Weekly Newsletters

One of the early actions recommended by the Student Council for the school newsletter is to have a student section, sharing with everyone their achievements.  I am conscious that my weekly newsletters are aimed at parents/carers; I believe this is an excellent development which will hopefully take place on a monthly or other regular basis, starting from next week.

We have welcomed external visitors into the school this week as part of the Vice Principal appointment. I wish to share the consistent feedback about how wonderfully insightful, astute and caring our students are about the school and its continued growth.  I totally agree with this. We are so proud to have so many caring and committed students, willing to speak passionately and freely about how they want their school to grow.  I am totally committed to student voice and ensuring they are ambassadors to other students, to enable all to understand and comply with what we stand for.

Another highlight that I would like to share with you is the real buzz coming from Year 11 as they have undertaken the second round of pre-public examinations.  When students and their teachers are beginning to see real progress in their learning it really does provide a buzz of excitement and injection of

Comic Relief

Through various initiatives over the years, the school continues to be a passionate supporter of key charities and we are proud to endorse these events.  Mrs Bamber is leading on the activities that we hope our students will support in aid of Comic Relief.  I urge you to read the letter and guidance below.

Finally, I am pleased to inform you that we have appointed Mr Whales as Vice Principal from September, 2017.  Mr Whales will introduce himself to you in a forthcoming newsletter and I look forward to him contributing to a school where all are pulling in the same direction towards achieving higher standards.

Parents Surgery – March 22 6.00-7.15pm in the Conference Room

Best wishes

Bryan Erwin
Principal

Every week I will attach five topics that regularly appear on examinations, there is also a Personal Learning Checklist so students can track what they feel they have mastered and what they need more help on. This can be used alongside hegarty maths which has video tutorials to help students understand topics they may need more help with. With students currently completing their PPEs using the countdown alongside hegarty and other revision resources will really make the difference.

Extra revision classes will run every Monday lunchtime in 3U22 for all year 11s.

Targeted revision classes for specific groups will take place after school as follows: A1/B1 Thursdays (JHY/NBN), A2/B2 Thursdays (THN), A3/B3 Mondays (LDY), Wednesday (NBN), Thursdays (JCN),A4 Mondays, B4 Fridays and also Tuesday to Friday lunchtimes with (ICC).

Mr Donnelly
Mathematics KS3 Coordinator

In order to promote reading, each student in upper school was provided with £1 book token that can be exchanged at any bookshop for a free copy of the book published especially for this day. Alternatively, tokens can be used to buy any book at participating bookshops, like Waterstones or even Tesco, and receive £1 discount. All our year 7 and 8 students, instead of receiving tokens, were given free books to keep and enjoy reading. It turned to be a very successful event. Thank you to all who took part in it.

Mr Charko
Leader of Literacy and EAL

• All students have access to www.hegartymaths.com and if they haven't previously logged on there is a step by step guide under student login on the website.
• Year 7 and 8 students can practice their times tables using www.ttrockstars.com
• All students have access to www.mymaths.co.uk which ranges from level 1 maths all the way through to 'A' level. The schools user name is: kscs and the password is: shapes

Students have individual logins for ttrockstars and mymaths which if they are unsure of they can ask their maths teacher. With both of these, you, them and their teacher can see their progress.

• Sam Learning  (www.samlearning.com) can also be used not just to focus on maths but all subjects. The centre id is: PE4KS user id: six digit date of birth and initials and the password is the same as their user id. e.g 170475LD
• With maths in mind students have access to resources from KS1 through to 'A' level with the new addition of intervention resources to bridge the gap on key topics. Alongside the use of Numeracy Ninjas (a new initiative year 7 and 8 have started in tutor time to improve their numeracy skills) in school this could really make the difference to students understanding of maths.

Mr Donnelly
Mathematics KS3 Coordinator

Because this is a new course, we believe that Edexcel will be using the results to look at grade boundaries and assess the suitability of their content. They will also be comparing achievement across different schools. We will be using results to decide group setting and predict likely GCSE performance. It is very important that students are as prepared as possible because the results need to accurately reflect their learning. 

Revision guides have been offered for sale by the school with good uptake. If you have a guide please make strong use of it. BBC Bitesize, SAM Learning, ActiveLearn and YouTube tutorials are also good resources. Please encourage your son or daughter to use these and other revision tools. They can also speak to their teacher for other ideas. Unfortunately we are not offering revision guides anymore but they are available from the website address below. 

https://www.cgpbooks.co.uk/Parent/books_gcse_science_new

Mrs Young
Keystage 4 Coordinator: Science