As we look ahead to our forthcoming Open Evening on Wednesday 11th October, I have spent time last week visiting our local primary schools. We are increasingly popular with more children on roll at the school than ever before. There will again be parents of children already in the school who will send their Year 6 children to us next September and I’d like to thank parents for this vote of confidence.
We are a school with high standards and excellence is expected here. I have emailed parents of Year 11 students who submitted coursework that fell below our school expectations. I am also holding meetings this week with the parents of some Year 11 students who are not meeting our ‘gold standards’. I will never accept conduct that impacts on the learning time of others or interrupts our expert teachers from teaching. I am reinstating after school detentions for Year 11 students from today if they do not meet our standards and they will miss the additional ‘golden’ hour as a consequence.
Year 11 have some important sessions with our partners Elevate on Tuesday. This is the first in a series of sessions that explore revision techniques and exam strategies. Elevate also host webinars for parents so they can help their child through this important year – you can sign up to these webinars here. We have also put together a list of college and sixth form Open Events and you can find this here to help you and your child plan visits: https://www.corejewelleryquarter.academy/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/College-6th-Form-Open-Events-2023-2024.pdf
Elsewhere across the Academy, we have some exciting opportunities for students this week with Year 11 students interested in apprenticeships also heading over to HS2 to hear about careers in that sector. . Envision is a programme for Year 9 students in which they develop essential skills, such as communication, teamwork and to raise aspirations. This is a 12 week programme and they will be working with people from the international company, HSBC. It was also brilliant to see some of our students in Key Stage 4 on their Duke of Edinburgh silver expeditions over the weekend.
I’d like to remind parents of our Homework policy and to be checking in that their child has spent the required amount of time each week on our apps that will allow learning to continue. It is clear what students should be investing their time in each week and I would like more parents to take more responsibility for ensuring this happens at home. As a parent, myself, I know that it can be challenging and ‘easier’ to leave them to their own devices but I have found it useful to insist homework is done first to then be rewarded with time on devices or games etc.
It was encouraging to see the government’s stance on mobile phones in schools in England being announced last week. We have the ‘not seen, not heard’ rule on site and have had strong policies and procedures around mobile phones in place for a number of years. I’d like to thank parents for their continued support with this.
We have Coffee Morning this Wednesday with drinks and staff available from 9-11am.
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 Miss Chudasama (our Designated Safeguarding Lead) on option 4.
You can always contact me directly at: [email protected]