5th September 2025

Welcome to our weekly bulletin,

It has been a pleasure to welcome back students and meet our new recruits this week. The school community has already demonstrated confidence, ambition and respect in many different ways during the last three days and the term is off to a brilliant start. This week's bulletin contains some important reminders for parents and carers so if you know of anyone who may not have seen it, please pass on the link.

Working and walking around the building site

Building work has commenced! We are so excited to see the start of the new build works and have installed additional fences around some areas of school. Your child has been given health and safety reminders about this and it is now more important that ever that parents and carers who pick child up from school do not park on the road in front of the school.

Please see below for a reminder of suitable places to park.

Durham - Open evening postcard 2025.pdf

Preparing for Open Evening

The time of year is here again when we open our doors to prospective families for school places in 2026/27.

We know this is a huge decision to make and we invite all parents/carers and children in Year 5/6 to visit us on Wednesday the 17th at 6pm.

With only 100 children in each year group, places are in high demand.

Please ensure your child does not miss out on the opportunity to see first hand how we create life-long opportunities for every child.

Creating Tutor Group Charters

As you know, your child is part of a Tutor group. This is like an extension of their family and their Tutor is there to help, support and monitor their progress in school. Your child's Tutor is your first point of contact, followed by their Year group lead who looks after the year group as a whole. Our first day back to school started with Tutor groups getting to know each other again, preparing for the year ahead and agreeing how they would treat each other to make everyone feel safe and welcome.

Tutors issued planners, Tutor documents, timetables and reminded students of the expectations. Please ensure you have also signed the agreements in your child's planner by Monday 8th September.

Year 7 Leader: Miss Ramm

Your child's Tutor is:

7C Miss Dixon 7A Mr Kenmure

7R Miss Burke 7E Mrs Smith

Year 8 Leader: Mr Heppell

8C Mrs Abraham 8A Miss Chapman

8R Miss Tomlinson 8E Mrs Lynn

Year 9 Leader: Miss Darke

9C Mr Robinson 9A Miss Peart

9R Mr Talbot/Mrs Blanckley 9E Mr Potts

Year 10 Leader: Dr Atwal

10C Mr Charlton 10A Mrs Lister

10R Mr Scott 10E Miss Hesslewood

Year 11 Leader: Miss Hall

11A Mr Howe 11C Mr Jackson

11R Miss Davison 11E Mrs Newman

Information Handbook for Parents and Carers (2) (1).pdf

Celebrating Year 11 Results

Our students have not only excelled academically but have also developed into well-rounded individuals ready to embrace their future with ambition and integrity. We have consistently encouraged them to be confident in their abilities, ambitious in their goals, and respectful in their interactions, and these results clearly demonstrate the impact of that approach.

As an Academy we have continued to improve outcomes with significant gains in Science and Maths. English Literature, always a strong performer at Durham Academy has continued to thrive with even more of the highest grades and Child Development and French continue to be successful subjects year on year.

As always, we have seen a direct correlation between attendance and achievement with students who attend lessons for at least 96% of the time achieving at or better than national expectations across all measures. We must also thank our parents and carers for their excellent partnership.

Despite the challenges and pressures of the past few years, our Year 11 cohort has shown remarkable resilience and dedication. Their commitment to their studies, coupled with their willingness to support one another, has truly shone through in these fantastic outcomes.

Each child has an individual story to tell and every one of them deserves to be congratulated but some really must have a special mention.

Ava Smith also secured top grades including an amazing grade 8 in Maths and grade 7s in English, Science, PE and French. Ava plans to study A-Levels in Chemistry, Physics and Maths. Ava has worked tirelessly across all 5 years with quiet determination and steel.

Jake Atwill made amazing progress in all subject areas and demonstrates exactly what can be achieved with determination, resilience and the right support. On celebrating his results today Jake said, “without the teachers I have had I would never have got this far.”

Linda Hyde has not only presented at the House of Lords this summer but secured a whole host of grade 5s and 6s, securing her intended destination and dazzling career prospects in medical sciences.

Anna Khan joined us in Year 10 and made fantastic progress across her subjects, particularly in Science and Maths where she showed huge dedication and aspiration to succeed with English as an additional language.

These students absolutely demonstrate our aspirational school culture and their results are not just a reflection of academic success, but also a powerful testament to the unwavering hard work, burgeoning confidence, and deep-seated respect demonstrated by our students throughout their time at Durham Academy.

With ‘T’ Levels, ‘A’ Levels and Apprenticeships at Durham Sixthform, New College and Sunderland College, we wish each one of our class of 25 success in their future endeavours.

Congratulating Dr Atwal

Any regular readers of this bulletin will know that our STEM opportunities are vast, varied and down to a great deal of hard work from the marvellous Dr Atwal.

We aren't the only people to think this as she was recognised in the House of Lord's during the summer holidays (of which she was giving up to take winning students from the Generating Genius programme to London), when she was given the award of 'Most Engaged Teacher Award'.

The visit was a huge celebration for all with Linda from last year's year 11 presenting to Burberry after successfully being selected over hundreds of young people.

Planning to ACE it

Giving children ACCESS to a successful future is at the foundation of everything we do. After school and lunchtime ACCESS clubs will begin on 15th September and are optional but very much promoted.

To ensure everyone has the opportunity to gain ACCESS during the school week, we are launching our ACCESS Curriculum Enrichment (ACE) next Friday.

Students will have slightly different lesson times on a Friday and each week will end with 40 minutes of ACE. Students will be given the chance to sign up for a preferred activity and they range from Guitar lessons and food tasting to Forest Schools and Foreign Film Club. Sessions will run in half termly blocks.

Menus

Fixing the internet

Due to a power cut during the holidays some of our internet services have required technical support to get up and running for the new year this includes our lunch payement and biometrics systems.

As a result of this you may not see lunch payments accurately displayed in School Comms but please be assured that all children are still able to access breakfast, break and lunchtime food and we are logging the spend so that your account will be deducted accurately in the coming days.

Breakfast and fruit is free to all students every day and we offer a wide range of meal deal options to reduce the cost of the school day.

Please remember that we are a NUT FREE school and a number of students have serious nut allergies which can be airborne as well as ingested. No nut products are allowed on the school site.

We also operate as a health promoting school and have to follow government guidlines in relation to school food. This includes packed lunches. No large bags of crisps, biscuits, sweets, energy drinks or fizzy pop are allowed to be consumed and will be confiscated should they be seen. We also do not allow students to purchase 'treat' items in place of lunch food e.g. cake can only be purchased as part of a meal with sandwich/hot food and not as lunch itself. If your child has gained the freedom to walk to school via local shops, please ensure they do not purchase or try to bring the above items to school. The link between diet and mental and physical health will be taught as part of our personal development programmes.

Telling you what your child is learning

All curriculum summaries can be found by following this link to the school website and information about PSHCE and SRE can be found here.

Our Curriculum

We have high expectations for our students, encouraging them to create dreams for their future and supporting them to secure ambitious destinations. We aim to develop students who feel happy and valued and act with integrity and honesty.

Our school values: confident, ambitious, respectful, every child, are at the heart of everything we do.

What is our Curriculum Intent?

Our curriculum is designed to develop specific knowledge and skills across the subjects that we offer. It is ambitious and inclusive with the aim of preparing students for life after Durham Academy.

Students study a broad curriculum including core academic, practical and artistic subjects. This is complemented by our Personal Development curriculum and wider enrichment opportunities in order for students to develop their knowledge and skills as well as their personal qualities.