Dear Parents/ Carers
There’s quite a bit of information in this week’s newsletter, so let’s get straight into it. There’s a full list of clubs available, including the computing and food clubs that parents asked for whilst these subjects are not running in the main curriculum this year. There’s the feedback on the behaviour policy, and information about open evenings, year 11 information evenings and the year 9 into 10 process.
Clubs
Our clubs timetable for the autumn term can be seen below. There is a wide variety of clubs for students at both lunchtimes and after school. Students do not need to sign up for a club, they can simply turn up. We really encourage every student to try out a club, they are a great way to get involved in something different.
Day | What’s on? | Who? | When is it? | Where is it? | Staff Contact |
Monday | Badminton Club | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | Rec Centre | Mr Farr |
Monday | Table Tennis Club | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | Table Tennis Hall | Mr Cook |
Monday | Year 7 Dance Club (from November) | Yr 7 | Lunchtime | Dance Studio | Miss McAdam |
Monday | Rugby | Yr 7 – 13 | 3pm – 4pm | Field | Mr Farr |
Monday | GCSE Art | Yr 10 and 11 | 3pm – 4pm | C12 | Mrs Harness |
Monday | Reflex Dance Company | Yr 7, 8 and 9 invitation only | 3pm – 4.15 pm | Dance Studio | Miss McAdam |
Monday | Orchestra | Yr 7 – 13 | 3.15pm – 4.00pm | L5 | Mrs Miller |
Monday | Netball | Yr 7 | 3pm – 4pm | Netball courts | Mrs Nisbet |
Tuesday | Table Tennis Club | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | Table Tennis Hall | Mr Farr |
Tuesday | Homework Club | Yr 7 – 11 | 3pm – 4pm | Resource Centre | Mr West |
Tuesday | Further maths & Computing | Yr 10 – 13 | 3pm – 4 pm | 24 | Mr Hill |
Wednesday | Choir | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | L5 | Mrs Miller |
Wednesday | Newspaper Club | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | 23 | Ms Bentley |
Wednesday | Christian Union | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | C17 | Mrs Seekings |
Wednesday | Sixth Form faculty Cup | Yr 12 and 13 | Lunchtime | Rec Centre | Mr Braybrook |
Wednesday | Senior Dance Club | Yr 10, 11, 12, 13 | Lunchtime | Dance Studio | Mrs Notarnicola |
Wednesday | Food Club (please reserve on MCAS) | Yr 7 – 9 | Lunchtime | C2 | Mrs Evans |
Wednesday | GCSE Art | Yr 10 and 11 | 3pm – 4pm | C12 | Mrs Harness |
Wednesday | Homework Club | Yr 7 – 11 | 3pm – 4pm | Resource Centre | Mr West |
Wednesday | Junior Dance Club | Yr 7, 8 and 9 | 3pm – 4 pm | Dance Studio | Miss McAdam |
Wednesday | Coding Club | Yr 7, 8 and 9 | 3.10pm – 4pm | Room 24 | Mr Hill |
Wednesday | Steel Pans | Yr7 – 13 | 3.15pm – 4.00pm | L5 | Mrs Miller |
Wednesday | Girls Sport Fixtures | 3pm – 5pm | |||
Thursday | Trampolining | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | Gym | Mr Farr |
Thursday | Sixth Form Volleyball | Yr 12 and 13 | Lunchtime | Rec Centre | Mr Braybrook |
Thursday | Chess Club | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | N6 | Mrs Seekings |
Thursday | Film Club | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | N4 | Miss Hart |
Thursday | Ballet Club | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | Dance Studio | Mrs Notarnicola |
Thursday | Samba | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | L5 | Mrs Miller |
Thursday | Homework Club | Yr 7 – 11 | 3pm – 4pm | Resource Centre | Mr West |
Thursday | Boys Sport Fixtures | 3pm – 5pm | |||
Thursday | Ivolution | Yr 7 – 13 | 3pm – 5pm | Canteen | Miss McAdam |
Tuesday | Senior Netball | Yr 10 and 11 | 3pm – 4pm | Netball courts | Mrs Webster |
Friday | Basketball Club | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | Rec Centre | Mr Blackman |
Friday | Table Tennis Club | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | Table Tennis Hall | Mr Farr |
Friday | Recorders | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | L5 | Mrs Miller |
Friday | Lavender Club (LGBTQ+) | Yr 7 – 13 | Lunchtime | N6 | Mrs Seekings |
Friday | Girls Football | Yr 7 and 8 | 3pm – 4pm | Field | Mrs Nisbet |
Friday | Rebound Dance Company | Yr 10, 11, 12 and 13 | 3pm – 4.15pm | Dance Studio | Miss McAdam |
Behaviour policy
Thank you to everyone who responded to the behaviour policy that was sent out during the summer holidays. I have been through all 57 submissions, and have responded separately to each. A copy of the full transcript can be found here: https://www.astreastivo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Policy-Feedback-Comments-and-Responses.pdf. The document is quite long, but I wanted to include everything for full transparency. I apologise if any of my answers are brief – in these cases it may be because I have already answered a similar question elsewhere. I have also slightly amended some of the comments to anonymise them.
