Welcome
Dear Families
We have had another productive week in the Academy with students engaging with a range of exciting academic and enrichment activities.
Throughout the week Mr Kirby as delivered ‘House’ assemblies which have really focused on his ‘vision’ for Lodge Park Academy and the role that everyone has to play in the continued and sustained improvement of what we do. As part of this Mr Kirby outlined the reasons why we ask students to do what we do and the impact that this can have on the ethos of the school. An example shared with students was that we have seen a huge improvement in student punctuality to lessons as a result of the introduction of the late bell and the emphasis we have also placed on ensuring that where students have ‘not got it right’ they have owned their part in this by attending the after school detention sanction. We will continue to share our ‘why’ with students moving forward to ensure that we are as transparent as we can be.
This week has also seen the launch of the second phase of our Ravens' Programme with all students in Year 7-10 being encouraged to once again apply to be a part of this exciting sports programme. Further news will follow regarding this in the coming weeks.
On Friday, we hosted the ‘I’m a Teacher, Get me out of Here!’ Enrichment in the Hall during lunch time with students delighted to see a number of their teachers being put through numerous trials to entertain the masses. Much fun was had by all involved.
We were fortunate to have a visit from the Navy on Tuesday and they did an amazing talk to year 8 and year 9 on career opportunities in the Armed Forces. Our students were exemplary!!
We have received a number of positive and supportive messages over the last few weeks supporting our work and providing solution driven suggestions. We thank you greatly for all that you are doing in helping us raise standards within the Academy.
Warm regards
The Senior Leadership Team
Sixth Form Open Evening Tuesday 3rd December 2024
Calling all Year 11 students
On Tuesday 3rd December we will be holding our Year 11 into 12 Open Evening. This is aimed at all of our current Year 11 students who have an intention of studying Level 3 qualifications in 2025/26.
Come and see what Lodge Park Academies’ ‘Good’ Sixth Form has to offer and talk with Subject Specialist about how they could support your child in reaching their potential. This evening will be lead by Mr York, Assistant Headteacher (Sixth Form), who will be on had to provide an overview of all the things that are great about youngsters continuing their studies in our bespoke, modern Sixth Form.
The evening runs from 4.30-6.30pm. Please do all you can to come and see what we have to offer.
Mr McGeown – Vice Principal
Please book your place using this link
Calling all Students - Student Application for the "Ravens Programme" is now Open!!
After a highly successful first term and the launch of LPA Ravens, we are very pleased to announce that the application process for securing a spot in the programme for the next term is now OPEN!
Please find below the link to the online application form, which you are required to complete in order to apply for a place on the programme:
This is a really exciting opportunity, and certainly not one to be missed! I encourage you to consider your application carefully. Take the time to provide comprehensive and thoughtful responses, particularly to the question asking why you would like to be considered for this programme.
You have until the end of the day on Friday 6th December 2024 to submit your application.
Please be mindful that we will be reviewing behaviour in line with the applications over the next few weeks when making decisions on who to select for the programme.
Miss Baker - Sports Coach & Enrichment Officer
Student Reception Opens!
Learners can now enjoy our new student reception which has opened, with the purpose of supporting them with any learner needs throughout the day.
If learners needed to contact home, need new timetable, need to manage their account for their lunch food or anything else that would stop them being successful at school - they now have a place to come to be supported.
Please note that when learners come to school late, this is where they will sign in.
Huge thanks to our DRET team for facilitating this support for our learners, and for Miss Di-lorio for her sterling work behind the desk!
Why do we do what we do?
Detentions for Lateness
In the last few weeks, we have had a huge push on lateness to lesson and to school. If a learner receives two late marks in a three day period, they receive an after-school detention 3:10 - 4:00.
Why?
Because school is a dry-run for the rest of our life, and no matter what profession our learners go into, they will need to be punctual and compliant with deadlines of times and dates. If they weren't, it would put their employment at risk.
To be late is to show that something else is valued higher then the thing you're expected to be at - and at LPA education and betterment of ourselves is the most important thing.
LPA I’m a Teacher Get Me Out of Here
I’m a Teacher Get Me Out of Here took place at LPA today with staff and students taking on a series of Bush Tucker style challenges in return for House points.
