School Alerts
Home / Newsletter 13 September 2024

Newsletter 13 September 2024

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