The Miraculous Journey to Walbottle Academy

Our Northern Education Trust Summer School will commence on Monday 23rd August 2021 for two weeks and involve a wide variety of sensational activities including sports, drama and games. 

It will be a great opportunity for our new year 7s to make new friends, meet some staff and find their way around the building.

• Students who attend are asked to wear shorts, leggings or tracksuit bottoms with a t-shirt, hoodie and trainers.  Children will not then be required to change for the afternoon activities.
• Ideally we would want students to attend for the full two weeks but will accommodate and be flexible where possible.
• Breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack will be provided for everyone, free of charge.

Aims and objectives

Aim: to deliver a 2 week summer school offering a blend of academic literacy education and enrichment activities.  

Objectives:

• To refresh, improve and develop student literacy skills
• To increase student confidence, build a community with their peers, develop relationships and learn about their new environment.
• To have a positive impact on student mental health and wellbeing

Student Pack

Each student attending our Northern Education Trust Summer School will be provided with a free student pack containing:

• Drawstring bag
• NET reusable water bottle
• Pencil case (with equipment)
• Coloured lanyard (to denote assigned teams)
• Copy of the book ‘The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates’ by Durham-based author Jenny Pearson (all literacy activities are based on this book)
• Journal including Lesson Log of Learning, End of Day Reflection and Reward Point Card for effort and engagement

Letters to Parents

Summer School 2021 analysis

The grant conditions of the Summer School funding require each academy to disclose a breakdown of the total spend of the income received. The below table shows the total income received for the summer 2021 Summer School, with a breakdown of the different categories for expenditure type:

Overall the Miraculous Journey to summer school was a huge success. The aim of our summer school programme was to deliver a 2 week summer school offering a blend of academic literacy education and enrichment activities. The students particularly enjoyed the live virtual session with the author and most were very proud of the work they produced in the literacy sessions over the fortnight. They loved their afternoon experiences which allowed them access to coaches and activities that they had previous limited experiences of. Staff were pleasantly surprised by the number of students who opted to stay for the additional hour enrichment.

The summer school has had a very positive effect on those that attended, the students have felt more prepared for joining a NET academy in a number of ways. They have become cognisant with our praise culture and high expectations; they have experienced PROUD, our learning framework, collaborative strategies and the enormous importance of reading within our academies.

Did the summer school meet the objectives?

To refresh, improve and develop student literacy skills – the student particularly enjoyed the text selected for the morning literacy sessions ‘The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddy Yates‘. They enjoyed the way the learning journey of the sessions built on their literacy skills but in an engaging and interactive way.

To increase student confidence, build a community with their peers, develop relationships and learn about their new environment – the new year 7 students who attended summer school have been more confident and have in some cases supported those who did not attend by showing them around the academy. They have made friends with a wide range of students and these friendships have allowed the more vulnerable amongst them to have a support network

To have a positive impact on student mental health and wellbeing – a number of parents commented on the positive effect that attending the summer school had on their children and felt that they were excited about coming back in September

To start positive relationships with the most vulnerable families – due to the communication that happened prior and during summer school these positive relationships have been established and parents will ask to speak to members of the summer school team about their child as they feel they already have positive relationships with them

Early identification of individual student needs – after teaching the students for the fortnight staff were able to identify individuals needs and also their strengths. These were then shared during the PD days with Y7 teaching staff so that students could receive bespoke support.