WPT Wrapped - 23/24

The year we turned 10...

I have been incredibly proud of everything that Wickersley Partnership Trust (WPT) has achieved this year, and that is testament to the hard work, dedication and commitment of WPT’s staff, students and Trust community.

It’s been a special one for us too. WPT turned 10 back in March, marking a decade of academic achievement since Wickersley School and Sports College first academised in 2014. Since then, we’ve seen exceptional growth - we now have 13 schools, 5 provisions and one Sixth Form under our umbrella.

And as such, it’s been another exceptionally busy year, but before we take a look at some of the amazing things we’ve been up to since September, I’d like to thank my colleagues, our students and full Trust community for their continued effort, support and collaboration throughout this academic year and beyond.

I hope you all have a fantastic summer and I look forward to seeing what we achieve in 2024/25.

Now please take a look at the year that was...

Helen O’Brien,

CEO of Wickersley Partnership Trust

Careers

Our Careers Programme has undoubtedly been one of our most successful initiatives of the year. It’s one that helps students to understand the vast array of careers open to them, and how what they learn in school can be transferred to the world of work.

WPT Careers Advisor Achieves Level 6 Diploma

Congratulations to our Careers Advisor, Beverley Jones, for achieving her Level 6 Diploma in Careers Guidance & Development!

Beverley’s role at the Trust includes conducting 1:1 Post-16 careers interviews with KS4 students, informing them of their Post-16 options and empowering them to independently research their options to help with next step decision making.

She also organises KS4 careers fairs, which enable students to meet face-to-face with local employers and training providers to find out about the employment and apprenticeship opportunities they can offer.

Beverley Jones, Careers Advisor at Rawmarsh Community School, said: “I really enjoyed studying for the Level 6 Diploma in Careers Guidance & Development qualification. It was challenging at times; working and studying, but it was well worth all the hard work and effort. I am very proud of my achievement. You are never too old to learn!”

We’re super proud of Bev for investing the time and work into her own career development – a fantastic achievement!

Careers and Enterprise Awards

We attended the Careers and Enterprise Awards at the start of July and we’re proud to reveal that WPT won the Most Innovative Provision Award for our Careers in the Curriculum Programme..

Thrybergh Academy's Governor, Caroline Lee (pictured) won the Most Engaged 'Give an Hour' Partner Award and Clifton Community School's Enterpise Advisor, Cathie Barker won the Most Active Enterprise Advisor Award.

Congratulations to all winners, and a huge well done to the Trust Careers Team – these awards are testament to your hard work, and commitment to sending all of our young people into an ever-changing world, able and qualified.

We believe in empowering our colleagues to make a difference within the Trust and the education sector, and we have supported many people to kick start their careers - this year, we have welcomed 37 ECTs and 8 ITTs across our primary and secondary schools. Since 2022, we've had 56 members of staff have studied, or are studying, for an NPQ.

Development

At WPT, we’re committed to nurturing talent through a robust approach to professional development, staff retention, and advancing employees’ careers.

This year we introduced our Staff Workforce Development programme, where we give all of our staff the opportunity to upskill and gain professional qualifications through apprenticeships - so far, 23 members of staff are currently studying for a Level 3 - Level 7 apprenticeship in a range of disciplines, with 19 more due to start in September 2024. We have colleagues from departments including Teaching, Sports Coaching, IT, Human Resources, Payroll, Facilities, Media and Compliance currently undertaking apprenticeships.

In 2023-24, 3 colleagues successfully completed their apprenticeships.

We also have an extensive range of CPD opportunities for all staff and subjects, like the below…

Read Write Inc Training

On Thursday 13th June, colleagues from across the Trust joined together to complete the final day of training for the Read Write Inc Freshstart interventions. We are all really excited at how the intervention is going to help some of our weakest readings and looking forward to putting our training into action in September!

A huge thank you to everyone involved for their incredible input on the day.

Stakeholders and Suppliers

We'd like to give a special mention to our many suppliers and stakeholders who have supported us throughout the year. Your support and generosity means that we can provide even more enrichment and entitlement opportunities for our students and colleagues.

Thank you to everyone who has sponsored our Staff Awards or worked with us to provide experiences that students might otherwise not have taken part in.

Thank you!

