Dear Families,
I hope this final update of the half term finds you in the very best of health and looking forward to a bank holiday weekend. As you can imagine, these last few weeks have been dominated by the examinations for Year 11 and 13, the revision sessions and the preparatory work that goes into making each sitting run as smoothly as possible. Whilst the focus is upon the students to be ready, credit must also go to our dedicated exams team for their coordination of what is a huge and complicated series of events.
I’ve had the pleasure of running our rewards assemblies over the last couple of weeks, hanging out our stars and rewards for those showing the best, or improvements in, attitude to learning in lessons. IF your child has come home with a new star on the lapel, please do ask them about it.
Year 7 Parents Evening
Year 7 parents evening is taking place on 12th June from 16:20:19:00. We are using School Cloud to book the appointments but the evening will take place face to face. Details of the evening will be sent to you during next week so please make sure that you keep an eye on your email inbox. As part of the Year 7 Parents Evening we would like to involve all of our parents/carers directly in finding out about our 4Rs Employability Skills programme. This has been designed in partnership with local businesses to ensure that Derby Moor students are fully equipped to enter the world of work and to have developed the necessary skills to be ready for employment in an ever changing and fast moving world. To support this, we have invited delegates from a number of our business partners from Alstom (formerly Bombardier); JCB and DHL. They will be giving a presentation about the 4Rs Employability Skills at Derby Moor alongside Ian Hall Vice Principal in charge of curriculum, Andrew Kilgour, Careers Leader and some Year 7 students. Each presentation will last for approximately 20 minutes and there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please look out for a Google form sent alongside parents’ evening letter asking you to sign up for one of the presentations on night.
Should you experience any issues please get in touch with Mrs Hrncic on or Mrs Thomas (Year Manager).
Year 10 Art Intervention
Year 10 Art intervention starts next week every Tuesday in H04 until 4.00 pm. Students who study Art are encouraged to attend to catch up on any coursework that needs completing during these sessions with experts on hand to support. Mrs Calvert will also be holding intervention sessions for Year 10 Art and Textiles on Thursdays until 4.00 pm.
Art and Textiles Exhibition
On 10th July 2024, Miss Oliver and Mrs Calvert are excited to announce the Art and Textiles Exhibition for the Year 10 students. They have been studying Alice in Wonderland as a theme for their coursework and look forward to sharing their work with you. Further information to follow soon.
Alton Towers
The weekly updates of students who are eligible for the Alton Towers trip will continue until Friday 14th June and access on Parent pay will close on Friday 21st June. If the trip has not been paid for by this point, then the students will unfortunately not be able to go.
Year 13 Student Leadership
The application process for the new Year 13 Student Leadership Team is now open. Mr Scott has emailed out the application forms to all Year 12 students this week and the deadline for completion is Monday 17th June. If your child is in Yearr12, please speak with them about this opportunity.
6th Form Coffee Shop
Some Year 12 students are looking into a project to set up and run a 6th form coffee/Hot drinks shop, with Barista style coffee and hot drinks. They are investigating the level of support that there would be from current Year 11 moving into new Year 12 and the current Year 12 moving into new Year 13.
Mr Scott sent out an email to relevant students on Friday with a google survey on this topic. If you would like to potentially see the 6th form develop a coffee shop, please can you encourage your child to take 1-2 minutes to complete the survey.
FACE (Family Advice Community Education)
Family Advice community Education (FACE) are running a range of training sessions aimed at supporting parents. Some sessions are free whilst others incur a small charge. The sessions include topics such as anxiety, supporting a child with SEND, supporting healthy sleep, understanding addictive behaviour and more. For more information, please visit their website or drop them an email.
Year 13 Farewell
Today, we had the pleasure of hosting our Year 13 Leavers Assembly, a special occasion to celebrate the achievements of our graduating students and of course, the memories of their time in Sixth Form. The event was a wonderful opportunity for our Year 13 pupils to reflect on their past two years, share fond memories with their peers, and receive well-wishes from our staff; present and past. It was also a chance for our staff to say goodbye and share some heartfelt memories of the pupils, highlighting their growth, accomplishments, and unique qualities and characters. As our Year 13 students prepare to embark on their next journey, I would like to take this opportunity to wish them all the best for their exams and future endeavours. We are confident that they will go on to achieve great things. We look forward to seeing them again on results day.
Careers Update
Job of the Week: This week’s job of the week is an Insurance Broker.
Derby Moor Dispatch: The Derby Moor Dispatch goes out weekly to all students in Year 11, 12 and 13. The Dispatch contains a wide range of opportunities for work experience, summer schools, careers related webinars and so on. Please do have a look at the latest edition. The Dispatch is emailed to the students’ school email address, so it is important that they check this regularly on a Monday. You can also view the Dispatch via the Careers page of the Derby Moor website. Please take a look at the website as there is a wealth of useful information including a specific page for parents.
DHL Foundation Aberdovey Trip: A group of Year 10 students have recently returned from the Outward Bound Centre in Aberdovey, north Wales, having taken part in an outdoor pursuits activities trip supported by our partners from the DHL Foundation. Year 10 Manager Mr. Dhillon, accompanied the students and said it had been a great week and the students have had a wonderful experience learning and developing so many new skills. More detail on the trip will follow after half-term.
Let’s talk Apprenticeships parental webinar
This is a useful video about apprenticeships made for parents by Careers Live. Please click on the link and you can register to watch the video.
Staff Spotlight
This week, we shine the Staff Spotlight on one of our Teaching and Learning Supervisors, Miss Cenanovic:
Q) How long have you worked at Derby Moor Spencer Academy?
A) I have been working at Derby Moor for almost six years now (since September 2018).
Q) What is your role and what does it entail?
A) I am a Teaching and Learning Supervisor based in the English department. I spend most of my time in the classroom covering lessons and supporting learning.
Q) What is your favourite thing about working here?
A) My favourite thing about working at Derby Moor is the sense of community we have here. Due to the nature of my role, I spend most of my time in the classroom. It is extremely rewarding to support and teach our students and watch them achieve to the best of their ability. I have also met some of my closest friends whilst working here!
Q) Tell us a fact about yourself.
A) I was a Derby Moor student myself! I left and completed a Nursing degree at the University of Nottingham before coming back to work here. Once Derby Moor, always Derby Moor!
Final Thoughts
You may or may not be aware that we are currently undergoing a significant period of IT work to bring all of our infrastructure, interfaces and software up to a state-of-the-art standard. This is in preparation for a development of our digital vision to help prepare our students for employability over the next 5-10 years. As you can imagine, this does not come without challenges and we have experienced periods of disruption along the way as students and staff have moved to new emails, new printers and will soon move to a new file system after the half term. The anticipated end point for this work is the beginning of July, at this point everything should be in place and we will begin working with the new system and developing the tools and curricular to further develop our students’ competence with digital media.
Wishing you a wonderful bank holiday weekend.
Scott Doyle
Principal