Dear Parent/Carer

We have reached the end of our first term and what an exciting term it has been as we settle into the new academic year, our tenth year of operation. This year is going to be amazing with so many opportunities available for our young people as we celebrate these ten years. 

Letters have already been sent out to you in regard to the New York trip that we are running at Easter. Alongside this amazing opportunity, we are also running lots of visits and trips that are closer to home. These include:-

• November: Edale Residential 
• December: Edale Residential 
• Theatre Visit to Pantomime in December
• The Lion King in London in January
• Wales week residential 

We are also looking at a huge number of cultural capital events including subject visits, sporting events, museums and galleries. These trips will all support the development of your child’s knowledge and experience to help them to be successful in life once they leave us.

This term, we have completed our first set of mock exams. We have used this opportunity to give our young people an experience of the real thing so that when it comes to the summer, that the exams are not such a shock for year 11. It also gives us a great indication of your child’s progress in Maths and English, so we can put in support where it is required.

Our mocks will commence next term during the week commencing the 12th of December. We will send you a letter with further details closer to the time.

Our new food teacher Bev is settling in well. Already the aromas coming from the food room are amazing. This week we have been celebrating World food day by cooking many different cuisines across the world. We have also been celebrating Black History month, again in food by providing all students a Caribbean feast on Wednesday 13th of October.

Lovelle, one of our core team, has been focusing on spooky stories. There is a competition for all students to write a spooky story and return to Lovelle by 31st of October, prizes are available for everyone who enters. This is a great opportunity to focus upon the development of our young people’s reading and writing skills. 

Stevie has taken over in Music, and he has spent this term linking the academy with a local music studio. This has given the young people a great opportunity to experience music technology in the real work environment. 

This year as a school, we have decided to support Emmanuel House in the centre of Nottingham. Emmanuel House is a homeless charity supporting people who find them in unfortunate circumstances. We are hoping that through events throughout the year that we will be able to raise some money for this great cause.

The World Cup is almost upon us and we have quite a few young people who are desperate to watch the only England game that is shown during school time. We want to support our home nation, so for those students who are interested, we will be showing the game in our games room. This will be open to any student for a small donation of £1 that will go directly to Emmanuel House.. We are also planning a VIP area for a select number of students if they wish to pay £2, again all money raised will be paid to Emmanuel House. On that day all staff and students will be dressed to support our team and again raise money for the charity.

Students return to the academy on Monday 31st of October at normal time. 

We have lots to look forward to next term including:- an external provider’s week, Dreeams workshops around health and wellbeing, two residentials and a theatre trip, we also have Thanksgiving where we celebrate other cultures and on that day we will be cooking up a storm in the kitchen making an American feast which will be shared across KS3 & 4 on both sites.

As always, we could not achieve what we do without your continued support to ensure that your children attend everyday on time. Thank you for helping us achieve our vision of creating unimagined futures for our Stone Soup family.

I hope that you have a great two weeks holiday and as always if you have any questions or queries then please contact me.

Kind regards

Kerrie Henton

Principal