The School Council would like to say a huge thank you to all of you who donated school uniform for our pop-up uniform shop. Due to the success of this, the shop will now be open during the last week of each month for all students who want to swap an item of uniform. Please continue to support this by donating unwanted uniform.
Two of the hot topics of discussion in school are the toilets and the canteen. With this in mind, members of the School Council met with Aspens to discuss food provision as well as the CTK Site Manager to discuss toilets.
Both meetings were very productive, and solutions to some of the issues that have been raised with them were agreed.
Last half-term was a busy time for careers. On 20th April we hosted our annual careers fair where we welcomed visitors from employers including Experian, NHS, Nottingham University, RAF and learnt about careers including Dermatology, Sustainable manufacturing, Teaching, Medicine, Nursing and the Civil Service. Every student in Year 7 – 13 had the opportunity to attend the fair and network with 13 different exhibitors. We also welcomed Nottingham College, Brackenhurst College and Nottingham University, who shared information about Further and Higher Education, as well as Ask Apprenticeships who exhibited information on T-Levels and Apprenticeships. A ‘calm session’ for students with sensory needs was also a big success with lots of students saying they ‘enjoyed’ the experience and ‘learnt a lot’ from the event.
Year 10, 11, 12 and 13 students have continued to have careers guidance meetings with our Level 6 Qualified careers advisor, Sean Panting, about their next steps. If your child is struggling to decide what their next steps should be please contact Mrs Myatt who will be happy to arrange a meeting for them (ASouthgate@christtheking.notts.sch.uk) (Year 10 and 12 students will have priority).
KS3 and KS4 students have received lessons on ‘financial management’, ‘career options’ and ‘labour market information’, whilst teachers have continued to highlight careers in their subjects.
This half-term, Year 10 students go out on a week’s work experience (10th -15th July), before ending the term with a Speed-networking event, back in school, with local employers on 19th July. Any Year 10 students who have not yet returned a form to Mrs Myatt confirming the details of their placement should do so as soon as possible. The last date for returning a form to school is 15th June, after which date, no new placements will be accepted. Mrs Myatt continues to offer support during break and lunchtimes in E5 to students who need to find a placement.
Year 12 have also been busy fixing work experience placements, including in Hospitals, Banks, Police, Veterinary surgeries and Theatres. A number of students have also completed hands-on experiences in Investment Banking, Surgery and Psychiatry.
For further information on how you can support your child to get career ready, please visit the Careers page of our school website where there are links to a number of useful sites, and follow us on Facebook for the latest careers opportunities.
Welcome back to the final term of this academic year. This final half term is always a busy one for us as our Year 11 and Year 13 students complete their final exams. They are working incredibly hard. Our invigilators have been very impressed with their engagement. We know that they were very tired in the lead up to the half term. We hope they have had a good rest but also continued with their preparations.
Year 13 students have started their study leave. Their teachers continue to offer lessons following their normal timetable to support them in the lead up to each exam. Year 11 students are being supported with targeted revision sessions ahead of each exam. Students who do not engage positively with these sessions will be placed on study leave. Students are generally engaging very well in these sessions.
Year 10 students are also preparing for their first round of mock exams this half term, please support them with these preparations by checking that they are clear about what they need to do and how they should be doing it. They have been working with Year 11 students during tutor time this year to look at how to organise their revision and different revision techniques they can use. If you have any questions or concerns about how to support your child during the exams, please contact their tutor.
Jo Love
Students who volunteer with Culture Club are organising a week of activities to celebrate the diversity of cultures within our community. They will be seeking support from students, staff and parents with this.
During the week beginning 22nd May they will be leading on a different activity each day to encourage us to learn more about each other’s cultural backgrounds. The week will include Acts of Worship, lesson activities, sharing cultural foods and many more activities. The week will finish with students and staff being invited to dress for school in clothes that represent their culture.
Students will be told more about this during form notices. If students would like to support the event they should speak to Mrs Nicolson and the Culture Club about the different ways that they can get involved.
We would like to start by saying thank you to everyone who sent through their child’s option requests by the February deadline. The option groups for September 2023 have now been finalised and so if your child didn’t receive a letter having a clash of subjects, this means that they have been successful in gaining all of the four option subjects that they selected.
However, sometimes students feel that they have selected a subject which they no longer with to study. If this is true for your child, please ask them to speak to Mr Riding who will be able to advise on what else they could study instead of that subject. Alternatively, you are welcome to contact him via email (ariding@christtheking.notts.sch.uk).
I hope that you have all had a wonderful Easter break. We are pleased to be welcoming our students back for the final term of this academic year. This is an important term, especially for our Year 11 and Year 13 students, as they work towards their final GCSE and A Level exams. We will continue to do all that we can to support them to reach their full potential. Please do all that you can to ensure that they attend school every day and that they arrive on time.
Please also support them in their preparations by talking to them about the importance of keeping active, eating healthily, ensuring that they get enough sleep and that they find the correct balance of studying and relaxation. We saw through their mock exams that a number of students are growing increasingly anxious about the upcoming exams. It is important that they hear the same messages from us all that we only want them to be doing their best, we cannot ask them to do more than that. I believe that as long as they work well with their teachers and put the effort in by revising independently then they will achieve the success that they deserve.
Jo Love
Support our Eco Team!
To support the work of the Eco Team in school, this term the School Council will be organising a (RE)LoveOurStuff event, which will take place during the last week of term. This will allow us to develop our mission as Stewards of Creation, help cut our carbon footprint as well as make us think about the impact of fast fashion and textile waste.
Initially, the School Council will be organising a pop-up second-hand store, offering preloved uniform. To do this they will need your help and support. Could you please send in any preloved uniform donations, including PE kit, into school, either with students directly or drop it into the recycling tub in reception. Hopefully this will go a little way to help us reduce the 1.4 million school uniform that are thrown away every year as well as help us with the increasing cost of living that we are all experiencing.
If this proves to be successful, their aim is then to run this each term and extend it to include non-uniform items too.
After the school council will be looking to launch our Get Loud on Litter Campaign, the aim of which is to review the litter situation in school as well as make us all think about the amount of litter that we all produce and how we can dispose of this more effectively.
School Open Mornings
Some parents commented in our Parental Survey that due to Covid they had missed the opportunity to come into school. This has left them feeling quite disconnected from their child’s experience.
We have reflected on this and decided that we would like to offer the opportunity for parents to come in to have a tour of the school.
To ensure that these visits do not disrupt the learning of our students there will need to be limits to the number of parents on site at the same time. If you would like to take up this offer, then please contact the school office to book an appointment.
The visits are being offered during the week commencing 20th March.
Parent Survey Results
We wanted to say thank you to all who took the time to complete the parental survey last half term. We had 275 responses. We always appreciate you taking the time to provide us with your views as your feedback allows us to identify the areas that you, as parents, feel that we are successful in as well as the areas for further improvement.
We are pleased to know that your children feel safe in school, that you feel that behaviour is good and that students are shown how to behave respectfully towards others. It is also good to hear that you value the Catholic Life and Mission of the school. We were also pleased to see that there have been improvements since the last survey on your responses to the questions about knowing what your children will learn and how well they are doing.
The areas that you have told us that you would like us to improve are related to communication and your involvement in the prayer life of the school. We have just launched the Arbor app which, when you all have access to this, will make communication smoother. We have also recently appointed a second Lay Chaplain to work across our hub who has lots of ideas about how we can involve you in the prayer life of the school so we will be sharing these with you soon.
