Spring Term - Newsletter 2025

Dear Parents/Guardians/Carers

Thank you for your continued support of the Academy with our drive to raise standards and expectations. Each week approximately 1100 students are achieving 100% attendance and 1000 students are receiving zero behaviour points. This is an excellent accomplishment and demonstrates how well our students represent our core values of resilience, aspiration and respect.  

During this Spring Term we have celebrated many successes, from sport, academic, enrichment activities which we will share with you in this newsletter. We have had a number of educational visits across different year groups; as always, our students have shown exemplary behaviour, which has been commented on by the venues we have attended.

We wish you all well for the holiday period.

Many thanks,

Dr Mason

What have we been up to?

The school regularly post on Facebook and Instagram to keep students and parents/carers informed about what is going on at the school. Since the start of term there have been 372,000 views on our Social accounts, which is a great achievement.

All the posts can be seen using the links above but here is a brief summary of what Ormiston Forge has posted.

We have celebrated various events during this term:

World Book Day, Year 7 girls Netball team, School trips to the Globe Theatre, Duke of Edinburgh Silver Expedition, School Enterprise Markets, National Careers Week, 6th form vs Staff football match, Deep learning projects, Children’s Mental Health Week, EID, Ramadan and many more!

Uniform and Equipment

The School Uniform consists of:

• School tie
• Black blazer with embroidered Academy logo
• Plain black trousers
• Plain black knee length skirt
• Plain black jumper (optional), (no sweatshirts)
• Shirt/Blouse – White (no casual shirts or t-shirts)
• Head scarf – (optional) plain black
• Polish-able plain black shoes or ALL black trainers
• Outdoor coat in a plain, dark colour (not leather or denim)

PE Kit

• Black/burgundy Polo shirt, with Academy logo.
• Plain black football-style shorts (cycling shorts can only be worn underneath football shorts).
• Plain black tracksuit bottoms (discreet logo is acceptable) OR black tracksuit bottoms, supplied via our approved PE kit supplier.
• Leggings are allowed to be worn underneath football shorts.
• Plain black football socks (outdoor)
• Plain white sport socks (indoor)
• Appropriate footwear for the activity; suitable trainers for indoors and sturdy trainers or moulded stud boots for the Astroturf.

It is essential that students come to school fully prepared to ensure a productive day of learning. Students are expected to bring a school bag (pouches are not permitted), a pencil case with pencils, pens, ruler, rubber, a scientific calculator and a refillable water bottle. Your support in reinforcing these standards is greatly appreciated.

Attendance Update

We’d like to take this moment to direct a message to parents, guardian and carers of Year 11 students. Make sure your child attends every day up to and through the G.C.S.E. exam period. Thank you.

Safeguarding

Useful links:

Sandwell Children’s services – 0121 569 3100

Dudley Children’s services – 0300 555 0050

CAMHS crisis line Dudley – 01922 607000

CAMHS crisis line Sandwell – 0121 612 6620

Support can also be accessed through:

NSPCC – 0808 800 5000

Childline – 0800 11 11

For Mental Health Support:

Shout – text 85258

Samaritans – 116123

Papyrus – 0800 068 4141

Young Minds – text YM to 85258

NHS – 111

If a child is at immediate risk call 999

Year 11, 12 and 13 Revision & Exams information

This term has been a very important term for our year 11, 12 and 13 students.

Year 11 have been working hard to prepare for their upcoming exams and we couldn’t be prouder of them. Earlier in the term, they undertook their full mock period. This mock period lasted over 2 weeks and for most students contained 2 exams per day throughout this period. The maturity and commitment shown to these exams should be commended and it showed how hard they are working as we approach the end of their time with us. Since then, students and staff have been using this information to close gaps in knowledge and make final improvements which are crucial to ensure the best performance in the summer exam period.

Students have been attending lunchtime and after school interventions in large numbers and have been gathering stamps on their intervention passports in order to earn a reward at the end of the first week back following the Easter break. Over the Easter break, students will have the opportunity to attend the academy for additional intervention sessions offered by staff and the timetable for these is below. We look forward to seeing as many year 11 students there as possible. When we return from the Easter break, there are only 3 full school days left until the first exam of the summer period. We wish all of our year 11 students the very best during the exam period and are sure that they will do themselves proud in their approach.

The spring term has been another busy one for our sixth form students.  80% of year 13 students who’ll be leaving us this summer have now applied to a UK university.  This means that, once again, the proportion of our sixth form students progressing to higher education is likely to be well above the national average.  Those not looking to move on to university are being supported by our careers team in finding higher-level apprenticeships or other positions of employment.  Special mention goes to Sufyaan Zeeshan who has already secured a masters level apprenticeship in auditing with accountancy firm Grant Thornton.

This past term has also seen the sixth form continue their tradition of supporting good causes and making a difference to others.  At the end of February 55 year 12 and year 13 students participated in a sponsored stay awake and raised over £1400 for Mary Stevens Hospice and Black Country Brighter Lives.  We’re also incredibly proud of Libby McDonagh and Yusuf Khan in year 12.  In February both students secured a place on the Lessons from Auschwitz programme led by the Holocaust Educational Trust.  Both students visited the site of the concentration camp in Poland and have now become Holocaust Ambassadors.  Throughout the rest of their time in sixth form they’ll be working with younger students in the Academy to share their experience of visiting Auschwitz and help deepen understanding of the Holocaust.

New Canteen Menu

Starting after the Easter holidays we have a new catering supplier – Aspens. They will be introducing a brand new menu for Ormiston Forge Academy. The school menu rotates on a three-week basis and you can view it by clicking the ‘new menu’ button. You can also see the prices, parent information and about Aspens.

Sparx Reader Update

A massive well done to all the students of year 7 & 8 who have engaged with the Sparx Reader platform. It has been exciting to see how many hours of reading our students are logging and how many books we have read so far! Sparx Reader can be accessed with the same log in details as Sparx Maths. A 30 minute homework is set each week through the English department. Students can select their own book of interest to read and will read the entire text over the half term in 30 minute bursts. Simple comprehension questions at the end help to check the accuracy of their reading.

We have read well over 200 hundred books in our first half term of the launch. It is wonderful to see that many students are clocking up several hours of independent reading, our highest achieving over 10 hours of independent reading this half term alone! We are excited to see how far we can get at the end of the Summer term!

We hope that parents and carers have enjoyed getting involved, asking questions and reading together. At Forge we value reading and the importance it has in enhancing learning in all subjects. Don’t forget that our library is open before and after school, as well as at break and lunch times. Students are welcome to borrow a book of their choice for their ERIC reading time in class.

What’s On next term

Please see key dates for the next term:

Monday 28^th April – Term starts for all students

Tues 29^th April – Thurs 1^st May – GL Assessments for Y8, Y9

Weds 30^th April – Sixth Form Exams Start

Thurs 1^st May – GCSEs start

Mon 5^th May – Bank Holiday – School Closed

Thurs 22nd May – Parent Voice Evening (4:00 – 6:00 pm)

Fri 23rd May – Y11 Leavers’ Assembly and Term Ends

Mon 2^nd June – Term starts for all students

Tues 17^th June – GCSEs finish for all students, Y10 Mock Exams Start

Fri 20^th June – Y11 Prom, Y13 Leavers’ Celebration

Mon 23rd June – Sixth Form Exams End

Weds 25^th June – Y7 Parents’ Evening (3:45 – 6:00 pm)

Tues 1^st July – GL Assessments for Y7, Prizegiving (7:00 – 8:30 pm)

Mon 7^th July – Y12 Work Experience

Fri 18^th July – Term Ends at 1:20 pm