Samuel Whitbread Academy Parent Portal

A Message from Principal, Mr Martin

The weather certainly seems to be getting colder as we approach the end of the Autumn term. I'm pleased to say the SWA Christmas tree has taken its pride of place in reception and we have a number of festivities planned.

The rehearsals for this year’s Panto, Treasure Island, are in full swing and tickets are selling fast, please book yours to avoid disappointment. Lots of work has gone into preparing for the show this year and I can’t wait to see the choreography, set design, lighting and hear the music and singing. As you can imagine, there is a team of people working tirelessly behind the scenes, but I would particularly like to mention Mrs Major, who has taken a lead role this year in pulling everything together.

We have also had numerous trips and visits over the past few weeks and our students have represented the Academy so well, whether that be in Cambridge with the Geography department, in London with The English department or locally at The Southill Estate.

The debating competition, organised by Dr Haynes and our Debating Captain Rebecca, has been running all term with our Sixth Form final taking place last week. After a closely fought debate between Whishaw and Sims, on the topic: ‘This House believes consumer society is a good thing’, Whishaw finally took the crown by just ½ point. Next week Year 9 and Year 10 teams will be debating ‘The House believes Zoos are unethical’.

In Sport, there have been numerous highlights so far this season with impressive wins in the National Cup for both Girls and Boys football and several fantastic results in table tennis, basketball and Hockey, with the girls drawing against Bedford Modern. In Netball, the 2nd VII beat Bedford Girls School and the 1st VII are off to the Regionals after coming second in the U19 County Tournament. One of our three sports captains, Harriet (and her horse ‘Star’) finished 9th in the country in the 95 class Grand Prix. In Rugby, we’ve had an amazing run of results in the league and the nationals, as well as friendly's at schools such as Warick and Perse School in Cambridge, where U14, U15, U16 and 1st XV all came away with wins. This symbolises the clear progress we have made as six years ago we lost all four games and embodies the countless hours of hard work and dedication by our students, staff and parents, as well as our Director of Rugby, who has recently secured a professional coaching position for the new year.

Year 9 students are now well into the second half of the term and I am pleased to report the large majority are demonstrating the school values in lessons, around school and how they are interacting with other students and staff.

In the last few weeks, the Year 9s have had to adapt to a change of timetable due to mock exams being held for Year 11 and Year 13 students. The Year 9s adapted well to this change and also have seen the layout of the halls for these exams, providing them with a brief insight into their mocks in Year 10.

This week we also held the PRE/Options evening for Year 9 students. I hope you and your child found this beneficial and it provided some clarity regarding the excellent range of subjects SWA has to offer at GCSE/BTEC level.

The praise points being achieved daily are amazing, with 200 students achieving points. The Christmas term is always an exciting time so this month we are entering the names of the students who achieve praise points daily into an ‘advent’ name generator and if selected they can choose a chocolate from the advent calendar. We are also starting to plan our end-of-term Christmas-themed celebration assembly to be held on the last day of term. The Praise cycle has also now started again where we reward top students, top tutor groups and issue queue jump tickets. We will also be selecting those students who have consistently achieved the highest praise to attend a reward trip to Cineworld at the end of the term.

Whilst we initially did see improvements in the standard of uniform, these seemed to have dipped in the last few weeks. We continue to expect the uniform to be smart and fall in line with our uniform policy so Tutors, the year team and members of SLT will be checking students and issuing sanctions when uniform standards are not met. We ask for your support with this, however, if you do have a query regarding uniform please contact your child’s form tutor.

We believe that both behaviour and uniform contribute to a positive school community and we will continue to have high expectations throughout the year. Whilst students are evidencing that they have a better understanding of the behaviour policy, we still set high expectations and expect positive behaviour around the school and within the community.

Please let the year team know of any successes your children have outside of school as we like to celebrate these as well as those successes achieved within school.

As always, it has been another busy few weeks for our fabulous Year 11 students! We have been so proud of how the students have conducted themselves throughout the mock period. We have reiterated the importance of the mock process for this set of mocks and that the process will provide essential experience and skills for future exams/assessments.

The year group has been on board with this and we are sure that every student will now be better prepared for the next set of mocks and subsequent GCSE examinations. There is no getting around the fact that assessments and exams do bring stress and anxiety, the important thing is that we develop strategies to deal with these feelings.

All students should remember that whatever the outcome, they will be able to see the gaps in their learning which require some development – this is a positive outcome, the result cannot be changed.

The results of the mocks are due to be released in January – the year team and subject teachers will be on hand to support students through this process too. Although we have completed this set of mocks, it is important that our students continue to be motivated in lessons and work hard up until the Christmas holiday. Subject teachers will continue to deliver content or complete coursework. No time should be wasted in lessons and all students should focus on the goals they have set themselves moving forward.

We hope that you enjoyed the PRE / Sixth Form Open Evening / Careers Fair. It was great to see so many students and parents attend. I am sure that many subject-specific questions were answered in relation to the Sixth Form courses, and I am sure that many students and parents will have seen a range of careers that they might be interested in. Please do get in contact with the relevant department should you have any further questions. We also hope that our students have enjoyed the various open days/evenings that have taken place at a range of colleges/education establishments. Hopefully, this has helped to reinforce goals and focus for the remainder of Year 11.

The year team would like to thank you all for your continued support – this really has helped to ensure that we are developing resilience and determination within our year group, particularly during stressful times.