Bulletin: **Due to the weather conditions we have decided to close the Academy for 25/01/2021, we will be re-opening on the 26/01/2021.**Winner of the TES 2020 Alternative Provision of the Year**. Due to Covid 19 everyone entering the Academy must wear a mask apart from when they are in the classroom.
We are proud to be Ofsted Outstanding 2019 *** TES 2020 Winners of Alternative Provision school of the year ***
Stone Soup Academy will provide places for students who are outside of mainstream education. Students are referred by schools and local education authorities from across the East Midlands.
We only accept referrals through schools.
Parents cannot ‘choose’ Stone Soup Academy as an option for secondary education in the first instance as we are set up to deal with learners at risk of exclusion.
For more information, please view our Admissions Policy.
Whilst we do not have open days, potential students are invited via their referrer to visit the Academy for a tour of the site with their parent/carer.
We are proud to be Ofsted Outstanding
At the Stone Soup Academy we focus on supporting students with SEND through a range of support, interventions and differentiation.
Stone Soup Academy focuses on engagement with education and reintegration with schools. The average time a student is with us is 28 weeks, and the courses offered to students reflect that. With this in mind, we offer GCSEs and GCSE equivalents in-line with the time a student will be with us, their starting point and alignment with the referring school’s needs.
Percentage of pupils who achieved a 4-9 or above in English and Maths GCSE
Percentage of pupils who achieved a GCSE (or equivalent) at any grade
Percentage of pupils who achieved a pass in any qualification
Percentage of students staying in education or employment offer key stage 4 (destinations)
Percentage of students who achieved a GCSE in English and Maths
Please find information relating to our curriculum.
Please click here to read our Curriculum Statement
At the Stone Soup Academy we focus on supporing students with SEND through a range of support, interventions and differentiation.
The pupil premium is additional funding for publicly funded schools in England to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils of all abilities and to close the gaps between them and their peers.
Stone Soup Academy only receives funding for students who are on single roll with us; referring schools use their Pupil Premium Funding to send students to our academy and as such the funding is used to provide personalised education for the students in that way. We do not receive this PPF directly and assume that it makes up part of the commissioning fees to the Stone Soup Academy.
The PPF that we do receive directly, along with the commissioning fees, are used to personalise learning through incentives, specialist tutors, college days and other similar items. This has helped students improve their attainment and ensure that disadvantaged students do not experience barriers to their learning and development. We have also invested this into establishing a healthy eating programme at the school, ensuring the students have access to and knowledge about better nutrition.
Our careers and employability programme gives students opportunities to develop transferable skills, ensuring that they are fully supported to make informed choices about the next stage in their education, employment or training and also making use of expertise from other organisations such as Futures.
Our aim for all of our young people is that they go on to lead happy, successful and fulfilling careers in the future. Pupils receive advice and guidance to help inspire them towards further study and enable them to make informed decisions whenever choices are open to them. We are committed to ensuring our provision of careers and employability education meets the requirements of the Gatsby Benchmarks.
The Gatsby Benchmarks are a framework of 8 guidelines that define the best careers provision in schools and colleges. The results show how our answers compare to the 8 Gatsby Benchmarks
Benchmark 1
100% of students receive advice and guidance interviews from Jordan who has a Level 6 Diploma in Careers Guidance and Development.
100% of students last year received conditional offers from their desired destination.
Students can access work experience opportunities with this login through the Futures website:
username: StoneSoupStudent
password: Stonesoup123
We measure the success of the careers programme through percentage of students in work, employment or training. In 2016/17 we had 94% of students either in education, work or training and in 2017/18 this increased to 96%, 2018/2019 it went to 97% and now in 2019/2020 it is at 100%
Our Careers information can be accessed through our Careers Leader Jordan Senior and Jordan can be contacted via email: jsenior@stonesoupacademy.org.uk or via telephone on
0115 8221834.
We review the careers programme annually.
Feedback from Companies regarding our students
We had 5 students attend work experience at HMRC last year and they really excelled. Two students have been asked to go back as a representation to show how beneficial work experience can be.
Governors: Colin Bradley, Tina Byrom, Kerrie Henton, Richard Elston, Joanne Humphreys, Joanna Gillum and Claire Turnbull
Please refer to the Governance page for further details regarding the governing body.
If you require any copies of the information above, please contact the school directly and these will be provided free of charge. Any enquiries should be addressed to the Principal, Kerrie Henton.
Please see Our Mission in conjunction with the Equal Opportunities for Students Policy.
We do not require payment from parents/carers for any aspect of the services we provide. Lunch, trips and activities are all provided at no cost to parents.
Are you worried about online sexual abuse or the way someone has been communicating with you online?
Get help and advice about a wide range of issues, call us on 0800 1111, talk to a counsellor online, send Childline an email or post on the message boards.
I am 16 years old and I was excluded from school when I was 13 because I found it difficult to behave in school. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to me and that made me feel nervous. I arrived at Stone Soup Academy and I haven’t looked back. My attendance is now 100% and I am doing really well. I study media, construction, multi skills and sport alongside GCSE’s in English and Maths and I’ve already achieved 2 qualifications in level 2 Media and level 1 hairdressing. Stone Soup has really had a positive impact on me by changing my behaviour, the staff try to help me in as many ways possible. They are polite and it is very different to mainstream. I never wanted to go to my mainstream school and now I look forward to coming to Stone soup and I come all the time. We always shake hands when we arrive and leave.
The teachers always discuss the future and what I can do which really helps.
We earn money for our behaviour and attendance which is just like the real world.
I have really enjoyed my time at Stone Soup and to be honest I will miss it when I leave but without Stone Soup I wouldn’t have become the person that I am today, a person with a bright future.
By the age of 14 I was already a failure. At least in the eyes of the education system. In mainstream school you are stuck in classes of up to 30 people and only one teacher. So when you want help you have to wait for the teacher to come round. This would take ages and so you would just give up waiting. They were some examples of the problems facing students in mainstream students into today’s world.
I attended a mainstream school in Nottingham, in my opinion the biggest issues were, there wasn’t enough staff to be able to support all the students in the school. As well as having packed corridors in between lessons made it very tight. This made the school feel like a very stressed environment for both staff and students. Also the school days are very long and you have to 5-6 lessons a day witch are about an hour long and still get given homework, this leaves no down time for students.
However ever since i have joined Stone Soup Academy school life has become a lot more easier, for example its first name terms with all teachers and instead of just walking around a cold field at mainstream you play FIFA and pool at break and lunch which can improve friendships and make it a better learning environment for both staff and students. Also class sizes are 10 times smaller than mainstream with no more than 10 students in a class. This means that students get help a lot quicker an therefor learn more in a shorter amount of time.
If I had to compare the two types of education the main differences would be that Stone Soup has a lot more relaxed feel to it than mainstream which results in people both staff and students feeling more able to concentrate on what they need to do. This is why at Stone Soup you can get work done a lot quicker and still feel like you’ve learnt something.
To conclude I think that if every mainstream changed the way they managed situations it would feel more relaxed and therefore student results would increase hugely. The problem is education is always getting budget cuts and are still expected to give students more support.