House teams went head to head in the ‘LPA Jungle Diner’ involving five eating and drinking challenges. The jungle diner menu consisted of snails, meal worms and crickets followed by a choc’lick’ milkshake and ‘sneeze’ burger. Next up was the animals encounters challenge with students and staff coming face to face with a Chilean Rose Tarantula, Lizard and Skunk. The final trial of the event, brand new this year was Slime Karaoke involving staff in each house singing for 1 minute in return for House points by trying avoid forgetting lyrics.
Well done to everyone who took part. Photos and full results to be revealed next week.
LPA House Christmas Party
Tickets to this year’s LPA House Christmas Party (Thursday 19th December) are now on sale. This is a ticketed event and open to all students who have met the LPA behaviour and attendance expectations, on a first come first serve basis.
Tickets will be on sale from Monday at £4 (£1.50 Free school meals) and will include a full Christmas dinner with all the trimmings plus access to a variety of Christmas games and prize draws in the main hall. Be quick as there are only 200 spaces available in both KS3 and KS4/KS5 party’s (400 places in total across the academy). To secure a space for your child payment must be made via MCAS by Wednesday 4th December
In the build up to the party each tutor group will receive their very own miniature Christmas tree to decorate. Within tutor groups students, tutors and Heads of House will work together to come up with individual themes before creating decorations to bring the theme to life.
House points will be awarded to the best trees when brought down to the party.
House Dodgeball – Tuesday 10th to Friday 13th December
The next House competition to take place at LPA is House Dodgeball. Open to students in Years 7 to 10.
If you are interested in taking part in this competition make sure you are registering your interest with your tutor and/or Head of House.
Each house require a minimum of 6 players, combing both boys and girls.
Shoeboxes - Chrstmas Child Appeal
Thank you to all tutors and their tutor groups who organised Shoeboxes for the Christmas Child Appeal again this year. All boxes were safely delivered to St Columba Church on Friday and Revd. Pullinger and his team will ensure that they are on their way shortly to children in need across the world that would otherwise not receive any Christmas gifts.
Congratulations to Goshawk House for preparing the most shoeboxes.
LPA House Championship Totaliser
There hasn’t been much movement in the House Championship totaliser this week as we eagerly await the results from Rowvember and Im a Teacher Get Me Out of Here. Keep an eye out for the latest totaliser next week. Tutor groups however have been working incredibly hard to achieve houseopoly cards to work their way around their houseopoly boards, to access additional house points.
Children In Need
Fundraising for Children in Need last Friday break and lunchtime Mrs Occleshaw held a Bake Sale in the Staffroom for staff, and our Student Leadership held a Bake Sale and a Bear Pong competition in the Zone where students had to bounce table tennis balls along a table into cups and the cups held points.
The total raised was:- £170.80
SEND Coffee Afternoon - Wednesday 4th December 2024 2:30 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.
We are very pleased to be able to invite you to our SEND Coffee Afternoon.
This will be a great opportunity for parents/carers and children who are supported for their educational needs and attend Lodge Park Academy. You will have the oportunity to meet one another, share experiences and ask questions. Our SEND team will be available to discuss support in a relaxed and friendly environment.
Refreshments will be available. Please confirm your attendance to: YDrabwell@lodgeparkacademy.co.uk, by Monday 2nd December 2024
We look forward to meeting you!
Forthcoming dates:
- Thursday 6th March 2025 2:30p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
- Wednesday 11th June 2025 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
DRET Kettering Carol Service 6th December 2024 - 1:30pm
Please come and join us next Friday 6th December 2024 at 1:30pm at St Peter and St Paul's Church on Kettering market square for the annual DRET Carol Service!
The whole of Year 7 will be performing, plus our fabulous LPA Choir who will be fresh from a performance at Coventry Cathedral with the esteemed Gabrieli Consort of singers.
Don't miss this chance to celebrate our wonderful students and to get yourselves into the festive spirit! 🎄
Year 7 parents - don't forget to return the permission slips for your child either via email or printed letter to Helen Della Torre, Director of Music.
Uniform – Winter Coats and Hooded Tops
As per last week's newsletter and our assemblies and notices to learners, we have explained extensively now our reasons for not having coats indoors, and for hoodies being banned on site. On the grounds of safety and equality, all learners must be without coats in the school building and hoodies are banned from site.
