Barnes Wallis Newsletter 19th December 2024

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Executive Principal, Alastair O'Connor and the Senior Leadership Team

Thank you to staff, students, Governors and parents for all your support this term.

Homework Success and Innovations

We have been incredibly impressed with our students’ positive attitude towards homework this term. They clearly understand how homework supports their learning in school and have shown eagerness to overcome any challenges they’ve encountered, whether with Bromcom or the specific platforms we use. As a result, homework completion rates across the school are improving.

To celebrate this success, we share class homework achievements in the weekly student bulletin, giving students well-deserved recognition for their efforts.

Sparx Maths

Our students have made remarkable progress using Sparx Maths for their personalised maths homework. So far this year, they’ve dedicated 14091 hours to their learning and correctly answered over 200,000 questions!

Seneca Learning

For science homework, we rely on Seneca Learning, where our students have consistently excelled. Since the start of term, we’ve ranked second in the DRET league table every single week. Beyond this, we’ve also led the regional schools, often achieving more than twice the points of the second-place school.

Introducing Sparx Reader

We are excited to announce that our school has been selected to trial Sparx Reader for Key Stage 3 English homework. This innovative programme promotes reading for pleasure by providing students with a curated selection of books tailored to their reading age. Students carefully read the texts online and answer comprehension questions as they progress through each book.

We introduced Sparx Reader in an assembly and followed up with an online reading assessment during English lessons. This assessment helps the programme assign books suitable for each student’s reading level. We’re excited to see how this initiative will impact both reading enjoyment and proficiency over time.

We have already read 683 books with 1257 hours of careful reading.

Prizes are being handed out to top readers in each KS3 year group: Molly in Year 7 - 34 hours, Amelise in Year 8 - 34 hours and Isobel in Year 9 - 51 hours of careful reading!

Creative muscles have also been flexed with exceptional competition entries to the "Fright Club: Ghost Stories” creative writing competition. With winners announced in the new year, our fingers are crossed for BWA.

In Key Stage 4, Year 11 pupils have been attending weekly interventions to secure those all-important English GCSE grades, which will continue until their final exams.

Congratulations for all your hard work guys!

Homework Support

To help all students succeed, we offer a dedicated homework club in the Learning Resource Centre. This club is fully supported by our fantastic team of Teaching Assistants and provides a quiet, focused environment where students can complete their homework before leaving school. All year groups are welcome to use the computers and seek support as needed.

If your child is still struggling to access homework or use the Bromcom student portal, they can visit Mrs Ashfield, who will assist them in getting online as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your continued support in encouraging your children to engage with their homework and these fantastic learning tools!

Geography Field Trip

Year 10 GCSE geography students visited Sheffield to study urban regeneration at Kelham Island, once an industrial hub and now transformed into a vibrant area with modern apartments, cultural spaces, and independent shops. They explored how regeneration impacts the community, economy, and environment, gaining insights into sustainable urban development.

The trip included a visit to Sheffield’s Winter Garden, a large temperate glasshouse showcasing diverse plant species, highlighting the importance of green spaces in urban areas. Students also enjoyed the festive Christmas Market, exploring traditional stalls and seasonal treats.

DRET Geographical Association Quiz

December 11th saw Skegness Grammar School host the inaugural DRET Geographical Association Quiz in the north east of our region.

The Geographical Association World Wise Quiz sees teams of students from Years 8-10 compete over eight rounds including questions on aerial photographs, country outlines, fieldwork and a bonus ‘make something geographical’ challenge. Six teams took part and each and every student represented their academies with honour.

The conversations, decision making and team work were incredible. We are so proud of our students. Here’s to another quiz next year!

CAREERS

Careers assemblies and other exciting careers focused events continue as we progress through 2025. Our recent key stage 4 assemblies have been delivered by LincHigher and have focused upon the changing face of labour market information in relation to Lincolnshire as well as reflecting upon the “do’s and don’ts” of preparing for an interview.

Personal Development events continue to run throughout the year, giving our pupils the opportunity to become resilient, confident, healthy young people, with students’ self-respect and respect for others being key in order to achieve their full potential.

Our first session for 2025 will be for Year 11s on the 10th of January and will be delivered by Stevenson Training.

