STANDING OUT THE MAGAZINE FOR MOUNTS BAY ACADEMY Cover: Year 11 Ball PAVO CHAMAELEON DELPHINUS DRACO PEGASUS PHOENIX TUCANA 22nd July 2021 Leading EdgeLeading Academies Edge Academies Partnership Partnership BoscathnoeBoscathnoe Lane Lane HeamoorHEAMOOR PenzancePenzance TR18 3JT TR18 3JT July 2021 Dear pupils, parents, staff and senior leaders of Leading Edge, As we conclude this academic year, we would like to thank the school community on its spirit of unity and resilience during the past year. We have thrived on many fronts and we are so proud of all our communities, parents and families, staff and above all, our pupils. We entered this academic year with three interim positions amongst our executive leadership team and at Christmas we said goodbye to Andy Harvey, our Chief Operations Officer. Our leaders rose to the challenge, adapted to their roles and provided our Trust with seamless, steady leadership. We have been delighted to appoint Kelley Butcher as CEO, David Teasdale as COO, Ben Eddy as Head of Fowey River Academy and Rob Hamshar as Head of St Hilary School. They will be working alongside Les Hall from Mounts Bay Academy, Rachel Gibb from Five Islands Academy, Adam Anderson from Ludgvan School and Josh Mcdonald from St Buryan Academy. We will welcome the new academic year in September with great anticipation of where this fantastically positive and inspiring leadership team will lead us and we thank them for all that they do. In January 2021, the Government announced another closure of schools as we hit another lockdown. The reality though, is that our schools did not close at all. We kept the schools open to significant numbers of vulnerable and key worker children and we want to acknowledge and applaud the innovation, adaptation and teamwork of all our staff, who enabled us to continue teaching and nurturing our children during this most unusual of school years. At all times, senior leadership teams and staff have focused on the dual mission to first, support and educate pupils at home and second, to welcome pupils back to school with safety and wellbeing as critical considerations. The Government announced that all pupils could return on March 8th, 2021. A great amount of detail was required to keep the health, safety and well-being of all members of the community a top priority. This included extra deep cleaning rotas, the creation of bubbles, re-organisation of classrooms to ensure each class would have the space they needed and as many open windows and doors as possible, ring-fencing indoor and outdoor spaces for each bubble, plus the continual adjustments of these processes as the official advice was updated. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all staff for all that they have done this year. To conclude, we would like to offer a special thank you to our parents, carers and families, in helping to support your children’s learning at home and for your unwavering support and adaptability with the many changes we have all faced. We know that all the staff have been grateful for the support shown and we would like to say a huge thank you for all your help during this difficult time. This has truly been a year to remember. The Leading Edge community has demonstrated resilience, positivity and adaptability. As we said in our opening paragraph, we are immensely proud and grateful for the remarkable way in which our fantastic schools have risen to this extraordinary challenge. Through all the turmoil of the past year, one thing has really shone through and that is our pupils' dedication to their learning and development, without which, everyone else's efforts would be in vain. Very well done everyone and to those leaving us for their next chapter, good luck and we would like you to leave knowing that all of us at Leading Edge are incredibly proud of you. Wishing you all a happy and healthy summer. Yours faithfully On behalf of the Trustees of the Leading Edge Academies Partnership Chief Executive Officer/Executive Principal (Primary): Mrs Kelley Butcher, BEd Hons NPQT MCCT T 01736 352397 E [email protected] www.leadingedgeacademies.org Registered Office: Leading Edge Academies Partnership, Boscathnoe Lane, Heamoor, Penzance, TR18 3JT A charitable company registered in England and Wales. Company No: 07657923. Charity No: XT 36962 Executive Principal: Mrs Sara Davey (MEd BSc PGCE NPQH) E: [email protected] - T: 01736 252321 - www.leapeducation.org.uk PRINCIPAL’S REPORT The end of an era Era - noun a long and distinct period of history. Well we made it! With the restoration of most of the freedoms we took so much for granted just 18 months ago we are coming to the end of what seems like the longest, strangest and sometimes scariest time of our lives. Today marks the end of an era so today is a celebration of the positives that we can take from the last Academic year. We were all so excited to be back in school last September for our Autumn Term and the pictures and stories that were in our newsletter in the run up to Christmas showed what a marvellous group of young people we have here at the Academy. They launched themselves back into school life and it was great to see them all enjoying their learning. The positive comments we received from visitors throughout that term were a testament to the community we encourage here. This was shown to be so apparent when we were once again forced back into lockdown immediately after the Christmas Break. We switched seamlessly back into a virtual school, with students attending regularly, on-time and doing an amazing amount of learning along the way. We have taken everything in our stride since then. Who can forget the trepidation of those early Lateral Flow Tests in the Qube that are now just part of our twice weekly routine! And the sun finally came out in time for us to open our new Cycle Track just before our Eco Festival Project Week. And what a week that was, brimming with activities and demonstrations to inspire us all into creating a better world. And who can forget our Adventure Learning Week last week, what a way to end the year. It is weeks like this that make all the hard work we all put in so rewarding. So, how can we top that? Well we will not be standing still. There is a massive programme of work being undertaken around the campus over the next six weeks and into the autumn term, which will provide even better facilities for students when they return. And we will be looking to have even more opportunities to move our learning outside. If ever there can be a positive that can be taken from our experiences over the last 18 months, it is that we can teach and young people can learn in an incredible number of different ways and locations. So we will embrace this new way of doing things that will make their experience of a life at Mounts Bay even better. With parent/carers we share a huge responsibility to help our students become valued members of society, I am proud to say that I am privileged to lead such an incredible bunch of people and I am proud of the success that our young people. So let’s enjoy this end of an era, have a great summer! Best wishes Les Hall Academy Principal A WORD FROM MR ROYLE Happy end of term to you all! We have made it! In what must rate as one of the strangest of my 32 years of teaching, we have limped, crawled, skipped and pinged our way to the end of term! I am gutted that we are not all on site together - I have always loved end of term assemblies and that feeling of togetherness and all being on the same side. I enjoy that simple act of coming together and sitting in the same room with the same purpose and hearing the same message, and yet all being individuals - this is one of the highlights of my job. Hear a message, make a commitment and then a huge body of young people goes out into the world to make a difference. Nelson Mandela wasn't it? 'Education is the most powerful weapon with which you can change the world.’ Well done to everyone for making it this far. You have shown resilience, flexibility and fortitude in remaining engaged with your learning, even though there are so many changes and decisions that have been made for us by governments, advisors and various other bodies. A few business things - if you need a seat on the MBA50/51/52 or one of the school minibuses in September, please order via ParentMail or let Mrs Eddy know ASAP on [email protected]) as she is sorting out the routes and pickups for September. Here are the new school day timings from September: We have a new catering provider from September as well. You told us that you wanted to eat outside and to have more eating areas and we have listened and we’re on this. When you come back in September you will see a huge raft of changes and I hope that you like them and they are what you wanted. As you disappear for six weeks Ms Hawkins and her team spring into action and begin to transform the Academy - they are very polite about it, but I know that they get so much more work done when we are not here.