The building looks so different this week. With more and more exterior panelling being fixed in place, it somehow feels larger too. In the next few weeks staff and students will be visiting the site in groups and will see first hand the building close up. This will be an amazing experience for students to find out more about the building process but also get up close to their new school. 

On the recent trip to the Nissan Sunderland manufacturing facility, students from the Year 7 represented the school at the First Lego League Challenge. This prestigious event was held under the sponsorship of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), providing a professional platform for students to engage with modern industrial standards.

During the competition, students demonstrated significant technical proficiency by applying complex coding sequences to govern the movement and precision of their robotics. The event served as a valuable opportunity for the cohort to bridge the gap between classroom theory and practical engineering, fostering essential skills in teamwork, logical reasoning, and computational thinking.

Well done Year 7!

Our Year 11 Prom Committee has been working hard to raise funds for their end-of-year celebration, and we are delighted to share that their recent fundraising efforts have been a great success. Through their initiative and teamwork, the students have so far raised an impressive £110. The committee showed fantastic organisation, enthusiasm and commitment, and it has been wonderful to see them taking responsibility for planning such an important milestone in their school journey.  

 The students are already planning further fundraising opportunities over the coming weeks and will continue working together to raise additional funds to help make the prom a memorable event for everyone involved. We would like to thank everyone who supported and helped make it such a positive start to the prom preparations.  

It was absolute pleasure to meet and speak to our primary students on Wednesday when they joined us for an ALP Advantage event. A huge thank you to Ms Orchard from ALP who organises these events and Mrs Myers who baked the delicious cookies! 

Year 8 will have some big tests over the next fortnight which assess learning and progress in each subject from the course of this year. 

These tests also help students to get used to the environment of an exam hall in prepartion for Year 11 and inform our next data collection. 

Please help to prepare your child by ensureing they are up to date with class work (anything missed can be caught up via Google Classroom) and that they have a good night's sleep, free from technology atleast an hour before bed and some breakfast in the morning. 

Whilst some children enjoy the satisfaction of a test, others can find assessment stressful. If you feel your child needs support with this please contact their Tutor. 

Despite the horrendous weather last night, our auditorium was buzzing with Year 9 options discussions and progress reviews. Thank you to all parents who attended and for those who couldn't make it, your child's teachers will be following up the evening with a phone call home. 

The school council have been working with departments on their Comic Relief plans in preparation for next Friday. 

We are asking students for a 50p donation on Friday (or more if they can bring it) and in exchange they will be able to:

• Buy comic relief themed bakes

• Take part or sponsor the 'Tour de Farce' which is a sponsored bike ride equal to the Tour de France. 

• Participate in 'Let's get quizical'- a general knowledge team quiz

• Test themselves in a Task Master Challenge. 

All donations will go to Comic Relief. 

Mrs Lenagh has worked some magic this week as she has been in contact with formal dress shops and the local community to create quite a collection of beautiful formal wear. The items are new and nearly new and cost hundreds of pounds whilst on sale. 

We are giving them away for free to any student who wants to be environmentally friendly by wearing something already made rather than ordering from a shop and saving a good few pounds in the process. 

We have suits, shirts, ties, dresses, shoes and handbags so if you would like to pop in and have a look, please call in on Wednesday 3.30pm-4.30pm.

Your child has been asked to feedback their opinion via our ALP student voice form. Please ask your child if they have completed this and remind them that the deadline is the 20th of March. 

Please remind your child that being 'Ready to Learn' is the most effective way to start the day. They should have the following equiptment at the start of every school day:

• A pen

• A Pencil

• A Ruler

• A Planner

• A Reading Book

• A Charged Chromebook (not Year 7)

If they are missing any of these items the reward shop can be accessed between 8.15am and 8.45am wherby they can exchange achievement points for rewards. If students fail to do this they will recieve consequences for not being ready to learn as this prevents the start of the lesson being focused on learning if they are not fully equiped. 

We are very proud of our high standards in unifrom and our students are always recognised in the community as being smart. This week we have been reminding students of the importance of wearing the unifrom correctly, especially in relation to school skirts and footwear. Please check your child's unifrom in the morning before they leave the house. The top of skirts should not be rolled up and footwear should be in accordance with the school policy. Trainers are not allowed. 

Some of our parents have told us that when they miss a call and don't have voicemail they find it difficult to know who to call back so we are going to trial a new classcharts button. If a member of staff tries to contact you they will record it on classcharts so that you know who called and if this is the same member of staff that has issues a reward or consequence you will see the two events as linked. We will be trialling this over the next few weeks and we would like your feedback on this and any other suggestions you may have on our methods of communication. Please let us know if you can suggest any further improvements. 

Telephone: 0191 3730336

Email: contact@durhamacademy.org.uk

For the most up to date information about what is going on in our school, please visit our website at:

https://durhamacademy.org.uk