RUSHEY MEAD ACADEMY NEWSLETTER Issue number 3 Friday 5th October 2018 Together We Make A Positive Difference Adventurous Geography in Snowdonia 2018 marked Rushey Mead’s fifth trip to the Plas Gwynant Outdoor Education Centre. Nestled amongst the mountains of Snowdonia, the centre provides amazing opportunities to take part in a range of challenging outdoor activities surrounded by stunning scenery formed by millions of years of geographical processes. This year forty-one Year 9 students, and four Rushey Mead staff, took part in the four night residential. The weather was perfect, allowing students to take part in a range of activities, including hiking up a mountain (Yr Aran - 747metres), canoeing, night swimming, abseiling, bouldering at the beach and scrambling up a gorge. The students impressed everyone with their resilience, determination and kindness to one another. Students overcame their fears and tiredness and demonstrated a really positive growth mindset. Positive comments were made about how polite the students were by everyone they met, from activity staff and catering staff at the centre, through to the shopkeeper in newsagents at the town where the coach stopped for lunch. The trip was a thoroughly enjoyable experience for everyone and the students should be extremely proud of their achievements. Year 8 students will soon be invited to apply to attend the same trip next year. Ratcliffe Public Speaking Championship With our continuing partnership with Ratcliffe College, we were invited to participate in ‘The Championship’ – which is a public speaking competition showcasing some of the county’s finest secondary school speakers. The competition involved one speaker from each school and we were competing against four other schools. The task entailed the delivery of a disciplined four-minute presentation from a selection of published propositions. Four students initially attended a ‘Public Speaking Masterclass’ at Ratcliffe College before being hand-picked to represent Rushey Mead Academy. Saroop 11HAR represented our school on the 30th September 2018 and her speech was written for the proposition “Women’s rights are unimportant”. Saroop came third in the championship and won £50 cash prize and we are very proud of her achievement. This fantastic opportunity has allowed us to again recognise how talented our students are and see the confidence that they have when it comes to speaking in front of a large audience. Congratulations to Saroop on this outstanding achievement. Rushey Mead Academy Follow us on Twitter @rusheymeadnews Melton Road I Leicester I LE4 7AN I 0116 2663730 Follow us on Facebook @RusheyMeadRMET Rushey Mead Academy library The library team has added 1285 new books to the library since the start of term. Titles include new children’s and young adult fiction, up-to-date information books and many volumes of classic literature with beautiful new covers. All students are encouraged to borrow books from the library – they can have three books at a time for up to three weeks. For help choosing books, students can speak to Mrs Hamlet in the library before school, break time, lunch time and after school. News from Creative Arts Congratulations to Tali 10MEM, Aliyah 10MEM, Shania 10RUM and Yuvraj who have been accepted into the Curve Young Company where they will be involved in acting. We look forward to their first performances. Design and technology association conference On Monday 1st of October, the Design and Technology Association held a major event at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Following a visit to the school, the CEO of the Design and Technology Association requested Rushey Mead to attend the event as part of a group of hand selected schools from around the country to showcase what outstanding Design Technology work looks like. The Design team selected Year 8 and 9 students to represent Rushey Mead Academy and show off their brilliant work. The event was a huge success with the students receiving praise for their amazing work as Rushey Mead was acknowledged as a centre of excellence for Design Technology in the country. A huge congratulations and thank you from the Design team goes to Raina Dineschandra (8RUM), Priya Maturandasse (9BER), Anjali Adatia (9BER) and Dheumi Bentarahenage (9RUM) for being such wonderful ambassadors for the school and the subject. Sporting news Year 7 Football - Boys won all their group games to progress to the semi-finals against Judgemeadow. Some fantastic individual performances and goals from Ashrif, Prem and Esaa contributed to important victories. The most impressive aspect of the team’s performance was their togetherness and positive attitude to play. They were a credit to RMA. Year 7 Table Tennis - In the East Leicestershire Table Tennis tournament, four students, Krishiv, Hussain, Abdirazak and Rayhan all won individual games to play in the final against