KEVI Newsletter 25th November 2022

Senior Leadership Team Update

We’d like to take this opportunity to say well done to all of our Year 11 and Year 13 students for their effort and attitude during the last fortnight of mock examinations. These are such a crucial milestone in the journey to the summer because they give us an accurate picture of current performance and invaluable feedback about how to adjust our teaching to guide improvements. Our teachers will be busy marking these over the coming week. Every student from Y7 – Y13 will receive a KPI report before Christmas which will show results of recent assessments and attitude to learning grades.

In house assemblies this week we have been focusing on one of our core values: courage. Courage is arguably the most difficult of our values to live by because it requires us to choose vulnerability over comfort. It is the choice to take on difficult tasks or confront fears to achieve our goals.

Our assembly looked at the story of William Wilberforce who made himself vulnerable through choosing to campaign for the abolition of slavery. The slave trade had brought significant economic benefits to this country and he risked assassination attempts, slander and physical attacks to do what he believed was right. Once he had achieved success by ending slavery in England he worked for another 26 years to end the slave trade across the whole British Empire. He died in 1833, just three days after achieving this goal through an Act of Parliament.

Our value of courage guides us to always do the right thing because it is the right thing. Courage helps us to do the right thing, especially when it is difficult.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs S Jones - Executive Principal & Mr M Wilkinson - Acting Head of School

Why we do what we do -Academy Rationale

We shut the field area outside during the winter months. This is to reduce the amount of mud that is trailed into school. Students are not able to sit on the field during the winter due to the ground being cold and wet. Students have a choice at lunchtime, if it is not raining, to play netball on both the 3G pitch and the astro pitch, we also have covered outdoor spaces and of course students can also access the House hub, library, Ginos, (the canteen) and clubs that take place at lunchtimes.

House News!

House Motto

Last week we had to make the important decision for the first house mottos. Each house put forward suggestions for their house mottos. The final decisions have been made.

• Apollo – ‘Courage conquers fear’
• Arete – ‘Striving for excellence’
• Mercury – ‘'Forging a path to success'
• Minerva – ‘Victory through wisdom’

Thank you for all the suggestions, it was such a hard decision.

Santa Fun Run

The Santa Fun Run will be on the 13th of December this year. All students are invited to take part however they need to get sponsorships. Each student has had the opportunity to collect this sponsorship through cash and paper or a link sent to their families via MCAS.

Sponsorships must be collected by December 1st and handed into the office with the paper form. If you have raised £1 you will receive a medal after the run, if you raise more than £8 you will receive a t-shirt and a medal. Alongside this remember it is also a house competition and the house with the highest participation will win!

Good luck!

Miss C Eyre - Games Master

Relationships and Sex Education at KEVI

Throughout October and the first part of November, we were fortunate to have Wayne Stevenson visit us at KEVI to work with a different year group each Friday. Wayne works for the NHS as a sexual health clinician and we were able to use his expertise to deliver various elements of the statutory relationships and sex education (RSE) framework.

During this time, Wayne worked with every young person from Year 7 to Year 12 and the engagement and enthusiasm shown by them was exemplary. Whether it was Year 7 students who were introduced to the scientific names of the reproductive system, Year 9 students who discovered the facts about different forms of contraception, or Year 10 students who were given a hard-hitting lesson on consent; they all demonstrated our KEVI values of respect, courage and resilience. In every school Wayne visits, he hands out a trophy to the group who impressed him the most. He told me afterwards that choosing the winning group at KEVI was one of the hardest decisions he’s had as they were all so fantastic. But a decision was made, and the trophy will be handed out to the winning form in assembly. The whole student body has been a credit to our Academy.

This lovely feedback also goes both ways. Many students have commented on how engaging and informative the sessions were. Year 12 were particularly grateful for the session they received on the dangers of substance abuse. Year 11 comments in respect to an STI session highlighted how they had their misconceptions challenged and corrected. One of the highlights for Year 8, who learning about pregnancy, was being given the opportunity to wear an “empathy vest” to simulate what it might feel like to carry a baby inside you.

Of course, everything that Wayne covered was guided by the statutory guidance for RSE and our Academy RSE policy, which can be found on our website here: RSE_Policy.pdf.

