Dear Parent/Carer

I hope you are well and looking forward to the summer holidays. It has been a fantastic term with so much happening for the academy. We started the term off with the last of our values weeks, which was Collaboration. We spent the week working together on projects including visits to the National Justice Museum, Music and Media afternoon and interform competitions. 

The introduction of our 5 key values is something that we will continue to focus upon throughout the academic year 2025-2026. To remind you, our values are:

• Kindness
• Respect
• Celebration
• Collaboration
• Positivity

We believe that they are all really important, not just in school but at home and in our lives generally.

On the 10th and 11th of June we were visited by Ofsted. This is my second Ofsted inspection at Stone Soup Academy, the last one being back in 2019, so this inspection was a long time coming. 

Well I am pleased to report that we are still:

The full report can be found on our website, it is worth a read and hopefully it will make you very proud of the academy that your child attends. The first sentence says ‘Stone Soup Academy continues to provide an exceptional quality of education and care for pupils who are outside mainstream education. Although the visit was over two days, what we achieved is testament to the hard work and commitment to our young people not just over two days but over the past seven years. Thank you for all your support and encouragement. Now we will get on with the job in hand which is preparing Stone Soup for the next seven years!

At the end of June our students participated in the AP Olympics, which is an event where all the alternative provisions in the region join together and compete in different sports. As usual we did really well and we were so proud of the young people who participated.

On Friday, the 27th of June Suits day took place for our year 11 young people who are leaving the Academy. It was an amazing day celebrating with parents and our year 11 their journey through the academy.

This is an annual event at the academy for all our leavers in year 11 and in the lead up to the event we buy all of our year 11 students a suit or outfit to wear. As you may imagine it was a beautiful day.

July has been filled with lots of activities for our young people including summer games at both Milbie House and High pavement, Art and Photography afternoon, Personal Development afternoon and Business and Enterprise afternoon. We raised lots of money for the Daniel Baird Foundation, a knife crime charity campaigning for ‘bleed kits’ across cities. All staff and some students wore red on the 3rd of July. As we near the end of the year we are still offering opportunities for our young people, including a trip to Drayton Manor and Spring Lakes, laser quest and meals out. With all these exciting opportunities, it’s a wonder we have time to fit in the quality education that we do!

The term will end with a standout event, Stand Up to Knife Crime (SUTKC) which each year is held at Metronome in the city. It is a free event for the general public and family and friends of the Academy. It hopes to highlight the dangers of knife crime in our community. Each year it gets bigger and better and I am always very excited about the event on Wednesday 23rd of July.

This year we will end on Thursday, the 24th of July for Students at 12 noon. Assemblies and prizegiving will be held in the morning and students will be offered a packed lunch. Should they wish before they leave at 12.

Students will return to the Academy on Thursday 4th of September at 9 a.m.

I hope that you have a lovely summer and that the weather holds for us all. As usual during the summer holiday personal coaches will be available for our young people and some of our young people will be receiving check-in calls just so we don’t lose contact with them before they return in September.

If you do have any concerns or questions then please do not hesitate to contact the academy.

Happy holidays!

Kind regards,

Kerrie Henton

Executive Principal