GSA October Bulletin

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to our pre-half term bulletin.  We’ve enjoyed an excellent start to the half term and I wanted to thank all of you and your children for your support in this.  We hope all our new Year 7 and Year 12s have settled in well and have their feet firmly under the table (or classroom desks!) now.

GCSE Progres

I’m proud to let you know that provisional Progress 8 figures are out for GCSE performance and we have done very well.  George Spencer students, on average, make a third of a grade progress better than similar students nationally.  We’re also proud to have the highest Ebacc score in the county.  A huge well done to all of our Year 11 students and staff!

Sixth Form Open Evening - Thursday 19th October

A reminder that this is on Thursday next week starting at 6pm – we’d love to see lots of you there to show you what’s so fantastic about our sixth form.  As you will know, we enjoyed some of our best A-level results ever this summer.  More details are on the website.

Stay Safe Procedures

Just to give you a ‘heads up’ we will be doing a very gentle practice across the site on Tuesday morning about what we would do to stay safe if an event occurred that would compromise the safety of students around the site.  This will be a very low-key walk-through of our routines so students and staff would know what to do in the unlikely event of this happening.  We do not want any students or parents/carers to be worried by this and I want to reassure you that it will be done sensitively.  You will know that keeping children safe is always at the top of our minds.

Extra-Curricular Sports and Activities - Autumn 2017-2018

A schedule of the sports and activities which are currently running can be downloaded here.

• If students wish to attend a lunchtime club they MUST have their lunch at break time as they only have 30 minutes, including changing and therefore are very limited on time.
• PE kit is required for all clubs except table tennis club.
• Most clubs are free, with the exception of the badminton clubs, volleyball and dodgeball which are led by outside coaches. (Letters are required for these from Mrs Walker – Swalker@george-spencer.notts.sch.uk).

Message from the FrOGS

Thank you to everyone who came to our sell-out Cheese and Wine Evening.  It was a great success and a lot of fun was had.

Please find the downloadable poster containing details of our forthcoming Bonfire Extravaganza and our Christmas Craft Fayre events. Tickets for events can be obtained at Reception on Upper Site, SQuid or PayPal: friendsofgeorgespencer@gmail.com
and also at the following places:

• Toton Tesco (Customer Service Desk)
• Chetwynd Primary Academy
• Bramcote Farm Shop

We also have spaces available for stalls at our Christmas Fayre, so please get in touch if you'd like to book one.

More information on all of our FrOGS events are available on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, GSA Website or please contact Mr Turner - rturner@george-spencer.notts.sch.uk  (our teacher representative).

We are always looking for any company services/parents who may be able to help with sponsorship, advertising and raffle gifts - please get in touch with Mr Turner if you can help.

Thank you for your continued support.

Events this Term...

See the below links for more information.

•  Social Media Awareness Evening
•  L2L Evening

Summer Digital Jam 2017 - Sid Bansal's Win 

Destination Nottingham is an informational game based on providing users with a better experience of the city. Many people visit Nottingham city and go to Starbucks / Mcdonald's / New Look etc. While these places are very popular, they are not unique to Nottingham. Our app focusses on local businesses / attractions , so that users can truly discover Nottingham city and everything that’s special about it.

Read the full write up here. Or take a look at the video below.

Meet The Principal 

Dear Parents,

Next Wednesday is our first Parents Forum of the year and will be a chance to 'Meet the Principal.' The Parents Forum takes place each half term, usually on a Wednesday evening from 6pm. It is a chance to meet other parents, chat to some of our staff and ask questions about the way the school works, give feedback and influence policy making in the school. Over recent years the Parents Forum have instigated the change in uniform suppliers, changes in reporting, improvements in the website, changes in communication to parents and helped with the development of the the PARS rewards system.

All parents are welcome to attend, there is no commitment to attend all of the meetings and the agenda will change each half term - this will be decided by the group. Our Principal, Fraser Mitchell will present at the first meeting and it will be a chance to get to know a little more about him, his thoughts on the school and to help set the agenda for the next meeting. If you are interested in attending, please come to the Conference Centre for 6pm on Wednesday 13th September. If you can't make it, but would like to attend future forums, please drop me an email and I will keep you updated.

