Dear Parent / Carer

I am excited to be writing a special edition of my weekly newsletter to share with you more details of the changes we are introducing after the Easter break. We are making these changes to strengthen our offer to all students. We are committed to being inclusive in our approach, and we know that our students are going to benefit from clearer routines and structure to the school day. We are also introducing a new initiative, based on our new school values, following our successful consultation with stakeholders over this term. Details of all our changes and new initiatives are below:

Times of the school day:

We will be making some changes to the layout of the school day for all students. Please note that the start and end of the school day remain unchanged. After the holidays, the school day will be as follows:

AM Form 8:30 to 8:50

Period 1 8:50 to 9:50

Period 2 9:50 to 10:50

Break 10:50 to 11:15

Period 3 11:15 to 12:15

Period 4 12:15 to 13:15

Lunch 13:15 to 13:50

Period 5 13:50 to 14:50

PM Form 14:50 to 15:00

As you will see, we have simply shortened the morning form time by 10 minutes to create an opportunity for a short form time at the end of the school day. This will allow form tutors to have meaningful check-ins with students at both the start and end of the school day. Form tutors will also monitor their students’ engagement in their learning by reviewing their #TeamRushden STARR CARD.

#TeamRushden STARR Card

Following our values consultation, we have created a new initiative to support students with their learning and behaviour over the course of the week. The aim of the STARR Card is to consistently demonstrate our school values throughout every school day. Where students do not meet our expectations, their STARR Card will be marked with an applicable code (e.g., L for Lateness, U for Uniform), and the behaviour will be logged on Bromcom, our school's management information system. Students who achieve a clear day will receive Team Rushden Points (TRPs), which are points that can be redeemed via our rewards shop for school rewards. Those having a clear week, will be entered in a weekly prize draw. This means that we are consistently rewarding those students who do the right thing day in, day out. These rewards will be in addition to the rewards we expect teachers to hand out during lessons.

We have thought carefully about how the card operates, and there will be various rules that students will be required to follow. These will be clearly communicated with students in form time next week in preparation for the launch after Easter. Here is an example of the STARR Card:

Attendance

Attendance continues to be a big focus for us at Rushden Academy as we know that students who attend school perform better in the examinations, and as reported by the government recently, can earn up to £10,000 more than their peers with poor attendance. As a result of starting period 1 earlier in the day, we will be making changes to the cut-off time for when students will be expected to hand over their mobile phone if they are late to school. After the Easter holiday, students who arrive after 8:40am will be required to hand in their mobile phone for the day. This will be stored safely in the school office, and will be returned to students at 3:10pm. 

In order to promote better attendance to lessons, and to foster students’ responsibility for being punctual to lessons, we will be introducing additional bells throughout the day to signal when a lesson has ended followed by a further bell 5 minutes later to signal the point in which students are then deemed late to lessons. Any lateness will be recorded on the student’s STARR Card and in Bromcom. This step will provide greater structure and clarity to all students throughout the day, and will reduce any conflict between staff and students on whether they are late or not to a lesson. 

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and Learning is at the heart of what we do. Our new school values will support us on our journey to create a school environment where every student is inspired to aspire, encouraged to explore, and empowered to succeed. We know that every lesson counts for our students and we are making some additional changes to expectations in our classrooms. So that we can be more inclusive and to ensure that teachers are checking the understanding of all students in lessons, we will be adopting a no hands up approach to asking students questions. Teachers will utilise a range of different strategies to check students’ comprehension of key topics. Students have worked through a presentation this week informing them of this change, and how they can respond sensibly to their teacher if they feel unable to answer a question.

We hope that you are as excited by the changes as we are, and we look forward to implementing these changes after the Easter holiday. As I mentioned in my newsletter last week, in order to facilitate staff training on these changes and new initiatives, students will be finishing school next Friday 4th April at 1:15pm. Students will return after the Easter holiday on Tuesday 22nd April.

Next week we will be having lots of end of term celebrations with our termly rewards assemblies, attendance prize draw, and our Easter Eggstravaganza! I look forward to sharing more details on our rewards week next Friday.

We wish you all a wonderful weekend, and we look forward to seeing all students next week!

Yours sincerely,

Mr J Firth

Principal

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