10th January 2025

Welcome to our weekly bulletin,

Happy New Year! It is hard to believe this is the end of the first week back. Students have settled in and been STAR students in lessons and despite the freezing weather outside, we have been very hard at work inside.

In the last five days we have been...

Getting the invites ready for our new build public consultation meeting.

Some heavy machinery has been delivered to the site in preparation for building work to commence and the date of our meeting has now been confirmed as Tuesday 28th January at 2.30pm-7pm .

Our new build meetings with the DfE have moved to a Monday starting next week and exact details of the event will be shared with you in next week's bulletin. We can't wait to show you the plans!

Making new year resolutions.

Our tutor time focus this week has been on the value of reflection and resolutions. Students have considered what they would like to achieve in 2025 and created action plans to do so.

Promoting Careers in the NHS

Mr Talbot has been sharing opportunities to join live careers events next week with students who might be interested in joining the NHS.

There are two sessions to choose from and they can be joined by following the links below.

Tuesday 14th January at 4.30pm (virtual session hosted on MS Teams)

Student year groups 7-9 England & Wales, S1-S3 Scotland, 8-10 Northern Ireland

“Quick with the facts, help the NHS be swift to react!”

A 45-minute briefing with the NHS team
Complete the career challenge at their own pace
Certification awarded on completion
Register now! (students)

Wednesday 15th January at 5pm (virtual session hosted on MS Teams)

Student year groups 10-13 England & Wales, S4-S6 Scotland, 11-14 Northern Ireland

After a sudden bump and fall, should they visit A&E or is first aid enough for all?

A 45-minute briefing with the NHS team
Complete the career challenge at their own pace
Certification awarded on completion
Register now! (students)

Reminding students of what it means to be ready to learn

Learning time is precious so being ready for it is vitally important.

Please ensure that your child has a pen, pencil, ruler and their planner with them every day. Please ensure that their chrome book is fully charged or left with their Tutor for charging overnight and their reading book is in their bag.

If your child does not have the necessary equipment they can exchange rewards points for it but this must be done on arrival to school.

As of next week, there will be detentions issues for repeatedly arriving to lessons without the necessary equipment because it slows down the start of the lesson and every minute counts.

Being inspired by our Alumni.

Helen McAdam is a registered Nurse and Midwife with over 25 years of experience in clinical practice around the UK and across the world. She also happens to be an ex student!

We can't thank Helen enough for her inspirational lecture to Year 8 who were enthralled by what they learnt. They had so many questions, we ran out of time!

Thank you to Dr Atwal for organising this.

Checking PE Kit

We currently allow students to wear their Durham Academy PE kit to school on the days they have PE and we provide every child with a school uniform and basic PE kit in Year 7. No other items of non-uniform are accepted and they should only wear PE kit on the days they have PE. These are part of our basic school rules and expectations and if a student arrives in non-school uniform, they will be required to change it. If they have an issue with PE kit and need to borrow some from the department, they should wear their classroom full uniform and get changed for PE.

We also urge you to ensure that students bring a coat in very cold weather and if they do not have one, to let the pastoral team know so we can help.

Following up non-attendance

Good attendance is a legal requirement but even more importantly, it had a direct impact on how much learning and progress your child makes during their time in school. Every lesson missed is a piece of knowledge lost which needs to be caught up and in years 10 and 11, every lesson missed could be a question on a GCSE paper which is difference between success and failure.

We expect students to attend school at least 97% of the time. Please ensure that your child attends every day.