FACULTY NEWS

At the start of the term we held a Careers Festival, with a number of employers attending from a range of industries, Students in Years 9, 10 and 11 had the privilege of attending a careers fair, here in school, where 30 employers and further education providers including the Colleges, NHS, Police, Teaching, Banking, Hairdressing, Armed Forces, Law to name just a few. All of KS4 exhibited on Thursday 7th October, 2021. The event was designed to allow students to seek information from the various employers and represented their school wonderfully. Student and parent feedback was really positive, an event that really showed our colleges regarding their organisations, the jobs they seek to employ, the qualifications needed and the level of job satisfaction that might be on students the bright futures they can have. We then went onto supporting them with their College applications in tutor time, with more employers coming into school conducting mock interviews; again, we had wonderful support from our local and offer, should they choose to peruse that pathway. It fantastic to be able to open our doors and create face to face careers event in school. The benefit of face to face conversations and national employers, who were all very impressed with our students and their preparation for the event. Students information gathering was a huge benefit to our students. The interactions and questioning they were able to engage with, was priceless. understandably were nervous before the interviews, but they walked out beaming with pride and confidence. Students and exhibitors were very positive about the event and both gained much from those interactions. To support all this preparation for their next steps and near future All the employers who attended stated that the students at Colchester Academy were wonderful; they said they asked some very intuitive challenges, we invited an organisation called PositivelyYou to teach our students some valuable study skills. The aim of the sessions was to stimulate a positive attitude to studying and revision, to empower questions, were not afraid to ask challenging questions and sort as much information as they could, to help them make informed decisions about their futures. Students represented the school brilliantly and made us all very proud. It was a privilege to create and host such an event, next year we hope to make it even bigger! It was a proud moment to see the high level of students with effective study techniques and to raise self-belief and engagement in the activities. Well done to all our students, we hope the information you gathered will inspire you to aim high and seek to be the aspirations. What was amazing was the amount of facts they recalled best that you can be. about Muhammad Ali following the session, proving the mind mapping technique really does work. Student feedback was really Mrs Ross positive and it is definitely a session we will do again. Assistant Principal Mr Beezy, a well-known motivational speaker, then paid us a virtual visit about staying focused on goals and aspirations and working hard. Students responded well to the virtual sessions and gained some useful techniques to support them in the coming months and years. One full, packed and busy term and throughout our students continued to work hard, attend period 6 sessions and show great resilience and motivation towards their school life and their goals. Well done to all our students here at Colchester Academy! Mrs Ross Assistant Principal

Realise your Potential with Make Happen

Bake Sale

The Year 10 students in CoPE have been focusing on working with others this half term. The students have done lots of tasks and had lots of discussions about working as a team and what good team work looks like. One of the challenges asked of the students was to ‘work with others to help raise money for a good cause’. The students spent the last 6 weeks planning, organising and researching how they were going to run the event and which charity to raise money for. Sarah, Hannah and Alfie did this with minimal input from the teacher and they came up with all the ideas themselves. The Bake Sale was a huge success and we must say thank you to some Year 7 and Year 11 students who baked some treats for the Bake Sale. The 3 students raised over £114 for BBC Children in Need. Well done. Miss Fosker Teacher of COPE

BIG AWARD Spotlight Event Student Success

Colchester Academy can now proudly announce that we have been awarded the prestigious anti-bullying plaque from The BIG AWARD. The BIG AWARD is given for excellence in bullying intervention. It is recognised by schools, services, groups and Local Authorities. Colchester Academy has worked, tirelessly, to meet the externally agreed criteria to be awarded this honour. Our school had to submit an extensive portfolio of its work and polices for assessment. The Award is earned; evidenced and achieved over a 12-month period. The BIG AWARD team were particularly impressed with Colchester Academy’s new Bullying Intervention Focus Group, “Anti-Bullying Day”, which runs fortnightly and is led by Mrs Silver. The programme consists of a 10-person group, with two students from each year group. The group completes the following tasks, every two weeks: 1. Each group will visit their own respective year groups, during registration. The teams remind their forms that during Anti-Bullying Day students can report all bullying matters at lunchtime. The teams have their own designated rooms where bullying concerns can be reported 2. Additionally, the groups remind their forms that students can place anti-bullying forms in the five student voice boxes situated in the school. The discreet forms allow the students to raise concerns regarding all issues connected to bullying matters. The group has already had lots of positive feedback and clearly demonstrates the commitment shown by Colchester Academy’s staff to stop all acts of bulling in our school community. The school obviously understands that whilst the Award is a fantastic achievement, it doesn’t mean that all the hard work is now completed. Colchester Academy will continue to work with students and parents/carers to ensure that every student is reassured in the knowledge that bullying is not accepted at our Academy. Mr Halliwell Assistant Principal Something else Author Visit