First Aid

To give all of our students, staff and wider school community the chance to develop important life skills, we have been in partnership with First Aid Schools for many years now. And just this year alone, we’ve put over 7000 students, 106 staff and 28 parents/carers through a range of First Aid training (all at age appropriate levels for our students from Foundation Stage through to KS5), to equip them with the skills and knowledge to be able to handle any difficult situations that may arise in the school, home or outside environment.

Sport

As a Trust we’re incredibly lucky to work so closely with, and house, the Rotherham School Games team who work with WPT and other schools across the town and region to increase student participation and love for all kinds of sports.

Bluebell Wood Colour Run

Amongst various fantastic tournaments throughout the year, one of the most notable and enjoyable for our students is the Colour Run. The Colour Run was open to all Rotherham Schools and led by the Rotherham School Games team.

Over 700 students from 24 schools took part - running around the field while getting smothered in paint… But it was all in the name of charity and we’re super proud that, in total, over £7000 was raised for Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice.

All of our primary schools also apply for a School Games Mark each year - this is awarded for participation in the Rotherham and National School Games tournaments and events. As you can see on the poster above, we had some wonderful results this year! Well done to all of our primary schools!

WPT Sports Day

An important event in our secondary school calendar each year is the WPT Sports Day and this year was no exception - what a joyous (and equally competitive) day for all involved.

Over 200 Y6-Y9 students took part in a Mixed Rounders Competition at RCS in the morning and Athletics in the afternoon at Herringthorpe Stadium.

A huge well done to everyone involved, you represented your schools exceptionally well.

Wellbeing

Wellbeing of staff is very important to WPT, it underpins everything that we do, which is why we have developed our wellbeing package over the course of 2023/24. We have listened to feedback from our staff members very carefully and…

Introduced Wellbeing Events for Staff

In December, we launched our very first staff wellbeing event. Over 150 members of staff took part in Christmas Wreath making; the Trust provided all the necessary equipment and materials to create their own Christmas wreath that they could take home.

April saw the next event - Easter Egg Cheesecake making! Over 165 members of staff took part and took home a tasty cheesecake nestled inside their Easter egg.

Our Summer Social was the most successful yet, with over 215 participants coming together for strawberries and cream, and to create their own mocktails to celebrate the end of the academic year!

Stay tuned to see what's coming next year 👀...

Partnered with Perkbox

On the 1st July, we launched Perbox across the Trust. Perkbox is an online platform bursting with benefits, discounts and special offers that we think will make a real difference.

As of 10th July, 68% of the Trust had signed up to Perkbox and started to make savings across their shopping, fitness and days out! Stay tuned for the launch of Reward and Celebration next year!

Performing Arts

We’re lucky to have tremendous theatrical and musical talent across our Trust - staff and students - and we know that we can put on a good show! Take a look at just a few of the performances from this year…

Pantomimes/Summer Shows

All of our secondary schools host a pantomime and a summer show each year, where staff and students work tirelessly to put on their own version of popular theatre shows. This year’s were:

Wickersley School and Sports College - Robin Hood and Alice in Wonderland

Thrybergh Academy - Peter Pan

Clifton Community School - Moana Junior

Rawmarsh Community School - A Night at the Musicals

The Gainsborough Academy - The Addams Family

And what a performance they all put together! All students and staff did their schools and our Trust proud.

Movement Festivals

Over the year, three of our secondary schools put on Movement Festivals. Over 400 students take part in these events, to showcase talents ranging from ballet, to tap, to cheerleading. We event get to see a performance from members of staff too!

We can't wait to see what next year brings!

Peripatetic Music

Our Peripatetic Music lessons are also a key part of our music curriculum, where we give students the opportunity to learn one of the following: woodwind, brass, string, percussion and vocals.

We currently have 150 students who have 1:1 Peri lessons delivered by a team of eight teachers. Many of these students have successfully completed and passed graded music exams!

And to give the students some real-life experience of performing to large audiences, we put on music events at different stages of the year:

Young Musician of the Year

In October, we held the finals of our annual Young Musician of the Year competition. There were 25 students competiting across KS1 to KS4. We saw a range of musical talents, styles and intruments performed, from Heavy Metal to Classical.

Well done to everyone who took part!

Battle of the Bands

On Thursday 4th July, Clifton Community School once again hosted our annual Battle of the Bands event, with even more Rotherham schools getting involved!

The judges had some difficult decisions to make and it was a fantastic evening!

Sustainability

[Image by Genfit]

One of our main values as a Trust is sustainability and year on year we look at how we can become more eco-friendly and environmentally conscious.

