Newsletter 5 - 19th March 2021
A massive thank you and well done to everyone involved in securing such a successful return to education at school for all of our children and young people. We have almost every child back in the classroom and in spite of the challenges of social distancing, testing and mask wearing, it is brilliant to see our schools bustling with people again. We know that the experience of lockdown will have been very different for different children and some may struggle more to re-engage with school. The warm welcomes alongside the calm consistent and persistent approach that you all bring will no doubt reassure and support even the most challenging – although undoubtedly some may take longer than others! Let’s just hope that it really is the last lockdown.
Particular thanks again to our site teams and testing teams for ensuring that everyone has been able to return safely and with confidence.
There are lots of exciting conversations taking place amongst the central team about maximising the benefits of collaboration and I am delighted to be able to let you know that we appointed our first Trust wide subject lead last week. Suzie FernandezGomez joins us in September to lead on MFL across the Trust and specifically at Holyrood. She was an exceptional candidate and I am thrilled that we are able to start thinking about supporting curriculum development across all of our schools. I hope that this post will be the first of many collaborative opportunities across the Trust.
Lorraine Heath
News from the Schools
Axe Valley Academy
This week we’d like to acknowledge the utterly wonderful work done by our testing team. I know that every secondary in the Trust will feel as grateful as we do at Axe about the time and energy that has been put in to the LFD testing in order to keep our communities safe and we just wanted to really recognise this. The testing was fully set up by Elliot Turner, organised to within an inch of its life by Liz George, turned into a competitive Olympic sport by Jen Stockton and whipped into ultimate efficiency by Helen Doyle.
I tried to get a photo but they moved so fast it was always too blurry. A huge thank you to the following legendary staff and volunteer testers. I apologise for the ‘job titles’ below but you can imagine the shenanigans over the last few weeks.
• Ruth Coghlan volunteer (former parent and former LGC chair)
• Rachel Wiltshire volunteer (parent and former careers lead)
• Sarah Steggall (invigilator and former attendance lead)
• Elliot Turner - Haribo connoisseur
• Liz George - organisational guru
• Jen Stockton - Uber competitive tester
• Helen Doyle - executive efficiency monitor and streamliner
• Lesley Cox - voice of reason
• Jo Govier - woman of many, many, many hats in any given day
• Pat Trueman - table flipper
• Sandie Tregale - inappropriate jokes teller
• Yvonne Ashby - zen calm in the storm
• Jade Watts - karaoke organiser and failed stand-up comic
I’d also like to thank all of the staff who consequently covered the roles that had to be redeployed for testing, the site team for setting up the testing centre, the admin team for the collation of the consent and spreadsheets and all of our teachers for coping seamlessly with the disruption to lessons. COVID has made us all stand back at times and question how on Earth working in a school involved a lot of what we have been doing. But the feeling of community has never felt stronger
Laura Jenkins
Holyrood Academy
It has been a fantastic but busy few weeks at Holyrood with students coming in and out before all settling back into some semblance of normality from Monday 15th March. I have been really impressed by what I have seen around our school in the past week or so as the school has felt very calm and purposeful. It has been particularly pleasing to see some of our school improvement work around teaching and learning becoming more embedded and showing an impact. Perhaps as pleasing has been the return of extra-curricular clubs, including sport. It has been brilliant to see our students outside, exercising and having fun where they belong.
We have been fortunate to be able to celebrate the individual successes of our Sixth Form students as more offers to study at top Universities and on aspirational apprenticeships flood in. Congratulations must go to Maddy Grabham who has received an offer to study Medicine at Cardiff University, to Oliver Denning who has received offers to study History at St Andrews, Exeter and Nottingham Universities, to Tabby Snell who has received an offer to study Paramedic Sciences at Surrey University and to Paul Reffell who has progressed through a tough selection process to secure an interview for a Detective Degree Programme with Avon and Somerset Police.
Great news for our students, for which we thank our staff for their hard work and dedication to the students’ success. We wish them all the best in their studies over the coming months!
I also want to thank our amazing testing team - Deb Morgan, Katrina Hounsell, Lucy Such, Janet Crabb, Amanda Edmunds, Claire May, Emma Vickery. Vicky Hawkins, Nicola Williams, Kelly Druce, Lynn Cunningham, Sam Lawrence, Cheryl Jolley, Laura Constable, Hannah Carpenter, Belinda Burton, Gill Lloyd-Jones, Caroline Spokes, Anita Heale, Helen Emery, Sarah Blakemore, Liz Curley, Jane Edge, Rich Barker, Kayleigh Armstrong, Simon Jenkins, Liz Bowker, Pat Duffy, Lisa Knight, Ali Warren, Rebecca Parkes, Ann Richards - all of whom were magnificently led by Tina Coles and Sue Watson. They wouldn't take the credit but they ran it superbly and so deserve an extra special mention.
