Summer School Success | Aug 2021
Mon 23rd August – Friday 27th August
Our Summer School journey was an excellent one where students had many opportunities to learn new skills, review and revisit many areas of their learning in KS2 and they were introduced to many new subjects as part of the introduction of the Curriculum at Key stage 3.
We pride ourselves on our strong community links and such strong supportive links ensured that we had the full support of the Hubb Foundation Port Vale to deliver such an amazing week of Summer School. We received circa £21,000 of DFE funding and the Hubb Foundation provided meals for all our students as well as some staffing of practical activities through their great agency links.
The summer school was enriched greatly with the support of many community groups and agencies facilitated by both the academy and the Hubb Foundation. Collaborative work ensured that sessions were delivered by Staffordshire Wildlife, Stoke City FC, Nutribox, Stoke City Music Service, GiftedDjs, and the Port Vale Hubb Foundation.
We were able to provide a wide range of activities to include; Creative technology, Maths, English, Science, Forest School, Sports, and music activities. The program each day was created to maximise students’ time with their new form tutor. Students would spend the first 20 minutes of each day as a form group, undertaking wellbeing activities, getting to know the staff, and finding their way around the academy.
Key members of the new Year 7 team were involved in delivering the Summer School to ensure that students had the opportunity to get to know their new Head of Year and their Year Manager as well as form tutors. Students loved the variety of activities on offer ensuring that they worked academically as well as practically developing new skills throughout the week.
We always like to evaluate all we do and see if we can do better. We, therefore, asked students to complete surveys and write down words on a post-it note to describe their summer school experience. Read some of our feedback and comments that the students completed on their evaluation forms of thor Summer School Week.
On Friday 27th August staff wanted to celebrate all of the amazing work that had taken place and we created a Celebration Event to congratulate students with a celebration assembly, students received certificates and trophies as part of their awards and finished a fantastic week off with a Final Celebration Buffet.
As students left they had huge smiles upon their faces; knowing more staff and students, feeling more confident, being able to locate classrooms, and being at ease with their move to us. We succeeded in giving our New Year 7 students the best start that we could at Co-op Academy Stoke-on-Trent.