ART

2024 at Barnes Wallis Academy has seen our students create wonderful works of art exploring a variety of topics and mediums.

Year 7 and 8 sketchbooks continue to work upon their fantastic Trust wide shared curriculum. The books and art work at key stage 3 demonstrate the pride that our pupils have when exploring and creating art.

Key stage 4 pupils continue to investigate their personal strengths and areas of interest, creating amazing works of art exploring such subject matters as the natural world to portraiture.

SEND Faculty

We've had a fantastic start to the year over in the SEND department. This term we have added new, evidenced based interventions to our menu to ensure all children access the support they need. New interventions include Inference Training - a reading comprehension programme, Word Wasp and a Literacy primer to support spelling and also Handwriting groups. We are also excited to be rolling out Sensory Circuits to help children learn to self regulate.

PE FACULTY

This term has been another busy one for BWA PE. Plenty of fixtures (with notable wins against TMA and KEVI in both netball and football!)

We also enjoyed the District X-Country, the DRET Rowing Cup, Rowvember, and some indoor athletics just to add to the fun.

Congratulations to Lily and Katie who were announced as 'All Stars' this term for the Trust. Since then, they have played with the All Stars Trust team against Nottingham High School at the David Ross Sports Centre in Nottingham where they won! And again at Grantham Meres Leisure Centre against Grantham Girls School and Fenland.

Barnes Wallis Academy students managed to get to Santander, rowing over 1 million meters as a school which is amazing. The house competition was ferociously fought with Spitfires narrowly coming out on top.

Finally, we finished the term with the Santa fun run and the annual netball Festive 5's event with Year 9s victorious and a great 4th place showing from the staff team! As always, our students and staff have thrown themselves into everything with great enthusiasm and excellent levels of behaviour and respect when representing #TeamBWA.

REMEMBRANCE SERVICE

On Monday the 11th of November, Armistice day, staff and students from Barnes Wallis Academy held a remembrance service. Wreaths were laid by representatives from each year group and the last post was played.

Still here in Flanders by Chris Ross was read from our lead cadet representative Tom Wise.

Students from Barnes Wallis Academy who are in the Cadets, Guides and other Associations, also proudly attended the Coningsby Remembrance Service at the Church followed by a service at the War Memorial in Tattershall.

MUSIC

During the October term, we were delighted to see that over 20 students had taken up the opportunity of free guitar lessons with our new guitar tutor Mr Pitts.

Furthermore, students have been taking an interest in paid sessions for next year and will be starting their sessions at the beginning of January.

It was wonderful to see our 42 strong choir perform at the Boston Stump. They performed 5 Christmas carols, O Little town of Bethlehem, O come all ye faithful, Silent night, Hark the Herold Angels sing and God rest ye merry gentlemen.

We are immensely proud or our musicians and we are delighted this is going from strength to strength.

Continuing with this pride, just a week later we then made our way to the local care home performing the same songs with an equal amount of energy as a church filled with 12 schools. We as a school are very proud that so many students volunteered to be part of our choir this year to represent the school.

Year 11 Update

We would like to start by thanking all Parents and Carers for your continued support of Year 11 students throughout this term which we know, has been examination heavy. Students have so far completed their first round of mock examinations, and for those studying BTEC have now submitted their component 2 assignments.

We would like to congratulate Year 11 students on their approach to examination preparation and for the mature conversations they have had with staff both on the mock results day and on Parents Evening. As we look forward to the new year, we would like to update you with further additions and changes to interventions that all students can access.

Morning interventions will still continue for all Year 11 students to attend for either English, Maths or Science, with some alterations to groups made by Heads of Faculty as a response to recent mock exams and areas for development.

The school day will still be extended on a Monday for Science and a Tuesday for English from 3:00-4:00pm. This rotation will change on 24th February, after half term, with Monday for English and Tuesday for Maths.

Wednesday lesson 6 will change from Science to English, starting on Wednesday 8 January

As of Thursday 9 January, from 3:00-4:00pm, we are also now offering option specific intervention sessions on a 4-week rotation for all students to attend, in line with their option subjects

Developing Oracy Skills

At Barnes Wallis, we are committed to helping students build their oracy skills, both in lessons and during special events where they may speak in front of an audience. Our goal is to develop confident individuals who can express themselves clearly, articulate their opinions, and justify their answers when called upon.

