Dear Parent / Carer

Once again, it has been a very busy week for students. Students in key stage 4 and key stage 5 received their BTEC Unit results from their most recent Pearson Set Assignment (PSA) activity. These grades will count towards their final, overall grade, that they will receive in August. We are pleased to see so many students doing really well with their BTEC courses with great results following the excellent work they have been doing in lessons.

This week we began the process of interviewing for our new student leadership team. Interviews will continue over the coming week and we look forward to sharing details of our new student leadership team during the final week of the term.

Careers have been a big focus for us this week. Sixth form students had the opportunity to spend time with Kier this week, looking at lots of different roles that the company offers, along with the different training routes that they provide, including apprenticeships. Students in year 7 to 11 had the opportunity to talk with a wide range of employers. This is all part of our personal development offer to support students with preparing for their future careers. We are extremely grateful to those companies who gave up their time to support our students. Please do get in touch with the school if you are able to offer support for this event next year.

Our values consultation has now concluded and I am pleased to share that there has been overwhelming support for our change in values. Student feedback has said that the new values better represent our school, and that they are more meaningful to them. Staff are also in support of change, along with those families who responded to our parent consultation. In response to this we now have some work to do to prepare for this adjustment which we will implement after the Easter break. We will also be introducing some other changes after Easter. We are branding these changes as the Rushden Refresh and we are excited to share these with you next week. These changes will focus on raising our expectations of students further, embedding our new STARR values, and strengthening our classroom routines. So you are aware, these changes will not impact parents or carers, but there will be some small changes to how the school day looks and functions. I look forward to sharing more details with you next week! 

To facilitate the required staff training for our Rushden Refresh, students will be finishing school early on the last day of term. Therefore, on Friday 4th April, students will be finishing school at 1:15pm. If you require supervision for your child until 3pm, please contact the school office so we can support. Students will return to school after the Easter holiday on Tuesday 22nd April. 

We hope you all have a lovely weekend, and we look forward to seeing all students next week.

Yours sincerely,

Mr J Firth

Principal

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to this week's school newsletter, keeping you informed about important events and updates.

It was lovely to meet so many Year 9 parents yesterday for our options evening launch event. We hope that you found this evening helpful in initiating discussions with your child about which courses they would like to take next year for Key Stage 4. Please remember that students have the opportunity to meet employers from a wide range of companies at our careers fair next Thursday. We will be in touch shortly with those parents who were unable to attend the event to ensure you receive the same information to support your child. We will also share the PowerPoint presentation from the evening with you, so you can refer back to any information we shared. Finally, please remember that option forms need to be returned by April 1st, and that options will not be processed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Continuing with the focus on careers, Sixth Form students had their careers event this week. The event for Sixth Form students runs as a structured networking event, which ensures all students have the opportunity to ask questions of all our visitors. We received excellent feedback from both students and our visitors, and we look forward to continuing to work with local businesses to support our students. If you feel that you are able to support one of our careers events in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Over the next couple of weeks, all students in Years 7 to 9 will be completing a PASS survey. PASS stands for Pupil’s Attitudes to Self and School, and it will provide us with more information on how students feel about themselves and school, so we can work more closely to break down any barriers and support individuals with the wide range of support we have available in school. The survey is very short and will be facilitated in school. This is a commonly used survey tool, and we hope that this additional information will only strengthen our offer of support for the students and families we serve.

Our assembly this week was led by Mrs Owen and Sixth Form students. The assembly focused on sharing the impact from the recent visit to India and how our collaboration with the Salt of the Earth charity, which is helping young children and families have access to clean supplies of water and access to education. We are already starting to make arrangements for our visit next year.

Finally, I wanted to thank you again for your support and patience with the rollout of the parent app MCAS. As of today, all families and students in Years 7 to 11 will have access to the platform, allowing you to see timetables, behaviour information, and attendance statistics. We are now working on the rollout for our Sixth Form students and families, but we have a number of things we need to do to ensure the data presented is accurate. We will continue to work on this behind the scenes and we will update you when we have more information on this.

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

Yours sincerely,

Mr J Firth

Principal