Achievement | Diversity | Respect
31 March 2023
Parent Weekly Mailing
Keep us posted - It would be great if parents/carers could let the school know of any student achievements outside of school. We would like to find out what students are doing in their own time and celebrate their achievements. Email us: weeklymailing@cotham.bristol.sch.uk
Week commencing Monday 17 April 2023 is Week A
Standing Items are now located at the bottom of the mailing.
Headteacher's Welcome
Dear Parents and Carers
Please find this week’s mailing with important information for parents/carers and students as well as updates on school events, activities and opportunities for your reference below. With very best wishes for the weekend.
Kindest regards, Ms Jo Butler, Headteacher
Positive feedback of the week 👍
Good news from a parent who attended our Somali Parents Coffee Morning on Wednesday 22 March 2023 and a nice bit of feedback about out new weekly mailing format!
Thank you
I wanted to let our school know that myself and the other 3 families who attended Somali Coffee morning were very pleased to attend. We would like to thank Ms Hirad for organising this informative meeting for us and it was nice to meet both Mr Farmer and Ms Arnold.
I have now met other parents in Year 8 who I did not know before and I am grateful to Ms Hirad and our school for making this possible.
Ms Hirad seems very kind, patient, a good listener and she is an asset to have at Cotham school. I believe she can help improve the communication between the Somali parents & school (which I bet she is already doing) and will get even more parents heard by having regular meetings with other parents.
Year 8 Parent
Hello!
Just wanted to thank you for the change of format! The content is great and informative and it is so much easier to read and find key info!!
Year 8 parent
What do you think of the new Weekly Mailing format?
Tell us here!
Do you know our three school values?
Word of the Week
Word of the week
Wit
Wit is an noun
It means: ‘quick understanding and intelligence’
New Announcements
Eid al-Fitr
Please follow this link regarding a letter which has been forwarded to Parents/Carers today regarding Eid al-Fitr.
Uniform Update and Clarification for After Easter
We are having a renewed push on establishing our expectations around uniform. Mr Knight has put together a very useful video to guide you around what are our expectations are for Cotham School uniform.
Key Points for your consideration:
Hoodies \ Tracksuit Tops are not allowed (5mins 10secs in)
Jewellery - one plain ear ring stud only, no nose studs and bangles. (5mins 50secs)
Headwear - No snoods, baseball caps or do rags (6min 50secs)
Year 11 - Walking Talking Mocks Page
We have collated a series of walking-talking videos from many of our faculties onto a single page for students to access. Walking talking mock videos are live recordings of teachers working through and answering past paper exams under a visualiser.
As the teacher works through the paper they highlight key points within the question and also explain their thinking as they write their answers. Students should print out the exam paper and have it in front of them before using the videos. Exam papers are available from faculties via their digital platforms and/or on Google classroom (or directly from the exam board websites).
Walking talking mocks are extremely useful resources and students can use them in two ways:
1) Complete the exam paper alongside the video. Using the video to walk them through how the questions should be answered.
2) Complete the paper first and then use the video to mark and correct their answers by marking it alongside the video.
Easter Revision Sessions - Thank you Staff!
Thank you to our amazing teaching staff, who are putting on 40 different Easter revision sessions over the next two weeks to support our Year 11 students in the run-up to their exams. This equates to 96 hours of teacher-led revision across 23 different subjects. Thank you again to the Cotham staff.
We recently wrote to Year 11 parents and carers regarding the Easter Revision session over the next 2 weeks. If your child was invited to one of the sessions, we’re really looking forward to seeing them. Please remind them to arrive at Student Reception 5 minutes before the scheduled start time so that they can be met by the teacher running the session and escorted to the session. Students will not be able to access the site using their lanyard so it’s important that they arrive promptly
World Cup Finswimming Competition 2023
Olivia from Year 8AD competed for Great Britain, representing Cotham School in the World Cup Finswimming Competition 2023 in Italy! Such an amazing achievement!
STEAM Art Bytes
Art Bytes is a national Art and EdTech programme for primary, secondary and SEN schools. The judges have now finalised the top three entries from our students in Year 9 and voting takes place from Saturday 1 April. These will be at the top of the website with a VOTE NOW button underneath, please do get voting it is one vote per person - subsequent votes from the same email will over-ride the previous vote. Each vote needs to be confirmed to be counted, please do check your spam for the confirmation email or it will not be counted. The winning artwork from each school will appear in a bespoke virtual gallery. Please get voting from the Saturday 1 April using the link see here. Pass this to others in your family and community as the school with the most votes will also win a Community Engagement Award.