Kind Regards,

Scott Doyle

Vice Principal

sdoyle@george-spencer.notts.sch.uk

New Term Arrangements 

Tuesday 5th September INSET Day – Year 12 will be coming in between 10 and 2pm to collect their timetables from  the Sixth Form Resource centre. Students will also be handing in their subject and Step Up to Sixth Form transition work. Any students that fail to hand in the transition work will be required to stay and complete on the INSET day. 

• Wednesday 6th September – All students start back to school. It is a Week 2. 

• Year 7 begin at normal time (8.45) They will be registered in their form rooms (even though it’s a Wednesday) and they will start normal lessons Period 2. 

• Years 8, 9, 10, 11 go to their form room for 9.30am.  

• Year 12 will be coming in at 9.00am to their form rooms to meet Learning Managers. 

• Year 13 will be coming in at 9.00am to their form rooms, to collect timetables and confirm registration meetings. 

• All students will go to normal lessons P2.

GSA JULY BULLETIN 

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

It's been an emotional June and July saying goodbye to some of our Year 11s and all of our Year 13s. We had lovely leavers' assemblies and proms – special thanks to all the parents who did their duty and sent in affectionate (and/or embarrassing?!?!) photos to support the events. All of these moments capture the special relationships we have here at George Spencer. They are a pleasure to attend as Principal.

It's been lovely to say hello to our new Year 7s and their parents/carers last week who settled in really well despite the rain.

Early Finish Friday & Non-Uniform Day

A reminder that we finish early as usual this Friday at 12.30 to say goodbye to the term and hello to the summer holidays. Please make sure you have made arrangements. This Friday will be an optional non-uniform day to raise money for a number of charities. Each student wanting to wear non-uniform should make a donation of £1 at the gate as they enter the site - there will be staff and students at the gate ready to accept donations.

The funds generated will be divided up to support the Grenfell Tower 'Just Giving' page, and, in regards to the recent attacks in Manchester and London charities to support injured members of the emergency services and the families of those officers who lost their lives.

Some expectations around non-uniform:

• Students may come in their own clothes as long as they are appropriate for school, this means - no offensive slogans, their mid-riff should be covered (no crop tops) and skirts should be an appropriate length.
• Students should not come in with additional piercings to normal, one small stud in each ear is acceptable, anything more than this will have to be removed and will be confiscated.

Summer Concert & Sixth Form Alumni 

We've also got two special events before we finish – the summer concert on Wednesday and the Sixth Form Alumni on Thursday. Please park on lower site as usual and not on the surrounding streets.

Thank You & Goodbye to... 

We also say goodbye to some special staff this summer. A few deserve particularly special mentions. Most notably, we'll say goodbye to former Head and Trust CEO, Dame Susan Jowett. Since joining the school as Head in 2004, Susan has transformed a very successful single state comprehensive school into the lead school of a ten strong multi-academy trust and teaching school alliance. She gained an Ofsted outstanding in 2010, before becoming Chief Executive of the Trust in 2013 and handing over the reins of GSA to me. In January 2016, this was recognised with a Damehood. Out of work, Susan loves to travel and walking with her husband and it's time to enjoy many more spectacular views together, as well as their fabulous grandchild. Thank you Susan.

We also say goodbye for now to Mary-Alice Lloyd, who together with Susan, has been instrumental in building the success of our outreach work – especially in teacher training, staff training, our teaching school alliance and maths hub. We owe her so much.

Jill Wilkinson, my fantastic Chair of Governors and former Vice Principal here as well as Chief Operating Officer for the Trust also moves on and will be much missed.

I also wanted to pay special tribute Andy Burrows from Modern Foreign Languages and Cath Horsley from History who are both retiring after 36 years of great teaching and inspirational service each! Similarly, Lillian Britton who has been a phenomenal lead lunchtime supervisor for almost as long too!

