Dear Families

Can you believe we’ve already reached the end of this half term?! As always, it’s been full of life as ever here at the academy!

Year 11 rising to the challenge!
This half term as you would expect, our main focus has been on the start of the Year 11 exam season. As staff, we have been incredibly impressed by our Year 11s. Their focus and determination have been exceptional. Attendance has been outstanding and I'd like to thank families for your support!

I also would like to take this opportunity to thank our amazing team of teachers who have gone above and beyond in every possible way to support our Year 11s. From running additional intervention sessions to offering words of encouragement, their dedication has been brilliant! A reminder of some of the ways we’re supporting our Year 11s:

• Breakfast is available every day at 8am in the Year 11 area to make sure students are set up for the day ahead.
• Our booster programme includes intensive 2-hour sessions ahead of every exam taught by our subject expert teachers.
• We’ve also been running evening masterclasses online the night before each exam – I’ve had the chance to sit in on some of these and the quality has been absolutely fantastic.
• On the day of each exam, students take part in 20-minute warm ups led by teachers, focusing on key strategies and expert advice, followed by a quick 5-minute pep talk to boost confidence and focus.
• Additionally, our library is open late every evening to give students a quiet revision space they may need.

The booster schedule for the first week back and the full exam schedule are both available now via the Year 11 Revision Portal on our website.

While exams are going on, it's important that our Year 11s are taking care of themselves. It's been lovely to see them relaxing during break times.

Careers Focus
As part of our careers programme, Year 10 students visited Capital One for an immersive work experience day. The day culminated in students delivering marketing pitch presentations to their peers and staff at Capital One.



Meanwhile, students in Year 9 had the opportunity to visit Eversheds Sutherland law firm as part of our careers programme. It was an inspiring day, particularly for those students already considering futures in law.

Sporting success
Our Year 10 students represented the academy superbly at the Nottingham touch rugby festival. All of our students played brilliantly, but a special well done goes to the boys' team, who won two of their games!

Year 9 poetry
Following the Flights of Fact and Fiction curriculum day last term, students in Year 9 wrote poems in English lessons using birds of prey as their stimulus. Their poems were outstanding! You can view a digital copy of the anthology here.

Year 7 Jenga Challenge
This term we launched our lunch time Jenga Challenge, starting with Year 7!

One of the things that made me particularly proud was seeing our Year 9 students take on leadership roles when supporting our Year 7s during lunchtimes. They’ve been excellent role models and have demonstrated our core values fantastically!

Well done to our Year 7 Jenga Champions!


New books for our library
Our Year 8 book club were thrilled this term to finally receive the books they chose during their visit to Waterstones in Nottingham earlier this year. It's always exciting when we expand our library collection and it’s fantastic to see our students so enthusiastic about reading.

Integrity in action!
A few weeks ago, I received a letter from a member of the public who had experienced some difficulties within the local area. She commented on how students from Wells had gone out of their way to help and support her. It is a real pleasure to receive letters and emails from members of our local community commenting on students' positive conduct.


Royal Society of Biology Challenge
Lots of our Year 10 students took part in the Royal Society of Biology Challenge. The challenge has been popular with students over recent years and it's fantastic to see students showing such ambition by getting involved in learning opportunities after the school day.

During biology lessons, Year 10s have been participating in 'Under the Microscope Live' where they have been looking at samples under an electron microscope, including silk from a web, a chicken foot and even a house fly!

Gratitude
A big theme this term has been 'gratitude' and how it links to our core value of integrity. On the last week of term, students wrote almost 1000 gratitude postcards to staff in the academy. The comments written on the postcards were lovely to read and I know how grateful colleagues were to receive them.

Looking ahead
As we head into the final half term of the year, we’ve got some very exciting events planned, including our Equality Day, Sports Day at Harvey Hadden Sports Stadium and our Academy Awards Evening during the final week of term. 

For now though, I wish you all a restful break! Thank you, as always, for your ongoing support. I look forward to seeing students refreshed and ready for the start of our final term on Monday 2nd June 2025 at 8.20am!

Best wishes

Mr G Coles
Principal