Newsletter – 15/11/2024

I hope you enjoyed the half term and you were able to enjoy time with those that matter most to you.

As you know, Mrs Hart, Headteacher has, unusually, been off sick and in her absence, supported by Beckfoot Trust, I have been stepping up as Acting Head of School. Whilst taking on more responsibility is of course challenging; it has also been a privilege to serve our community in a different role. My overwhelming take from the last few weeks is that it ‘takes a village to raise a child’ and never has it been more important for us to work together to support our young people in their education so that they can enjoy, learn and succeed.

Sometimes in senior leadership and as parents, all we notice is what is not going well enough. This newsletter gives us a snapshot of so much that our young people do that inspires us all. I work with young people because they give me hope for the future and this newsletter gives you a tiny glimpse into how brilliant our students are. I particularly enjoyed the photos of our students (with students from our partner school Beckfoot Nessfield) paying their respects at the town Cenotaph on Sunday. The students represented our school and their generation magnificently.

We are currently planning for our new family engagement initiative which we are holding in December. To maximise engagement, we are looking to hold this event in the Sue Belcher centre further (details to follow). Arrangements by the week commencing the 25th of November. This is a drop-in session where you can have one to one meeting with the School Leadership Team (SLT) and Beckfoot Trust colleagues.

This week, I have had the brilliant opportunity of visiting some of the best schools in the country (in London), to learn from their successes. I have been truly inspired and I can’t wait to share this learning with the senior leadership in Oakbank. Our students and the community we serve, deserves the very best.

We love to hear about our students’ successes beyond the school day, so if you have any good news stories, successes (and of course any pictures!) that you want to share with us about your children’s amazing talents please do not hesitate to contact us by emailing [email protected].

Mr Ray
Acting Head of School

There will be a cinema reward this next week linked to students’ positive achievements last term. Tickets will be given out on Monday to all students who have earned this reward.

Anne Mody presented a reef from Beckfoot Oakbank with Tom Holmes & Aimee Bilborough they have been awarded a golden ticket and Community award for giving up their Sunday morning. Well done!

The Poppy windows were amazing in school this week, every form created a remembrance window linked to the Poppy. There were some very creative windows which the students and staff should be very proud of.

Next week students will be electing or re-electing their form remarkable student leaders. This will be a democratic process and linked to students outlining how they will support the school, staff and students to develop our remarkable school offer. More news to follow next week with who was successful and what amazing presentations students have given.

Another fabulous duo Lexi Whitley Y8 and Henry Wilson Y9 have also been selected to go to Puru with the scouts, Beckfoot Oakbank are so proud of their amazing achievement.

This week we have been delivering assemblies and morning meetings based around Anti-bullying week 2024. The theme was around the work ‘Respect’ and students have been able to reflect upon what this means to them. We will continue to develop this theme in the coming weeks ensure we work hard to stand up to any form of bullying.

This week is Anti-Bullying week, we have reflected on how we can choose respect and create a school that all students enjoy belonging to and feel safe and included in. Lots of our staff and students marked the week by wearing odd socks on Tuesday – there were some great, bold choices of socks! A great week in school with lots of golden tickets and community awards, well done! Below is an example of some fantastic Year 7 group work from History:

We started the week with Armistice Day. Year 8 had an assembly about current conflicts around the world and the symbolism of the poppy. We read Survivors by Siegfried Sassoon. As the week progressed, we celebrated some excellent work in art. Students have been learning about the Mexican Day of the Dead. It is so great to see students taking pride in their work are really living that learning habit ‘learning beyond the classroom.’ It has been a good week for Golden Tickets and Learning Habit Threes. Keep up the good work year 8.

Students in year 9 have worked hard to build their Golden Ticket total to an amazing amount. We have seen an increase in students’ positive attitudes to their learning and being rewarded by being given community award postcards. This week Mr Gill handed out 6 X £10 vouchers for the winners of golden tickets draw and next week we will give a further 3. Well done year 9.

Meet the lovely Yvie Ling Hegarty Year 10, Yvie didn’t mess around at the European championships last weekend, becoming double European champion again! Another amazing success story of Beckfoot Oakbank community. We are so very proud of all her achievements, Well done!

Jess Sulivan Y10 successfully led the Keighley District Scout Standard flag representing the local district scouts at the
remembrance parade. Mrs Tomlinson- Askham said to mum; Leanne “She is brilliant isn’t she! I am so proud of her”. We are all so proud of her here at Beckfoot Oakbank, what a wonderful experience.

Over the past few weeks year 11 have been receiving the results to their recent set of mock exams and have been gaining valuable insights into their areas of strength and weakness, and we look forward to sharing these results with you next Thursday at parents evening. The booking system is now live, and we encourage you to book in to see your child’s teachers to discuss how best to support them on their way to success this year.

We have seen a significant improvement this year in punctuality to school and lessons this academic year. Thank you to families for supporting us with this. We want to support students to get it right and to develop learning habits for life and we welcome your support with this. More details can be found in our behaviour protocol.

All students in years 7 to 11 have access to Sparx Maths and all students in Years 7, 8 and 9 have access to Sparx Reader. Students can access these programmes with the same login that they use for Teams and logging at school. You can log on here. Beckfoot Oakbank School – Maths.

Sparx maths is now live so all students in Y7-11 have weekly online homework linked to the maths curriculum being followed. It’s due in each Wednesday! Contact [email protected] if you have any issues logging in.

In Science we are launching a new online homework platform for years 10 and 11 called Educake where students can answer online quizzes set by their science teachers. Educake is also a fantastic tool for revision as students can log on and test themselves on their science knowledge. All students should have received their login details in class as a sticker in their planners but if they have any problems logging on they should speak to their science teacher or Mr Hazelgreen. Log on at http://www.educake.co.uk or download the app.

Our Parent Forum grew last year and we hope that this will continue this year. Members of the parent forum have supported school events such as Open Evening, Meet the Tutor, Transition and Prize giving evenings. It was great to see some new faces at the first meeting of the year.

This is an informal meeting where parents can discuss a range of topics linked to school improvement – our discussions last year covered attendance, our reading strategy, prize giving evening, the antibullying and behaviour protocols, personal development and trips and visits. All parents are welcome to attend any of the evenings. We benefit greatly from your feedback.

Please find below the dates for this year and outline agenda items.