Dear Parent/Carers

Happy Easter!

We have now completed two thirds of the school year and what a lot has been accomplished over that time. We have now finally purchased a second site for our young people right in the centre of Nottingham, Milbie House. This is so exciting for the academy and gives us an opportunity to expand our already outstanding offer to our young people.

Milbie House is next door to the Lace Market multi storey car park and only a 1 minute walk from our KS4 site at High Pavement. We purchased the building at the end of last year and since then we have been developing the building into a technological hub for our young people. The investment in our second site has been huge and it has enabled us to install interactive TVs in every classroom, a cinema room, an immersive room using the latest technology to engage our young people, a sensory room and fully kitted out gym. It is an amazing space and we will be open to our key stage 3 young people on Monday 22nd of April.

To facilitate the move from Richmond House to Milbie House our KS3 young people will be working remotely from Tuesday 16th April – Friday 19th April, returning to Milbie House on Monday 22nd at normal time. Work will be provided and Katy Smith: Assistant Principal KS3 will be sending out further details.  All KS4 students will return as normal after the Easter break return on Tuesday 16th April.

From September we will be reviewing how we use both sites and how we can organise the curriculum to give our young people the best start in their journey with us. I will update you next term as plans are finalised.

We have also completed our second trip abroad taking 8 of our best students to Barcelona for 4 nights of fun and culture. This is part of the development of our cultural capital at the academy. It is aimed at giving our young people a greater range of opportunities and in line with our vision of creating unimagined futures for them.

This term we have also completed another Ingenuity project with the University of Nottingham, this is a great 6 week project which involves some of our young people in thinking about communities and devising a project brief to support them. Students who attended the full course were rewarded with £100 and there were also prizes for the presentation of their projects. 

Lots has been going on this term. We took part in the alternative provision football tournament, which was superb and came second against all the other alternative provision academies in Nottingham. We also participated in the University Maths challenge and had a great day. 

This term, year 11 students have been focused upon completing their coursework and preparing themselves for their formal exams which will start next term. Year 11 students will  need to attend all exams at 9 a.m. at Richmond House. English Literature will only be for those studying Literature. Please be aware that year 11 students do not complete their full time education until the last day in June so legally they are not allowed to go into full time employment until after this date.

Year 11: No holidays should be booked or taken before 28th of June

Exam Dates

Monday 13th May at 9 a.m. English Literature Paper 1 

Thursday 16th May at 9 a.m. Maths Paper 1 Non Calculator

Monday 20th May at 9 a.m. English Literature Paper 2

Thursday 23rd May at 9 a.m. English Language Paper 1 

Monday 3rd June at 9 a.m. Maths Paper 2 Calculator

Thursday 6th June at 9 a.m. English Language Paper 2

Monday 10th June at 9 a.m. Maths Paper 3 Calculator

After year 11 have completed their last exam on Monday 10th June, each student will be given their ticket to attend suits day which will be held at the Broadway Cinema on Friday 28th of June. All students who attend all their exams will have the opportunity to go to Suits day. We will start shopping for their suits which we buy for them in the weeks before the event. It is always an exciting and fun time.

Next term we will also start our passport to study leave. This is when each year 11 students will be given a passport with al;l their subjects in it. Each time they complete the coursework for a subject they will take it to Younes Henini: Vice Principal to get it stamped. Once all subjects are stamped they will be allowed to go on study leave after the May half term and return to the academy for revision sessions and their exams. As you may imagine this is really popular and hopefully all our year 11 young people will complete their coursework early to ensure that they make the most of their study leave.

We will be ending this term with reward trips for attendance and general performance during the last week of term and the academy will close for our young people at 2.45 p.m on Thursday 28th March.

I hope that you all have a lovely Easter break. As usual our engagement team will be keeping in contact with their key students but if you have any queries or concerns please let us know.

Kind regards

Kerrie Henton

Principal