Half Term update from Mr Day - 27/05/22

Dear Parents, Carers and Students,

Although the first half of the summer term is one of the shortest in length of this academic year, there has been a significant amount taking place at Sewell Park. This has included trips and visits for Art to London, Food to City College, STEM and careers visits, alongside our recent Ofsted inspection and Year 11 students starting their final GCSE examinations.

Firstly, I would like to pay tribute to our Year 11 students. They have had two of the toughest years educationally through the start of their GCSE courses, but they have shown remarkable resilience and efforts towards their studies. They have been exceptional role models for our community through their commitment, and I am certain their summer results will reflect these efforts. They will remain in school in lessons until Thursday 16th June, when they will have a reduced timetable linked to revision sessions and exams. We will write to parents fully nearer the time in relation to this. I would also like to say thank you to the staff who have volunteered to run revision sessions for our Year 11s over the May half term break.

After the May half term, Year 10 students will enter the final year of their GCSE courses. To support this, this is the point at which they will transition to having period 6 lessons until 4.05pm three days per week on a Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. These lessons are a legal part of their school day and will be used to support exam classes and coursework over the coming year.

As you are aware, this half term we welcomed Ofsted for a two day inspection of the school. The report is due to be published in the first few weeks after half term and we will share with you as soon as this is available. As a school, we were very proud to be able to show the position of the school and the education taking place at Sewell Park.

At Sewell Park Academy, we are committed to ensuring our students receive the best quality of education to support their futures, through all the support and high quality teaching provision that they received. Therefore, we are very proud that next half term we will be hosting the Norwich ResearchED conference. ResearchED are national educational conferences to share best practice in education and current academic research to support learning in schools, and it is also an opportunity to showcase the great work of our staff.

Amongst other things, next half term we look forward to welcoming Year 6 students as part of our transition programme as well as the return of our SMSC experience days at the end of the year. Something which our students have sorely missed during COVID.

I hope you and your families have a pleasant May half term break, and we look forward to welcoming back our students on Monday 6th June, after the Queen's Jubilee weekend.

Best wishes

David Day

Headteacher