It has been a fantastic first few weeks at Bedford Academy with the students fully engaged in the new school vision, culture and ethos. Our new staff have settled well and the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom has been the best I have seen it in my 8 years at Bedford Academy. On the back of our positive summer results, our Progress 8 score is above +0.40 which is much higher than the national average. With specialist teachers added in core subjects, we have stability and strength that will benefit our brilliant students and help them get the consistent teaching they need to improve their outcomes.

Early indications from Year 11 assessments show that we are in a much better place in terms of our data and predicted outcomes for 2020 in comparison to 2019. With a renewed and deliberate focus on achievement and promoting progress for all of our students, we are excited about what the future holds and the successes that we can bring about in our school community. Students are beginning to believe that the drive and aspiration we consistently focus on embedding will have a positive impact on their chosen next steps.

It is the right time to prompt parents and carers about the importance of good attendance. We continually remind students that we expect +98% from everyone and anything below this figure puts a strain on their quality of education. Please ensure you give your child every chance of being in school by encouraging them to eat well, rest, get plenty of exercise and wrap up warm when it is cold. A polite reminder to everyone that rain requires a waterproof coat or umbrella, I would strongly recommend that families check the weather forecast and prepare appropriately for these more frequent episodes of poor weather. This will ensure that we maximise the chances of all students being in school as much as possible so that they can achieve.

On Friday 27th September Miss Green, our Aspirations Lead and I, travelled to London to the Careers Excellence Awards where we received a nomination for School or College of the Year. I am delighted to say that we won and are now officially the best provider in the UK for our careers offer to students. A massive thanks and well done to Miss Green and Mr Dawe, our superb Careers Advisor, who have won the award as a direct result of years of hard work. The full article can be seen on our website.

Our uniform expectations continue to set the standard in school, with many recent visitors commenting on how smart our students look. Facial piercings and fake or acrylic nails are not permitted and do not support learning, please ensure that we don’t have to have these unnecessary conversations with families about basic expectations. Sweets and fizzy/energy drinks and gum are also banned and will be confiscated and disposed of if seen. Our Partnership Agreement and the BA Way highlight all our expectations as a school and how we conduct ourselves whilst at Bedford Academy. Please refresh your memory of these key themes here: the BA Way and BA Partnership Agreement.

Finally, we are looking forward to going into many of our feeder schools in the next few weeks as Year 6 students make vital decisions about their secondary school. We added 30 students for Year 7 in 2019 in comparison to 2018 and I fully expect us to be full in 2020, as the message of our school improvement and consistency spreads across Bedford.

We continue to be releasing regular school updates on our twitter account throughout the year, please follow us @Bedford_Academy.

I look forward to welcoming you to our school in the near future.

Chris Deller – Head Teacher