Welcome to my update for this week.

Some of our Year 7 students have had the opportunity to take part in our ‘Literacy week’ activity. They have been learning about Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ in an immersive, innovative and interactive way. Activities have included trips to the beach and local woodlands. They have created artwork, musical responses and physical performances based on The Tempest whilst also gaining an appreciation of the text. The project has encouraged the students to enjoy a text that they may have otherwise found daunting.

As mentioned last week, I will be covering aspects of our Vision and Values in future updates.

‘ASPIRE and Achieve’ is integral to us as a school and a Federation. As our vision explains, ‘We are a learning community which embraces opportunities for our learners by securing high quality learning and teaching. We aim for our students to achieve their potential both as students at our schools and as global citizens’

Ambition is the first aspect of ASPIRE and this explores that ‘we are ambitious for ourselves and our futures’. Having ambition is so important. This can involve short, medium and long term goals, but the key is to always have something that you would like to achieve or experience. When you achieve one of your short term ambitions, keep working hard towards achieving your longer term ones. We can all have knock backs or challenges along the way, but determination and self belief will create resilience, which will mean ambitions do not need to change, they just need to be worked for

Next week, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday our Year 7 students will be sitting CATs (Cognitive Abilities Tests). This involves three tests over the three days. There is nothing to worry about. No revision or prior learning is required. They are tests that help us to understand learning styles and highlight potential difficulties that students may be facing.

Year 7 parents will shortly be receiving an invite to Year 7 Tutor Evening. This will give parents’/carers the opportunity to discuss how their child is settling into secondary school life.

Our extra curricular activities for all year groups have been shared on our social media platforms this week, so please do follow us on one of these to keep up to date with all of the wonderful opportunities we have on offer.

Please see my separate update in relation to the IWEF/HISP consultation that ran prior to the summer break.

I hope you have a good weekend.