It is with a sense of pride I write to you at the end of what has been a fantastic first term for the Academy. The students have been fantastic, got involved, produced some brilliant work and I am proud of them. Though there are always bumps in the road I feel we have formed a real community which will only go from strength to strength. In this last letter of the term I would like to touch on some of the highlights of the last 15 weeks and share some important information.
Firstly, a reminder that school finishes at 1:30pm on Friday 20th December 2019 please ensure students are picked up or have a route home as the Academy will be closing to students at this time.
Term will resume as normal on Monday 6th January 2019 with an 8:40am start time for students. Please note that over the holidays reception will be closed and e-mail queries will be picked up upon our return.
Highlights of the Term – The New Academy
The Academy opened its doors for the first time to students on September 4th and the students were brilliant as we got our systems up and running. Immediately they were our fantastic ambassadors who helped on our first ever open evening. Estimates saw between 600-800 people visiting us on the night.
Students have been out of the Academy on several adventures. Starting with the whole Academy visit to the National Space Centre, we have also seen students visit Birmingham University with Debate Mate, the Hippodrome with Theatre School and taken students up to Old Trafford to see Manchester United.
In sports the students have competed in our first interschool competitions at both Football and Basketball. We saw notable victories over Phoenix in Girls Football and Boys Basketball as well as victories over George Salter and at our first tournament where we narrowly missed out on the semi-finals. At the leisure centre students have taken part in swimming, spin classes and have used the sports hall to ensure they have had a good experience in Physical Education while the weather is poor.
The students took part in a number of charity events, embodying the kindness we want to show in the Academy. For Macmillan we saw some amazing baking and raised £306.21. For Children in Need we raised £321.65, for the Albion Foundation, £1056, for Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day £117 and we also raised funds for the Royal British Legion. We finished with our Christmas Fayre enabled by and with thanks to Mrs Gill the head of our PTFA which raised over £800. If you are interested in helping with future events please contact PTFA@WBCA.shirelandcat.org.uk.
There are many more highlights, our clubs, some of the amazing work the students have produced, visits from Britannica and the police and I would encourage you to explore our website and Facebook to see more.
Important Information
We are a Nut Free Academy. There are a number of students for whom exposure could be very serious, this includes nuts in chocolate bars, cakes or any other product. Please we ask you to be very cautious and to talk to students about being careful if they purchase anything on the way to the Academy.
One of the most important things to ensure students are safeguarded is to ensure we have accurate details on our system. If you move to a new house, change your phone number or have a secondary contact change their phone number please tell us. If for any reason you may not be contactable by phone please come into reception and let us know an alternate person we could contact in the case of an emergency.
Likewise, we will only update the medical information on our system if you tell us. New allergies, students on medication, diagnoses of asthma and permission for us to use the Academy’s emergency inhaler or epi pen are all things we need to be updated on to ensure we can keep the students safe.
We will be checking the uniform of all students this week and while it is largely excellent, we will be providing a letter to any student who has uniform issues and would ask this is rectified over the Christmas break.
January Examinations
On the second week back after the holidays we will be having our first set of examinations for the year. There will be three examinations, one in Mathematics, one in English and one covering some of the knowledge and skills that students have looked at over the period in their Literacy for Life classes. If you would like to see what this has covered, you can do so by looking at the theme overviews either on the Student Portal or on our website under Curriculum > Literacy for Life > Year 7 themes.
Timetable Changes
As happens each half term there are some minor timetable changes. To ensure all students have a turn at swimming there will be some changes to PE with 7.7 starting swimming lessons after half term. To ensure students experience Music and Graphics we rotate this each half term and this creates a change. New timetables will be issued to students.
I wish you all a happy and restful break and we look forward to seeing the students return to us in January
George Faux
Principal