Remote Learning, Learning Online, Live Learning …we have been doing it all, at Colchester Academy Lockdown has been long and tiring. Sitting in front of a screen, day in day out, has been a burden on all of us, including students, parents and guardians, and any other poor souls who has assisted in ensuring students at CA have continued to be dedicated to their studies. However, we are immensely proud of our community and cohort of students for the dedication and resilience they have shown in progressing with their learning. It has been a real pleasure seeing our learners flourish, especially with new features, such as the ‘chat function’ in the google classroom. Such a function has enabled our teachers to question students in a different manner, engaging new responses and developing ideas and thoughts in a different way. Further to this, the attendance to lessons of all students has been of an exceptional standard, especially when you consider we, as an academy, have been providing ‘live’ lessons for all learners. Highlights have seen 78% of the academy logging on and attending lessons per day, with this peaking in certain year groups to 82.9% in Year 11, 79.3% in Year 10 and 79.5% in Year 7. Additionally, we have also seen real dedication from our students with 51% attending 4 or more lessons on a daily basis; again, this has peaked at 53.9% in Year 11, 55.5% in Year 10 and 52.7% in Year 9. I hasten to add, these figures are above national averages, as reported by the Sutton Trust. We know we are all yearning for the return of students to the academy. We know that whatever measures have been put in place online, it doesn’t make up for the quality of face to face teaching and lea Prefects are Year 11 students who have been nominated by departments before undergoing a rigorous selection process. They have a range of duties to fulfil including lunch supervision, teaching small groups of younger students and supporting the school’s faculties. Our Head Students are selected from within a group of Senior Prefects. The path to these appointments is rigorous, and before selected, they have completed an application form, delivered a presentation and then undergone an interview with a panel of senior staff members. This year’s demanding selection process was the most competitive the school has Some of our Year 7 and 8 students have been participating during lockdown in a Mini Book Club – At Home reading witnessed in recent years, and due to the quality of the candidates, the decision of whom would become the an ebook of ‘I Have No Secrets’ by Penny Joelson, a page-turning thriller seen through the eyes of a unique narrator. school’s Head Students was an extremely difficult one to make. Nominated for a CILIP Carnegie Medal, it won the FCBG Children’s Book Award for Older Readers. After much deliberation, the above students were chosen to fill the appointments of Head Students. Students met online in a Google Classroom and when we finally came back to school we were able to use a large classroom for our discussions. Well done to Daniel Johnson and Skye Marzell. The last event was a Google Meet with the author, Penny Joelson, who gave us some insight into her writing style Mr Halliwell (lots of Post-It notes) and told the story of how she was once so immersed in her reading, she got locked in a library Assistant Principal for 2 hours after it shut! 1,500 pupils participated in the online interactive event! It was the first time so many pupils across the country took part in a book club. Pupil engagement was fantastic – there were so many questions that Google nearly crashed! We were very proud to have been part of the launch of the first-ever National Teen Book Club. Mrs Hawkins Library Coordinator

A dazzling array of Colchester Academy’s talent was on show at our annual Spotlight competition. This was an opportunity for our young performers to show their talent and dedication in front of a live audience from Years 7-9. In the past our performers have sung to the audience, but this time we were treated to guitarists, drummers, singers, a clarinetist, dancers, and even some onstage magic! Our students applied to get onstage through a rigorous audition process, before being shortlisted for the final. Once this list was decided, our students engaged in a frantic round of rehearsals and meetings to ensure that any performances were stage-ready. This culminated in a final show in theatre on Friday 26th November. Throughout the process, our students showed real ingenuity, dedication and creativity. Any type of performance involves an element of risk, and our performers took those risks and were rewarded with rapturous applause from an excellent audience. Our judges had a very difficult time picking an eventual winner, finally choosing Dylan Mane and Evan Bament (both in Year 9) for their magic trick. The illusion itself was impressive enough, but this was coupled with excellent stagecraft and attention to detail, resulting in a confounding illusion which our students are still trying to work out! Many thanks all our performers, audience members and staff who made our Spotlight event so special. Mr Searl Head of Performing Arts District Cross Country: Northern Gateway Tuesday 9 November saw Oliver Bennett in Year 8 line up against the best of the district runners. Ahead of Oliver was 2500m of cross-country terrain. As the sole representative of Colchester Academy, Oliver is also an avid club runner outside of school. A sterling effort in tricky conditions saw Oliver take a tumble during the race but return to finish in the top 40 students. An excellent effort and a great bench mark for next year. Oliver’s drive has led to an interest from a number of students and the plan is to build a strong athletics training group this summer term, with a view to taking a full team of runners next year. Mr Stronach Assistant Principal