As part of our commitment to sustainability, this year we began the installation of solar PV panels across all 13 of our schools. We secured £100,000 in grant funding from the North East & Yorkshire Net Zero Hub, through the second round of their Energy Project Enabling Fund, to help finance Phase One of the project.

The solar panels are estimated to generate around 270 MWh of electricity annually – significantly reducing our schools’ CO2 emissions by approximately 53.68 metric tons per year.

Money Matters

Money Matters is all about educating our students, early on, about financial situations. Wherever possible we link our Money Matters sessions to the topics that have been covered in the classroom so that students can more clearly see how important their mathematical knowledge can be to the lives they will lead in the future.

Our Year 7 students have been looking at a range of topics including Banking, Budgeting, The Cost of Living and What is Debt?
Our Year 8 students looked into Financial choices, Money Safety, Savings and Economies of the World.
Our Year 9 students were introduced to Inflation, Personal Budgeting, Taxes and Branding.
Our Year 10 students focused on Hosting a Major event such as the Olympics, Long Term Financial Planning (2 Sessions) and Sources of Reliable Financial Information.

Students have responded exceptionally well to these sessions, and have been taking part in some extremely informative discussions which will help prepare them for life beyond WPT.

School Report

During the Summer 2 term, some of our Y5, 6, 7 and 8 students got a chance to take part in the WPT School Report, delivered by our Media Team. The aim of the project was to give students from across all 13 of our schools the opportunity to use their voice on the topical subjects that matter the most to them, by creating either a video, podcast or new article.

Take a look at the showcase of the students’ work here:

https://wickersleypt.org/our-schools/wpt-school-report/

Residentials

Y5s and Y6s from across the Trust took part in a two-night camp-out and got stuck into lots of exciting activities across three days. The children took part in a variety of team building activities where they had to solve puzzles and work together in order to complete the tasks.

They also got a chance to take part in activities and watersports – such as kayaking and orienteering – at Ulley Reservoir.

Primary Proms

At the beginning of July, Y6s from all of our primary schools came together to celebrate the end of their primary school journey at the WPT Y6 Prom!

Before they officially start their new schools, we wanted to wrap their time with us up with some games, dancing, food and friends! They were fantastic evenings, which included a disco, a catwalk, games and a photobooth.

Good luck for the future, Y6!

Transition

The importance of a good start to secondary school education cannot be overemphasised. Our transition programme ensures that we embed the learning habits that will stand our students in good stead for their future academic studies. We believe that all students joining us in Year 7 should understand the core values and expectations of the school, experience the sense of school community and be familiar with the school site, key staff and peers.

This year, we've had the following number of students take part in our Transition weeks:

CCS - 241
RCS - 224
TA - 111
TGA - 152
WSSC - 344

We've had some wonderful feedback, from students and parents below:

Time to Celebrate!

Photos & Memories

The WPT Media Team attended 10 separate end of year celebration events - Year 6 and Year 11 Proms, and Secondary Sports Awards. At each event, a photo booth (or booths!) was set up so that students could take home a memento, professionally-printed photograph of their night. WPT only charge the cost of the materials and staffing at these events, meaning students only paid £2 per photo, saving students and families a combined thousands of pounds when compared to external professional photography companies.

Over the 10 events a staggering 1982 photos were printed!

Celebration Assemblies

To celebrate the amazing achievements of our students across this academic year, our five secondary schools each held a celebration assembly for each year group. Students were awarded in categories including Effort, Attendance, Pledges, School Ways and, of course, Top Students.

After each assembly, family members had professional photos taken with award winners, that were emailed home to parents after the event.

A huge well done to all Award Winners!

WPT is 10 Celebrations

WPT is 10 Showcase

As part of our WPT is 10 celebrations, we're putting on a showcase of talents for students, parents, teachers and members of our community. The event aims to mark a decade of educational achievements, people development, community involvement and looking to the future.

To make this event as spectacular as possible for our students and local community, we need your help! We're looking for sponsors for the events that we're running across our celebration week - if you or someone you know would be interested in providing corporate sponsorship, please email communications@wickersleypt.org for more information and packages.

Further information about this event will follow soon...

Want to see everything else that we've been up to the year we turned 10?

Take a look at the links below 👇

On behalf of Wickersley Partnership Trust, we hope you have a great summer!

Wickersley Partnership Trust

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