Dear Parent/Carer,

A Happy (belated) New Year to the Jesmond Park Academy community and I hope you all have a fantastic year ahead!  We’ve had a really good start to the year this last month and lessons have been going extremely well. 

Year 9 Parents/Carers Evening and forthcoming Options Evening

We had an excellent turnout from parents/carers in our recent evening and staff have told me that it was, as we would all expect, a very positive event. Parent evaluation feedback was particularly impressive with 92% saying they would recommend the school to others.  Among the evaluation comments were:

“A super school that has the wellbeing and academic success of my child at the heart of what they do.”

“The SEND department are amazing and have really helped and supported my child.”

“We are really happy with how our child is doing in school.  She seems supported by teachers and is happy and confident in classes. Thank you so much for your hard work.”

As always, a huge thank you to our parental community for their continued support and for attending these important events.

Our Year 9 Options Evening is taking place on Tuesday 11^th February from 5pm until 7:30pm. Doors will open at 4:45 pm for a 5pm welcome presentation followed by the opportunity to attend subject presentations and visit subject information stalls. Students will receive their option booklets with further details of the evening.

Year 11 Mock Exams

Year 11 have all completed their Mock Exams and we have been delighted with how they have approached them.  They were working extremely hard in school in the build-up and invigilators reported how seriously they approached them in the exam hall. As a reminder, we will withhold our mock results and hold a mock examination results session in early February, after all of the results have been collated.  Your child will receive a mock exam results grade card.  They will not be given results before this to make the results day as realistic an experience as possible and part of the ongoing support they will receive throughout the rest of the year. 

Year 7 Parents/Carers Evening

This evening is fast approaching us now.   Monday 17^th February sees our first formal parents evening for Year 7, although most parents have already been into school for the tutors evening earlier in the year. 

As usual, it is a hybrid event with virtual appointments offered at the start of the event if parents find this more convenient.  You will have already received a letter explaining how you make appointments for this event, although we are aware that there have been some issues with SchoolCloud, although these have now been resolved.   The cut off for appointments is Thursday 13^th February, so please make sure you make your appointments.

In the news

In the busy run up to Christmas, our amazing students across the school came together to support two local charities: Streetworx and Vinnie's.

Streetworx provide food, drink and clothing to homeless people in Newcastle.  Students wrote cards, collected toiletries, pot noodles, sweets, clothing and hand warmers; all of which were gratefully received by the charity. Staff were also heavily involved in donating items and on Christmas Eve, about 25 of our students, alongside Ms Delaney and Mrs Broadwell and her family, went out onto the streets with Streetworx to deliver gifts and essentials to the homeless, all of whom were incredibly appreciative.

For Vinnie's, students collected food, clothing and toys. Vinnie's is a local charity based in Newcastle which provides a food bank, a clothing bank, hot meals, activities and community engagement projects for those who are isolated or in need. This service is a lifeline for many in our local community and students were able to provide items that could be used in hampers and given as presents to the many families and individuals who use this service.  In addition, over 20 Sixth Form students have recently volunteered to work in Vinnie's, sorting clothes and donations, organising the food bank, and working in the kitchen. The need is great and students volunteer on a weekly basis or during the holidays to help support the centre and its users.

Both Vinnie's and Streetworx are immensely grateful for the help that they have received from our students and would like to convey their thanks, not only to the students themselves, but also to their families.

Native Scientists

Students in Year 7 were visited by the Native Scientists organisation this week.

Native Scientists was founded by two researchers in 2013, with the goal of connecting scientists and children across Europe to reduce inequalities, promote quality education and celebrate diversity.

Our Arabic-speaking Key Stage 3 students worked with Arabic-speaking scientists, taking part in a series of engaging workshops in their home or heritage language. The aim of the project is promoting scientific culture and literacy, whilst also celebrating cultural and linguistic diversity.

