Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Year 8 Pop Art INSIDE THIS ISSUE Sculptures Page 7-9 Chepstow Awards Castle Visit Careers Evening Page 15 Page 28 Pages 30-31
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@PCSA AUTUMN/WINTER TERM EDITION 2019 Dear Parents and Carers, After Christmas, we will publish details on our website with our plans for Easter and Evening School so parents and carers Welcome to our first newsletter are aware in advance. for this academic year. PCSA has a plethora of hidden curriculum sessions. Every I have been overwhelmed over afternoon, hundreds of our students are taking part in the last two terms with all of enrichment activities. Last week I saw a group of Year 7 the amazing things that take students working with Mr. Mainwaring in English studying place in our school on a daily Greek myths. The atmosphere was fantastic. PE, Art, Drama, basis. Every day, I walk around DT, Humanities, Music; there are wonderful activities on offer the academy making sure I visit every day. There is more information about our students and staff. Whether it extracurricular activities on our website. is lessons in DT, English, maths or science, PCSA students are As always, the conduct and behaviour of our students is intelligent, creative and thirsty for learning. exemplary and this is something that we are committed to at PCSA. Please remind our students of our expectations in Furthermore, I am very glad to see how well our Year 7 terms of uniform and the use of mobile phones in school. students have settled into our daily routines and systems. Last week in assembly, they all looked amazing in terms of their Please note that we are no longer going ahead with our uniform standards and their conduct. Please communicate previously planned Target Setting Day on Wednesday 15 with us and especially Miss Dodson, our Head of Year 7, if you January 2020, instead this will be a normal day of learning. As have any questions or need our support. We will be happy to always you are more than welcome to contact us as any point help you. Obviously, this invitation also extends to all of our regarding your child. parents and carers. We would love to hear from you and get My last message is about students’ safety. I am delighted that your feedback as this will help us improve. many students are coming to school using their bikes on a Our curriculum, with the 9-week Learning Cycles, is now daily basis. However, the great majority of them have no fully embedded and has become our school culture. helmets. Please support the school on our initiative in using Our students recognise the language and they are very much helmets and make sure all students can travel safely. involved with shaping the school’s teaching and learning Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you wish to discuss your with their feedback. We are committed in creating active child’s progress and attainment. learners for life. I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our PCSA Our Year 11s are now fully into their preparation for their parents and carers a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful exams. Going to lessons and looking at the work they are New Year. producing I am very confident that the summer of 2020 will be one of success and celebration. However, we will leave “no Best Wishes, stone unturned” making sure that all students are working at full capacity and potential. We have already put in place 1:1 Period 6 for all curriculum areas offering sessions before and after school. [email protected] Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Year 8 Pop Art INSIDE THIS ISSUE Sculptures Page 7-9 Chepstow Awards Castle Visit Careers Evening Page 15 Page 28 Pages 30-31 @PCSA SPRING EDITION 2019 Executive Principal’s Message Dear Parents / Carers and Students, can be for the students who study at the academy. This curriculum work has been ongoing and is jointly planned Thank you for your great support of across all our academies. You may have seen a recent vlog Mr. Markoutsas and the whole staff I did with our Directors of Science and English who have been team at Priory Community School – very heavily involved in curriculum development. Please do an Academy (PCSA) this past calendar have a look on this link https://pcsa.org.uk/information-on- year. Please enjoy reading this first the-schools-curriculum newsletter of the academic year. This newsletter reflects all the great Further to this, we have recently appointed Mrs. Dadds work that happens every day at PCSA. (Headteacher at St Anne’s) as our lead professional for the curriculum from Year 5 to Year 9. Mrs. Dadds will work closely with all colleagues across our primary and secondary GOOD TEACHING academies to make sure all our students have a great offer Each week, when I visit lessons, I always see very good that is well planned and well delivered. teaching. I also see plenty of strong after school provision – such as the recent rugby and football matches that I was able to watch. A big thank you to all staff and students who take part in our wide array of ‘extra’ provision. We are continuing to develop a great site at PCSA – we are always very pleased to welcome visitors and they often say what great facilities we have. Over many years now we have developed areas such as The Sir Richard Branson Centre (SRB), The Paula Radcliffe Centre (PRC) and various classroom projects. This passion for high quality facilities is continuing under Mr. Markoutsas with The Spencer Science Centre again being a new ‘state of the art’ building on site at PCSA as well as the new LGU Department and Dennis Suite. We also have several great outdoor spaces at PCSA. NEW ACADEMIES JOINING TPLT As a growing Trust, we now receive an annual allocation of capital funding called the Schools Condition Allocation (SCA). This will need to be spread across all academies in our CREATIVE ARTS Trust. We currently have six – although The Huntspill Of course, being part of PCSA, and any TPLT academy, is not Primary Federation are due to join us in April 2020. We will simply about what happens in the formal taught curriculum. be working up a priority list for our capital money based Our offer is also about all the wider aspects of a great school, firstly on health and safety and compliance. This SCA route aspects such as sport, music and the arts. Above is the latest allows us to plan future projects with some certainty. We are art exhibition in the PCSA Atrium - WOW! blessed in all of our academies with huge expanses of playing fields which allows lots of PE and sporting provision. We should not take for granted the great outdoor sporting CHARITY spaces we have at PCSA in addition to a very high quality 3G Our Trust-wide charity of the year for 2019/20 is In Charley’s pitch. Developing sport and having great outdoor spaces is Memory (ICM). I am delighted to say that a recent non- very much part of the way we want to see the PCSA site uniform day across all our academies raised a total of develop. I will update you in March on our progress with £4,517.32 for this super mental health charity and for future capital plans. Children in Need. Thank you for your great support. I know our Sixth Form at TKASA have already raised around £5,000 OUR WIDE CURRICULUM for ICM through their superb Rag Week 2019. There is much more great work to come. OFFER AT PCSA Please do follow the academy on Twitter @Priorycsa and on You may have heard a lot about ‘the curriculum’ in recent Facebook. times. Ofsted have certainly been talking at length about a new focus on what is taught and how it is planned - lessons Again – thank you for all your support. 1 - 5. I am really delighted to say that at PCSA all our Neville Coles students get a very broad and well-balanced curriculum from Executive Principal, The Priory Year 7 to Year 11. It has been carefully sequenced and it is Learning Trust very coherent. Staff have been doing a tremendous amount Twitter - @nevillecoles of work to make sure the PCSA curriculum is the very best it 2 @PCSA Autumn/Winter Edition 2019 YEAR 7 - Miss Dodson Year 7 have had a terrific start to Priory Community School ‘Capture the Flag’. The students showed an exemplary engaging with school life and the opportunities available. The attitude when walking around the sites, and how engaged whole year group have fully immersed themselves in both they were in the outing. the academics and the after-school activities available. It has been a pleasure to get to know the students and watch their I continue to receive numerous nominations for Student of confidence grow. the Week and it is wonderful to hear of student’s achievements outside of school as well. Please do let me During Terms 1 and 2 students have built good relationships know of any external shows / competitions or awards with staff and peers as well as having guest speaker Rich received so we can celebrate these in school as well. Cottrell talk about E-Safety and mental health and wellbeing. Over the past terms Year 7s have taken part in many different I am impressed with the attitude to learning from the year activities from sports, myths and monsters to homework group and how determined they are to succeed. It is a club. It has been great to see many students taking pleasure to be part of their learning journey and I look responsibility for their education and broadening their forward to being part of their future successes.