for work experience which takes place in the final week of term.
I’d like to remind all parents that as the weather gets warmer, students should wear and ask permission from class teachers to remove their blazers if they want to. We will not accept jackets/hoodies being worn instead of blazers around the Academy. Students should also bring a re-fillable water bottle to use the filtered fountains at break and lunch so they can stay hydrated. Any students that require hayfever medication should also take that at home in the morning to protect them from the rising pollen count. We do have an ‘extreme heat’ uniform protocol and if that time arises, I will of course inform you that it will be in effect. A reminder of our uniform and equipment expectations is here.
Attendance is continuing to improve and I’d like to thank all parents and carers for ensuring their child is here on time everyday. It was brilliant to see students rewarded for strong and improving attendance on the last day of term, receiving queue jump passes and vouchers in recognition of their efforts to never miss out on learning.
I look forward to seeing parents of Year 10 students at the Academy on Thursday afternoon for their Progress Evening. Appointments can be booked via our portal here and they begin at 16.30.
We have welcomed in many new families over the course of the last two weeks and supported their children to start in Key Stage 3 and we look forward to more joining us – we are proud to be the school of choice in the City Centre for families. You are, of course, welcome to join us for Coffee Morning every Wednesday and I’m looking forward to showing more parents round this week too.
As always, you can call the Academy on 0121 729 7220, leaving a message if the line is busy and we will get back to you. Our line is very busy in the daytime so I encourage parents to use the voicemail facility by pressing option 2. If you would like urgent support, you can always reach Mr Bibb (our Designated Safeguarding Lead) on option 4.
You can always contact me directly at: [email protected]