Dave MacCormick
Neroche School
The last 2 weeks at Neroche have been filled with enriching activities to support our broad and balanced curriculum offer. The last of our Year 6 children have now successfully completed their Bikebility course where they have learnt and demonstrated road awareness and safe bike riding skills when out and about in the community.3
Science week was a big focus for last week with classes engaging in tailored activities to promote this year's theme of Innovating for the future. Children enjoyed developing their science skills and learning about innovation and designing their own products. Notification of achieving our Silver Science Mark was a lovely way to celebrate the important role science plays in our curriculum and school environment.
World Water Day was a key theme of assemblies with children reflecting on how lucky we are to have a clean and efficient water supply. Discussions centred around saving water and the Eco Council met via a socially distanced meeting to discuss the siting of our new water butts that have been kindly donated by local industries.
It has been lovely to have 2 of our extended school family back with us. Affectionally known as our Lunchtime Lovelies, the children have been thrilled to see and catch up with Linda and Charlene from our catering supplier and have their hot lunches served to them from the lunch trolley again. The children have loved being able to select and try new foods again and we have some new vegetable lovers among our younger children as a result.
Our older KS2 children were able to take part in a Youth Parliament course this week. This included a virtual live tour of the Houses of Parliament. We were fortunate in that we were the only school that had signed up for the course on our day and so our children were able to ask a wealth of questions to the guides. We now have some budding politicians and a potential Prime Minister among our students. The course provided a wealth of knowledge to reinforce key British Values themes and the way that laws are set in Parliament.
Parent catch up meetings are planned for next week to give parents the opportunity to find out about their child's return to school and share all of their successes over the last 2 weeks. Children have been to keen to share their work with adults at home and it has been lovely to see their thirst for collaborative learning with their peers.
Comic Relief marks the end of a busy 2 weeks with the School Council keen to fundraise for a worthy cause and we are all looking forward to the red nose fun alongside remembering the important messages behind the day.
Ali Collins
Uffculme Primary School
It has been such a fantastic feeling welcoming all our lovely children back to the primary school. We have missed the sound of voices in the corridor, busy classrooms and children’s laughter. Classrooms have been abuzz with activity, and the children have shown how resilient they are by settling back into routines brilliantly. Teachers have focused on wellbeing and learning behaviours over the first two weeks back to ensure children are in the best possible mindset to learn.
I would again like to praise the efforts of all the staff at Uffculme Primary School for making the first two weeks of ‘reopening’ such a smooth and fun fortnight. How the children have returned is such a testament to all the staff’s hard work.
We are now looking ahead to the Summer Term and planning some exciting events. We have a Year 5 and 6 residential to Kilve Court booked for June, which we are hopeful will still go ahead. We have also provisionally booked dates for Sports Day, the Year 6 production, school trips, the Presentation Evening, a Summer Fair and many more events. It is exciting to think that we may be able to celebrate some of these occasions as a whole school community.
We have interviews for the vacant SENDCo position this week. It was an incredibly strong field and shortlisting was not an easy task. It is an incredibly important position within our school, but we are hopeful that we will find the right candidate for the 4 post. I look forward to sharing this news with you in the next newsletter.
Fraser Wallace
Uffculme School
We have had another extremely successful ‘National Science Week’ here at Uffculme, despite the challenges of setting both on and offline activities, which I have to say the pupils rose too exceptionally well. We were particularly impressed with the level of engagement from our wonderful Year 11’s, with over 100 students logging in and interacting with the ‘Meet the Scientists!’ in the online chat last week where they were able to talk to real life scientists about their careers and choices. I’m pleased to announce that Katie Bainbridge, 11Burt, won the prize for the best engagement in the activity and a career pack and voucher is heading her way – well done Katie! Our year 10’s are taking part in the activity in tutor groups this week so let’s see if they can match the exceptional engagement demonstrated by the year 11’s!
We also had superb engagement in our activities lower down the school with students from each year group winning engagement certificates and house points for the excellent and thoughtprovoking work they submitted. The ‘7 days of Science’ and poster competition are still ongoing so I’m excited to see what they bring. Last week we also congratulated a massive 36 students in Years 7 and 8 who have achieved their science badge for attending a half term of science club! This is the largest participation we’ve ever seen – keep it up years 7 and 8!!