Back to School 

Next year students return to school on Wednesday 6 September, after an INSET day on Tuesday for staff. This will be a week 2. Please check our website for details and put all the key dates into your diaries.

Exam Results 

A level results come out on Thursday 17 August. GCSE results are on the following week, Thursday 24 August. Check the web and twitter for reminders.

Survey 

We will be sending out a survey soon for you to complete about the school and will appreciate your input. Keep your eyes on email...

SnapChat - Warning 

It has come to our attention that Snapchat have recently released an update which will impact on all users. The update now includes a map which plots all users, and it can be zoomed in with the locations of users clearly identified. Users don't even need to be your friends for them to see your last location. People have access to see everyone. In order to remove yourself from this feature you should go to your settings and enable 'Ghost Mode'. You will also need to change your Avatar to 'Ghost Mode'. To access the map you need to 'pinch the screen' and this will give you the option to set yourself to private, not public. We advise that all users of Snapchat do this as soon as possible to maintain online security.
https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/Documents/Thinkuknow%20Parent%27s%20and%20carers%20%20guide%20to%20Snapchat.pdf

We hope you have wonderful, well-earned summer holidays. Enjoy yourselves.

We'll see you again in September – don't forget you can now buy uniform online, at the shop in Long Eaton or at our 'pop up shop' on the 17 August in the school hall.

Mr Mitchell

Executive Principal

Last Day of Summer Term

School finishes at 12.30pm on Friday 21st July for the Summer break. 

It will be an optional non-uniform day to raise money for a number of charities. Each student wanting to wear non-uniform should make a donation of £1 at the gate as they enter the site - there will be staff and students at the gate ready to accept donations.

The funds generated will be divided up to support the Grenfell Tower 'Just Giving' page, and, in regards to the recent attacks in Manchester and London, charities to support injured members of the emergency services and the families of those officers who lost their lives.

Some expectations around non-uniform: 

• Students may come in their own clothes as long as they are appropriate for school, this means - no offensive slogans, their mid-riff should be covered (no crop tops) and skirts should be an appropriate length. 
• Students should not come in with additional piercings to normal, one small stud in each ear is acceptable, anything more than this will have to be removed and will be confiscated.

YEAR 11

Results Day

Thursday 24th August. Results will be available for collection from 9am. If you or your child is unable to collect them on the day but still wishes to find out, there are a number of options available.

• A signed letter from the student can be given to another student / adult to collect on their behalf.
• The students can phone the school office (0115 9170100) after 11am and their results can be given over the phone.  The results certificates can then be collected at a later date or posted (see below).
• The results certificates can be posted home.  A stamped addressed envelope will need to be dropped off in main reception prior to results day.

Dear Parents

You may recall that I invited you to our Parents Forum meeting earlier in the year to look into the supply of our school uniform and whether the current arrangements were meeting the needs of our families.

Following extensive research and meetings with a number of suppliers the Parents Forum have opted to use 'Just Schoolwear' as our supplier for the near future.  This was not an easy decision to make and was driven by the needs of our families and based upon costings, delivery times, quality of garments, size range, the ability to try garments on, returns and other factors.  Our relationship with Morley's has now come to an end and they will not stock any new uniform as a result.  They will be selling off the current stock they hold at a reduced price.

Simply First in Stapleford will continue to stock some uniform for us as has been the case in recent years.

New uniform garments can be purchased from the Just Schoolwear website or from their pop-up shops that will take place at points throughout the year. There are also plans to open a shop in Long Eaton in the next couple of months.  The aim of the pop-up shops is to give you and your child a chance to try on garments and purchase them from the school site.  Online orders can be delivered to your home or to school for collection. 

Our first pop up shop will take place next week:

Wednesday 10^th May – 3.00pm to 6.00pm in the main school hall

Thursday 13^th July – for parents of new Year 7 students only

Thursday 17^th August – 10am to 2pm in the main school hall

Please park on lower site only.  There is no parking available on upper site or in the adjacent streets.

