Dear Parent/Carer

 

Well we have done it and reached the end of another superb year at Stone Soup Academy, in fact the first full year since 2018-2019!! So everyone is tired and I am sure that you are too. But it has been a great year for our young people and the Academy and we have yet again achieved so much. 

 

Since the start of the year we have never lost our vision and focus of creating unimagined futures and this was very evident In May and June when all our students sat down to complete their formal exams, again the first for three years and they did brilliantly. We are hoping for really positive results. Our academy was shortlisted for the TES school of the year for staff wellbeing which was quite an honour. We have invited students who have left us for many years back into the academy to catch up and this was a great success. We celebrated suits day with all our year 11 students, we bought them all suits and celebrated their successes down at the Broadway Cinema in Hockley, it was a very proud day for both staff and parents. We enjoyed media and music day, making films and music and learning how to DJ.

 

Our students enjoyed a day messing about in the water at Spring Lakes, what a brilliant day that was and we have also held enterprise day, visits to the Castle, art and photography day, making a huge mosaic for the courtyard and we managed to throw in some mock exams. We finally hosted our second Stand Up to Knife Crime event at the Metronome in Nottingham and this was all since the start of June.

 

As I am writing this letter to you, our students will be planning what they will be going onto  at Drayton Manor Theme park on Monday, if they are lucky enough to be going. On Tuesday year 9 and 10 will again be at Broadway Cinema, where we will be celebrating their successes before they depart at 12 noon to either start their summer holidays or choose to return to the academy to pick up a lunch bag before leaving to return home. Stepping Stones and KS3 at Richmond House will be holding their own event to celebrate the successes of our younger students before they will be released at 12.20 to return home for the summer holidays.

 

During the summer break, we feel that it is important to continue to maintain contact with our young people, so our personal coaches will be contacting their key students by phone to check in with them. This will happen once a week for the whole summer. We find that by continuing this contact over the summer that it doesn’t feel like such a big thing to return in September for our young people, as contact was never lost.

 

The arrangements for our return in September are as follows

 

Wednesday 7th September: Year 11 and Stepping Stones return at 9 a.m.

Thursday 8th September: All students return at 9 a.m.

 

Next year is a very important year for Stone Soup Academy, as we will have been open for 10 years since 2012. To celebrate this amazing achievement, we have a whole host of opportunities for our young people to become involved in during the coming year including:-

 

Residentials to Derbyshire (November & December), Wales (March) and New York (April).

Visit to the Royal Theatre in Nottingham in December to see the Christmas pantomime.

Visit to the Lyceum Theatre, London in January to see The Lion King

Plus Spring Lakes, Theme park visit, in house events and again Stand Up to Knife Crime, a night of music and spoken word at this time next year.

 

Wow! What a jam packed year we have planned and this is alongside all the normal activities that we do to make learning fun and to ensure that your children succeed and achieve so that they all have a positive future to strive for.

 

Sadly as with most schools we do have some staff leaving us this term. All three members of staff have been with us since the start of their careers and we have trained and supported them to become excellent teachers, but it is time for them to spread their wings and to bring some Stone Soup magic to other schools. We wish them all the best but we will be sad to see them go. The members of staff are:-

 

Leona in Food

Josh in Music 

Jason in Science

 

The exciting news is that Stevie, one of our very popular personal coaches, will be taking over Music and starting his training to become a fully qualified Teacher, he already has a degree in Music Technology so the future of music is in safe hands. We also have a very experienced teacher taking over in Food and again we are excited to welcome a qualified teacher to continue the great work in Science started by Jason. I am sure that you will join us all in wishing them good luck for the future.

 

I do hope that you enjoy your summer and that you all keep safe and well. As always if we can help in any way please do not hesitate to contact us over the summer and we will see you all in September.

 

Kind regards

Kerrie Henton

Principal

 

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