Dear parents and carers
As always it’s been lovely to welcome back our students from their half-term break. We have had a good week with some highlights, particularly with our examination cohorts who have started their practical assessments and feedback has been very positive!
We had some amazing news in that the Year 7 girls became the county indoor athletics champions last night- we would like to congratulate them for their efforts and what is an amazing achievement. There is a bumper edition of the PE newsletter this evening that includes updates on fixtures, a report of the indoor athletics event and the trip this week to see the Lionesses play at Wembley.
We also hosted our now annual recruitment day and welcomed a number of potential colleagues to Wollaston School. It was a really positive day and evening, and all of our visitors were positive in their feedback to us about our ambition, our welcoming community, how amazing our ambassadors were, how calm and purposeful lessons visited were and what a well-resourced site and facilities we have. Our recruitment day is an important part of our strategy to ensure we employ top quality staff and of course, buck the national trend of schools finding it difficult to recruit. Last year the day yielded 14 staff in total and although we have far fewer vacancies for September, we hope for a positive conversion rate for the visitors who attended.
In other news of bucking the national trend, NEET figures were published just before half term, and I am pleased to say our figures are fantastic. NEETs is the acronym for young people, Not in Education, Employment or Training. If you follow the news, it was published this week that the NEETs figure is at an 11-year high and now approaching 1 million. However, at Wollaston School our figures for last year show that for Year 11 leavers of Summer 2024 had 1/240 ( 0.4%) student in this category. This is 1 more than we expected and the figure for North Northamptonshire schools as a whole had 1.8% NEET. Credit must go to our students but also to Mr Myers whose careers work at Wollaston is exemplary and has been for a number of years. Credit must also go to our staff who help our students to get the grades to move onto their next big adventures!
Careers News
Next week is National Careers Week , and Mr Myers will be leading assemblies. He is also available for careers help and advice every Tuesday lunch time. There are also the following events that are happening in the coming weeks and Mr Myers will provide students with details in advance of each session:
Tuesday 4th March – Apprenticeship session with Greatwell Homes
Tuesday 11th March – Apprenticeship with Saxbys Cider and summer employment with them also
Tuesday 18th March – The Camp America programme
Tuesday 25th March – Apprenticeship Provider , Starting Off – they provide a wide variety of apprenticeships in different areas.
World Book Day
A reminder that the 6th March is World Book Day and we invite key stage 3 students to dress for the occasion although this is not compulsory. For students not dressing up as a character or theme for the day, normal school uniform is expected! There will be a number of events to mark the day and as always we await with eager anticipation to see the creative outfits students wear.
Closure to Year 11 and 12 on Tuesday 11th March
As you know from Mr Birkett’s email, we have now know the date for the funeral of Joe Maddy, our Year 11 pupil who tragically passed before half term. We would like to give as many staff and students the opportunity to attend the services and therefore will need to make some adjustments to operational aspects of school for the day.
We have therefore decided to close to Years 11 and 12 for the day. Work will be set for these year groups on Arbor by subject teachers so that students who are not attending the funeral can continue their studies. I am sure parents will appreciate the sensitive nature of this decision, and I thank all families in advance for supporting our community to mark Joe’s life.
For those students who cannot be at home, we will provide an independent study area. If this is the case, please contact Mrs Halliday on [email protected]
Please note for some year groups in school there may be some changes to their usual Tuesday schedule so we can accommodate as many staff as possible attending the funeral who would like to pay their respects.
Year 11 were due to have a mock English and maths paper on the 11th and this has been changed to Friday 7th March. Students have been informed of this.
Key Dates
Thursday 6th March – World Book Day & Year 9 Parents Evening
Best wishes for the week ahead.
Simon Anderson