Dear Parent/Carer,
Greetings everyone! As the sun finally shines down, it is time to bring you up to date with some of our latest news.
Inclusion Quality Mark
The Local Authority have asked Jesmond Park Academy to apply for the Inclusion Quality Mark Award to highlight the improvements that we have made in supporting students to succeed irrespective of their background and circumstances. If we are successful, we will be the first Secondary School in Newcastle to receive the award. We are very proud of the changes we have made in recent years and all of the wraparound care that we provide for all of our students. An action plan will be put in place to make further improvements and I will write to parents to receive their input in the process.
Jesmond Park Academy Careers Fair
Once more we held our annual Careers Fair on Friday 21st March and this year it was bigger than ever. We were delighted to welcome over 40 exhibitors into our school from a wide range of businesses, training providers and education sectors both locally and nationally. This year, a herbal pet company brought along their company dog which proved incredibly popular! Over 1000 students from Year 6, Years 9, 11, 12 and 13 attended the event and had the opportunity to talk to an incredibly diverse group of people. Our Fair is a key part of our Careers strategy to ensure that we fulfil and exceed our requirements for Gatsby benchmarks 5 & 7 to ensure that we provide a great opportunity for our students to meet and talk with adults from a wide variety of sectors. Once more, conversations ranged from the simple 'what is your job', ‘how much do you get paid’, 'do you enjoy it', 'what are your holidays like' and 'which celebrity would you like to employ' to asking about sensible and pragmatic approaches to next steps after Year 11 and Year 13 and onto discussions around ambitious aspirations for higher education and careers beyond university from our older students. As always this was a great showcase for our school and our students were a real credit to JPA. Quotes from our exhibitors this year included ‘We had a fantastic time, meeting loads of talented students and chatting about exciting opportunities', 'It was amazing to speak to so many young students, who had a real passion for entrepreneurship and loved hearing all about our story' and, 'There were lots of interesting questions from students today, definitely feel like my brain has had a workout!'.
There are photos from our Careers Fair on our social media pages including our Jesmond Park Academy LinkedIn profile. Our Careers Fair is one of several key Careers events that we hold through the year and in the summer term we have Work Experience for our Year 10 students and mock interviews for our Year 12 students. If you think that you could support us with Work Experience, mock interviews or indeed would like to be an exhibitor at our Careers Fair next year please contact our Careers Leader Sarah Beeley (sbeeley@jesmondparkacademy.org.uk) or Lorraine Aspinall (laspinall@jesmondparkacademy.org.uk).
Year 10 Work Experience support
Nigel Holmes and Sarah Beeley held a live TEAMs event on Wednesday 19th March, offering advice and support for Year 10 Parent/Carers helping their children secure a placement. A video recording of the TEAMS meeting and associated PowerPoint is available on our website.
Jesmond Park Academy Alumni
We are looking to see how we can begin to develop an alumni for ex-students of Jesmond Park Academy and our planning currently is in its infancy. We are going to put a QR code in a news section of our website where former pupils can register an interest in supporting our school. If you are or you know of anyone who is a past pupil of Jesmond Park Academy or any of its previous incarnations, then we would love to hear from you. The QR code will be going live on our website on Monday 7th April. At this stage it will ask for contact details, when you attended the school and give you the opportunity to state how you think you could become involved with the school. We would give several suggestions regarding this. As I have said, our planning is currently in its infancy at this stage. If you would like the opportunity to ask further questions regarding this then please contact one of our Deputy Principals Nigel Holmes (nholmes@jesmondparkacademy.org.uk).
Year 11 Updates
A number of Year 11 parents attended the live Teams Event last Thursday which gave practical advice about how to support your child in the run up to their final GCSE examinations in the summer. We realise, this forthcoming period can be a stressful time for both students and parents. There are plenty of strategies that can help.
The recent Mock Examinations ran smoothly and we are pleased with the outcomes. The students have now gone through several mock examinations through their time at Key Stage 4, and from this they know how they have to prepare if they want to be successful. Feedback from students was generally along the lines of; “for the subjects that I revised well for, the exam went well”.
You will have also received your child’s Year 11 Report, this gives further information about content they will need to prioritise.
Before the Easter Break, we intend to give your child their Examination Timetable, which will also be emailed to parents/carers. They will also receive a comprehensive booklet that shows all of the lessons and examination interventions that are in place to support them. This will take place before, during, and after school to support the students throughout their exam season. Students will also receive a revision support pack, which includes materials to help them with their revision over the Easter period and beyond.
During the Easter Break, there will be some revision sessions taking place; these are for invited students only. If your child is invited to attend, we strongly recommend that they do so, as we have found them to be hugely beneficial.
After Easter, our ‘Period 7’ sessions continue until the start of the Summer Examinations, please remind your child that attendance to these are compulsory.
Period 7 revision sessions will be a mixture of subject specific support, led by a subject teacher. There will also be some guided independent revision and study, here students are expected to bring in their own study materials. Students are expected to attend all Period 7s allocated and on these days, school will not finish until 3:30pm. The Period 7 sessions take place in a range of classrooms and spaces across the school depending upon the type of Period 7. Our Period 7 sessions have proved very successful in the past, particularly in terms of ethos, attitude to learning, and preparation for examinations and we feel that it is the ideal preparation for the examination season.
We will continue to write to you in the lead up to our GCSE Examinations to keep you fully informed of all of the intervention and support planned for our Year 11 students. Please be reassured that academic support and health and wellbeing support for your child are as equally important to us.
Lunch Price changes
We all recognise how difficult times are in terms of increasing costs in society. However, we need to inform you about an imminent increase in our prices for school meals.
Newcastle City Council provide school meals to all schools within the Gosforth Group. Newcastle City Council have recently announced that they intend to increase the cost of school meal provision to £3.00 per meal from 1st April 2025. This will mean that school meals within the Gosforth Group will increase from £2.60 to £3.00 after the Easter break on 28th April 2025. This change does not impact free school meal provision.
Finally, If I don’t get time before Easter, I wanted to wish our skiers from Year 10 the best of luck as they head out to France over Easter. I hope everyone has a superb time and come home safe and intact! For the remainder of the students, I hope they have a restful break over the next two weeks.
Thanks to everyone for making it a great term!
Yours faithfully,
STEVE CAMPBELL
PRINCIPAL