During Science week we also announced several exciting new STEM experiences we are offering this year:
Firstly, we’ve introduced a new badge to be earned through the ‘STEM Ambassadors Challenge’. The challenge is called ‘Build a base on Mars’ and will be released after Easter. To complete the challenge and win the badge they have till just before half term to design and build a Mars base for the first Scientist on Mars to live in… I for one, cannot wait to see what our super creative Year 7, 8 and 9 pupils come up with!
Secondly, and again, for the first year ever, we will be offering some current Year 8 students the opportunity to become ‘STEM Leaders’ in Year 9. This not only comes with an awesome sweatshirt, but it also offers both a level 2 qualification and an excellent opportunity to build STEM experience teaching others. This is a unique experience that we are so pleased to be able to offer our current Year 8’s, particularly to those who are keen to have a future career in one of the many STEM industries out there. More information about this will be released after Easter.
On another note, this week the school completed its third round of Covid testing of all students in the school. This has been a huge team effort that has really helped the school to fully re-open for all students in the safest possible way. A big thank you to the whole team including Cathryn Cross, Emma Buckingham, Kate Knight, Tracy Sapiecha, Emma Lloyd, Bee Davies, Lyn Bennett, Jodie Mitir, Charlotte Skelding and in particular to Laurence Eve and Katie Francombe for leading the team over the past few months.
This is not the end for the team however, as they will continue to be involved in the school as part of the national ‘Daily Contact Testing’ pilot, in which students and staff that are identified as close contacts of a positive case will be offered the opportunity to be tested each day for 7 days rather than having to self-isolate at home. Hopefully this will help to ensure that as many people as possible can continue to attend school and minimise disruption in the future. And if the pilot is as successful as is hoped, then in the long term all 5 schools will be able introduce this opportunity from September.
Next week we will be saying a sad goodbye to Kelly Parkinson, our morning receptionist, who is leaving us for pastures new. She has been the friendly, welcoming face of Uffculme School and is a key member of our admin support team and will be greatly missed by all. We send her our very best wishes for the future and her new adventures.
And finally, keep an eye on Uffculme’s social media today to see the staff as you’ve never seen them before – dancing through the corridors in a Comic Relief special! #FootlooseFever
Alan Blackburn
West County Teaching School Alliance
New/Aspiring Middle Leader programme
WCTSA has funding from the Department of Education to offer ten fully funded places on this year's new/aspiring middle leader programme. The course runs as a series of five twilights across the Summer and Autumn terms. In between sessions, all participants will have access to four 1-1 leadership coaching sessions. The course is facilitated by a variety of leaders from across the alliance who have a proven track record of success at this level of leadership.
It caters for individuals who are typically in their first few years in post, or who are aspiring to middle leadership. This can be any role in a school which has responsibility for leading and managing a team.
To apply for this course, please complete and return the application form by Thursday 1st April.
ITT Update
We say goodbye to the Spring term cohort of PGCE students at the end of this week and our School Direct @ Exeter trainees have just under two weeks left in their placement. We wish them the best of luck in their second placements. Our School Direct Distance trainees will be returning to their first school at the end of April and we look forward to seeing how they have developed as classroom practitioners whilst in their contrasting schools. Congratulations to School Direct trainee Taytum Cotton for securing a DT role at Haygrove School in September.
Jen Knowles
Health & Wellness
Looking Forward! Now is the time to lift our eyes, turn our faces to the sun and look forward to a happier future.
Don’t forget you can now self-refer to the wellbeing service
http://www.uffculmetrust.org/wellbeing
The Wellbeing service continues to offer our free Zoom fitness classes which you can take part in from the comfort of your own home.
Monday – 6.00pm Pump
Tuesday – 6.00pm Core & More
Wednesday – 6.00pm Pump
Thursday – 6.00pm Core & More
Saturday – 9.30am Dance Fitness*
Sunday – 9.30am HiiT
Zoom Code: 476 607 8001 Passcode: fitness * see
Facebook.com/uffculmesportsandfitness for weekly dance code
Amanda Woodward.
Trust Wide Vacancies
We currently have the following vacancies within the Trust.
Further details can be found on each school’s website or via the links below
• Axe Valley Academy
English Intervention Teacher
https://axevalley.devon.sch.uk/information/vacancies/
Closing Date: 10th March 2021
• Uffculme Primary School / Neroche Primary School
Clerk to Local Governing Committees
Primary School Clerk Eteach
Closing date: 18th March 2021
• Uffculme Central Team
Finance Administrator
https://www.eteach.com/job/financeadministrator-1137187
Closing Date: 26th March 2021
Finance Apprentice
https://www.eteach.com/job/apprenticefinance-administrator-1137207
Closing Date: 26th March 2021
Uffculme School, Year 7 and 8 students who have won their science badges with Cat Legg, Science Teacher