Principal’s Update September 2019
Dear Parents/Carers,
I hope you/ your children have all had an enjoyable summer and I look forward with great excitement to the 2019/20 academic year. Our team of staff have been hard at work over the holiday period making final preparations for the Autumn Term and we cannot wait to move forward on the next stage of our improvement journey as we aim to become the best Alternative Provision school in Birmingham.
First of all, I wanted to inform you of some of our key timetable changes which we will be sharing with all students in assembly this week. The beginning and end timings of our school day remain identical to 2018/9 but in order to improve the quality and dynamism of our lessons, lesson timings within the day have changed as follows:
Monday-Thursday Friday
Form 9.15-9.35 Form 9.15-9.35
P1 9:35-10.25 P1 9:35-10.25
P2 10:25-11.15 P2 10:25-11.15
Break 11.15-11.30 Assembly 11.15-11.30
P3 11:30-12.20 Brunch 11.30-12.00
P4 12:20-1:10 Enrichment 12.00-2.00
Lunch 1.10-1.35
P5 1:35-2.25
P6 2.25-3.15
We have also radically changed our approach to Work Related Learning and the Key Stage 3 Curriculum for 2019/20- all Year 10 students will now experience off-site learning every Monday, all Year 11 students will do likewise every Wednesday, and all Key Stage 3 students will experience off-site learning at the West Bromwich Albion FC “Albion Foundation” every Tuesday. All students will also experience off-site PE at various points during the day every Thursday through our partnership with SportsZone. As always, our free breakfast club will be open from 8.45am every day and we would encourage all students to attend this before school in large numbers as they did last year!
We were delighted with the commitment of students during the Summer Term and we will expect all students once again to buy into our “Safe, Ready, Respectful” ethos. As was the case last year, any student who disrupts learning during the school day remains in school for a “resolution” session for up to 30 minutes at the end of the day. As was also the case last year, any student who verbally abuses a member of staff, vandalises property or attempts to smoke on site will be subject to our full range of sanctions, this may include fixed term exclusion.
Finally, we are pleased to welcome Claire Whittlestone to our team of staff as Lead Teacher of Science. Connor Harkins and Sarah Hyde left the school at the end of the Summer Term and we wish them both well for the future.
If you have any further questions regarding this letter, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Wakefield
Principal