Letter to Parents and Carers: Personal Development
Wed 22 Oct 2025
Dear Parents and Carers,
Personal Development
We are delighted to share with you some of the Personal Development opportunities for your child this half term.
All students have the opportunity to attend our enrichment opportunities. Please encourage your child to have a look at the enrichment activities and to try something new!
It is an exciting time as we have launched our Honours awards system to students. Virtual Honours badges are accessible to students and are available via their online portal. Students select an Honours badge and show how they have met the criteria with a detailed explanation- they range from being an artist to animal care, baking to adventurer! Students will need to show evidence how they have met the criteria and this can be presented after school on Honours Monday in B3.3 or via the Proud Thursday balcony! Students in Key Stage 3 have had an assembly to remind them of how to apply for Honours badges and a reminder has been shared on all Google Classroom year group noticeboards. Ms Glover is in B3.3 every Monday to support students in achieving any of the Honours badges.
We have had a record breaking number of students receiving praise both within the classroom and outside of the classroom this half term. There have been 39,373 praise points logged for our students so far this year, which continues to highlight just how wonderful our students are.
All of the praise points are added weekly and the student with the highest number of star students from lessons is identified as being Learning Champion of the week. This means that during period 5 on a Friday, Mrs McQueen will attend the end of the lesson and issue the student with cupcakes that they can share with all their class as well as taking any leftovers home to share with families. Our students really do love this time of the week and there is a real buzz throughout the academy of our Learning Champion of the week.
Throughout the last two weeks of our half term we have been having a ‘Spooktacular’ event with students who achieve six star-student praise awards, students place their spooktacular halloween card into our prize draw for a ‘Boo basket’ filled with wonderful treats. There are a number of these available for students and there is no limit to the number of cards which can be entered into the draw. The more star students in lessons = the more spooktacular cards completed.
Our Y7 Bronze ACE initiative continues to run for Y7 and many of our students have achieved this already. Students are ensuring they have achieved 20 signatures on their ACE passport to prove their commitment to learning at OAS and ensure they are ‘top of the pyramid’. The week before Christmas all students achieving bronze ACE status will be invited to an assembly to celebrate their achievements, receiving their bronze ACE badge as well as being given their next status of Silver passport. Students will then return period 5 for an hour of fun, games, rewards and treats to celebrate their outstanding achievement.
We are launching our annual Kindness Challenge, giving students the opportunity to have their kind acts acknowledged and the opportunity to win gift vouchers for their family. Students can collect Bee Kind cards from the main reception and once completed these can be posted into the Kindness box- winners will be drawn every Friday!
Our assembly and form programme is tailored to support our Personal Development curriculum. We are excited to supplement this with external providers and on Thursday 23 October 2025 we welcome ‘Hooked’ to deliver a drama performance to Y8 focused on vaping and cigarette addiction which is part of our Personal, Social and Health Education. We also have SY Fire service ‘Darker Nights’ assemblies and SY Police assembly programmes scheduled to deliver to our students.
We know that great attendance is the key to doing well at school and as we are in the final weeks of half term one our Battle of the Bands becomes an exciting time in the academy. The coveted attendance badges are given out. Did you know that students with attendance rates of 95% or above are twice as likely to achieve five or more good grades of GCSE. We are determined that every students’ attendance is the best it can be, so that all students achieve their potential. Every student is allocated a band according to their current attendance. Our bandings are based on increments of 5%, beginning with Platinum for 100% attendance and Gold for 95-99.9% attendance. By improving their attendance students can rise through the bands and seeing progress is clear to all. Every student is aware of the band they belong to and what this means to them. Every week we celebrate students who have moved up in bands. This is inclusive and looks to recognise the progress of all students.
During the final week of term all students will be voting for their new Student Voice Prime Minister. Student Voice sits at the heart of our academy and the student candidates for this academic year are Vaishu (Y9), Finley (Y8) Keela and Lola (Y8). They will be campaigning for votes during the week and we will hold election day on Friday 24 October. The results will be announced by our returning officer during period 5! We would like to thank Ben (Y11) for his time as Prime Minister and we know he will continue to support the student voice during his final year.
Finally, we will be hosting our annual Remembrance service on 11 November and further details will follow after half term. We do invite students in cadets to be part of the service and I am sharing this information now as I know they need to seek permission from their cadet units. Students are welcome to change into their cadet uniform if they wish to play a key part in the service. Our community events are so very important to us and we value student contribution.
