Dear Parent/Carer
Firstly, a Happy New Year to you all. I hope your Christmas was peaceful and enjoyable. It was great welcoming pupils back to the Academy on Tuesday; fully equipped, dressed smartly, well rested and ready to learn. We start the term with reflections of 2025 and the priorities for this year through our College assemblies over the week. The assemblies will focus on high expectations and our pupils ‘time to thrive in twenty-five’.
As the term begins, I would like to remind you of some of the key messages shared before we entered the Christmas break, and also to remind you of the inclement weather procedures, as yellow warnings of snow are forecast for January.
Start of new term – Module 3 is 28 Academy days long, ending on Thursday 12 February 2026. For Year 11 and 13 pupils, Pre-Public Exams (PPEs) will start week commencing Friday 6 February 2026, timetables for the PPEs will follow shortly, along with the half term revision session plan. I look forward to meeting year 11 parents on Thursday 8 January 2026 to discuss your children’s attainment and progress at our parents evening, and support applications into our successful Sixth-Form.
Heating/Weather
In September we spent a large amount of money replacing the boilers across the Academy, but some parts of the Academy were colder than others yesterday. Please be rest assured we acted proactively and had a large number of additional heaters delivered to keep classrooms at a good temperature for learning.
Some pupils attended the Academy without coats and I would urge those walking to school to wear a coat to keep warm.
As you may be aware, the weather forecast suggests there may be snow affecting parts of the country this term. If this causes disruption to traffic and public transport then we may well have to implement our snow day procedure. The Academy’s intention is to always remain open as we do not wish to disrupt our pupils’ learning; we also appreciate the difficulties a school closure would cause to our families. However, safety is our number one priority and we will always act in the best interests of pupils and staff. The decision to open or close the Academy will take into account the weather conditions at the time of making the decision, local forecasts, potential impact on public transport and accessibility of the surrounding roads.
The Academy will close only in extreme circumstances but in the event of overnight extreme weather conditions affecting the opening of the Academy, the Principal and/or a member of the Senior Leadership Team alongside the Premises staff will make a full assessment of the site and a notice will be posted as early as possible, on the Academy’s website. In addition, all families will be contacted by MCAS, text message or email about Academy closures. Pupils will be required to access remote learning from home, work will be uploaded to Google Classroom but ‘live’ lessons may be disrupted as we have a number of staff who would have childcare commitments due to other education providers also being closed.
Please refer to the letter shared via MCAS Announcements on Monday and make sure you complete the Google Form and discuss arrangements with your child so they know what is expected of them if the Academy has to close during the day.
Parking/Cars on site
A reminder that parents should not be driving onto Academy site at the start or end of the school day to drop-off or collect pupils unless with prior permission due to a medical need.
We have a large number of buses and coaches to transport pupils and we need to ensure they have space to park and collect pupils, we also want to safeguard pupils and do not want cars travelling in and out as they are entering or leaving the Academy.
Please also respect the local community and drop-off or collect away from the Academy gates.
Parents must not arrive at reception to see staff without a prior meeting arrangement as staff will be teaching and dealing with students at the Academy. Please email your child’s College in the first instance.
Pastoral Care
To further enhance communication with parents regarding emails or messages received, and to support pupils with accessing their learning during the day, College teams will inevitably need to reduce some of the activities they undertake during the day that families can do at home.
Lunch money (ParentPay) – Just a reminder for parents to check ParentPay each weekend before pupils return to the Academy for the week as from January 2025, the college teams may not be able to contact home to ask parents to top-up pupils’ accounts during the Academy day.
Timetable (MCAS) – A reminder for parents to ensure their child has checked their portal the night before school, if unable, parents can check using MCAS and let their child know their timetable for the day/week, as the College teams will not be able to do this during the day. Pupils do get the opportunity during form time to do this also.
We look forward to working together to have another successful year.
Yours sincerely
Mr C Guerin-Hassett
Principal