I wrote to all parents and carers at the end of September and within that letter they were invited to sign up if they were interested in discussing their views on and contributing to the development of our RSE policy. Thank you if you did sign up. If you didn’t, it is not too late if you would like to be involved. Please use this link to sign up and I will contact all those interested in the near future: https://forms.gle/ganfyXkwspBkvR7C7.

Lots of the students have been asking when they will get to work with Wayne again. We look forward to inviting him back to KEVI in the future to continue their journey of learning.

Mr P Riley

PSHCE Lead

Attendance

Attendance last week was 90.5% so a slight improvement on the previous week!

Well done to Year 11 with attendance of 95.4% which is not only the highest attendance per year group but also the biggest improvement; as you’ve gone from a disappointing 88.5% to a fantastic 95.4%. Keep up the good work!

House attendance

Minerva's attendance was improved last week. It is pleasing to see them almost hitting the target (95%) by reaching 94%. They were closely followed by Arete at 92%!

Apollo was 90% and Arete was at 88%.

If you would like to discuss your child’s attendance or need any support with attendance then please contact Mrs Kwee or Mrs Ziller on 01790 753260 or tkwee@kingedwardacademy.co.uk to discuss ways to support your child's attendance.

Mrs T Kwee Attendance Manager

Sixth Form Update

SPILSBY GRAMMAR SCHOOL FOUNDATION CURRENTLY HAS FUNDS AVAILABLE TO ASSIST FORMER PUPILS OF KING EDWARD VI ACADEMY

(formerly KING EDWARD VI HUMANITIES COLLEGE and KING EDWARD VI SCHOOL, SPILSBY)

This fund it to help support exceptional costs if they are presently in further/higher education or training and are over 18 and under 25 years of age on 31st December 2022.

Applications from former pupils of:

• Spilsby
• Great Steeping,
• Halton Holegate,
• Partney
• Toynton

Primary schools who either attend our 6th form or have enrolled elsewhere for secondary education will also be considered.

To see further details and to download a of the Criteria and Application Form go to

www.spilsbygsf.org.uk

APPLICATIONS must be received by 12 noon on Monday 23rd January 2023.

This is on behalf of the Spilsby Grammar Foundation Fund

Mrs P Prince - Head of Sixth Form

Teen Support

Tourette's syndrome

Tourette's syndrome is a condition that causes a person to make involuntary sounds and movements called tics.

It usually starts during childhood, but the tics and other symptoms usually improve after several years and sometimes go away completely.

There's no cure for Tourette's syndrome, but treatment can help manage symptoms.

Tics are the main symptom of Tourette's syndrome. They usually appear in childhood between the ages of 2 and 14 (around 6 years is the average).

People with Tourette's syndrome have a combination of physical and vocal tics.

Examples of physical tics include:

• blinking
• eye rolling
• grimacing
• shoulder shrugging
• jerking of the head or limbs
• jumping
• twirling
• touching objects and other people

Examples of vocal tics include:

• grunting
• throat clearing
• whistling
• coughing
• tongue clicking
• animal sounds
• saying random words and phrases
• repeating a sound, word or phrase
• swearing
• (Swearing is rare and only affects about 1 in 10 people with Tourette's syndrome.)

Tics are not usually harmful to a person's overall health, but physical tics, such as jerking of the head, can be painful.

Tics can be worse on some days than others.

They may be worse during periods of:

• stress
• anxiety
• tiredness

Children with Tourette's syndrome may also be at risk of bullying because their tics might single them out.

For further support please visit Tourettes Action (tourettes-action.org.uk)

Times Tables

Years 7 and 8 will be reciting their times tables to help embed them in their long term memory.

At the end of each lesson, they will stand behind their chairs in silence, preparing for themselves for the next lesson and just before they leave the whole class will chant the timetables assigned for that week.

Week commencing 28th November - we will be chanting our 7 times table

Miss H Broughton - Head of Maths

Sports News

This week has been a busy week at KEVI with Rowvember coming to its end of the 30th of the month. We have seen a huge increase in the number of students who have recorded a row, it has been a real joy to see all year groups taking part for their houses and the school. We have also been fortunate to have staff and sixth form pupils join in and help push the school towards the 500-mile target.

As seen in last week’s results almost all the houses have got to 100000 meters. Minerva House is currently leading the houses with the most distance covered, and number of pupils participated but there is still time left for the other houses to catch up.

On December 1st the top two male and female rowers from each year group will compete against the other DRET schools in the rowing cup.