Academy News Stories

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Message From the Principal 17.01.2025

Dear Parent / Carer

We’ve had another eventful week at Rushden Academy, full of exciting developments and achievements. Here’s a roundup of this week’s highlights:

On Monday we welcomed 8 teacher trainees into school to support them on their journey to becoming qualified teachers. This involved the trainees visiting a number of lessons, speaking to staff and students, and collecting evidence from the day to support their assignments as part of their learning journey. We are very privileged that we are able to support trainees on their journey, and we will continue to work closely with the local training providers to continue to support this work.

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of meeting our newly relaunched student council. The students presented a well-crafted proposal advocating for the return of mufti days, emphasizing inclusivity, self-expression, and fundraising for charity. They also committed to targets, including improving attendance and reducing negative behaviours.

We are incredibly proud of their presentation and debating skills. As a result, we’ve set an attendance goal of 95%, after which we’ll celebrate with a mufti day. Let’s all support this initiative and encourage students to reach this target!

Wednesday afternoon saw an insightful professional development session led by Mrs. Brainwood. The focus was on refining lesson resources and scaffolding questions to enhance student engagement and learning. We’ll monitor the impact of this training as part of our ongoing quality assurance in teaching and learning.

Congratulations to our students and the Maths team for their exceptional engagement with the PiXL Maths App! This tool is crucial for homework and bespoke revision tasks for Year 11 students. We’re thrilled to announce that Rushden Academy has been recognised as the top school in the country for app engagement. A huge well done to everyone involved!

Finally, I wanted to let you know that we’re transitioning from Go4Schools to a new system called Bromcom for managing pupil data. Key staff are currently undergoing training, with more training sessions planned for all teachers soon. Next week, I’ll provide detailed information about this change and what parents need to do to prepare.

Thank you for your continued support. Have a wonderful weekend!

Yours sincerely,

Mr J Firth

Principal

Message From the Principal 10.01.2025

Dear Parents/Carers,

Happy New Year! I hope you have all had a wonderful break and managed to have quality time with family and friends. Students have quickly settled back into the routines this week, and it has been brilliant to see students looking very smart in their school uniform. We continue to ensure uniform is impeccable throughout the school, and we will continue to offer support where it is needed. Please get in touch with a member of the team should you need any support.

I had the pleasure of delivering the assemblies to all students this week. It was an ideal opportunity to share some key milestones this term with students, such as deadlines for sixth form applications for year 11 students, dates of progress evenings, and the date for our Year 9 Options Evening which is being held in March. I also spoke to students about setting goals for the year, and thinking carefully about how we can ensure these goals are achieved through being consistent with our focus and approach, and trying to make marginal gains each day with everything we do.

71 students have been having a great time this week in Andorra. We are looking forward to welcoming them back tomorrow evening. Details on the time of return will be communicated to parents as soon as we can. It will be easier to confirm this once students have completed the Eurotunnel journey and are back in the country. I am sure that students will be eager to let you know too. I hope you have managed to see some of the pictures on social media, and I am sure that students will be excited to share their photos and stories with you when they return. Details of the coach tracker will be made available again on social media.

Following the Progress 1 reports, we have put together progress boards in school for each year group. Students have been allocated an animal name so they can see where their progress is in comparison to the rest of the year group. We hope that this will encourage and motivate students to be the best version of themselves. Students have been encouraged not to share their animal name with each other unless they choose to do so. This ensures that all students’ progress data is kept private to the individual. Year 11 progress boards are based on their progress compared to their targets, whilst data for year 7 to 10 aggregates data from the following: Progress, Attitude to Learning, Team Rushden Points, and Behaviour.

Before the Holiday, members of #TeamRushden supported the Rushden Round Table to support and raise money for various charities. We are very excited to share that we raised just over £500 from the Santa Sleigh evening and the Rushden Round Table have added a further £100 to this. This is most we have ever raised from this event, and we are very grateful for the donations and contributions received. The evening was great fun and we look forward to supporting this again this year.

I would like to remind everyone that we have lots of different systems in school that allow your child to report a concern they may have. All students have access to a safeguarding mobile phone number that they can text or call at any time if they are worried about something. Students also have access to our anonymous reporting system on the school website that they can use to report a concern. We have a facility on every school computer to report a concern via a Google Form, or if they would like to, they can talk to any member of the team. We would never want a student to feel as though they were not able to talk to someone, or report a concern they have, so please remind your child that there are many ways to report any concerns.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Your sincerely

Jonathan Firth

Year 11 Progress Evening 23rd January 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

RE: Year 11 Progress Evening 23rd January 2025

Venue: Main Hall

Time: 4.00pm-7.00pm

The Year 11 meet the Progress Evening is a fantastic opportunity for parents or carers to discuss the progress of their child with their teachers. We encourage all parents and carers to attend as there will be a lot of valuable information and support on offer.

Rushden Academy uses an on-line Parents Evening booking system. This can be found on the home page at www.rushden-academy.net

The link for the booking system can be found under the quick links box to the right of the home page. Booking will open on Thursday 9th January at 7pm.

If you are unable to access the school home page please contact the school so that we can support you in making appointments.

After parental feedback we have made all appointments 6 minutes long with 1 minute movement between. A bell will be rung to indicate when the discussion needs to be brought to a conclusion, please try to stick to the timings for the benefit of everyone.

The online booking system will close on Wednesday 22nd January at 12 noon.

We hope you will find the evening an enjoyable one and we look forward to welcoming you on the 23rd January 2025.

Yours sincerely,

Trevor Billam

Vice Principal