Dear Parents / Guardians
Welcome to start of new academic year 2024/25
A very warm welcome to the start of the new academic year 2024/25. I hope you and your family had a good summer holiday. All the staff at Leigh Academy Hugh Christie (LAHC) are excited and ready to welcome our students back this week to start the new academic year. Our New Year 7 and Year 12 will start on Wednesday, 4th September, whilst all other year groups will start from Thursday, 5th September.
We are delighted to inform you that we received fantastic sets of results for both GCSEs and A levels over the summer holiday. At GCSE nearly 60% of students achieved grade 4 or higher in English and Maths with an average attainment grade of over 4 for students who were taught at Leigh Academy Hugh Christie. The number of students studying EBACC qualification continues to increase and average point scores achieved are improved too. Our students also secured the best ever progress score in the history of LAHC. We had nearly 200 grades awarded at equivalent 7 or more with top grades of 9 awarded across a range of subjects.
At A level, More than a third of the grades awarded were equivalent A/A* whilst more than 72% of the grades achieved were at a level equivalent to A*-C. Students achieved 70 grades at A/A* or equivalent and 154 grades at A* to C or equivalent. The proportion of students achieving A*-A at A level has more than doubled and has improved significantly across vocational subjects. All students who applied for the university places successfully secured their choice. University courses that Leigh Academy Hugh Christie Students will study include but are not exhaustive to Marine Biology, Aviation Management, Forensic investigation, Adult Nursing, Physiotherapy, History, Mathematics, Geography and Fine Arts. This fantastic outcome demonstrates a continued improvement in the quality of teaching and learning provided to all our students across the academy.
We are incredibly proud of these achievements. On behalf of the governing body and all the staff at Leigh Academy Hugh Christie, I would like to pass my congratulations to all our hard working students, supportive parents and excellent staff.
During the summer holiday, we have carried out a significant amount of improvement work at our academy supported by the Leigh Academies Trust. Each classroom has now got a brand new projector and new white board, our whole IT infrastructure has been newly installed including a new server and better broadband connectivity. We have also fitted new toilet facilities for our students. We have carried out building work to create an extra learning environment for our students as well. Our new Sixth form study centre is on track to be completed very soon, which will be a fantastic addition and resource for all our sixth form students.
We are really happy to start receiving the delivery of student chrome books and we will be writing to parents in year group order to provide further information about the collection of their child’s chrome book device. This is a truly exciting transformation towards becoming a google school, providing all our students better and improved access to curriculum and learning resources at all times at our academy, at home or anywhere else. Once the Chrome book device is allocated, all students must bring their Chrome book, fully charged to the academy every day. We are now an IB candidate school and as a result all students at Key Stage 3 (Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9) will study IB- Middle Years Programme from September 24. This will enable students to continue learning the national curriculum but delivered via the exciting, innovative MYP framework to ignite curiosity and develop the knowledge and skills that students need to be well prepared for life ahead.
Our small school model is also effective from this new academic year, as I wrote to you previously, this will strengthen and enhance the quality of pastoral care to all our students. The Head of Colleges (Vice Principals) will write to you shortly to provide you further information.
As the excitement of the new academic year builds, I would like to reiterate some of our basic expectations to ensure that all students are able to make the best start to the new year. All students need to be on the academy site from 8:25 am every day to start their advisory at 8:30am. Students need to be in full school uniform and bring all required equipment to be ready for their learning. As you know we operate “on site out of sight” approach regarding the mobile phone, the use of mobile phones is banned on our academy site for all students. Any students who bring their mobile phone to academy with them, must make sure that their mobile phone is switched off and stored away safely in the bottom of their bag at all times whilst on the academy site.
I would also like to highlight that we have enhanced our reward and sanction system to support our students to perform at their very best in a disruption free learning environment. Alongside our daily detention, which takes place for the first 30 mins of lunch each day, Friday after school SLT detentions, there will also be college detentions after school every Tuesday and Thursday. We will continue with the Hot Chocolate Friday reward system but have added multiple extra rewards to continuously encourage our students to follow our core values of 3Rs at all times. These will be fully shared and explained with students during assemblies on the first day back and regularly during advisory time so they are aware and understand the reward and sanction system at LAHC.
As always, we are grateful to you for your continued support in ensuring your child continues to stay happy, safe and make excellent progress at LAHC. We would ask that you discuss these expectations and important changes with your child to ensure a smooth start to the new academic year.
Yours Sincerely,
Palak Shah | Principal