Crown Hills. The final was a tense affair with it ending in a tight draw. Unfortunately, the match came down to games won and we lost 11-9. The boys battled superbly and epitomised the attitude and spirit of RMA. Top A2L and most Improved students—Year 11 Congratulations to the following students who have the best overall Attitude to Learning scores and also to the students with the top Most Improved Attitude to Learning scores. TOP A2L MOST IMPROVED ASVINKUMAR Dhruvil 11HAR CHUDASAMA Akshay 11HAM ISSUAR Khushi 11BOR MAHENDRAKUMAR Nikhil 11BOM MAYUR Aastha 11CHR PABARI Alisha 11HAM SHIBU Neha 11HAM PATEL Jay 11CHR JIWANI Rahana 11BOR VERMA Niken 11HAR MEHRA Manjina Kaur 11MER NAGRA Saroop 11HAR PATEL Shiva 11CHM DATTA Mansi 11HAM Parent survey results At the end of the last academic year we completed a parent survey. We have completed an analysis of the results which we have included attached with this newsletter. Thank you to all parents/carer who participated. Your views are really important to us. The winner of the prize drawer is Ms E Pabla. Please contact the school and ask for Mrs K Patel to claim your £20.00 worth of vouchers. SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE COMPETITION Wednesday 31st October Dance Studio 3pm – 4.30pm You can enter in a GROUP or as a SOLO. Your dance needs to be based on the theme of ‘Times are Changing’. Examples of what you might focus on are listed below: - Changes in Education - Changes in Politics - Changes in technology - influences of social media - Changes in sport Use your imagination and be original. You can use any style of dance. Your dance piece needs to be between 1 and 3 minutes long. Winners go on to represent the school in a city wide competition at Moat Community College on Wednesday 21st November so you must be available for this date. If you are interested, please fill in the attached form and give it to Mrs East or Miss Mayes. Forthcoming events Tuesday 9th October, Year 11 careers evening, 6.00pm - 8.00pm Monday 15th October - PL Monday (school closes to students at 2.00pm) Tuesday 16th October - Year 11 parent café (homework), 6.00pm - 6.45pm Thursday 18th October - Year 10 Information Evening, 6.00pm - 7.00pm RUSHEY MEAD ACADEMY PARENT SURVEY RESULTS 2017/2018 121 RESPONDENTS STRENGTHS IDENTIFIED 93% 98% 98% 97% 93% Agreed that their child Agreed that RMA has Agreed that RMA Agreed that Agreed that teachers is making good high expectations of provides a safe homework is set support their child to progress at RMA. their child. environment for their regularly at RMA and develop skills and child. support learning. knowledge. AREAS FOR CONSIDERATION 15% 15% 10% 7% of respondents did not of respondents did not of respondents felt that of respondents felt that their understand the new understand the new grading students were not respectful child had experienced assessment framework in system at GCSE based on and well behaved to and bullying, fairly often, at year 7, 8 and 9 grades 1 – 9 from school school. AREAS FOR CONSIDERATION - ACTIONS GOING FORWARD ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK AND GCSE GRADES 1 – 9 Here is a link to our website which provides information on the assessment framework in Year 7,8 and 9 and information about the 1-9 GCSE grading system - http://www.rushey-rmet.org.uk/Resources-from-Meetings/ This will be further explained at our Year 10 information Evening on Thursday 18th October 2018. STUDENT BEHAVIOUR TO AND FROM SCHOOL We will continue to remind students through assemblies, tutor times, and Show My Homework messages about the importance of being respectful citizens. Staff are also on the gate at the beginning and end of each day to ensure orderly conduct. BULLYING We will continue to promote the virtue of kindness through anti bullying assemblies and through an anti-bullying week later in the year. In addition, we will have PSHE sessions through Stop The Clock, with students on bullying. As we have grown in numbers, we have also recruited two more behaviour mentors this academic year. An information session will take place later in the year for parents/carers on recognising and addressing bullying behaviours. FURTHER COMMENTS FROM PARENTS/CARERS In the Ofsted Parent SOME PARENTS INDICATED THAT THERE WAS A LACK OF LUNCH MENU CHOICES This academic year we have changed catering providers. Our Business Manager View Survey, 97% of has been working with the team at CaterLInk to create a varied and nutritional parents said they would menu. The menus for this term are available on our website – http://www.rushey-rmet.org.uk/docs/General/Lunch_Menus201819.pdf recommend Rushey SOME PARENTS ASKED FOR EXTRA SURVEY RESPONSE CHOICES SUCH AS Mead Academy to MAYBE/POSSIBLY We will use this information when designing the survey next year. another parent “I had two children at Rushey Mead and I was very happy with the school for both of them.