Newsletter

'Tis the Season to Run Fieldtrips

Throughout the last half term, the Geography department has been a hive of activity, broadening student experiences and giving them a taste of being a real Geographer by running a grand total of four fieldtrips for GCSE and A Level students.

Miss Payne teamed up with the Geography department at Toot Hill School in Bingham to organise a joint A Level Geography trip for 30 Year 12 students from both schools to visit St Ives in Cornwall for a week. This was to collect data for their Non-Examined Assessment (coursework) in Geography. Students spent time planning their geographical enquiry in lessons beforehand and researching St Ives to formulate their aims and hypotheses, design their investigation and support it with academic literature.

During their stay in St Ives, students collected a range of human and physical data based around their individual investigation. They visited Portmeor Beach in the town centre to investigate coastal erosion and longshore drift, examine the impact of erosion on the coastal landforms, and evaluate the effectiveness of hard engineering strategies. Year 12 investigated the impact of tourism on the human and physical landscape in St Ives, walking along part of the southwest coast path to assess the environmental impacts and throughout the town interviewing and questioning businesses and residents to gauge the impact of tourism on people’s perceptions and attachment to St Ives as a place.

Throughout the week they journeyed to Gwithian Dunes just outside of St Ives, which has been designated as a local nature reserve and an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) in an attempt to minimise the impact of human activity on the valuable flora and fauna in this ecosystem. Students carried out dune profiles and vegetation sampling to analyse dune succession and the effectiveness of management strategies in this vulnerable environment.

The students stayed at Cohort Hostel in a central location in St Ives. Staff at the hostel commented on how kind and polite our students were. Students enjoyed dining out in and around St Ives, and consumed many Cornish pasties throughout the week. They were very lucky with the weather and enjoyed the Cornish sunshine. A memorable week for all – especially the unforgettable afternoon spent on the headland watching a huge pod of 60-70 dolphins feeding in St Ives bay for over an hour.

Year 13 spent four days carrying out their data collection for their coursework, much closer to home at sites in Sherwood and in the Forest Recreation Ground. They have been investigating people’s sense of place and experiences of these places, and linking it to how these places are used throughout the year and the impacts of urban decline and resurgence.

Year 11 also had a taste of the outdoors. They spent a morning visiting sites in and around the Lace Market area of Nottingham investigating the success of urban regeneration. They carried out land use surveys, pedestrian counts, environmental quality surveys and questionnaires, whilst battling very snowy conditions! They had a pit stop at Greggs to refuel and enjoyed having lunch at venues around the market square. Even though all the students made it back in one piece – albeit cold and soggy – their fieldwork booklets did not survive the snow, and we have been using secondary data to support their investigation write-up in lessons. They have lots to talk about if they are asked to evaluate their data collection methods in their exam.

The Year 11 cohort then journeyed further afield for their physical Geography data collection. To investigate the effectiveness of coastal management they met bright and early before school and travelled to Hornsea, a town on the Holderness Coast in East Yorkshire. This coast is of great significance as it is one of fastest eroding coastlines in Europe, and students investigated the rate of longshore drift and how well the coastal management is protecting valuable areas. They used brand new Geography equipment to carry out beach profiles, longshore drift surveys, groyne profiles and environmental impact assessments to collect data to answer their hypothesis. They had lovely warm and sunny weather and students collected lots of data which they have been busy writing up in lessons. However, the favourite part for many was having fish and chips on the beach for lunch.

Miss Payne - Head of Geography

Curriculum

In order to support conversations at home we wanted to let you know what our students will be covering next half term.

Y7- Finance, looking at budgets and savings, healthy lifestyles which will include sleep hygiene, healthy eating and exercise and lastly radicalisation and extremism.

Y8 – Complete their Finance unit- this involves the importance of savings, being a savvy consumer and banking. They will then learn about self esteem, body image and body shaming. Lastly they will learn about different types of discrimination and the difference between equity and equality.

Y9 – Complete their British citizenship unit, learning about the difference between civil and criminal law as well as exploring the topic of youth crime. They will then recap on extremism and radicalisation. They will also learn about microaggressions and racism as well as child exploitation.

