Latest News

This week is: 

26-30 June is a Week 1

Events this Half Term (please park on lower site for all events):

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 and 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.

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 and 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 and 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.