Weekly email – 14 February 2025

A message from Mrs Rothenburg

Welcome to the last weekly email of this half-term! We seem to have packed in a great deal over the past six weeks and I am sure our students are ready for some downtime over the half-term break.

Thank you to all the families who have engaged in the consultation regarding the proposed changes to our school day. It has been great to meet so many people and listen to a range of views. A reminder that full details of the proposal together with information on how to contribute feedback can be found on our website. The consultation period will close on 23 February.

Have a great half-term break everyone! We’re back in school on Monday 24 February for a ‘B’ Week.

With best wishes,

Kavina Rothenburg
Acting Principal

What is my child learning at the moment?

Please see below to find out what your child has been learning this week in order to have productive discussions about their education:

Year 7 – Faculty: Performance
Conversation starters

• Drama: Devised Drama – students are exploring different types of Movement-based Theatre, including Mime, Silent Movies, Stage Combat and Physical Theatre – please do ask them for a demonstration of their skills in these areas at home!
• Music: Students are beginning to explore the keyboard and notation reading in the treble clef.
• PE: Students are working hard in their next block of activities with the girls on rugby and dance. The boys have moved onto handball and basketball developing their skills and knowledge about these new sports.

Year 8 – Faculty: Creative
Conversation starters

• Design Technology: Students are moving on to their new discipline which continues their learning on the theme of Cultures. Food students will cook a range of international foods; Product Design students are making a pinball machine based on the Mexican celebration Day of the Dead; Textiles students are using tie-dye and other techniques to make a tote bag; and Graphics students will make a record sleeve after researching a range of cultural influences.
• Art: Art & Issues: Year 8 students are studying the sculpture ‘Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads’ by contemporary political and conceptual sculptor Ai Wei Wei. We have been comparing Chinese Zodiac & Astrological Star Sign calendar systems using homework tasks to develop research and presentation skills. Students are creating a three-part tonal study using a range of media and mark-making techniques to re-visit and further develop existing recording skills. How can I support my child to gain confidence and develop their Art skills at home? Pencil shading and hatch / cross-hatch with a ballpoint pen can be used to add tones to any line drawing at home (practice makes progress!). Researching the careers of Ai Wei Wei and Mark Powell and looking at their artwork would expand your child’s subject knowledge.

Year 9 – Faculty: English
Conversation starters
Year 9 have been enjoying studying poetry in a new and creative way this half term. Engaging with complex and mature ideas and themes, and exploring authors as diverse as Simon Armitage, Robert Browning and Carol Ann Duffy, they have been challenged to use poetry as a stimulus for their own creative work, with some impressive results. Ask your child which is the most thought-provoking of the poems they have looked at.

Year 10 – Faculty: Maths
Conversation starters
Look around you and name as many different polygons (straight sided shapes) as you can. Which of these shapes could you confidently find the area for? Look around you and see if you can find a cuboid, cube, triangular prism, cylinder, cone or any other prism. Explain how to find the surface area or volume of these shapes.

Year 11 – Faculty: Science
Conversation starters
We have been so impressed with how the students approached their PPEs and have been busy marking their papers. In lessons, students are finishing off the final topics of their GCSE studies. When we return from February half-term students will receive feedback on their PPEs. They will reflect on their areas of improvement and work on “Every Mark Matters” to identify their areas of strength and areas of development. Ask them to show you their AQA Merit Sheet – this gives really useful data on their individual areas of strength and development. We will share these with parents/carers at the upcoming Year 11 Progress Evening.

We hope that you will find this information useful when talking to your child about their learning. Additionally, you might want to take a look at the curriculum section of our website which has lots more information about what your child will be learning over the academic year.

Pirecings, nails and lashes

Over the holidays we know some students will visit professional beauticians. Please can parents ensure that any nails/eyelashes are considered ‘natural’ for when we all return to school after the half-term break? Similarly, students who decide to have piercings, for example a nose stud, will need to purchase clear plastic retainers.

Our aim is to welcome students back into the building, find out how their holidays have been and then focus on learning rather than addressing uniform/appearance concerns. As ever, your support in this matter is very much appreciated.

Further information can be found on our website.

Golden tickets

Following student voice we have decided to make a small change regarding our golden ticket system. Many students have found the golden tickets less motivating recently because so many are being awarded. One of the rewards provided by getting a golden ticket is that students can bypass the queue at lunch time, but because teachers have been so generous with handing them out, the golden ticket queue is as long as the regular queue!