Hadron Collider Trip

On 9^th January, the Year 12 and 13 A-level Physics students enjoyed a chilly trip to Geneva. As part of the trip, they visited the Swiss Plasma Laboratories, where students were given a tour of the Tokamak Fusion Reactor and were introduced to the basic principles of plasma and fusion by on-site scientists working with the reactor. They also visited the CERN Science Gateway, where they travelled a short distance into France to see the Command and Control Centre for the Large Hadron Collider, the largest particle accelerator in the world.

The students were an absolute credit to the school and the hotel staff were very impressed with their excellent behaviour. Their interactions with the scientists, their thoughtful questions, their patience, their humour, their conversations and their genuine happiness in just spending time together made this trip a fantastic experience for staff and students alike.

Wolfson Foundation

We are delighted to announce that JPA has been awarded a grant of £125,000 from the Wolfson Foundation. This funding will support the construction of two state-of-the-art laboratory ‘cubes’, enhancing the delivery of practical science education for all of our science students. 

The Wolfson Foundation is an independent grant-making charity that provides funding to organisations across the UK. Their mission focuses primarily on supporting education and research.

Jesmond Park Academy’s application stood out due to its innovative approach to creating dedicated laboratory space. The award highlights the project's ambitious nature and the Foundation's recognition of its potential impact on students' science education. The new laboratory facilities will address the need for additional specialised environments that promote high-quality teaching and learning.  The new facilities will not only enhance the learning experience for current students, but also attract external students eager to pursue A Level science at the academy.

Newcastle Careers Team and Newcastle City Council’s city-wide Careers event at St. James’ Park on Wednesday 12^th February 2025

Parents/carers of Year 10 students will already be aware that once more we are looking forward to taking all of our Year 10 students to St James' park for a city-wide Careers event next Wednesday morning. This is an excellent opportunity for our students to meet with a variety of employers and education providers, understand the opportunities available within our region and nationally and get a greater understanding of the wider skills and experiences needed for employment. We are also taking a smaller cohort of our Year 12 students and we are proud to have our own Jesmond Park Academy Sixth Form represented within the Education providers section of the event. There is a 'drop in' slot for parent/carers to visit between 3:30pm and 5pm. You can visit the Newcastle Careers Team webpage for further information and to book your slot. https://www.newcastlecareers.org.uk/my-future-my-choice

In addition to this, we host our own annual Careers Fair for our Year 9, Year 11 and Sixth Form students on Friday 21^stMarch. We anticipate that over 40 stallholders will be coming to our event to talk to our students during the day. These Careers events are extremely valuable in providing our students the opportunities to speak to adults from a vast and diverse range of business, employment and education sectors.

Information requests

The admin office receives many requests from parents asking for a letter to confirm that their child studies at Jesmond Park Academy.  These requests are increasing and whilst the team try their very best to turn these requests around in a short timeframe, we must now ask parents to allow three school days for such a request to be processed as it cannot be guaranteed that a letter will be available on the same day it is asked for.

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend.

Warm regards,

STEVE CAMPBELL

PRINCIPAL

Year 7 Spring Term Grade Cards have been emailed to Parents on the 30th of January 2025.

Year 9 Options Evening Tuesday 11.2.25 between 5pm and 7:30pm

Our Year 9 Options Evening takes place face-to-face in school on Tuesday 11.2.25 between 5pm and 7:30pm. We ask that parent/carers and students arrive from 4:45pm for a 5pm start welcome presentation. The remaining part of the evening will allow parent/carers and students to visit stalls and presentations regarding subjects to be studied in Years 10 & 11. Parent/carers and students will receive full details of the evening, which will include all of the information about the options process, on Thursday 6.2.25 via pupil post (we will give them to Year 9 students in registration). If this date changes, we will let parent/carers know. There will be a full assembly for all Year 9 students on Wednesday 5.1.25 explaining the process to them.

