It is an honour and privilege to have been named permanent Headteacher of JQA. I’d like to echo the thanks to Mr Williams for his work to provide us with strong foundations for the future.
We’re very much looking forward to welcoming students back to JQA for 8.30 on Tuesday 1st March. I’d like to remind parents and students of our clear uniform standards, particularly the points of detail and to check through their child’s blazer, coat and bag regularly. It is also important to work with your child to ensure they arrive for 8.30 every day. We provide a free breakfast for any student and we will not accept persistent poor punctuality.
We welcome Ammo Talwar MBE, CEO of Punch Records, to the Academy on Tuesday to discuss with us how to install a music recording studio at JQA. It’s also World Book Day this week and we are excited to give every student who applied a free library card so they have access to the iconic Library of Birmingham, Europe’s largest public library. It was great to see students in our CCF taking part in camp last week, taking part in a range of activities. We are committed to giving our students so many opportunities and I had a great meeting with HAF before half term to explore possibilities around offering a sports club during the Easter holidays. I hope to be able to update you more on this shortly.
You will see we have a vacancy for a Maths teacher for a new member of the team to start in September.
I do hope families were able to pick up grab-bags of food last Monday to support them during the half term holidays. Again, this underlines the commitment of this team to making sure the community has what it needs. No doubt you will have seen that the government has revised and removed many of the restrictions as part of their ‘Living With Covid’ plan. I have updated our website to reflect the latest Covid-19 guidance with a helpful guide for parents/carers.
We worked with our partners in the police on the last day of half term in a planned operation together to ensure our school remains weapon and drug-free. As expected, nothing was found. We will never be complacent when it comes to this and will continue to work with our partners regularly.
We held a Student Parliament meeting last Wednesday at 9am for all elected members. The Head students, Mohammed and Farhiya, are going to be attending the senior leadership team meeting shortly to present their views. It’s so important that students have a voice and they see how it can be a powerful tool for change.
Year 11 students are now looking ahead to the 14th March when the next series of mock exams begin. A timetable for this will be shared shortly. No doubt students have been revising around the topics released by exam boards which are certain to feature in the forthcoming mocks. It was a privilege to sit in on many of the ‘Walking-Talking Mocks’ in the week before half term – where our subject experts lead and guide them through exam papers, question by question. Thank you to the Year 11 students who came to JQA on Tuesday last week to work on crucial English Language topics.
There has been some renovations to the site over the half term too as we continue to enhance the environment for our students, finishing off our Study Centre and Library – which will shortly be open to Year 11 at lunch times.
Finally, it’s an exciting time for parents/carers of children in Year 6 who will find out which secondary school their child has been allocated on Tuesday. On Thursday, we welcome families of Year 6 students who have been fortunate enough to be allocated a place at JQA for a tour. We’re proud of the fact that in our regular parent surveys, 9/10 parents would recommend JQA to another family.
Please call us on 0121 729 7220, leaving a message if lines are busy, and we will support you.
You can always contact me directly at: [email protected]