JPA Year 8 boys beat St Cuthberts last night in the final of the league cup 5-2, with goals from Zac (3), Adam & Aron. The boys played in hot conditions on a balmy night and were impressive in their sporting endeavour. 

The boys are now double champions after securing the league a few weeks ago!

We are delighted to announce Jesmond Park Academy is featured in the Top 11 Secondary Schools in Tyne & Wear, based on the Government's updated preliminary performance tables. Newcastle.com has reported the rankings and created a top 11 listing, which lists our school in the ninth position.

The newly released GCSE performance data, drawn from the Progress 8 Score for the 2023/2024 academic year, reflects our students' outstanding academic performance and overall development. This score assesses student achievements and learning progress relative to peers from similar primary schools across the country. A score above zero is considered "positive," and a score exceeding 0.2 is recognised as "above average." Jesmond Park Academy, has a Progress 8 score of 0.29, which is recognised as ‘above average.’ 

Our Principal, Steve Campbell expressed his pride and said, “The performance is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our staff, students, and our parents and carers. We are immensely proud of our students' achievements and remain dedicated to providing high-quality education that empowers them to succeed.”

Dear Parents and Carers,

I am writing to introduce a new leadership model across our trust that will help strategic growth and collaboration across our family of schools.

From the start of the summer term, Steve Campbell will become the Executive Headteacher of Jesmond Park Academy and Gosforth Junior High Academy whilst Pete Fox will become Executive Headteacher of North Gosforth Academy and Great Park Academy.

Steve and Pete bring a wealth of experience and a passion for education, and I am confident that they will provide effective strategic leadership to both schools under their direction as well as being an asset to our wider community of schools. They are committed to fostering a culture of collaboration, inclusion, and high achievement across the Trust, and they will ensure that the schools fulfil the Trust’s vision.

Each school will also have a ‘Head of School’ who will deal with the day to day running of the school to ensure that it meets its educational objectives and that students continue to thrive.

The following Heads of School have now been appointed:

• Dave Merrifield will become the Head of School of Jesmond Park Academy
• Mark Fryer will become the Head of School of Gosforth Junior High Academy
• Susanna Cooke will become the Head of School of North Gosforth Academy
• Katherine Billingsley will become the Head of School of Great Park Academy

We are delighted that we have such an experienced and talented group of leaders who will work tirelessly to ensure that each school continues to be successful and that all students can reach their potential.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Alexandra Thorp, CEO

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 21^st 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 19^th 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 7^th 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 1^st 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 28^th 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

We will be running revision sessions over the Easter Holidays for selected students in several subject areas.  These extra revision sessions will be taught by Jesmond Park Academy Staff, and are part of our continued drive to support our students’ progress in the run up to the Summer Examinations.  If your child has been selected it is because their class teacher believes that they will greatly benefit from the revision session.  We strongly encourage students to attend and make the most of this extra revision opportunity. Students that have been selected received a letter in school and an email will be sent to parents/carers.