Dear Parent/Carer,
We are well into the school year now and students are continuing to work hard and put effort into their studies. We are seeing a record number of PRAISE stamps in planners and it reflects the positive start that the students have made this year. Long may this continue! Please take time to look in your child’s planner to see how well they are doing and to see if there are any Planner Comments as well. Students should record all homework in their planner in addition to the assignments being set on Frog by their teachers. This should provide you with a good picture as to how much homework there is to be completed.
School of Sanctuary Update
We are delighted to announce that we have been successful in our application to become a School of Sanctuary. Jesmond Park Academy is the first secondary school in Newcastle to achieve this prestigious award and demonstrates the significant work that the school has been involved in over numerous years around welcoming refugees and asylum seekers.
Schools of Sanctuary is a growing network with more than 1200 primary and secondary schools all committed to supporting the thousands of young people seeking sanctuary in the UK, creating a culture of welcome, and raising awareness of the issues faced by refugees and asylum seekers.
The award reflects the hard work from all the staff and students at the school and it reinforces the message that everyone is welcome here. The knowledge and understanding gained throughout the application process has been invaluable. We used this opportunity to enhance support for our most vulnerable students and feel that it has improved us as a school.
Parental Contact
We are continuing to develop the Parental Portal to support communication and provide additional guidance and advice. You should have received a letter with login details last year but if you need these again please email parentalvle@jesmondparkacademy.org.uk and we'll send them out to you again. One application that I would especially like to bring to your attention is reporting student absence via the Parent Portal rather than by phone. We would really encourage you to use this facility, as sometimes it can be difficult to get through to the attendance team first thing in the morning. We know that many people use their mobile devices so we'd also encourage you to download the Frog App (details of how to do this are on the Parental Portal). The app will give regular notifications and reminders, including letting you know when homework assignments are set.
All that being said, the key line of communication with parents remains the student planner. We recently carried out a review of students' planners and were delighted with how well the students were maintaining and using them. Also, many thanks to the vast majority of parents who are checking and signing the planner weekly. We know it can be challenging when everyone is busy to remember to check the planners, but that 5 minutes looking at what the students have for homework and talking to them about what they are learning is, in our view, really important so many thanks again for spending the time doing so.
We have been pleased with how our Parents’ Forum has operated over the last couple of years. It has been responsible for bringing some really good ideas to the table that has led to specific changes. One good example of this is our uniform recycling scheme that was launched last summer. As you are aware, we handed out over a thousand items of ‘pre-loved’ uniform and we are now going to put regular stalls out at our Parents’ Evenings. This idea initially came from the Parents’ forum. We now need to create a vehicle for which parents can make suggestions that the forum can consider – this will be done via this form https://forms.office.com/e/0pQBQ7KCFQ or the Parent Portal https://vle.jpa.newcastle.sch.uk/jpaparentportal. We will bring items that have been sent in for the forum to consider.
Free School Meal Update
The catering system has been adjusted for free school meals to allow any unused credit to be rolled over to the following day (within any single week and reset each Monday). This will give students the flexibility to build credit to buy items above the £2.60 free school meal allowance. This is a much better system than what was previously in use and ensures that students receive all the support they are entitled to.
Open Evening and Primary Visits
We have just had a superb Open Evening at JPA with over 360 families and 1150 visitors in total. It was a really positive night and the feedback we received was impressive, with comments such as, “This school has such a welcoming feel to it – the staff and students were so enthusiastic. The night was really well organised.”
On this note, I want to take the time to thank the 230+ volunteers from our student body who were fantastic ambassadors for the school and were crucial in making it a successful event. They are going to form part of our new, ‘Leadership Group’ this year. I have also been taking Year 7 students back into their primary schools to talk to the Year 6 students about their secondary school experience. The students were superb and answered hundreds of questions, ranging from their views of different subjects down to the quality of the food in the canteen……which our Year 7 students seem to love by the way! It was an excellent example of student leadership in action. I will be writing home to the parents of students who were involved in either of these activities to show our thanks formally.
How to Support your Child Information Evenings
We have had successful virtual information events in recent weeks, aimed at providing information on how to support your child in Years 8 & 9 and also in Years 10 & 11. We all know that success for children rely on schools, parents and students all working successfully together. If you missed the evening, then the presentations and other materials are available on our website. Many thanks to all the parents who contributed through the chat function, making it an interactive event.
The Year 7 ‘Meet the Form Tutor Evening’ is in a different format. This will take place physically in school on Tuesday 15th October. The evening starts at 5.00 pm with a presentation in the main hall followed by a group session with your child’s Form Tutor. We expect to finish by 6.30 pm. This is an important event in terms of parents/carers meeting their child’s tutor for the first time and we will also be discussing how best to support your child whilst in school. When meeting your child’s tutor, you will also receive their first grade card, see their planner and some of their work from subject areas. We are looking forward to seeing you all on Tuesday.
Yesterday, we had our Year 13 Parent/Carer Consultation evening and this was hosted in a ‘hybrid’ fashion, offering both physical and online appointments through SchoolCloud. This was a really good evening, with good attendance, and it was great to hear how well our students are progressing through their final year. We are going to stick with the ‘hybrid’ model this year, allowing parents the flexibility to either attend through School Cloud or to physically come into the building.
Enrichment and After School Clubs
There is more to school than just timetabled lessons and since I became the Principal of JPA, one of my key aims was to significantly add to the enrichment and creativity within our extended school curriculum at Jesmond Park Academy. One of my phrases that I continually use is that, “our busiest students are our most successful students”.
The link below takes you to our current list of enrichment activities and clubs for the Autumn term on our website.
https://www.jesmondparkacademy.org.uk/curriculum/period-seven
We are particularly pleased with our offer of over 40 clubs, and we are sure that every student will be able to find something that sparks their interest. We are particularly proud that our Performing Arts clubs are proving extremely popular again this year. Look out for our School of Rock performance before Christmas! We aim to really build upon our students’ experiences in primary school in particular and it has been great for us to return to the Heaton Shakespeare Festival for the past 2 years. This is now a permanent feature in our curriculum. If you require any further information regarding any of our enrichment activities or clubs listed, it is best to contact the staff member named directly via email. We update our list of clubs and activities fairly regularly and we will message parents and carers by text when we do this. Please encourage your child to attend any one of our activities if you think they will be keen. If, as a parent/carer you think that you may be able to support our extended enrichment curriculum at Jesmond Park Academy in any way, then please contact Nigel Holmes (nholmes@jesmondparkacademy.org.uk">nholmes@jesmondparkacademy.org.uk) who oversees our enrichment programme and will be happy to discuss how you could help.
Finally, I wish that you all have a restful weekend.
Yours sincerely,
STEVE CAMPBELL
PRINCIPAL