Dear Parents and Carers,

Well I was hoping that the start of the Summer term may being with it some warmer weather, but apparently not!  The Summer term, however, brings with it lots of additional events, trips and the culmination of all of our Year 11 and 13s hard work.  This week our examination period begun with the Art GCSEs getting underway on Monday.  The examination period for Year 11 and 13 students is not only a challenging period of time for our students, but also for their families.  Please do reach out to your child's advisor or College pastoral team if you feel you need any advice or support during this time.  

We continue to drive academic progress across the academy and we are thankful for your support with this.  Please may I remind all parents to ask your children to show you their Progress Portfolio's which will offer additional information on how they are progressing in each of their subject areas.  Students are responsible for managing these with them being monitored and used in lessons by teachers and advisors.  You have recently recieved their reports via email with the achieved MYP Grade / GCSE projection and Attention to Learning scores on.  If you have any questions regarding these reports, please do contact your College office via main reception who will be able to support or request communication from your child's subject teacher.   The portfolios also provide a wealth of information in terms of work to be completed and links to revision etc.  Students have access to their Knowledge organisers and their lesson slides on their Google Classrooms.  This means that there is always support available to them for revision and homework via their Chromebook.  This is in additional to Sparks Maths, Tassomai (KS4) and other apps such as Seneca which may be used to set homework tasks in.  

This week, we have had the KCC Driver Vehicle and Standards Agency visit the academy site on two occasions to carry out checks on the buses that are bringing our students into school.  The purpose of their visit is to ensure that each vehicle is roadworthy and has the expected safety features that the public and private student bus routes should have, and that each of the drivers are aware of these statutory measures.  I met with the lead reviewer and ensured that I had passed on concerns that have been raised by parents regarding two of the bus services.  As a result 2 additional visits took place with these bus routes after school.  As an academy, we do not manage any aspect of the contracts between KCC and the bus companies, but will always seek to support with bus related issues where possible.  

Year 7 Parents evening took place yesterday with the best attendance we have ever had for a parents evening.  Thank you to parents, carers and students who came and met with teachers to discuss their child's academic progress as well as how they have settled into secondary school life over the first two terms.  It was a great opportunity to meet with many parents and gather feedback across a variety of different areas of the academy.  We are aware that many other schools use online methods to conduct parents evenings but we believe that the opportunity to have parents sit down 1:1 with teachers is invaluable and crucial to us building strong foundations and a mutual understanding of how each student is progressing and how they are feeling about each of their subject areas.  We had an overwhelming amount of feedback about how well our Year 7 cohort have settled in to the Academy.  Many parents and carers reporting how their children have become more confident and independent since joining Mascalls, combined with excellent progress in each of their subject areas.  Many mentioning the number of different clubs their child has accessed and how they have found a love of a new subject since joining.  Thank you and congratulations to Year 7 parents and students for such a positive evening.  

I wanted to take the opportunity to update you regarding an incident that took place outside of the academy. You may have seen an update from Kent Police via social media that 3 young people were arrested last Friday near the academy for being in possession of catapults, these three young people are in no way connected to Mascalls Academy and are students from another local secondary school.  You may have noticed an increase in Police and staff presence in Paddock Wood after school over the past 2 weeks, this has been to ensure that our students are safe walking to and from the academy and that they have trusted adults available, should they need them, we have been working very closely with the police to ensure that this additional level of security continues for the well being of our community.  Please continue to remind your children of taking safe routes to and from school and reporting any concerning activity to ourselves and / or the Police.

We wish all of our Year 12 students good luck with their work experience placements next week and we look forward to hearing about their experiences when they return! 

I hope you all have a good weekend. 

Many thanks 

Mrs Brooks 

Performing Arts Spring Showcase 

The Performing Arts departments of Music, Drama and Dance performed their final GCSE and A level pieces for a sold out audience of staff and parents on Tuesday evening.  The performances were truly outstanding and provoked a great deal of emotion among the audience.  The theme of diversity and inclusivity was given as a brief for the Year 11 pieces which students then choreographed themselves and performed and it was wonderful to see how far they have come in their journey as performers.  Our Year 13 Drama students wowed the audience with some hard hitting pieces, there was a fair bit of emotion among many of the performers with it being the last time they will perform alongside one another after 7 years of performing at Mascalls.  There were soloist musicians who sung or played the piano and all just exuded confidence and skill in their chosen pieces. Key stage 4 and 5 were supported by some brilliant Key stage 3 performers too and we had a grand finale of a dance piece of an entirely male cast which was just a perfect end to a fantastic show.  Congratulations to all who took part, created and supported the show.  

Dates to remember:

Module 5

Monday 29th April: Year 12 Works Experience Week Commences

Wednesday 15th May: Sixth Form Celebration Evening 6-8pm

Thursday 16th and Friday 17th May: Bronze DofE Exhibition

Thursday 16th May: Year 10 Parents’ Evening 4-7pm

Thursday 23rd, Friday 24th and Saturday 25th May: Silver Practice DofE Exhibition

Friday 24th May: Last day of Module 5

Module 6

Monday 3rd June: Students return on a Week 2 timetable

Tuesday 4th June: Year 12 Trip to Detling Showground, UCAS Event

Wednesday 5th June: Year 12 Rewards Trip to Thorpe Park

Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th June: Year 8 Army Day

Tuesday 18th June: Year 10 Geography River Field Trip

Tuesday 18th, Wednesday 19th and Thursday 20th June: New Parents’ Evenings - 6-7pm

Wednesday 19th June: Year 11 Prom 7-11.30pm

Thursday 11th July: Musical Performance Evening 6.30-8pm

Friday 12th July: Musical Performance Evening 7-8.30pm

Friday 19th July: Last day of the academic year - Students finish at 12.30pm