NEWSLETTER Easter Edition 2019

Happy Easter from all of the staff and students at The Roundhill Academy. After delivering assemblies to the whole school this week, I have been reflecting on the progress we have made this term. It has been wonderful to see all of our students involved in activities outside of normal lessons such as Comic Relief and World Book Day. To celebrate World Book Day we asked Tutor Groups to decorate their classroom doors in the style of one of their favourite books. The winner was, rather unsurprisingly, a book quite close to my heart, Mr Tickle by Roger Hargreaves. During these assemblies, I focused on the core values of the school, known at The Roundhill Academy as The 4Rs. The 4Rs are respect, responsibility, resilience and

reflect. We ask all members of our community show respect to one another at all times. We ask people to take responsibility for their actions and have resilience when things do not go their own way. Finally, we ask that everybody reflect on the decisions they make in an attempt to make things better for themselves and the whole school community in the future.

I asked our Year 11 students to be responsible for their work, revision over Easter and when they return to school. There are a number of Easter revision classes for Year 11 put on voluntarily by staff, details of which are on the school website. Every student in the school is responsible for their own attendance. As a school, our attendance sits below the national average and I urge you as parents to encourage students to strive for 100% attendance for the rest of the academic year.

For those parents who wish to be more involved in their child’s education we have a number of ways that you can do this. You can join The Roundhill Family Partnership, a group of likeminded parents putting their energies into improving the school. Secondly, as you will have seen in the news, school funding continues to be a huge concern, Leicestershire in particular only receiving the minimum amount of funding per student when compared with the rest of the country. Please write to your MP and appeal for them to lobby parliament for more money to be put into education and safeguarding our children’s future. Finally, can I ask that if you have something you wish to raise with the school, please do this with us in person as opposed to over local social media sites so that we can engage in a dialogue and try to resolve it with you.

I hope you enjoy the rest of this newsletter finding out what we have been up to at The Roundhill Academy. Have a wonderful holiday with family and friends. We look forward to greeting your son and/or daughter back at the school on Monday 29th April 2019.

Comic Relief

Raising the ceiling for Comic Relief! The students and staff at The Roundhill Academy surpassed all expectations as they threw themselves whole-heartedly into raising money for Comic Relief this year. Students

dressed up, organised bake sales, beauty treatments and sponsored events galore to ensure that money was raised for this worthwhile cause. Staff versus student sports challenges meant a different sport everyday - the staff proving the winners at the end of the week earning laughs and money in the process. A highlight was, without a doubt, the excitement in the Hall at break as students witnessed the staff leg wax for charity raising both over £150.00 and some screams! Overall, we raised a record-breaking £1379.00 for the cause and we could not have done it without the generosity of our parents and students. A big well done to all! Mrs Pope.

“The creativity that goes

into helping people have

a better life is

extraordinary.”

Sir Lenny Henry

Science

Four schools from the Ogden Trust Leicestershire partnership competed for the coveted Annual Physics Quiz competition at Abbey Pumping Station on Tuesday 5th February 2019. Manor School at Oadby, Hinckley Academy, Welland Park Academy Market Harborough and The Roundhill Academy Thurmaston. The students competed in several rounds including sections on Mathematical skills, famous names in Physics, identifying mystery substances and a quick fire round. Competition was close; however, The Roundhill Academy eventually triumphed - with an especially strong showing in the mystery substances round. Well done to Marcus Branney, Luca Calardo-Cooper and James Keen from The Roundhill Academy.

On Wednesday 6th March, all Year 10 students successfully completed a course in ‘Money

Management’ as part of their PD curriculum. They worked hard to find out all about banking,

saving, borrowing and budgeting. There was a focus on the local area, looking at the average

cost of bills, rent, mortgages and house prices in Leicestershire. Students had the opportunity to

review a payslip, decode a bank statement, discover how the tax system works and to give their

brains a workout – figuring out how much tax and national insurance they might have to pay in

the future. Working in small groups, they presented ideas on personal budgeting and at the end

of the day; each student completed an assessment to highlight how much progress they had

made.

Year 10 Money Management Day

CASHLESS CATERING CARDS

Please can you ensure that cards are always topped up and your child remembers to bring their card into school every day.

If the card is lost, a new one can be purchased for a £1.00 charge.

If your son/daughter is entitled to Free School Meals, the card still has to be produced at the till. Thank you.

www.go4schools.com

Log in to Go4Schools to view your child’s:

Attendance

Attainment

Behaviour information

Homework

Progress reports

If you do not have a login please contact Jenny Ellis in the Exams and Data Office.

The convenient and secure way to access, review and request changes to your personal data held by the school. If you require a new activation email, please contact Jenny Ellis in the Exams and Data Office.

We also had Sophie Hyde come in to work on creative writing with some Year 8 and 9 students. Sophie

runs writing workshops and is a published poet. She is also one of my ex-students so it was lovely to work

with her.

By Lisa Darnbrough

As part of Amy Brownlow’s award for winning the

National Literacy Writing competition, we had the

pleasure of welcoming writer Dave Cousins into

school. He worked with some selected Year 7

students on a writing workshop. Amy helped out

alongside Mrs Moore in the Library. Dave

Cousins told us how he got into writing after

failing his ambition to becoming as big as The

Beatles but unfortunately could not sing or play

an instrument. This dream did develop into song

writing, poetry and later fiction. He stressed how

important stories are as ‘everyone has one’. He

helped students develop initial ideas into starting

points for bringing their stories and characters to

life.

He was so impressed with the creativity and

enthusiasm of our students and we all had a

wonderful afternoon.

By Lisa Darnbrough

WORLD BOOK DAY