25 April 2025 - Letter to Parents

25th April 2025

 Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope that you had a great break. We have had a busy week this week, with a great sporting performance from the Under 12 girls on Tuesday, which sadly ended in a 3-2 defeat against Winterbourne after an exciting and hard-fought game. Ms Reith has led a great trip out with some of our aspiring Eco Leaders and the week is ending with a much-anticipated Staff vs Students basketball game! Next week, we have a large group of Year 9 students taking part in their Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Practice, our clubs are up and running and our Year 11 students take part in their languages oral exams, for which we which them the best of luck.

Attendance 

We are having a push on punctuality with children at the moment, reminding them of the importance of attending on time. As you can see in the table below, even a few minutes of lateness every day across the year costs them such a lot of learning time, and we really don’t want them to miss out:

New research from the Department of Education has also been carried out, highlighting the relationship between attendance and pupil outcomes, especially for exam year groups. Here are some highlights:

Pupils who attended school nearly every day in Year 11 (with an attendance rate of 95-100%) were 1.9 times more likely to achieve the Grade 5 in English and Maths GCSE compared to pupils who only attended 90-95% of the time (relating to up to 2 weeks more time in school over the course of a year).

Pupils who attended school nearly every day in Year 11 (with an attendance rate of 95-100%) were 3 times more likely than persistently absent pupils who only attend 85-90% of the time (relating to 4 - 6 weeks more time in school).

This means missing just 10 days of year 11 reduced the likelihood of achieving grade 5 in English and Maths by around 50%.

You can read the full research here, if interested:

The link between attendance and attainment in an assessment year

Attendance and punctuality are the first steps to success

House Cups

We were delighted to award our first termly House reward cups this week. The cups were awarded for attendance and punctuality, House points and Inter- House competitions. Well done to all winners listed below!

Year 11 – Exams Information

Next week we have Art, 3-D Design, Graphics, and Languages exams. These are spread over the week, and your child will know which day/s apply to them. We wish them the very best of luck!

Parent/Carer Voice

Our Trust, Trust in Learning Academies, would like your feedback. Please could you complete the survey at the link here no later than 12th May 2025. We really valued your kindness and constructive feedback in the recent Ofsted Parent View survey, and would appreciate you taking 5 minutes to complete this for us over the next few weeks: Trust in Learning Academies - Parent/Carer Survey 

Safeguarding

The evenings are getting lighter, the days longer and the weather is improving as we head towards summer. Please bear in mind that it is important to know where your children are when they are not at home. Many young people visit parks during this time, however, please make sure you know what they are doing and who they are doing it with as, sadly, many parks can be unsafe in the evenings.

On the return to school after the Easter break, it has been clear that some of our students’ sleep patterns have become highly irregular, with sometimes high levels of fatigue being noticed in the classrooms and the corridors. This of course will have a negative impact on young people's ability to learn. There has been a recent study carried out regarding the impact of sleep and how it affects the brain of adolescents. This study, of more than 3,000 adolescents, showed that those who went to bed earliest, slept the longest, and had the lowest sleeping heart rates outperformed others on reading, vocabulary, problem solving and other mental tests. Please encourage your child to keep up healthy sleeping habits during the summer months.

Planners

Thank you to all the parents who took part in the online survey on student planners (it’s still available to complete here). Overwhelmingly, parents and students understand our proposal to move to non-physical forms of planner. We already set all of our homework online via Teams, Bedrock, Sparx and Seneca and aim to communicate these via a single portal. We are going to trial running a new system, which will give parents a weekly, emailed summary of all homework set. We are also mindful that some students will still want/need a physical planner and we will ensure they are still available, if required. We will also ensure that students have a physical copy of their timetable! A separate letter with more details will come out to you shortly.

Uniform

Uniform is an important part of Orchard School identity and community. It is important that students wear the correct uniform including a blazer and correct footwear. We are proud of who we are and our school identity and part of this is shown in what we wear and of course in how we conduct ourselves. Please refer to the school website regarding correct uniform and if there is an issue, please contact your Head of Year or Pastoral Manager for support. Uniform (Parents & Carers menu tab)

Extra-Curricular Clubs – Term 5

Here’s a reminder of the many brilliant clubs that are running in Term 5. Don’t forget to remind your child to join in! Joining clubs is a great way to improve mental health and physical wellbeing and allows children to make new friends whilst discovering new hobbies.

Community Events

Filton Avenue Children’s Centre is running a postnatal group for mothers and their non-mobile babies, starting on May 7th. Details on the flyer below.

Get Online Sessions are starting up at the Langley Centre, Lockleaze. The session runs on a Tuesday morning from 10:30-12:30. They are hoping to see people who wish to learn the basics and progress. The course begins on Tuesday 13th May. E-mail Nicola Green for more details: Nicola@northbristoladvice.org.uk 

Have a lovely weekend.

Kind regards,

Mel Sweet, Headteacher