Dear Parents/Carers,
I hope that you are all well. Another bumper week for rewards with over three thousand again awarded to our students this week, a huge well done to them all. At a time of fatigue in one of the longest terms of the academic year this is a fantastic feat, the challenge of course is to continue those efforts in spite of fatigue that inevitably sets in as half term approaches.
New Principal Appointment
No doubt you will have read the announcement from Simon Beamish our CEO regarding the appointment of Mrs J Brooks as Principal of Mascalls Academy with effect from January. Mrs Brooks’ appointment provides considerable continuity to the leadership of Mascalls and will continue our path of improvement as we aspire to nothing short of an outstanding all round provision for our students. It is simply what our amazing community deserves. I pass on my congratulations to Mrs Brooks and [continue to] look forward to working with her as Academies Director on what is an incredibly exciting journey to outstanding and beyond.
Book Buzz
At Mascalls, it is fundamental that all students have the opportunity to further their skills and build the excitement of reading that we consistently nurture as a school, and we strive to do this through Book Buzz! This term we have, again, had the excellent opportunity to allow students to go on their very own virtual library tour and pick a book, out of a wide selection, that they would most like to read. Once they had done this, we bought it! It is from this opportunity that every Year 7 student now has their very own book, a complimentary gift from us, to go and really get their teeth into.
Our students could choose from a variety of books, including fictional spy adventures from Alex Rider, Manchester United star Marcus Rashford, the sci-fi adventure Orion Lost, and slimy horrors appropriate for our dyslexic readers. But this is not all; our library has also been fully stocked with lots of extra copies for those who struggled to pick!
We can’t wait to hear the stories of the adventures and read the brilliant book reviews over in the English Department!
Music once more
Following our brilliant workshop with professional singer and casting agent, Betsy-Lee Miller earlier in September, our students were invited to perform at On Stage hosted by Bravo Productions on Sunday 2nd October. Students from Year 7-13 formed two groups to perform “I Got You” from Bring It On the Musical and “Seasons of Love” from Rent and they looked so at home on the stage at the EM Forster Theatre in Tonbridge with the industry quality lights and microphones.
It was brilliant to see how they started the day so nervously and by the end, they were asking when the next opportunity was for them to do it all over again.
Football
Our Year 7 football team kicked off their cup campaign this week with a fantastic victory over New Line Learning 5-2. Scorers were – Lexi 2, OG, 1 Maisey and 1 Abbey. We have huge numbers attending football club each week and are very proud of the growth in this area, we are looking forward to bringing home some silverware with the undoubted talent we have. Next up in the cup St. Gregory’s.
British Army Days
Over the past five weeks 20 Year 9 students have been completing the British Army’s School Engagement Team course. The course has challenged students to develop their planning, teamwork and evaluative skills, all of which are transferable to their academic life at GCSE and A Level and future employment. The students have had to break codes, plan and design a wheelbarrow from provided materials and create a catapult able to propel a tennis ball. They have also had to reflect on their own skills and abilities and consider how they work with others to be more effective. The students taking part have worked with great enthusiasm and have been praised by Will and Chelsea who lead the course.
District Primary Schools Cross-Country
Mascalls was once again delighted to host one of the district events and a large number of schools arrived with some eager, enthusiastic and talented runners. Approximately 160 boys and girls participated in 4 races which were organised and overseen by our Sports Leaders. Once again, they were a credit to the PE Department and the school and were commended on their excellent work which ranged from organising the site, setting up the course and guiding the runners from start to finish. Congratulations to you all.
One teacher from a local primary school wrote:
“Thank you so much for yesterday, your efforts were really appreciated. Once again, your sports leaders were brilliant and I’ve had so many messages from different schools saying how fantastic they were.”
Finally, from me, as we approach the end of term, naturally there is much reflection and much to be proud of. Our students have started this year exceptionally well with record numbers of rewards which as we have said promote positive characteristics, progress, effort and so much more. Only with your support and reinforcement at home can we normalise behaviours that contribute positively to academic excellence and produce simply nice people. They are lovely and it is a combined effort. So, thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Mr W Monk
Principal
