Dear Parents/Carers,
I hope this update finds you and your families well. Another week complete, over 1350 lessons, 48 colours ties and badges and 2905 reward points including golden tickets, it has been a fantastic effort from all involved, that includes you. At Mascalls we have always spoken of our strong partnership with parents, our aims and ethos acknowledge the importance of what could be termed ‘double dose’ education. Take a moment and think a bit about your childhood. What you learned from your parents, extended family or friends and what you learned at school? More importantly, how did the two learning environments overlap, developing consistency and clear expectations? Our community has combined incredibly over the last few years to ensure our wonderful young people continue to make exceptional progress. Never underestimate your influence in being the engaged and involved parent/carer (even when they do find it really annoying!) you are doing incredibly well and as a result, so are they.
End of Year Exams
Another sign of parent/carer engagement are the requests for information about our end of year examinations, these take place next term. This is a great sign that parents are focussed and supportive of ensuring our students achieve success. The end of year examination period begins in the week beginning 20th June (although timetable depending some may take in the week prior) and ends on the 8th July. Year 10 and 12 will have full mock examinations in the exam hall whilst years 7 to 9 tests will occur during lessons. At this stage the Knowledge Organisers can form the basis of revision and your help in quizzing, questioning and producing flash cards would prove invaluable. In lessons, staff will begin to prepare more detailed questions involving application, critical thinking and evaluation skills setting them both within the class and for homework – but the basis for success comes from the content of the knowledge organisers and understanding the key terms, words and information identified within. Little and often is the key to frequent repetition to ensure that knowledge is embedded, we are so grateful that parent/carers have requested this information and are so engaged to help. More information will be with you all in due course.
SOCs
SOCs is our co-curricular programme that is the home of all after school and extracurricular activities and interventions. This also includes our year 11 revision programme for the summer examinations. To view our programme parents/carers need to sign up. You can then monitor and book your son/daughter onto the programme, you would not want your son/daughter to miss out!
Please sign up here: https://www.socscms.com/login/2913/parent
Activate your account, input email and a SOCS activation email will be sent to your email account, you will then be able to change your password
Problem Solving in the High Performance Academy
Before the Easter holidays, students of the High-Performance Academy were set a logic puzzle based around trial and error and the process of elimination. This resulted in some brilliant solutions and prizes awarded to students in Years 8 and 10! Fancy having a go? I’ve included the challenge below. Some quick tips: try to get the houses in the right order first, and then read through the facts repeatedly, checking off the ones that you have completed! Next week, I’ll share some of our students’ solutions.
Who owns the shark?
- There are five adjoining houses in a row in different colours: blue, green, red, white and yellow.
- In each house lives a person of different nationality: British, Indonesian, German, American and Dutch.
- Each person drinks a different beverage: grape juice, coffee, milk, tea and water.
- Each person has a different job: journalist, postman, magician, astronaut and actuary.
- Each person keeps a different pet: tiger, zebra, parrot, shark and aardvark.
- The British person lives in a red house.
- The Dutch person keeps an aardvark.
- The Indonesian drinks tea.
- The green house is on the left of the white, next to it.
- The owner of the green house drinks coffee.
- The journalist rears parrots.
- The owner of the yellow house is an actuary.
- The person living in the house in the centre drinks milk.
- The American lives in the first house.
- The astronaut lives next to the person who owns a tiger.
- The man who keeps a zebra lives next to the actuary.
- The postman drinks grape juice.
- The German is a magician.
- The American lives next to the blue house.
- The astronaut has a neighbour who drinks water.
Who owns the shark?
Lastly from me, as ever, my continued gratitude goes to those parents and carers who continue to support us away from the academy gates – at home, at mealtimes, with homework and with your communications – the result is simply remarkable and we are incredibly proud of them.
Have a wonderful bank holiday weekend.
Yours sincerely,
Mr W Monk
Principal
