Transition Year 6 to Year 7

Welcome to Grace Academy Darlaston

Letter from the Principal

Dear Parent/Carer

Welcome to Grace Academy Darlaston

We are delighted that your child has been allocated a place at Grace Academy.  If you have not had the chance to come and see us we would very much like you to come and meet us and have a tour of the school. You can meet students and staff and see the academy hard at work. If you contact Reception we will be more than happy to arrange this.

We are incredibly proud of our academy and our community. We are proud of our happy students and staff, both of whom work together to achieve excellent results. As part of Tove learning Trust our academy benefits from being in a strong partnership with a number of other schools. We are also supported by a number of Ethos staff as part of the Trust. Grace Academy students thrive during their time here and visitors frequently comment on students’ excellent manners and behaviour. We expect and give the very best education to every child. The academy’s core set of values ensure every student is given every opportunity to develop into a confident, successful and happy young adult, ready to face the future.

Our recent Ofsted in April 2022 confirmed that we are a good school. Students behave well and make the most of the learning opportunities. Students feel safe and valued by all the staff. However much of what we offer is truly outstanding. Our excellent GCSE and Post 16 results over the last few years show the progress that students make across a range of subjects. However, our staff know that academic achievement is only one part of success. At Grace we have so much going on including a wide range of trips, visitors, presentations and sporting and creative opportunities for all students.

We are really excited about the chance to work in close partnership with you over the next 7 years. If you have any questions, please ask any member of staff and they will point you in the right direction to have your question answered.

Yours sincerely

Julie Anstey

Associate Principal 

Your Journey Starts Here!

We know the journey from Primary to Secondary can be particularly stressful for all involved and here at Grace Academy Darlaston our Transition Team work very hard to ensure the move is as easy as possible. 

At Grace Academy Darlaston we pride ourselves on the relationship we have with our feeder schools. Working closely with our local primary schools, we develop relationships with our prospective students before they attend. We do this through hosting numerous events and activities at the academy which enables them to meet new friends, see the academy building and meet our staff. 

As soon as we receive the names of the students joining us on March 1st, our Transition team gets to work. We begin by sending out a Welcome Booklet to parents/carers with lots of useful information in. You will also receive communication via email, with further important information, including a welcome email from Applicaa, this will contact information to allow you to log onto the system to complete your child’s admission paperwork.  It is very important that the paperwork is completed by Friday 24th May 2024.

We also contact every primary school that we will be receiving students from. Through discussions with the year 6 staff we gather invaluable information such as academic ability, Special Educational Needs and pastoral information such as behaviour and attendance. We also start to build an understanding of the child’s strengths and weaknesses, so that get to know each student before they even begin at Grace Academy. This information is then shared with our Pastoral and SEND Team to ensure that we have fully planned and prepared for each and every student that begins their learning journey with us. 

We are planning some exciting new transition events. One of these is our Transition days which will take place this year on Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th July from 8.30am to 2.50pm. These are two fantastic days where the students will get a real feel for secondary life, they will experience exciting lessons, take part in various activities such as a theatre presentation, and some fantastic lessons, as well as being able to sample lunch in the canteen – free of charge! 

For parents we understand there may well be questions that we haven’t been able to answer in our Welcome pack so we have organised a coffee morning on the 7th of May from 9.15am until 10.00am. This is a really informal event where our year six parents can drop in, meet the team and ask any questions they may have, as well as being able to have a cup of coffee and a biscuit. 

We are also planning other events this year. Dates will be confirmed as soon as possible. If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact Sarah Giles, Transition Coordinator, on 0121 568 3330 or email [email protected]

Year 6 into 7 Admission Guide
Poster – Move to Secondary School

Mathematics 

Hello future Mathematicians, we look forward to welcoming you to Grace Academy Darlaston. To help prepare for your maths lessons below are some useful websites and booklet which we want you to look through. You should have received your Harry Potter inspired Work book. You need to help Harry Potter work out his maths problems. There are Mental Math breaks in between each topic as well for you to try. Don’t worry if you can’t complete all of this booklet, try your best and bring in your completed booklet on the first day of school; if you haven’t received this booklet you can access it here. This needs to be brought to Mr Garner in the Maths Department. To help you with this task you may also want to access the following websites:

 My Maths:  https://login.mymaths.co.uk/login

To access this, you need to first use the username: Darlaston and password: division140 .You then should have your own personal login to access and work through various topics.

GCSEPod: https://members.gcsepod.com/

You will also get a login for this, and you are able to access various maths pods which will help you understand maths topics

BBC Bitesize: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/

There are some very useful activities to challenge your self and prepare for year 7.

If there are any problems accessing any of the work, or you have questions on the work set, please don’t hesitate to contact myself via email at [email protected], we look forward to seeing you.

Work to help support your transition

Maths Work Book – Weeks 1 – 4

Maths Work Book – Weeks 5 – 9

Maths Tasks Weeks 1 – 5

Maths Mastery

English

 

A big ‘hello’ to you from the English department at Grace Academy, Darlaston. We are really looking forward to welcoming you to the school in September! To help prepare you for your English studies, we have included some useful website links for you work through. There is also a workbook available to you here . This workbook focuses on ‘Looking after the Environment’ and is broken up into weekly tasks. Don’t worry if you can’t complete the whole booklet. You can bring your booklet on the first day of school and give this to your English teacher.

Here are some links to some useful websites

BBC Bitesize: KS3 Bitesize

Any general questions or concerns please email:

Sarah Giles – Transition Co-ordinator   [email protected]

Jess Wheeler – Associate Assistant Principal KS3 [email protected]