The Hundred of Hoo Academy

Our School Vision

Aspire Achieve Excel

Being part of The Hundred of Hoo Academy means so much more than just being part of a school. At The Hundred of Hoo Academy, we believe that children deserve a truly world-class education and can achieve quite extraordinary things; an education with our school means that pupils are 'More than just educated'.

Our curriculum, although aligned with the National Curriculum, is more challenging and more aspirational because of the way it is embedded within the framework of the Primary Years Programme. We encourage children to make links across subjects, recalling knowledge from all of the subjects they study with us over time. We also prepare children think deeply, challenge misconceptions and information and become citizens who are ready for their part in our digitally global society.

We are an IB World School and put great emphasis on the Learner Profile Attributes. As you hopefully know, these include developing the following elements alongside academic excellence: Caring, Knowledgeable, Risk-Taker, Inquirer, Balanced, Open-Minded, Principled, Communicator, Reflective and Thinker.

Above all else, our school is a safe and engaging place where all staff are committed to ensuring pupils are cared for and looked after, challenged to achieve their best both academically and socially and the highest of expectations upheld at all times.

Theme of the Fortnight

The Theme of the Fortnight has been 'Resilience and Independence'. In the first week back of Term 3, as an academy there has been a real focus on everybody, including pupils and adults, showing the very best versions of themselves at all times.

As part of this, we have re-established our classroom expectations in terms of handwriting, presentation, conduct and effort; our playground expectations in terms of the way in which pupils engage with each other and the rigour with which adults investigate and deal with undesirable behaviour; our lunch hall arrangements, through introducing a traffic-light system to indicate noise levels, re-sharing expectations of pupils politeness and kindness with staff and peers and finally, the way in which pupils move around the school.

Pupils truly have risen to the challenge and we are very much looking forward to inviting you into the academy, after school next week, to see the change in presentation and outcomes in books.

This week we actually have a Theme of the Week, which is a cultural theme focusing on the country of Malawi.

Building Update

As the weeks seem to be very quickly passing us by, the building project to convert us from a one-form entry school to a two-form entry school has continued to make steady progress. At times, the weather seems to have been against us with the heavy snow and freezing conditions, book-ended by weeks of apparently relentless rain! However, as you will be able to see from the pictures below, the foundations have been poured and set, steel structures erected and brick-laying has now commenced!

Pupils in year 4 have been particularly interested in what the plans for the new part of the building look like and I have already spoken to Sam Hiscoke from Perfect Homes, who will be coming to discuss with the pupils what the new building will be like and also, how to pursue a career in construction.

Lunch Boxes

Before the Christmas break, we had multiple parents asking us to keep them informed of whether their child had eaten their packed lunches. This term, we have asked all pupils to keep their rubbish in their lunchboxes, with the exception of yoghurt pots and "tubes" and fruit peel, cores and stones. This way, all parents are kept aware of what is being consumed by their children. This information can be really useful to keep an eye on whether your child has enough food or, indeed, too much and whether their tastes and prefences change.

We know how much time and effort goes into preparing a nutritious lunch for your child and hope that this small change helps you all to recognise what is being eaten (or not) and possibly save you time and money in the future.

If your child does come home with the remnants of yoghurt pots or tubes, or fruit peel, cores or stones, please remind them that these can be disposed of in school.

Parent Survey

In the next week or so, Leigh Academies Trust will be sharing its annual parent and carer survey. This is your opportunity to share your views about our academy and how its led, the way it operates and how you are kept informed as parents and carers.

Last year, parents were very positive about our school, but also helped us to formulate some of the actions seen below through the comments and ratings shared. Whilst we know there are always things for us to work on, it is my hope that you recognise that if you come to us with a concern, we deal with this swiftly.

I have had so many positive conversations with parents and carers over the course of the last year which have been truly heartening. This is your opportunity to be able to share this with the Central Trust team and to help us reflect on what is going well, as well as those areas we continue to strive to be the very best.

You said:

"I don't know enough about the IB to tell if it has an impact on my child's education."

We did:

Regularly on the Principal's bulletin, there is a separate page dedicated to what your children have been learning about in their inquiry lessons. We have run a PYP workshop for parents to explain what the PYP is, as well as ensuring that there is explicit reference to the PYP on end-of-year reports. Also, the Learner Profile Attributes are part of the weekly celebrations for "Star of the Week".

You said:

"The school does not always let us know what the children are learning throughout the year."

We did:

We introduced more regular opportunities for you to come and see the work your child has been completing in their books in our termly book-looks, continued to provide regular updates with separate, subject-specific pages on the Principal's Bulletin, updated the school website with the most recent curriculum content and more-regularly updated the school's social media accounts with the work which has been completed in class. Additionally, parents have access to their child's Google Classroom which outlines all of the learning which has taken place that day!

You said:

"The school is a safe place for my children, but sometimes there are problems on the playground"

We did:

Before the building project began, we re-organised the whole of the playground space to make sure that pupils had specific zones, equipment, supervision and adult engagement to have successful playtimes. Since the building work has commenced, we have had a slightly smaller playground area due to weather halting work on completing the tarmac. I am excited to say that this week, we will be able to reintroduce a further revised playground arrangement to allow pupils to mix with other children in other classes and year-groups again, rather than having to only socialise with their own class.

We have also continued to rigorously deal with reported poor behaviour on the playground.

Remember, if it is not reported to a member of staff, it cannot be investigated and consequences cannot be put into place!