STEAM Flying Start Regional Finals
This week, 2 Cotham teams from Year 9 travelled to the Aerospace Museum for The Flying Start Challenge regionals round. We were able to complete a variety of entertaining engineering challenges, such as creating straw-based earthquake-resistant skyscrapers and crafting parachutes to throw off a balcony. We also had to throw gliders we had created and perform a presentation of them. Both teams worked extremely hard after school and in their own free time and got a great experience of what engineering can be like for their future careers. One of Cotham School's teams "The Flying Fish" managed to get into the top 5 and secure a place in the Grand Final! Pictures of the regional final can be seen here. Thank you for this fantastic opportunity
Work Experience Placements for Year 10 students
Work experience is an important aspect of the careers development of each student at Cotham School. All Year 10 students are expected to be out on a placement during the week Monday 3 July to Friday 7July 2023. Students can access information on how to find a placement, templates for letter writing and a step by step guide on their Google Classroom - careers pages. Once you have found a placement simply ask the business to complete their section of the "3 way" agreement form (which you can also download on google classroom - careers page) and then sign it yourself and ask your parent/carer to sign it. You can then give the paper copy to Suzanne Paice (Careers) or email it directly to careers@cotham.bristol.sch.uk.
The deadline is the end of the week - Friday 21 April.
#Cakes4Syria - The Cake Campaign
The Year 8 Executive Student Leadership Team have been running the #Cakes4Syria charity campaign at Cotham School.
This Ramadan, The Cake Campaign is celebrating 11 years of selling cakes and saving lives. The beloved project, which started off as #Cakes4Syria, took the nation by storm when it began and has inspired countless other fundraising initiatives.
This week in school, our Year 8 students have been collecting orders and donations for families affected by the tragedies in Syria. Cakes will arrive in school after the Easter holidays (Tuesday 18 April) for students to enjoy in school or at home.
Year 7 Spelling Bee
Gamma House leadership wanted to focus on academic competition for their events this term so working alongside the Bristol Education Partnership, we ran a Year 7 spelling bee. The spelling bee was a great success, all the competitors were really enthusiastic and the crowd were so well behaved and supportive. It was wonderful.
The final four who will go on to compete across Bristol with the Bristol Education Partnership are: Allan, Manal, Khalid, Ezra
Design the Front Cover of the Teacher and Student Planners
Year 7 and 8 students are being asked to design the front cover of the Teacher and Student Planners. Every student in the school will see the artwork completed!
The picture could be of the school, the logo or linked to the house system. The deadline is Friday 21 April so students should work on this over the Easter holidays!
The winner is to receive a £20 Amazon voucher and runners up £10 vouchers. Ms Butler will judge! Please hand in to Miss Madge in the Humanities office or submit your application to the assignment on google classroom.
Library Update
Cotham school library still have a selection of FREE WORLD BOOK DAY BOOKS to take away and keep. Titles include Kay’s Brains, Spiderman pocket guide, Being An Ally, Boot It and The Boy with Wings plus many more. Please come and collect your free books as soon as possible as we have a limited supply of each title. We are also happy to announce JOSEPH ELLIOTT'S Shadow Skye Trilogy books are all in the library. Available to purchase on WISEPAY soon.
Year 12 Geographers Trip to Slapton Sands
Our Year 12 Geographers represented the school brilliantly this week on their residential field trip to Slapton Sands. Despite the relentless downpours, they were focused and enthusiastic throughout. This trip was an opportunity to conduct practical research in preparation for the non examined assessment (coursework) element of their A Level course. Trip leaders Ms Meek and Mr Worcester were incredibly proud of each and every one of them for representing themselves and the school so fantastically.
Post 16
We would like to wish all of our P16 students a restful spring break. Please read the 'This term at NBP16' written by the Director of Post 16 Ms Potter to see a summary of everything we covered and celebrated this term.
Coming Up Soon...
Year 11 Art and Design Technology Exams
Just a quick reminder that the Year 11 Art and Craft and Design Technology exams are running in the first week back after Easter.
All students have been contacted and should double check that they know the days they are allocated to sit the exam. Good Luck!
And don't forget from last time....
Parent Teacher Association
As a school, we are always looking for new ways to support our students both in the classroom and beyond. In light of this we would like to establish a friends and supporters of Cotham School Group.
A few people responded to an email that went out at the end of February and we would like to invite them and anyone else interested to meet with Mr Knight at school on Thursday 20 April at 5pm to discuss ideas and how we can use the incredible diversity, skill set and generosity of our local community to help your children get the most out of their time in school.
Further details on this meeting will be released before we leave for the Easter break. It would be fantastic to see you there.
Digital Literacy Corner
Latest Parent Online Safety Cheat Sheet
Spotting Ads on Social Media
Do you always know when you are seeing an ad on social media feed? You might not! Some ads look like any other post!
Our latest GCSE Pod Usage
Welcome! GCSEPod is the perfect resource to help your child learn, retain and recall all the information they need to achieve their GCSE goals.
Pods watched this academic year
5,259
Number of Pods watched so far in Term 4
1,221
Most watched subject this week
Geography
Our latest Seneca Learning Usage
Seneca offers high-quality free online learning courses for students to study from a computer, tablet or phone. The courses are suitable for students aged 13 and above and cover KS3, KS4 GCSE and KS5 A Level subjects.
We are Premium subscribers to this service which unlocks further features of the platform.
Seneca Learning sessions completed this academic year
212,626
Total Seneca Learning study time for Term 4
4,781 hours
Total Seneca Learning study time for this academic year
25,317 hours
Staff Vacancies
Cotham School are currently recruiting for the following positions:
Cover Supervisor
Higher Level Teaching Assistants
For more information and to apply please click here
