Welcome to Early Risers and Transition Information

Hello to all of you and welcome to Sheffield Park Academy.

It is with great sadness that we have to inform all of our Y6 students that we are having to cancel this years Early Risers programme, face to face teaching at Sheffield Park Academy. Representatives from both local primary and secondary schools have been meeting regularly with the local public health team regarding whether Early Risers can run in its usual form or whether it needs to run as last year virtually. We have left the decision as late as possible to ensure that we used the most accurate data of infection rates in our local schools and communities. On Tuesday 29^th June the group, following public health advice, reached a decision that we should postpone Early Risers and run a virtual programme. This is hugely disappointing, but it is important that we avoid mixing students from different school bubbles across the city currently.

To support the virtual Early Risers programme there will be information and resources on the websites of both Sheffield Springs Academy and Sheffield Park Academy. Students will be able to access this in their Year 6 lessons and at home.

You will be able to find various sources of information on the school’s websites:

·         Key staff – Senior Leaders, Heads of Year and Form Tutors.

·         Uniform and PE kit issues.

·         Key staff – Senior Leaders, Heads of Year and Form Tutors.

·         Uniform and PE kit issues.

·         Catering and other administration information.

·         Standards and expectations

·         Pupil assessment

·         Education with character

Mr Wainwright will be coming to all primary schools to visit you in person or online during the next two weeks to ensure that all children have had contact with us and so that we can answer any questions that you may have. We are also planning on doing to live online learning sessions for you and a programme of these will be sent out shortly.

This has been an incredibly difficult decision to make and we have been guided by our local public health team. Early Risers is such a successful transition programme. However due to the pandemic we had to switch to running the programme remotely last year and are confident that it can be successfully repeated this year.

Please don’t hesitate to contact the transition team should you have any questions.

In addition to the work supplied by Sheffield Park Academy you can also access a lot of resources for many different subject areas in the National Oak Academy web site. The link for this is below.

https://classroom.thenational.academy/subjects-by-key-stage/key-stage-3

Please use the buttons below to explore both Parent Transition information and Pupil Virtual Early Risers pages.

Sheffield Park Academy Prospectus

Meet the teams

Transition

Transition from primary to secondary school can often be a worrying time for student and their parents.

Ensuring students settle quickly into their new surroundings, whilst continuing to make good progress with their learning, can often be incredibly challenging. We work closely with our feeder primary schools to ensure that we offer the very best transition programme for all of our students, helping to make the move from primary to secondary school a smooth and exciting one.

Early Risers

We introduced the 'Early Risers' programme in 2015, where we invite Year 6 students moving up into our Year 7 to join us for the last three weeks of the summer term. 

The main aim behind the programme is to enable students to settle into the Academy prior to breaking up for the summer holidays, familiarising them with our expectations and helping them to acclimatise to their new environment, make new friends and dispel any worries about moving up to secondary school.  Learning is also at the core of everything we do and we set the very highest of expectations in all of our classrooms, which we expect all students to meet.

Feedback

We asked Year 6 parents and students for feedback on the Early Risers programme and below is a selection of comments which we hope you will find useful:

• 100% of parents felt their experience of ‘Early Risers’ (and that of their child) was at least in some way positive

• 100% of parents believe that the programme should be repeated again.

"Early Risers is an amazing idea! My child loved it and was ready for Y7. All schools should do it!"

Acres Hill Community Primary parent

"My child really enjoyed Early Risers and as a parent I found it took a lot of worries away."

Emmaus Catholic and Cof E Primary School parent

"Excellent programme. My child got to see the school and experience secondary school life before starting in September. Also lots of fun activities, so was enjoyable."

High Hazels Academy parent

"It was a good way to get the students used to ‘big school’. It definitely made it less intimidating when it came to September."

Wybourn Community Primary School parent

"Food is excellent, teachers are excellent. The school is top notch."

Nether Edge Primary Parent