Y10 – Finish their Religion, Philosophy and Ethics (RPE) unit looking at religion and relationships, focusing on the family. Then students will learn about gangs with a focus on county lines and then start their drugs unit recapping on alcohol and its dangers.

Y11 – Students will be given their Personal Development (PD) slot to prepare for their upcoming GCSE exams.

Personal Development Charity Work

Thank you so much for your support with our earthquake appeal bake sale. We raised over £220! A huge thank you to those of you who provided baked goods for this and to all the children who came and help run it as well as everyone who generously donated.

All funds were donated directly to the Turkey/Syria earthquake appeal.

https://www.dec.org.uk/appeal/turkey-syria-earthquake-appeal

Mrs Inglis and Mrs Wilken - Heads of Personal Development

After the Easter break, we are launching the 'REACH' initiative for character development. Moving forward, our children will be recognised and rewarded for displaying the key character traits of Resilience, Empathy, Ambition, Courage and Honesty (REACH).

'Superstar' credits are now linked to the REACH characteristics, and character points are called 'REACHPoints'. Excitingly, children can now work towards earning REACH badges, to demonstrate their hard work and kindness. They are awarded by earning the following:

• 10 Resilience Superstars (in one term) = 1 Resilience Badge
• 5 Empathy Superstars (in one term) = 1 Empathy Badge
• 5 Ambition Superstars (in one term) = 1 Ambition Badge
• 5 Courage Superstars (in one term) = 1 Courage Badge
• 5 Honesty Superstars (in one term) = 1 Honesty Badge

The REACH initiative will be launched in assemblies the first week back after the Easter break. Here's a sneak peek at the badges...

Mr Tomasevic - Assistant Headteacher

Vaping concerns in Nottingham City

There are increasing concerns from the Nottingham City Public Health Team that some vapes are being mixed with alternative substances.  If you are aware of vapes being sold to children please notify the police straight away and let the safeguarding team know at school.

Concerns in the community:

If you become aware of any incidents in our local community that affect or could affect our children please contact kgray@nottinghamfreeschool.co.uk to discuss what support we could put in place.

Online Safety:

Discord:

There are continued concerns that there is harmful and illegal content being shared on this platform.  A reminder that anyone over the age of 13 can join public servers on Discord and this could put your child at risk of communicating with someone who might not have their best interests at heart and wants to cause them harm.  

School expectations Reminders:

Mobile Phones: 

Our phrase for mobile phones is 'Not seen, Not Heard and Not Used'.  We understand that as parents you want to ensure that your child is getting safely to and from school and that having a mobile phone is important.  However, mobile phones cause distraction in the building and so our policy is that if phones are seen in a lesson or around the building they are confiscated, an R20 detention is issued and parents/carers are contacted to ask they come and collect the phone themselves.   We do not hand the phone back to the student until parents/carers have been contacted. If students repeatedly use the phone in the school building then in consultation with parents/carers, we will request that the phone is either not brought into school at all or with arrangements with the Head of Year that it can be handed into main reception before the student enters the building. 

Mrs Gray - Deputy Headteacher

Congratulations to the Enrichment Dance Group on their recent qualification to the East Midlands Regional Round of the Great Big Dance-Off competition.

It was touch-and-go with last minute choreography and rehearsals; but the dancers did themselves, the PE department, and the whole school proud. Their excellent performance in front of a paying crowd at The Albert Hall, Nottingham was a brilliant experience for them all.

Miss Singleton - Head of PE

School Show

Rehearsals for the school show 'Aladdin Jr.' have already started. Students are working really hard to memorise lines, practice songs and even some dancing as well. The show will be on the 18th and 19th July and tickets will be available in the summer term - date to be confirmed. Well done to all the students who are participating in the show.

Instrumental Lessons

We have recently had the opportunity to add more string, brass, woodwind and vocal tuition at Nottingham Free School. If your child would be interested in learning an instrument in the summer term, please contact lwilson@nottinghamfreeschool.co.uk to reserve a space.