An updated copy of the behaviour policy, with tweaks based on parent feedback, is now on the website. I have highlighted the changes from the draft circulated to allow parents and carers to more easily identify the changes. However, this will change to an unhighlighted version at October half term, so please check out the amendments early. The Positive Relationship and Behaviour Policy can be found here: https://www.astreastivo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SIA-Secondary-Behaviour-Policy-2024-25.pdf
Open Evenings
Our open evenings take place on Thursday 3 October for Year 6 families, followed by our Sixth Form open evening on Thursday 10 October.
Both evenings will run from 6pm to 8pm. Parents/carers will not need to reserve places to attend. Further details on times of talks etc will follow.
Year 11 information evening
There will be an information evening for our Year 11 students and their parents/carers on Thursday 26 September 2024 at 6pm in the hall. The purpose of the evening is to provide information about the exam year including advice on how best to prepare and the most effective methods of revision. There will be presentations from the English, Science and Maths departments.
Year 9 into 10 process
This is an exciting year for our Year 9s as they look forward to the next chapter in their education journey.
All students entering Year 10 in September 2025 will follow a core curriculum of GCSE English Language and Literature, GCSE Mathematics, GCSE Science (double award or triple award), and non-examined Physical Education, Religious Education and Personal Development lessons.
Students will then be guided to choose four further subjects, from a range of around 16 available courses. These include a choice of History or Geography and French. With additional options, this gives students a total of nine GCSEs, including the EBacc suite for most students. The Ebacc demonstrates a broad, balanced curriculum which is important to future education providers and employers.
The timeline for the Year 9 into 10 process is as follows:
- November 2024 – consultation on draft timetable ‘blocks’ for Year 9 into 10 Students will select one subject from each block
- December 2024 – updated timetable blocks published
- Friday 24 January 2025 (at the latest) – publication of the Year 9 into 10 curriculum booklet; this gives details of all the subjects we offer at Key Stage 4
- Thursday 13 February 2025 – parents’/carers’ evening, giving families the opportunity to discuss potential subject preferences with current teachers
- Thursday 13 March 2025 – curriculum evening where families will be able to visit all subject areas
- Monday 24 March 2025 – deadline for subject preferences.
Yours faithfully
Tony Meneaugh
Principal
School photographs
Vancols Photographers are pleased to confirm that the Year 7, 9 and 11 school photographs taken last week are ready to view using the QR code on your proof card.
If you have already scanned the QR code on the Proof and registered you will receive an auto email notification.
If you have not done it yet, don’t panic, you can still view by scanning the QR code on your Proof and following the instructions.
Year 7 Update
Parents/carers and tutor evening
You are cordially invited to attend a parents’/carers’ evening which will take place from 4pm until 6pm on Thursday 19 September. You will be able to talk to your child’s form tutor and discuss how your child has settled in at St Ivo Academy. Appointments will take place at school, in the Understudy (downstairs in the Keep Sixth Form block).
To book an appointment, please go to https://stivo.schoolcloud.co.uk and log in. Note that only the parents/carers we have noted as priority contacts 1 and 2 on our school’s system will be able to log in. If you cannot book appointments online, please telephone school reception on 01480 375400 during normal hours.
Sutton Hoo trip
You should have received a letter about the history department visits to Sutton Hoo in October. We very much hope to take every Year 7 student to Sutton Hoo. Payments can be made on My Child At School (MCAS) until 30 September. If you have any difficulties in paying for the visit then please do get in touch. MCAS will also show the date that your child’s class has been assigned for the visit.