Nigel Holmes (He/Him)
Deputy Principal
Curriculum

There is a very busy schedule on Wednesday after school, given this, the P7 on Wednesday will not go ahead.

Very Best Wishes, hope you have a Wonderful Well Deserved Christmas Break.

Dear Parent/Carer,

I wanted to write to you at the end of a busy term, just to thank everyone for their support. The build up to Christmas is always jam packed, but it has gone extremely well. We had an early Christmas concert at the start of the month to get us in the festive spirit. This was a joyous event with 150 students performing on stage – a record number for one of these shows. The variety of acts and the talent of the students always blows you away.  Next week, we have our Christmas production of, ‘School of Rock’ – hosting a musical is an exciting new adventure for us.  There are so many students in the show that we have had to put it on over two nights to satisfy ticket demand! Good luck to all those involved; there will be limited tickets available on the doors on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Well done to all those involved.

Celebrating GCSE results success

As you will be aware, we were celebrating in August with our Year 11 students and congratulating them on their outstanding GCSE results.  Although we were incredibly proud of our students’ results, we did not have a confirmed regional or national comparative to see just how well our students had performed. We have had to wait until December, when the DfE published provisional performance data for the summer 2024 results for all schools nationally. 

We are now delighted to inform you that both our Year 11 students’ academic progress and their academic attainment were record high results for the school. Our Progress 8 score of +0.28 is our highest ever figure and places us 21^st out of 156 Secondary schools  in the North East region (Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Gateshead, Northumberland, Sunderland and County Durham).   Further detail on JPA results can be found on the Government League Table website https://www.jesmondparkacademy.org.uk/media.ashx?id=12254  

As you can see from this, we are well above the national average for student progress and attainment.

The reason that we are particularly proud of our strong academic progress is because it is a measure of the grades our students achieved compared to their Year 7 starting points. This means that, regardless of background or prior attainment, on average, all of our Year 11 students have made significantly more than their expected progress. Indeed, many of our students have achieved significantly more than their expected progress.

The success of our Year 11 students this year is a testament to the students themselves, the support of their parents and carers, our extremely dedicated teaching and support staff and finally our primary feeder schools for providing the firm foundations that allowed our students to excel at Jesmond Park Academy.

Gosforth Group Admissions Consultation for 2026

The Gosforth Group follows the Department for Education's School Admissions Code (September 2021). As part of this Code, we consult on admissions arrangements whenever there is a change which requires consultation and at least once every seven years, even if there is no change.

Proposed changes for 2026 include amendments to the criteria used for determining admissions to Gosforth Group Academies and changes to the Published Admission Number for Great Park and Callerton Academies (following a move from temporary to permanent accommodation). There is also a proposed change to the Published Admissions Number for the Sixth Forms at Gosforth and Jesmond Park Academies to accommodate increased student numbers across Gosforth Group Academies.

This consultation process provides an opportunity for stakeholders to comment on the proposed changes. The consultation process will run for six weeks (not including school holidays) starting on Monday 25^th November 2024 and closing on Monday 20^th January 2025. At the end of the consultation period, responses will be considered and the final admission arrangements will be 'determined' by the Board of Trustees. The admission arrangements must be determined by 28^th February 2025 and published by 15^th March 2025.

Should you wish to participate in the consultation, please forward any comments regarding our proposed 2026 Admissions Policies to admissionsconsultation@gosforthgroup.org.uk

The policies and full details can be found on the school’s website: https://www.jesmondparkacademy.org.uk/about-the-academy/2026-admissions-consultation

Christmas Lunch and Christmas Jumper Day

Our Christmas lunch has been organised for Wednesday 18^th December and we have extended the lunchtime to make sure that we have enough time to enjoy the occasion.  As the kitchens will be incredibly busy, we will only be offering sandwiches as an alternative so please bring a packed lunch if this is not suitable.

