3rd February 2023

Weekly Letter - 30.01.2023

WC: 30/01/23

Dear Parents/Carers,

At NUSA this week:

Following my notice last week about our commemoration of the Holocaust Memorial week, we were then celebrated for our work in the houses of Parliament by MP Alex Norris in his discussions with other MPs. A huge well done to all of the Humanities team for their hard work on this agenda.

Thank you to you all for your support with the Industrial Action this week. I will write in a couple of weeks’ time regarding the plans for the proposed strikes for the 1st March.

As we head in to our final week, it is important we maintain high standards. Where you are struggling to get access to uniform for your child, please let their Head of Year know so that we can support you.

We have started a Newspaper club and Coding club after school. If your child is interested in joining either, they can speak with the Enterprise teachers or English teachers for more details.

Coming up at NUSA:

‘Swap Shop’ will take place next week as follows for each year group. Please remember that this may mean your child will be a little late leaving school.

Interviews for Y10 for Prefects and Head Students – week commencing 6th February 2023

‘Dress to Impress’ day to celebrate Children’s mental health week – no donations required – Friday 10th February

End of term – 3pm – Friday 10th February

Start of term – Monday 20th February

Reports for all students sent home to parents – Tuesday 21st February

Y11 Mocks – Two weeks for weeks commencing Monday 20th and Monday 27th February

World Book Day – Thursday 2nd March

SEND drop ins – Wednesday 9th March and Wednesday 19th April

Year 11’s last day is on Thursday 22nd June

Year 11 Prom is on Friday 30th June

Detention system:

A few parents/carers have contacted this week to ask for further details on our detention systems. I thought it would be easier to provide everyone with a reminder of this.

‘Below Zero’ – 3 – 3:30pm. These detentions are put in place when a student falls below 0 on Kickboard in a week. You can use Kickboard to check your child’s points. Please see information above.

‘Red Flag’ – 3 – 3:45pm. These detentions are put in place when a student receives a ‘Red Flag’ in a lesson. Failure to attend the detention will result in a detention the following day until 4pm.

‘Truancy/Lates’ – 3-6pm. These detentions are put in place when a student is late to lessons more than four times in a week.

Safeguarding corner:

Dealing with Body-Confidence for Young People - ChildLine

The world is now more superficial than ever before – tiktok, Instagram, snapchat and others have standardized, what the world expects people to look like. What the world expects when someone is termed ‘beautiful’. For young people, the standard idea of beauty has always been an immense pressure for those transitioning between being a child and being a young person. Most of this transition occurs during secondary schools, and this puts an immense pressure on pupil’s to conform with these ideas in order to be popular, or to fit within a group of friends. With an increasingly image based society low confidence among teenagers has become a far greater issue. Bullying and stigmatization against those who don’t fit or don’t think they fit within these standardized visions of how you should look, has an immensely negative effect on young people’s mental health. And that can have a negative effect on educational performance and attendance. To help young people with this, ChildLine has created a page over on their site with advice on these issues. If you’re interested please follow the link below: 

https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/you-your-body/my-body/how-you-look/

ISTs (independent Study Tasks)

A reminder that 'IST Club' runs after school in B003. If your child needs to use the schools' facilities to complete their ISTs, please contact the Head of Year and use this facility:

KS3: Tuesdays 3pm-3.50pm

KS4: Thursdays 3pm-3.50pm

Our wonderful Head Pupil, Gracie, has created the next video/ short which can be found on our YouTube channel. The theme is 'Pictowords' and this technique will be used until the Summer term for KS3. The link can be found: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8hsKC0OVVTs

Here is a QR code to the latest video: 

Questions we get asked: "How can I check my child is completing ISTs?"

Our dedicated staff log on our Kickboard app. They log positives when an IST has been completed in time and log negatives when this hasn't been completed. You must use the 'access code' to log into Kickboard provided by NUSA. Should you need the code, please contact reception or your child's Head of Year. 

https://parents.kickboardforschools.com/home/activate?role=parent

The schedule for Year 7-9 is below:

The schedule for Year 10 is below:

Year 11 should be doing at least two hours per week on core subjects and one hour each on subjects they have need to prioritise. 

As always, we thank you for your support. 

Have a lovely weekend,

Emma Howard