The prices for music lessons are as follows:

• Individual tuition - £107 per term (10 lessons)
• Groups of 2 tuition - £54 per term (10 lessons)
• Groups of 3 tuition - £36 per term (10 lessons)

Miss Wilson - Head of Music

Students from Nottingham Trent University (NTU) have been working closely with our own staff and students to try and make Haydn Road safer. The NTU students have been collecting data and surveying students and parents in order to better understand the Traffic Safety issues along Haydn Road, and the thoughts and concerns of our community.

In a week of presentations, delivered by NTU undergraduates to our own students, a 'Walk to School Week' initiative was launched for the 20th to the 24th March, where students could raise money through sponsorship to contribute to better safety measures along Haydn Road.

A huge well done to all those Year 7 and 8 students that participated in the ‘Walk to School Week’ initiative. It was brilliant to see so many students seeking sponsorship and making the effort to walk to school. I am sure it had a positive impact on traffic congestion and our local environment!

A reminder that students should collect all their sponsorship money and hand it in to the school reception in an envelope (with their name, tutor group and amount raised on it). 

Mr Tomasevic - Assistant Headteacher

The Children's Public Health 0-19 Nursing Service have put together a newsletter for secondary school students on the topic of 'Keeping Well in Spring'.

Please Click Here to view the newsletter , and for further information, please visit www.nottinghamcitycare.nhs.uk

The Easter raffle organised by the Year 11 Prom Committee was a huge success and raised a total of £157.50. The Prom Committee would like to say a huge thank you for your support and contributions to this event. 

Miss Weston - Head of Year 11 

On Thursday 2nd February, 54 Year 9 and 10 students took part in the National UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge.  Over 200,000 students across the UK take part each year. 

The top 8000 then get invited to take part in the next challenge called Grey Kangaroo (Year 9) and Pink Kangaroo (Y10).

The results are in:

• Year 9 achieved 1 Gold, 1 Silver and 4 Bronze Certificates
• Year 10 achieved 1 Gold, 4 Silver and 10 Bronze Certificates.

The two students who achieved Gold certificates were then invited to take part in the Kangaroo challenge.  This took place on Thursday 16th March, unfortunately one of the students was unwell and wasn't able to complete the challenge but the other came in and sat the paper. 

Well done to everyone that took part. We are still waiting to hear the result...

Mrs Dudley - Lead Teacher of Maths

Congratulations to our students who have become published poets.

Back in October students celebrated National Poetry Day by writing their own poems in class on the theme ‘The Power of Poetry’. 13 poems were entered into the National Competition and chosen to be published in the Young Writer’s anthology.

We are so impressed with the maturity and breadth of issues covered by the students, as they tackled topics ranging from the natural world to discrimination. Their poems will forever be immortalised in print and a copy is available in the school library.

Miss Furlong - Lead Teacher of English

We are saddened to announce that we will be saying farewell to two members of our Maths department at the end of this term.

Mr Downer will be going to a school in Tibshelf, Derbyshire, while Mrs Dudley is joining Rushcliffe Spencer Academy.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank them both for all the hard work that they have undertaken with our students at Nottingham Free School and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavours.

Creative Writing Enrichment

Student work from Year 7 and 8 Creative Writing Enrichment has been compiled into an anthology of original work. Copies of the anthology are now proudly stocked in our library for all to read.

Library Book Swap

Thank you to all staff, students and parents who donated books for the book swap. We were so overwhelmed with donations and had plenty to keep topping up the shelves. It was lovely to see how keen the students were to get involved.

There are still some donated books available in the library, so please pop by if you are interested.

Miss Fairbrother and Miss Furlong - English

 

I can’t believe we are about to enter our last term with Year 11. The recent mocks evoked many different emotions in our students and we now need to support them with channelling these emotions into the final run up to the exams.

We have many opportunities for them to receive support from staff; through lunchtime support, before/after school subject clinics and Easter booster sessions. We hope they make the most of these.

Our staff are always willing to support and if students are struggling to know what to revise for a subject then we urge them to speak to their class teacher, who will be able to help break the subject content into smaller chunks, and let them know which areas they personally need to focus on.

For the latest edition of the Year 11 Newsletter - Click Here

Please also see the digital version of the Final Countdown booklet issued to students - Click Here

Mrs Farnie - Deputy Headteacher