I thank you in anticipation of your support for this move and would like to publicly thank the parents who gave up many hours of their time to look into the options and come to the final decisions.  If you have queries about the selection process, please contact me at school and for all questions relating to purchasing, sizing etc, please see the Just Schoolwear website or contact their customer support team on 0115-965-2869 or through their website. 

For a reminder of our uniform requirements please click here.  There are no changes from last year but the document will be updated with the new supplier information shortly.

Kind Regards

Scott Doyle

Vice Principal

careers, information & guidance programme

As you may be aware, alongside our curriculum we run a careers, information and guidance programme to ensure our students are sufficiently well informed and guided through their educational career and into the world of employment.

We work closely with Futures who provide bespoke guidance, interviews and planning sessions to help you and your child navigate the ever changing world of education and employment. In order to run this service efficiently, we need to share basic information about your child and their curriculum with Futures. Futures will store student data according to data protection regulations; this data will not be shared with other agencies and will remain confidential.

If you DO NOT wish for your child’s information to be shared with our Future team, please email info@george-spencer.notts.sch.uk so a record can be kept of this not being permissible.

TECQUIPMENT DONATES SCIENCE EQUIPMENT

To help encourage and develop next generation of Engineers!

We are extremely grateful to TecQuipment Ltd, a local company based in Long Eaton, for their generous donation of science equipment to our Academy, valuing £2,800! The equipment will be used to support our new Physics GCSE and A Level Curriculum as well as being used in our STEM clubs and part of our outreach support with our partners schools.

Kelly Hancock, Science Teacher said: "The equipment will allow us to offer more scope for practical activities in lessons, particularly where we haven't had access to specialist equipment".

Simon Woods, Managing Director & Owner, TecQuipment said: "It is our way of supporting a local Academy to develop and encourage the next generation of Engineers and we are pleased to be part of encouraging more young people into STEM subjects".

We would like to formally thank TecQuipment Ltd for their contribution to our Academy. TecQuipment Ltd designs and manufactures technical teaching equipment for a variety of disciplines within mechanical, civil, electrical and structural engineering courses. For more information about TecQuipment please visit their website: http://www.tecquipment.com

Fraser Mitchell, Principal, George Spencer Academy

MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL - MARCH 2017

School Production

Anyone fortunate enough to have caught our school production of ‘Chicago’  will have been blown away by how fantastic it was. It was slick, expertly choreographed, wonderfully scored and acted with aplomb. A visual and musical treat. Thank you everyone who supported it - especially to Miss McAlpine as Director and all of the Media and Creative Arts team and all the staff who kindly helped and showed up.

Making the Right Choice - Life After Year 11 on 20 April 2017

Current Year 11 have experienced some of the biggest changes of any of our students in a long time. Not only will they be the first to have numbers rather than letter grades for new, tougher English and maths GCSEs but the Post 16 landscape is changing significantly for them too. George Spencer Academy is hosting a key event designed to explain the changes in A Level (both at the school and nationally starting September 2017) as well as provide advice and skills preparation to help students make the right choice for their future.

Uniform

Following the Parents’ Forum consultation, a decision has been made regarding the uniform supply for next year. Further details will be provided in due course, once full arrangements for next year have been finalised. Please note, there will not be any changes to the uniform itself, all items deemed acceptable at present will remain so. We are simply responding to parental feedback about the difficulties in obtaining uniform items in the past.

On a related note, we will be looking at uniform on the gate and in lessons again after the Easter break to ensure that our high standards remain in place. We thank you for your anticipated support with this.

Memorial Garden

Most of you will remember the sad passing of one of our students, Josh Boothman, last year. Members of Josh’s form have created a memorial garden in his memory.  The form’s students had ownership of the money and  planned and researched what we needed. They chose the plants, new tubs and worked out compost/bark against the budget. We also enjoyed the kind support of Bardills with some of the flowers and plants.We will also be planting a tree on upper driveway in memory of Josh this Summer.  See attached photograph.