IT Logins and Platforms
A number of you have asked about how students access our online platforms and I wanted to clarify this. Many of our systems can be accessed using students’ Astrea Microsoft Office log ins which work as follows:
Username: 24joeblo
e-mail address: 24joeblo@astreastivo.org
Students’ usernames to access the school network when they are using our computer rooms start with 24, as the year of entry, followed by the first three letters of their first name and then first three letters of their surname. Their Astrea e-mail addresses use this same format before @astreastivo.org as you can see from the example of Joe Bloggs above.
At present students’ passwords are set to their date of birth in an eight-digit format e.g 01011990 for 01 January 1990.
You may wish to try using this to access your child’s e-mail account by going to the main school website: www.astreastivo.org and selecting ‘staff/student login’ from the top of the page and then ‘Microsoft 365 (e-mail)’.
Students will be able to change their passwords to something more memorable in school. We envisage being able to get the whole cohort into a computer room to do this, and learn more about our online packages, in due course.
This e-mail and password should also allow students to access Sparx Maths and Sparx Reader via the Microsoft login option. I appreciate students have created separate logins for these sites in the meantime. Hopefully, moving forwards the Microsoft option will be easier for you.
Further to this, students can log in to the student version of Bromcom – Student Portal – via this website: https://www.bromcomvle.com/ and again selecting the Microsoft option and using the same e-mail and password as above. This will allow students to see their homework, behaviour points, attendance and more. There is also an app version of this available to download. I wanted to also clarify, and for new parents in particular, that the My Child at School (MCAS) app is the parent version of Bromcom and the Student Portal is the student version. Should you require the school ID code for accessing the app version, it is: 12567.
Homework
Parents and carers should be able to see homework assignments set on MCAS. Unfortunately, any attachments which have been added as part of the homework by subject staff can only be accessed via the Student Portal. It is important therefore that students try to access this as soon as they can. In the meantime, I have asked colleagues to set work in a slightly different way, e.g, issuing copies of worksheets or uploading a sheet to TEAMS and the link to this being available on Bromcom. Students’ TEAMS logins will be the same as that used for e-mail. Whichever way staff choose to make worksheets available, all assignments will appear on Bromcom, this is the first port of call for recording homework, even if the entry then signposts you to another platform.
Some parents have asked about marking homework as complete. It may be that for some subjects this is not done on Bromcom as teachers will track completion elsewhere, e.g, Sparx.
Safer Schools Officer
We are fortunate to have a Safer Schools Officer (SSO) allocated one day a week to our school. Hannah Watkins has been with us for one year now and visits our school every Thursday. Hannah is a Police Officer, but operates within our school as a member of staff. Hannah’s experience within the Police enables her to have a great overview of all issues faced by young people today. Hannah supports the school by helping to us to check in and investigate difficult situations that have occurred in and out of school. Hannah works positively to ensure we do not criminalise young people and therefore does not operate in school to enforce or prosecute. Hannah is a supportive member of our community with many resources to educate our students.
At times, Hannah works with students individually when young people require guidance, support or when students are asked to support the school by providing information for school investigations.
Hannah supports all students who, either inside or outside of school, have become involved with Police. Therefore, Hannah assists with any live ongoing Police investigations and will always try to resolve these without criminalising young people.
Hannah contributes to the safe environment in school and is an active member of our school community. Hannah moves around our school site, especially at social times, to be integrated and approachable by all students and staff.
We hope you agree with us that this is an incredibly positive working relationship with Cambridgeshire Police.
Diary Dates
These are key evening dates for families to plan. Other dates, including assessments, trip and other events, will be communicated separately.
- Thursday 19 September: Year 7 parents/carers and tutors meetings
- Thursday 26 September: Year 11 information evening
- Thursday 3 October: Year 6 into 7 open evening
- Thursday 10 October: Sixth Form open evening
- Thursday 24 October: Year 12 parents/carers and tutors meetings
- Thursday 21 November: Year 13 parents’/carers’ evening
- Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 December: Ivolution dance show
- Thursday 12 December: Year 11 parents’/carers’ evening
- Thursday 23 January: Year 10 parents’/carers’ evening
- Thursday 13 February: Year 9 parents’/carers’ evening
- Thursday 13 March: Year 9 curriculum evening
- Thursday 3 April: Year 8 parents’/carers’ evening
- Thursday 1 May: Year 7 parents’/carers’ evening
- Thursday 15 May: Year 12 parents’/carers’ evening