Here’s a round-up of the 2024/25 Spring Term at Vale of York Academy!
On Tuesday 25th March, 15 students from Year 10 set off to the very smart Aviva building in York, to deliver their presentations to some VIP’s from the pension industry.
The previous week, some representatives from Aviva had visited The Vale to help our students put together their presentations, and to talk to them about pensions, and their importance.
We had a wonderful day; a guided tour of the super-swish building. We were impressed with the meditation room (and its massage chair !) and the views of the Minster and the river from the ‘board room’, where we were based, were fantastic.
The pupils were able to have discussions with the VIP’s (including one of the directors), about their future career paths, and then it was time for the presentations. All the groups delivered well, and they were praised for their bravery in getting up and speaking to an audience who were made up of friends as well as people they did not know. A terrific trip; thank you Mr Martin for organising!
Music is spilling over with pupils each night practicing and loving music ! The musical is being worked on weekly and pupils are clearly really enjoying it. The library is full of pupils before and after school, all working away on thoughtful school ideas like the valentines initiatives. PE continues to see a great turn over of pupils, playing a range of sports each night. The Lego club is really taking off as they approach their competition in the coming weeks. Breakfast club continues to have lots of pupils, all getting ready for the day. LGBTQ+ group continues to grow in number, with pupils enjoying an hour together. And so many other clubs, such as art, languages and debating, give the pupils a variety of activities!
Data from Term 2
It is great to see the students accessing so many clubs, and with it, so many opportunities !
Addams Family:
It’s been an extra busy term working on our musical The Addams Family – Young at Part.
Students worked tirelessly rehearsing, singing and dancing to put on a super fantastic show.
It was so much fun to be a part of and the students were absolute stars!
Y11 Show:
Y11 GCSE Drama students performed for the last time on Monday 31st March. Students have been working on their scripted pieces for an examiner and Ms Nicholson was very proud of the work they achieved.
Year 7 – The Year 7 boys football team started 2025 on a high! On Thursday 16th January, they drew at home 1-1 with Huntington school. They were 1-0 down at half time, but pulled it back to 1-1 in the second half of the game, showing great resilience and effort.
Year 10 –
On Monday 10th February, the Year 10 team had a great match and win (5 -1) against Sherburn. The boys played well and now they head into the semi finals of the North Yorkshire county cup against Queen Ethelbergas! Go, Go, Go Lads!
Tuesday 18th March – the team played brilliantly to win 9-0 against Bootham! The boys have an exciting few weeks ahead with the semi finals for the league and the county cup semi final! They have got all to play for ! 🙂
Year 11 – Congratulations to a great group of boys, who have made the school proud with their attitude and behaviour on the football pitch! On the 12th March, they played against The Manor in their very last school football match. Despite losing, they made the school proud with their determination and enthusiasm. 18 boys were keen to play; we had to do a wheel of fortune to whittle the numbers down to 16 in order to fit on the minibus! The boys played with great spirit and enjoyed the last football match of their secondary school career!
Please click here to read Issue 5 of The Library Ledger
Lots has been going on in the library this term. As well as reading, we have had all sorts of events going on, which have involved plenty of our students.
The first event of the year was Holocaust Memorial Day on 27th January. Mr Rice brought some of his history pupils to the library to watch a live link with author Tom Palmer, interviewing a holocaust survivor, Alfred Garwood. It was a sobering and thought provoking hour.
Chinese New Year was celebrated at the end of January, as we marked the start of the year of the snake. The student librarians did an amazing job of decorating the library with dragons and lanterns, and every student who came into the library that day to take out or bring back a book, was given a fortune cookie!
February saw a new initiative – a Valentine’s day fundraiser. Pupils paid 50p to ‘buy’ a candy cane for a friend. The librarians wrote the accompanying secret messages and hand delivered the candy canes to the classrooms. 120 candy canes were delivered, and £60 was raised, which will go to the mental health charity, MIND. Special thanks to Michaela and Ava for organising this.
After half term came two events; World Book Day, and York Book Awards. The library put on lots of activities for WBD – from a murder mystery in the library, to a ‘match the teacher to their favourite book’, and a ‘pair up the character and their pets’ competition. Pupils were all given a book token to spend on a free book, or put towards a book of their choice.
York Book Awards is always an exciting event for us. This year, to celebrate, St Peter’s kindly sponsored an author visit for us. Alexandra Dawe is a new author, whose ‘Stitchwort Curse’ is hitting the bookshops with a bang! As a shortlister for the York Book Awards, Alexandra popped in to talk to 30 students, who had signed up to hear her, about her new book. Alexandra told us how she had been inspired to write ‘The Stitchwort Curse’, by her children who were arachnophobic, not helped by living in a house in the country ! Writing a story about spiders, and their magical abilities, was, she felt, the best way to counter her children’s fears! We all loved the talk, which educated us on the different types of spider – the trapdoor, the goliath bird-eating spider and the incredible Darwin’s spider. She also told us a bit about her life, how she became an author and showed us her amazing ‘spidery’ illustrations!