Challenge Partners

Every year  a group form the organisation, ‘Challenge Partners’, come in to do a two day ‘health check’ report on the school for us. We’re always delighted when external visitors like what they see and I’m pleased to tell you that they felt we more than deserved our ‘outstanding’ status.  Some of the comments we are particularly proud of included:

"The school is pervaded by an infectious sense of everyone wanting to learn.  There is a very special culture within the school and a tangible sense of the pride that everyone has in being a part of it…..Support for disadvantaged pupils runs like a thread throughout the school and there is a relentless focus on helping them to raise their aspirations…..There is an excellent model of succession planning and talent management involving the opportunity for targeted staff to shadow senior colleagues. This approach allows staff to benefit from leadership development opportunities, resulting in the retention of outstanding colleagues and the successful management of talented staff".

The Friends of George Spencer (FROGs)

The group was formed in 2007 with approximately 7 parents and Mr Haggett representing the school.  Over the 10 years that they have been operating they have raised a total of £43,000 for the benefit of pupils.  Here is a small selection of Purchases/Department donations made:

Microphones; Running Vests; Garden Equipment for Allotment; Art Display Boards; PA System; Animation Club; Camera & Lights; Curtains for Drama; Aprons for Tech; Library; Comic Book Club; Sports Kit; 6th Form Resources; Music Equipment and lots more…….

There are currently 12 Parent Members, with 4 being from the very beginning with Mr Richard Turner the school representative and several parents who help out at events when they can.

 You can find out more information about the FrOGS here or by visiting their Facebook page

SPORTS STARS WITHIN GSA

We are aware of several of our students that play at a representative level either County or Nationally in our school, but want to know about them all. We want to give them recognition for this but also opportunities to demonstrate their skills or to compete for school where possible.

If your child plays at representative level either County or Nationally for their particular sport/activity then we would love to know about it. We would like to reward and acknowledge this at school. Initially we will add them to our Sports Stars display in the Sports Hall and therefore if your son/daughter competes for either county or at a national standard then we would like you to scan/email or send in a 6x4 photograph of your son/daughter competing in their sport. Either in their sports kit or an action shot.

By closely monitoring this information we hope to keep track of both sporting achievement and the level of student participation out of school.

Please email any details to swalker@george-spencer.notts.sch.uk

CHICKEN POX, MEASLES & SHINGLES

Please may we ask for your co-operation in an important matter.

One of our children is receiving medical treatment for cancer which puts them at risk of becoming very unwell if they are exposed to measles, chicken pox and shingles.

If they are exposed to chicken pox they will need to be given treatment as soon as possible. If your child is suspected of having chicken pox you should let us know immediately.

Your child is not at ANY RISK whatsoever from this situation. However, the health and well being of our pupil who is at risk, does depend on the cooperation of all other parents and carers and we hope you can help us.

PARKING

For all events can you please park in the dedicated spaces on lower site (Toton). It makes life really difficult for our neighbouring residents on Arthur Mee Road, Wellspring Dale and other nearby streets when people park on them – especially when pavements are mounted or driveways are blocked. If you need to visit upper site reception during the school day, either for a meeting with a teacher, or to collect an ill child, then please press the buzzer on the gate and we can allow you access, again, please do not park on Arthur Mee Road or Wellspring Dale.

share your views

Through the Parents' Forum & Parent View

Parents and carers are invited to our Parents' Forum meetings. The meetings takes place at 6pm in the Conference centre. Parents and carers can also give their views of our school at any time of the school year and at the time of a school inspection using an online questionnaire called Parent View. When our school is notified of its next Ofsted inspection, parents will be invited to give their views about the school to inspectors using the Parent View online facility as this has replaced Ofsted's paper questionnaire. Please make sure we have your most up-to-date contact details.

Please register with an email address and a password here . Once your login has been activated, it only takes a few minutes to complete answers to 12 short questions about aspects such as bullying, the quality of teaching, level of homework, etc. Your views are important in helping inspectors make a decision about our school, and to help us know what is going well and what could be improved. If you do not have a computer or an email address or if you would like help to use Parent View, please come into school and ask at reception.