Letter to Parents and Carers: End of Half Term

Dear Parents and Carers,

Thank you for your continued support following our return to the academy in January. Our students returned refreshed and have demonstrated wonderful engagement in their learning and development in lessons. Students have embraced our new school day and it has been a pleasure to witness students engaging so well with our new Personal Development and Growth lesson.

Year 11 have started on their mock exam journey with their MFL mock speaking exams taking place in January and all other mock assessments due to start when we return. We hosted our Y11 Revision Festival on Tuesday. It was lovely to welcome Y11 students back at the end of the school day to share revision tips and resources to support them on their exam journey.

We have hosted Year 9 parents and students for our KS4 Guided Pathways evening, to direct and support students and families in choosing KS4 options and we are now underway planning our new KS4 timetable for September.

Today we waved bon voyage to students and staff on our annual half term ski trip. I am hugely grateful to colleagues who give up their family time to enable opportunities like this for our young people.

Praising Stars reports have been released this week and we enjoyed celebrating student success. 

Education Welfare and attendance support: Please email attendance@shafton.outwood.com if you need support with your child attending school.

Attendance and punctuality at the academy is vitally important

Students continue to engage really well with our attendance ‘Battle of the Bands’ and are proudly wearing their bronze, silver or gold attendance badges.

Please remember that holidays taken during term time will be counted as unauthorised absence.   If you know that your child is going to be absent, please telephone the Academy where possible before 8:30am or email attendance@shafton.outwood.com 

Our students must arrive at 08:20 every morning ready to start their first lesson at 08:30.  Anyone arriving after 8:30 am will enter through Reception and receive detention as a result of their late arrival, as all curriculum time is essential.

You can access term dates and closures on our website. INSET Dates (students will not be in the Academy on these days):

Communication with the academy 

As many of our staff, including Learning Managers and our Inclusion Team, are student facing throughout the day, the majority of our staff are in front of a class for 22 periods a week, the most convenient way to communicate is via email. If you know the name of the staff member you are trying to contact you can email them directly by using their first initial and surname in the following email format a.teacher@shafton.outwood.com. 

 

Alternatively, you can email enquiries@shafton.outwood.com and mark it for the attention of the relevant staff member. We aim to respond to all communication received in this format within 48 hours, but please bear in mind that this may vary if a staff member is absent for any reason. The enquiries email account is monitored daily from 08:00 – 3:30, Monday - Friday during term time. 

 

Our advice for improving this flow of communication is as follows:

Each year group has a Learning Manager, these are key colleagues who can be contacted should you require further information. Learning Manager email addresses can be found on our website and are pinned to the top of our Facebook page.

A reminder that you can catch up on all things Shafton via Bluesky account @outwoodshafton.bsky.social  

We use texts as a quick way to share information with you. This can be reminders about key events happening in school, attendance matters and links to letters. Please note that all texts will go to first named contacts on our system. Copies of key letters can also be found on the website at the bottom of the home page and is titled ‘Updates from the Academy’.

Many thanks for your continued support, wishing you and your family a restful half term break.

Yours faithfully, 

File

February 2026 letter to parents (1).pdf 507 KB