After her talk, 15 of us went to St Peter’s to the York Book Awards – where we met Alexandra Dawe (again!), Tom Palmer, Julian Sedgewick, and his manga illustrator Chie Kutsuwada. The authors talked about their books, and Chie drew a manga portrait in accompaniment to Julian’s talk about the inspiration behind ‘100 Tales from the Tokyo Ghost Cafe’. We were delighted that Praise’s model inspired by ‘Invisible Creatures’ was displayed on a presentation, and even more excited when Kene won a runners-up prize in the schools competition, for her sketchbook based on the ‘Ghost Cafe’. Tom Palmer won the acclaimed prize of ‘Top Favourite Book’ for ‘’The Angel of Grasmere – voted for by the York schools. We had a fun time, and all our students had a chance to get bookmarks signed by these wonderful authors, before setting off back to school!
So – it has been a busy term! As always, thank you to all the student librarians who keep the library organised and exciting in its ideas and decor!
We are very proud of Michael Mitcham-Harding, who is currently representing the UK, playing in the UK youth team in the European Go Championships. He had his first game (against the Ukraine team) at the end of January. ‘Go’ is a strategic board game, a bit like chess but played predominantly in Asia. Michael has been playing ‘Go’ for quite sometime, and went to the European ‘Go’ Congress in Toulouse last summer. He will be attending the Congress again in Warsaw this July once he’s got his GCSEs out of the way! We wish Michael all the luck in the world – Go, Michael !!!
Everyone played their hardest. And there were some terrific games !
Year 8 (Overall)
1st – 8JM (17 points)
2nd – 8MB (14 points)
3rd – 8HJ (13 points)
Handball
1st – 8JM
2nd – 8MB
3rd – 8CM
4th – 8HJ
5th – 8TG
Longball
1st – 8HJ
2nd – 8MB
3rd – 8JM
4th – 8TG
5th – 8CM
Vale of York Language Leaders had an excellent time hosting Burton Green on the 24/03 and visiting Clifton Green on the 31/03. The pupils had spent 8 weeks preparing materials to teach a 15 minute lessons to Year 5 & Year 6 pupils. These lessons covered a range of topics including opinions about food, spelling their names and even impersonating animals at one point! Mr Mulhearn was very proud of the work they put in and all the teachers have been very complimentary of their work and conduct. A great success!
Jude, Arlo, George, Alexander, Harry, Lennon, Oliver, Kane, Tyler-James attended the North Yorkshire Lego League Challenge on the 21st March.
They spent the day doing various activities; such as longest bridge building, presenting an invention project to judges, puzzle challenges. The main event was a battle against local schools with the lego robot they designed and programmed. They came back victorious with a ‘Rising Stars’ trophy awarded for “Most likely to win next year“.
A note from Ms Cussens; ‘You should all be so proud of what you have achieved in such a short space of time. Where other schools had started their work in September, our pupils only had 15 hours to produce their project. And look at what you have all achieved! I am looking forward to seeing you next September for the next season of Lego League.’
Vale of York did us proud with another fantastic showing from our year 10 maths students in the annual AMSP Maths feast at Bootham school.
The team consisting of Redan, Dafydd, Joseph and Aemon came 2nd overall ( there were 20 teams from around the city including private schools) They performed particularly well in 2 of the 4 rounds, gaining full marks.
We were beaten (again) to the ‘maths crown’ by one of Manor’s teams. Next year, we will change that!
30 of our pupils, across the age range, had a very exciting day and evening, performing at York Theatre Royal, as part of the ‘Shakespeare Project’.
Students worked on the ending of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, using choral movement to bring Shakespeare to life, and make it accessible for all. It was wonderful for our pupils to perform in such a beautiful theatre, and to see how a professional production is put together. The students really did us proud and were an absolute pleasure to work with.
Just as the warmer weather begins and we feel more inclined to be outdoors, we look ahead to the term which many young people find the most stressful time of the year. The season of end of year exams, GCSEs, A Levels, AS Levels, T levels, BTECs… whatever the assessment, they are often packed into the next term. But what is stress?
What is stress?
Stress is a normal response to situational pressures or demands. When you’re feeling anxious or scared, your body releases stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. It can leave you feeling nervous, worried, unorganised or in some cases, excited. All these feelings are normal.
Small doses of stress can be useful and helps you to be prepared and be productive. However, if you are stressed all the time and struggle to manage it, this can be unhelpful and have lasting impacts.
How do I help my young person with stress?
What if they’re not stressed about exams?
You might find that your child is either procrastinating revision or just doesn’t seem too stressed about exams. That’s normal, we all react differently to exams and there can be many reasons for this. Ask your young person why they aren’t revising, they might be anxious, unsure where to start, overwhelmed, or just unsure as to why they need to revise. This can help you develop a plan with them. If they don’t understand the importance, help explain the positives of revision and consequences of not revising. Remember though, you can’t force them and it is their choice. If they’re unsure where to start or anxious to start, use a planner and revision tips to develop a routine of revision. Reassure them that is ok and normal to feel this way, and you are there to help.
Anna, Bryony & Hannah (Vale Wellbeing in Mind Team)