In lessons, we encourage students to enhance their responses through our core LEARN principle: ‘Respond like a Scholar’. This approach emphasises using key vocabulary accurately and speaking in full sentences, fostering a culture of thoughtful and articulate communication.

To further support the development of oracy skills, we are integrating targeted strategies within lessons and tutor times. One such initiative is ‘Talk 5’, a five-minute discussion activity linked to the weekly assembly themes. This provides students with regular opportunities to engage in structured, meaningful dialogue and refine their verbal communication skills.

Assessment Update

This term, students have completed assessments across most of their subjects. For Year 11 these assessments took place in the exams hall or smaller rooms, allowing them to become familiar with the formal process they will encounter during the summer’s external examinations.

We were very impressed with the conduct and attitudes of our students, who approached these assessments with focus and seriousness. However, we would like to remind all students of the importance of bringing the correct equipment to each exam. This ensures they are fully prepared and able to perform their best.

All assessments have now been marked, and the results are available in the progress reports uploaded to MCAS. These reports will give you a clear overview of your child’s progress this year.

JET Update

This term the focus has been on our Year 10 students who have completed the BSIP package with JET. Students have undertaken six sessions in school designed to make them think about the core skills of communication, leadership and teamwork. This session culminated with a trip to RAF Cranwell and a day completing 'Officer Selection' activities which included both physical and mental aptitude testing!

Next term, the JET focus will switch back to our Year 8 and 9 JET teams with trips and in school sessions in January - please keep a look out for further information!

Rewards Trip

We are delighted to see that attendance of students has significantly improved at Barnes Wallis Academy and is 2.4% higher than this time last year. We were delighted to be able to put a rewards trip on for students recognising their excellent behaviour and attendance this term.

Congratulations to the 112 students who attended the Kinema in the Woods, and watched a double bill, Paddington in Peru followed by Red One and the 143 pupils who enjoyed their reward trip bowling, playing games and generally getting into the Christmas spirit of spending time together.

Dates for the diary

  • Monday 6th January - Teacher Training Day
  • Tuesday 7th January - First day back for students.
  • Friday 10th January - RSHE (Religion, Sex, Health Education) Day
  • Thursday 16th January - Jet Blue Skies (Groups 1 and 2).
  • Thursday 23rd January - Year 9 Parents' Evening.
  • Monday 27th January - A Christmas Carol.
  • Wednesday 29th January - Intermediate Maths Challenge.
  • Friday 31st January - Composition Challenge.
  • Tuesday 4th February - Jet Blue Skies (Group 1).
  • Friday 7th February - Paris Trip.
  • Wednesday 12th February - Year 9 Preference Evening.
  • Thursday 13th February - Jet Blue Skies (Group 2).
  • Friday 14th February - Last day of term.

Follow us on @Barnes_Wallis_

Safeguarding during the Christmas Break

When the Academy is closed there is always someone who can help you.

If you are concerned that a child is suffering, or likely to suffer significant harm, you should contact your local authority safeguarding partnership directly.

Please go to our website www.barneswallis.org for the relevant contact information if you have any welfare concerns.

In an emergency, call 999.

For any other queries, please contact us via cip@dret.co.uk.

If you have a general enquiry during the Christmas break please contact the office on enquiries@BarnesWallisAcademy.co.uk There is limited access so it may take a few days to respond.

Credits:

Created with images by Mikael Damkier - "christmas tree with lights" • fuzzbones - "Homework text on green board" • pressmaster - "Word art painted with white gouache on colorful palette with paintbrush near by" • Alekss - "wasp isolated on white" • lemanieh - "A Poppy" • Studio Gi - "Mani di coriste che battono il tempo musicale, fuoco selettivo" • Africa Studio - "Young musician playing acoustic guitar close up" • SwathiFX - " Vintage charm A rusted weathered number 11 sign" • Vitalii Vodolazskyi - "Never stop learning sign on the colorful books." • netrun78 - "Mental health matters motivational quote on the letter board. Inspiration psycological text" • AntonioDiaz - "Taking a test in high school" • Liudmyla - "'Save the date' words on a modern board on a white wooden background, top view. Overhead, from above, flat lay. Close-up."