Parent Bulletin 8th December

Thank you for supporting your children through the exams which finished on Tuesday of last week.  They really did us proud and teachers are now busy marking and preparing to share results with pupils and with you at the end of term.

End of term: There are still two weeks of term left and lessons and homework have resumed as normal.  Our usual schedule will continue uninterrupted until the final Wednesday and then we look forwards to celebrating with Exploration Day on Thursday 19th and having an early finish, Christmas lunch and festive jumpers on our final day (Friday 20th December).  Please remember that these end of term activities which build belonging and motivation are just as important as other school days and that attendance is a legal requirement. 

Peer review:  We were delighted to welcome six headteachers and deputy headteachers from other Ark schools into Soane on Thursday.  Feedback from the review team included:

• Warmth of greetings between staff and pupils with each other and with visitors
• Happy pupils who really proud of their school
• School routines that were well executed ensuring that no time for learning was lost
• A team of tutors who know their pupils well, motivate and encourage them and treat them with respect and kindness
• Pupils experience overwhelming amounts of success in class ensuring that standards are high.  Very joyful.
• Pupils' spoken confidence is exceptional
• Pupils uniformly believe they are making greater progress than at primary school and their friends elsewhere

Our main area for development is in ensuring that behaviour standards remain uniformly high across the school and that we do not permit any disruption to learning to creep into classes.  We are grateful for parental support with this as we know that immaculate behaviour underpins both academic progress and the warm, caring environment that the school provides.

Sixth form:  From tomorrow we will launch a consultation on a proposed update to our Admissions Policy to include admissions arrangements for our Sixth Form which will open in September 2026.  In this consultation we are proposing to name Ark Acton as a “feeder school” for the Ark Soane Sixth Form.  At the same time Ark Acton will name Ark Soane as a feeder school for their Sixth Form.

This will enable both schools to avoid course duplication and specialise their post-16 provision leading to two sustainable Sixth Forms and a broader choice of subjects across the two schools.  Ark Acton will deliver the full range of professional pathways in Business, Computing, Applied Science and Sports Science and Ark Soane will deliver a broad range of A-level subjects.

We will be hosting consultation evenings on Monday 16th and Tuesday 17th December at 5pm.  Please email t.stafford@arksoane.org with your child's name and year group - and number of attendees - if you would like to attend.

I will send out a link to the consultation document to parents as soon as it is live.

I look forward to seeing pupils tomorrow,

Mr Neuberger

It was the second half of exam week and the students worked hard to complete all of their exams. The pupils displayed diligence and focus throughout and all did themselves extremely proud. 

As lessons returned to normal on Tuesday, the pupils brought their energy with them! 8 Augustus were competing to make the strongest structure in Ms Back's art class, with Matasala and Minato coming out as winners and Kira and Jude taking a close second place! 

There was also great creativity and diligence on display in clubs and enrichment this week. In animation club, the pupils created animations using their artwork and the visualisers, working in partners to create moving images! It was checkers for enrichment this week for 8 Alexander, who impressed Ms Locke with their effort and focus whilst mastering the game! 

Due to end of term events, the last day of clubs will be Wednesday 11th December. Clubs will begin again from Monday 13th January. Further information will follow regarding expressing interest in clubs for Spring term.

Our first Exhibition Evening of the year takes place on Thursday 12th Dec, 17:00-18:30. This is a special moment in our school calendar where students present and perform their work from enrichment and their extra-curricular activities including music, dance, and drama.

Please be advised we can only admit guests with booked tickets. A very small number of these are available; these can be found via Ticket Tailor (click this link to book). Unfortunately, once we are fully booked, we will be unable to offer any further tickets – this will be indicated on the ticket link.

Performances will start at 17:20 sharp – we are unable to admit latecomers, so please arrive for 17:00 to avoid disappointment.

We hope that you will be able to join us for what will be a highlight of our academic year so far.

On Thurs 19th Dec we will have our first KS3 Exploration Day of the year. Students will be going to the following venues:

St. Paul's is a paid trip; the cost is £6 per student (no charge for students in receipt of pupil premium). The deadline for payment is Mon 9th December; if your child is in 9 Augustus, 9 Cicero, or 9 Ramesses, please ensure this is paid by this date on iPay.

Year 10 students will be based on-site on this day. They will be taking part in Futures Day – the purpose of this day is to think more deeply about students’ next steps and increasing independence as they become young adults. On the day they will learn:

• The basics of emergency first aid
• How to write a CV and seek additional opportunities for study & employment
• The importance of health & fitness and how to maintain this through challenges

Students will be using Unifrog on this day; please check with your child they can log in to their account. They can reset this using their school email address at unifrog.org/sign-in.