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Message From the Principal 07.03.2025

Dear Parents/Carers,

We have had a very busy week this week as we move forwards with our new management information system, Bromcom. We have shared the schedule for rolling out the parent app, MCAS (My Child At School), on our social media channels, further details are below. This app will enable you to monitor your child's attendance and behaviour in school. We will look to add other functionality and communication through this app in the future, but for the moment we will look to keep things simple! We thank you all for your patience whilst we roll out this system to all parents and students.

Parents of Year 11 and 10 students now have access to the platform. Please check your emails (including your junk), and remember you only have 24 hours to use the provided link to set up your account.

Year 9 will receive access on Monday, Year 8 on Wednesday, and Year 7 on Friday next week. This allows us time to respond to any issues or concerns in a manageable way.

On Monday this week, all families with children moving to a secondary school in September were informed of their secondary school placement. We would like to give a warm welcome to all of our new families and pupils who will be joining #TeamRushden this year. We will be in touch with information about our transition programme including our welcome evening, where students will meet their new form tutor, and our two transition days in due course. All information for new families will be shared via a platform called Applicaa, again, please check your junk emails too.

On Friday morning, I met with our student council to talk about a consultation on our school values. I would like to extend this consultation to you all to gather your views on how we can amend our values to better reflect where the school is, where we are going. We currently have very strong values that are linked with our Ethos team, and our personal development programme. Students know these values at the Rushden STARR: Serve, Thrive, Aspire, Respect, Resilient. Our proposal is that we adopt these values as our main school values. A summary of the values we are proposing to adopt is below:

  • Serve – We encourage students to contribute to their communities, support one another, and make a positive impact.
  • Thrive – We create an environment where every student can grow academically, socially, and emotionally.
  • Aspire – We inspire ambition, determination, and the pursuit of excellence in all areas of life.
  • Respect – We foster a culture of kindness, inclusion, and integrity, where everyone is valued.
  • Resilient – We empower students to embrace challenges, learn from setbacks, and persist with confidence.

To share your feedback on our values consultation, please click on the link below. We will close this consultation at 4pm on Friday 14th March:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdZxfYk88R7cpYrdU4D6VHLwPwobGTV-ECP0EJAK43YLJMBTw/viewform?usp=sharin

Through adopting these values, we will be better placed to create a school environment where every student is inspired to aspire, encouraged to explore, and empowered to succeed.

Finally, on Tuesday this week, year 9 students had a day of workshops and sessions provided by a team called “Prison, Me, No Way!” We are grateful for the support provided by the Rotary Club with funding this important project for our students. We received very positive feedback from our guests leading the sessions, and students found this project helpful with understanding the consequences of poor choices in the community. 

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and we look forward to sharing further updates next week. 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 Mr J Firth

Principal

 

Message From the Principal 28.02.2025

Dear parent/carer,

I hope you all had a wonderful half term break, and managed to enjoy some of the lovely weather that we had.

Students have settled back into our routines very well, and it has been great to see the positive impact of some of our new initiatives this week. Firstly, our focus on punctuality has significantly reduced lateness to school, with instances decreasing by more than 50% this week. This improvement will contribute to better overall attendance and help students reach their target of 95% attendance, which will allow them to participate in a mufti day. Students have four more weeks to achieve this goal.

We have an important evening coming up for parents of Year 9 students on Thursday, 13th March, where we will be sharing information about our Key Stage 4 options. This event is crucial for Year 9 students as it provides them with the opportunity to explore available subjects, speak to key teachers, and make informed decisions about their courses for Years 10 and 11. Further details, including a link to book a slot for one of our talks on the options process, will be shared with you soon.

At the end of last half-term, our performing arts students delivered an Internet Safety performance to a local primary school, and we received outstanding feedback. We were informed that, as a result of the performance, a young pupil was able to report a significant concern after learning about specific online dangers. This reinforces the importance of our work with the local community and reminds us of the real impact we can have.

Next week, we will be celebrating National Careers Week in school. A variety of activities will take place during form times to help students explore the wide range of career opportunities available to them and inspire them to think ambitiously about their futures.

Finally, we know many of you are eager to access the parent portal of our new management information system, My Child At School (MCAS). We are working hard to ensure everything is set up correctly before launching it next week. While we understand the current lack of access to school data may be frustrating, we want to make sure the transition is as smooth as possible. We will provide further updates on this next week. Staff have been adapting to the Bromcom system in school, and we are confident that once MCAS is live, you will see the benefits of this significant upgrade.

I hope you have a lovely weekend, and I look forward to sharing more updates with you next week.

Yours sincerely

Jonathan Firth

Principal

Message From the Principal 14.02.2025

Dear Parent / Carer

The final week of the half term has been incredibly busy, particularly for our performing arts students! Last night, the Performing Arts department hosted its annual Spring Showcase. It was fantastic to see the incredible talent at Rushden Academy and the diverse range of performances from students across all year groups, including the sixth form. We are immensely proud of our students for their hard work and dedication, especially those who performed for the first time in front of a sell-out audience!

We are now looking forward to A Night at the Musicals in April, an event that will help raise funds for our summer production of Shrek. Meanwhile, KS3 students are working hard in preparation for their upcoming performance of The Wizard of Oz in May.

Our performing arts students have also contributed to Safer Internet Week by performing ‘Add Me’, a powerful piece highlighting the dangers of social media. This performance was showcased at local primary schools and The Deco theatre. We are honoured to be invited each year to share this important message, and we are incredibly proud of our sixth-form students for their work on this Theatre in Education unit.

As part of our rewards programme, we held our half-termly rewards assemblies this week. These assemblies provide a valuable opportunity to celebrate the achievements of our student community and reflect on their successes.

On Wednesday, we celebrated student attendance with our half-termly prize draw. Students with 95% or higher attendance were entered into a draw, which was broadcast live across the school via Google Meet. This event helps unite the whole school in recognising students with excellent attendance. For those who didn’t quite meet the 95% threshold this time, we reset the draw each half term, giving all students six opportunities to qualify throughout the year.

As we move into the next half term, we will begin preparing for our Easter rewards celebration. Mr Smart will continue to share details of this event, including the success criteria, via social media and assemblies.

Our Sports Leaders also hosted another successful sports session at Whitefriars Primary School this week. We always receive fantastic feedback about these events, and we are incredibly proud of how our students embody the #TeamRushden values.

As a reminder for after half term, due to Mrs Broughton starting her maternity leave, Mrs Evans will be taking over the Head of Year responsibilities for years 7 and 8. Year 9 students will be supported by Mr A. Smith in his role of Director of Key Stage 4.

We wish all families a wonderful half-term break and look forward to welcoming students back to the academy on Monday, 24th February 2025.

Yours sincerely,

Mr J Firth

Principal

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Rushden Academy

  • Hayway,
    Rushden,
    Northamptonshire.
    NN10 6AG

  • 01933 350391

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