Updates from the Principal – Summer 2024/25

Dear Parent/Carer,

We welcomed the students back for the start of the summer term. The Year 11 students have now started their formal examination period with the first part of the Art examination taking place this week. It was brilliant to see so many of the students participating in revision sessions over Easter and during the P0 and P6 revision sessions. 

We also welcomed our new staff this week:  Miss Jackson, Curriculum Leader of English, Mr Meade, Lead Teacher of Maths, and Mrs Cripps, Trust Vice Principal.

Assemblies
This week, the theme of assemblies has been standards and expectations. Students were reminded about the core values of the school (Kindness, Respect and Teamwork)  and the key issues that were highlighted to you before Easter as follows:

• Planners must be used daily to stay organized so must be brought in every day. 
• Uniforms must be worn correctly- ties worn tight to the collar and shirts tucked in. Bracelets, hoop earrings and other forms of jewellery which sit outside of the uniform policy should not be worn. Lash extensions/false eyelashes should not be worn. 
• Punctuality is essential—5 minutes late for lessons will result in an automatic 20 minute detention. 10 minutes or more late to a lesson is considered truancy, and results in Reflection. 
• Littering is unacceptable; everyone must contribute to keeping the school clean.

Weekly Focus from Mr Donaldson 
Great to see everyone back. Uniform was good overall (please continue to prevent the wearing of hoop earrings, purely for Health and Safety purposes). A reminder to Y11 that shirts and ties must still be worn under leavers hoodies. 

Detention attendance has been good- parents, please remember to check your Edulink messages/SMS for any detention updates. These are sent each night and will have the following message: 

Good evening,

We are sorry to inform you (forename) will be in detention tomorrow night. Thank you for your ongoing support.

If the message is a regular detention update, that is from our old Edulink system which is no longer in use but cannot be deactivated until the end of the school year. For this I can only apologise. Detentions run Monday-Wednesday for Behaviour Detentions and Friday for Late to School Detentions.

Message from Mrs Cripps

Dear Parent/Carer,

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself as the new Trust Vice Principal at Vale of York Academy. I am delighted to be taking on this role and look forward to working with you to ensure we provide your child with the best possible experience during their time with us.

Although I have only been in post here for a few days, I have been warmly welcomed by both students and staff and can see the huge potential of our children, both academically and from a wider curriculum perspective. We are fortunate to have such a considerate student body that is keen to achieve and develop as well rounded citizens.

As part of my role, I will be leading on the quality of education and one of the areas I will focus on this term in homework. I will be collating staff and student voice on this topic and would welcome the views of parents and carers to help shape the future policy. Please keep a look out for a homework survey over the coming weeks to gain perspectives of all stakeholders.

In the meantime, I look forward to working with the students and staff at Vale of York Academy and to meeting parents and carers at any upcoming events.

Emails
Following the announcement regarding the Trust name change at the end of term, pupil email addresses will change from Monday 28th April 2025. Pupils currently log in with their student ID (this will not be changed) followed by @voy.hslt.academy. Once the change is implemented this will become their student ID followed by @voy.hlt.academy

Within schools, Chromebooks that have this prepopulated will also be changed to ease this change taking place within schools.

For pupils / parents – If you experience any difficulties, please contact hello@voy.hlt.academy with subject ‘Email Changeover’.

Safeguarding
We have made an addition to the parent update from this term to provide you with additional safeguarding information. The focus for this half term will be on online and mobile phone safety tips.

Attendance
Many of you have been asking for additional information regarding attendance. We are going to share the information for each year group on a weekly basis with you from this week as part of the parent update:

Votes for Schools 
Each week, the students are given an opportunity to participate in a democratic voting experience as part of their tutor time. We will share the responses of our students with you. 

This week, to celebrate longer daylight hours and in anticipation of Earth Day on 22nd April, we are bringing an optimistic twist to your climate classroom conversations by asking voters to consider whether positive headlines about the environment inspire them to take action, or whether they feel more motivated by the cautionary tales they see in the news.

Question: Does positive news inspire you to take climate action?

Key Dates:
– Tuesday 29th April Year 11 Art Exam

– Thursday 1st May Junior Maths Challenge

• Year 11 Art Exam
• Year 10 Parents’ Evening 
• PE Moderation

– Monday 5th May School Closed (May Day)

– Monday 12th May Start of written GCSE examinations

• Year 10 Work Experience Week

Current Vacancies:
Advanced Teaching Assistant

Thank you for all of your continued help and support.

Ms Mills
Principal