To make them more meaningful, each member of staff will now be awarding only two golden tickets each week – one for academic achievement and one for wider contributions. Additionally, the value of each golden ticket on Class Charts will increase from +2 to +10 points. Teachers will continue to use other rewards on Class Charts to recognise students regularly, but golden tickets will be reserved for those demonstrating exceptional effort.

We believe this adjustment will help maintain our positive recognition culture and encourage students to keep striving for excellence. We wanted to communicate this to you too as you will note a reduction in the list of students receiving a golden ticket on the weekly email. This is because of the above and not because students are no longer being “gold standard learners” or staff have stopped giving them out!

Emotion Coaching

Last term all Excel Learning Trust employees received training on Emotion Coaching and we have now shared the information and techniques learned with all students in assemblies.

The assembly explained some of the theory behind how emotion coached students are more able to self regulate and manage everyday stressful situations. We shared the Hand Model, an easy to digest visual tool, designed to help students recognise certain behaviours in themselves. We coupled this with a four-stage approach that Excel Learning Trust staff will take should they come across a student who is dysregulated. The language used in these situations is designed to de-escalate a situation so a young person is able to think rationally again.

We felt that parents/carers might find the Emotion Coaching resource useful as the language can easily be transferred to situations outside of school too.

This link contains further reading and videos should anyone want to explore this strategy a little further.

Year 11 punctuality – thank you, and let’s keep it going!

Thank you to our Year 11 parents for ensuring their children attended school on time so consistently for their PPEs. It was very evident how calm and prepared our students were, which undoubtedly helped them to get the most out of the experience. It would be brilliant if we could sustain this positive approach to punctuality as they start their last full half term before the GCSEs begin, so that they can arrive into school focused and ready to learn, giving them the best chance of success in the summer.

If your child has challenges in the morning, please contact Miss McCartney via the School Office to discuss your concerns and any support you may need.

The Holy Month of Ramadan

We are aware that the holy month of Ramadan is approaching for our Muslim students and we want to make sure that we know of any students who are observing Ramadan in any way so that we can support and look after them throughout.

Job of the Week – Employability Skills

As we finish the half term, we are again stepping away from Job of the Week to look at another key employability skill. In other words, what is it that employers are looking for when recruiting for positions within their companies and businesses? Today we are focusing on ‘leadership’.

Leadership is ‘the action of leading a group or an organisation’ and most workplaces require people to have leadership skills in some form such as taking control of a piece of work or team of people, training others, or simply helping someone new to the job.

Watch this video for some other ways in which leadership is used throughout the workplace.

Parent Carer Forum

To find out more about events and support available from the Parent Carer Forum, please take a look at their latest newsletter here.

WakeUpWednesday – A guide to online dating apps

Findings from Ofcom last year indicate that as many as 16% of the UK’s population are currently using dating apps to form new connections. That’s more than 11 million users in this country alone, and among so many, there are bound to be some who don’t use these platforms with the best of intentions.

This is especially important to remember when we consider that an Ofcom consultation in the lead-up to the Online Safety Act found that some children and young people use these apps – regardless of their age restrictions.

Naturally, we would actively discourage any of our students from using these apps but as some young people nationally seem to be doing so, we felt it was important to share this guide with you “just in case” so that you can use it to inform discussions with your child, if necessary.

The National College has put together this week’s expert-led guide, detailing the most prominent risks of these platforms so that parents and carers are informed in the unlikely event that you might need to use it. You might want to take a look though…”just in case”.

Online support for students and parents

We wanted to remind you about our online support app called Padlet, which is a directory of support available for students and parents.

Padlet signposts the user to a range of websites and resources, providing support and advice relating to mental health, exam stress, online safety, self care, managing emotions, young carers, family support and more.

You can visit the Padlets by scanning the QR codes or clicking the links below.

Visit the Parent Padlet
Visit the Student Padlet

Safeguarding

If you have significant concerns for the welfare of a child, in addition to being able to contact Mrs Cole, Mrs Cooper or Mr Beever during school hours by emailing safeguarding@millthorpe.southbank.academy, you may wish to make direct contact with the York MASH (Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub) on T: 01904 551900, option 3. They operate an out-of-hours service so concerns can be raised with them at any time.