Going forward, we do not expect any learner to be wearing a coat inside the school building. Learners will receive an immediate lunchtime detention if a coat is on, and hoddies will be confiscated until the day's end.
If there are any concerns in this regard, please contact Mr Kirby (jkirby@lodgeparkacademy.co.uk)
The Senior Leadership Team.
Attendance
As many of you will be aware from publicity in the press, and letters we have sent out previously, the government have significantly toughened the law in relation to school attendance and have now published revised guidance which has become mandatory from September 2024.
From September 2024, schools have to consider a penalty notice if a pupil misses 10 sessions of unauthorised absence in a rolling period of 10 school weeks. Half of a day (am or pm) is considered as a ‘session’. The threshold of 10 sessions can be met with any combination of unauthorised absence, for example, eight sessions of unauthorised holidays in term time and two sessions for other unauthorised reasons would trigger a penalty notice.
The ten school week period may span different terms or school years, for example: 2 sessions of unauthorised absence in the summer term and a further 8 in the autumn term.
National Framework for Attendance Penalty Notices (fines)
The new penalty notice regulations are:
- Each parent will be issued a separate penalty notice, for each child who is absent. For example, 2 parents and 3 children, each parent will receive 3 penalty notices for £160 each, with a family total of £960 in fines.
- The fine amount will be £160 per parent, per child paid within 28 days, reduced to £80 per parent, per child if paid within 21 days.
- The first penalty notice will be considered your first offence.
- The next time an offence occurs, within 3 years of the date the first penalty notice is issued, the fine amount will be £160 per parent, per child paid within 28 days, with no reduction.
- The third time an offence occurs this will be presented to Magistrate’s court for prosecution.
Where a child is absent, and it is believed they are absent without valid reason, we will carry out a home visit and see the child on or before the third school day of absence. If the absence meets the thresholds explained above, you will be issued fixed penalty notices as detailed above.
Please review any holiday plans you have for term time this year to ensure you are not issued with a penalty fine or prosecuted in the Magistrates’ court.
The above rules also apply to punctuality as registers must close at the end of our tutor period. Arriving to school after this time will result in an unauthorised absence. To enable our morning registration (AM) to begin promptly, we require all students to be on site for 8.30 a.m. This is the time your child must be in school, ready to be marked into registers. Therefore, we ask that you ensure your child arrives at 8.30 a.m. and they are with their tutor by 8.40 a.m. at the latest.
Your child must register with their tutor and attend P1 to ensure their ‘present’ marks are captured within the AM registration period. Your child must attend afternoon registration and P5 to ensure their ‘present’ marks are captured within the PM registration period. Even if your child is on site they will not be registered unless they are in their tutor room and classrooms and an unauthorised mark will be given. Ten unauthorised sessions in a ten school week period will result in a fixed penalty notice.
Pupils who attend school regularly will achieve higher grades than those pupils who don’t. In the summer of 2024 pupils at Lodge Park who had above 90% attendance achieved half a grade higher than those who below this.
If you require any support or advice please get in touch via email us on attendance@lodgeparkacademy.co.uk
SWI UNIFORM SUPPLIER
Sixth Form Open Evening Tuesday 3rd December 2024 - 4.30 pm - 6.30 pm
SEND Coffee Afternoon - Wednesday 4th December 2024 2:30 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.
Kettering Carol Service Friday 6th December 2024 - doors open at 1:15 p.m. Service at 1.30 p.m.
Academy closes to students on Friday 20th December 2024
.
Contact Us
Telephone: 01536 203817
Email: lpa-enquiries@lodgeparkacademy.co.uk
Please be aware this mailbox is monitored by a number of individuals, please do not disclose any confidential information.
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/lodgeparkpe?igsh=aDJxcDJzc3ozd3No
X / Twitter:
https://x.com/lodgeparkacad?s=20
Facebook:
https://m.facebook.com/lodgeparkacademy
Visit our website at www.lodgeparkacademy.co.uk
.
Credits:
Created with images by TaibaHossain - "A cup of coffee with a good afternoon written on it" • Johannes - "Traditional Christmas service background with a Christmas tree and star" • magele-picture - "Things you should know / Papier mit Symbole"