Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you and your families have had a positive start to 2024.

It has been an incredibly positive start to the academic year with students coming back to the academy into a very cold spell.  Thank you for ensuring that your child has a coat and gloves etc, they have certainly needed it this past week!  Tomorrow will feel tropical with temperatures looking to be far warmer over the next week.  We have continued to increase our attendance figures so far in Module 3 in quite a significant way so thank you for all your support as parents and carers in getting your children into school.  We know the impact that missing school has upon a child's academic outcomes, but also their social development.  We need them in school to be able to support and help them progress and develop in both areas.

Last week I delivered assemblies to all students on the purpose of Education.  As a Sociology teacher (by trade!) I relished the opportunity to teach students about Talcott Parsons, a functionalist Sociologist whose theory of education is based on the concept that school and education is a bridge to young people being able to contribute positively to wider society when they reach adulthood.  I discussed how the knowledge we teach is important to enable our young people to obtain qualifications to increase the opportunities open to them in their futures.  But, there are far wider purposes of an education system also; teaching the norms and values of wider society; enabling young people to work alongside people from different backgrounds and to respect the fact that at times we will be challenged by others and how we can deal with that and develop ourselves as a result.  I explained to students that without school, we would be limited in being able to develop and navigate relationships of all different types and this is so important for us to succeed in our futures.  

I gave students the example of us expecting them to arrive to the academy by 8:30 and to lessons on time, if we don't hold high expectations for our young people, when they get to work in any capacity they will not have the experience or perhaps the ability to ensure they are on time.  I spoke of the judgements that people may give if they see people dropping litter, and it being the reason why we are so hot on making sure that students use our bins in order to maintain a nice environment.  If we don't help them to build these habits, it will impact us individually but also our wider community negatively.

It has been a particularly busy week in the academy, due to us welcoming an external review company called Challenge Partners in to review the academy in all areas.  The reviewers who visited were a mixture of leaders within other national secondary schools and a lead reviewer who has been an Ofsted HMI.  The last time Mascalls Academy recieved any external review was over 3 years ago so we were very keen to show how much we have developed and grown in that time. Myself and my whole team have relished the opportunity to show off our students, staff and our positive culture here at Mascalls Academy and it has been an overwhelmingly positive experience where we have learnt a great deal, but also been able to appreciate all that we embody as a school.  We have been challenged and celebrated in all areas of the academy and are very pleased with the estimations that the reviewers have fed back to us today and I will share the report with you all as soon as we recieve it.  We are particularly proud of the glowing reports we have recieved regarding the conduct of our students in lessons and at break and lunchtime and the positive culture and relationships that our staff and students share. 

Thank you as always for your continued support.  I hope you have an enjoyable weekend.

Many thanks 

Mrs Brooks 

 LAT Visual Arts Competition  

Mascalls Academy are keen to celebrate our fantastic cross curricular links, as well as the impressive artistic talent that we have across the academy by seeing many as entries to the LAT Visual Arts Competition.  This is open to all year groups.  The winners having their work displayed in a gallery at the LAT Awards later on this year.

There is no theme so artworks can be of any subject and it doesn't matter when the artwork was made (could be years ago). Collaborative pieces made by more than one student is welcomed.

GCSE and A Level students should not submit artwork that is being assessed for exams.

This year there is no theme. So the subject of the art piece can be whatever the students want it to be. Total creative control and deliverance.

Types of media that are accepted are;

● Sculpture

● Painting

● Digital

● Drawing in all forms

● Printmaking

● Video or multimedia

● Animation

● Textiles

● Photography

● Mixed media

Deadline for the competition is 23rd February.

If students could submit their work to Mr Townsend, with their name, year group, name of the artwork and a supporting statement to describe their submission, that would be absolutely fantastic!

Additionally, there are prizes too for winners and runners up.

Please see attached the link for last competitions entries! Lets get as many Mascalls Students on here next time and celebrate the huge amount of talent that we have across the academy.

Mr Townsend - Teacher of Art

Dates to remember 

Thursday 25th January - Year 8 Parents Evening - 4pm - 7pm

Friday 26th January - Mock Results assembly - Year 11 and 13 

Thursday 1st February - 20:20 Education - Year 11 Revision Intervention