On Thursday 19^th December, we will be having our annual Christmas jumper day.  Children wishing to join in this are asked to make a donation on their way into school, anything from ten pence to a pound which will be donated to charity. Although this is officially a Christmas jumper day, there is no need to buy a new jumper as we have merely suspended school uniform jumpers and polo shirts for the day.  If you do not have a Christmas jumper, feel free to wear something else, or maybe accessorise or modify an existing piece of clothing with decorations. Last year the government match funded whatever the school raised.  This year that is not happening, so we are keen to raise as much as possible.  The PRAISE Code will be applied on Thursday as usual to all other areas of school uniform, including trousers, skirts shoes, make up, jewellery etc.    

PRAISE Certificates/Rewards and End of Term

During lesson 4a on Thursday 19^th December, students will be with their Form Tutor and PRAISE chocolates and certificates will be given out to those with the requisite number of PRAISE stamps in the term.  Sixth Form students have the opportunity to join in Sixth Form activities in the Sixth Form Library.

There will not be a school lunch on Thursday 19^th December as students will be dismissed at 12.15 pm. Those children that are entitled to a free meal will be able to spend their allowance during the morning break before they leave school.

Sporting Success

It has been a highly successful first term for our sporting teams, with numerous highlights and achievements to celebrate.

• Football: All of our football teams have participated in the first round of Central Venue fixtures. A special mention goes to the girls' U13 team, who have already qualified for the city league finals, and the Year 8 boys' team, currently sitting at the top of their league.
• Netball: Our Netball teams have started the year strongly. The standout moment so far has been our senior team's victory in the Newcastle City Tournament. Well done, girls!
• Cross Country: In HT1, we took a group of talented young runners to the Northumberland Schools Team Cross Country Championships at Temple Park. Several of them have qualified to represent Team Newcastle at the Northumberland Championships in January.
• Badminton: On the badminton court, our KS3 girls secured second place in the city event and have qualified for the county finals. Although they narrowly missed out on winning the city competition, this is a fantastic achievement—best of luck in the next round! The KS3 boys performed admirably in their city competition but just missed county qualification. Meanwhile, the KS4 boys and KS3 girls will have their chance to qualify at the end of HT2.
• Sports Hall Athletics: Four teams recently competed in the Newcastle Schools Sports Hall Athletics competition at the Walker Dome. Both the Year 7 and Year 8 girls' teams finished second in their respective competitions, earning a place in the Tyne and Wear round. We are eagerly awaiting the boys' results to see if they will join them.
• Basketball: Our basketball teams have continued their strong form in the city leagues and National Schools’ competitions. The U16 team recently achieved a dominating victory over RGS, scoring over 140 points—an incredible feat!
• Chess. A huge congratulation to our Chess Team who are through to the next Regional round after qualifying with two wins and one loss.
• One of our Sixth Form students, Fleur recently won a Newcastle Rising Star Award in recognition of her achievements in kickboxing.  She trains at the Universal Martial Arts club and represents England at International event. The awards dinner at the Civic Centre was attended by many sports stars from across the North East and Fleur was presented with her award by former Olympic and World triple jump Champion Jonathan Edwards.

Looking ahead, there will be even more exciting opportunities for our students to represent JPA in the New Year.

Christmas Services

Just a reminder that Father Jonathan is inviting all of the community to the following Christmas services that are taking place at St Gabriel’s Church in Heaton:

Sunday 22^nd December - 6.00 pm Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

Tuesday 24^th December, Christmas Eve - 5.30 pm Crib Service and 11.30 pm Midnight Mass (incense is used) 

Wednesday 25^th December, Christmas Day   8.00 am Holy Eucharist and 9.45 am All Age Eucharist

Thank you for your continued support, and congratulations to all our students and staff for their hard work and dedication in supporting these activities.

Please take time to enjoy the time with your family and friends and we look forward to the students returning to their studies in the New Year for a normal school day on Monday 6^th January, energised and ready for the hard work ahead!

Warm regards,

STEVE CAMPBELL

PRINCIPAL