Parklife - 10th February

The second trip to Liverpool was another success and this week it was a few degrees warmer! We hope all the students across both trips had a nice time and got some inspiration for their own artwork, we've certainly seem some exceptional drawings already. As an added bonus they should have come home with some great references for their music and textiles work too!

We are really proud of how well the students have represented the school in Liverpool and it was great to receive some really positive feedback from the venues they visited!

We're looking forward to many more trips out now that things are getting a little bit more back to normal after Covid.

As we reach the end of another successful half term for our students, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of our behaviour and uniform expectations. It is lovely to see so many students proudly displaying their gold, silver and bronze star badges and a large number have now achieved the standard required for the Habitus badges of calm, creative engaged and respectful. A high number of students are also regularly completing the challenge tasks in lessons and many now have their Brain Star badge too! In response to feedback and requests we have received, we will be introducing an automatic text message alert that will go out to parents/carers once their child has achieved one of the reward benchmarks, this will be implemented after the half term break. We recently introduced Learning Catch Up for Year 10 and this has had a very positive impact on the attitude to learning we are seeing in lessons. We will be starting the same process with Year 9 straight after half term and expect to see similar improvements in their punctuality and the effort and application they show in class. Learning Catch Up will be for any student in Year 9 or 10 who arrives late to school in the morning or receives an A3 or AA4 in a lesson. They will have to stay after school the same day to make up the amount of time they were late, or complete the learning they missed in the lesson they were removed from. It is no longer mandatory for students to wear face masks in school but the option is still available for those that want to. As spring arrives and the weather begins to improve, it will no longer be necessary for students to wear coats in lessons but we will communicate a date for when this will come into effect. Thank you to all the students who continue to arrive at school every day in the correct uniform and with all the necessary equipment, ready to learn. If a student does not have full uniform then we will offer to lend them the missing item from our school uniform store (provided we have the correct size). If this is not possible, then the student will have to remain in our Inclusion room until the correct uniform is brought into school. Can we please remind all students that nose rings and unnatural hair colours are not permitted. We have also recently found that a number of students are wearing their hood up around the school site, both when inside and outside buildings. This is not allowed and coats will be confiscated for any repeat offenders.

Enjoy the half term break and we look forward to starting Spring 2 term on

Monday 21st February.

Next term we will have Parents Evenings for students in Years 7, 8 and 10 - details for which will follow when we come back.