Principal's update - 17 January 2025

Dear families

Happy Friday! I hope you're looking forward to the weekend.

After last weeks false start we've been back to our best this week with lots going on and great attendance and behaviour. Students have been busy with filming for our conference day and a careers event, sports fixtures in rugby and football and studiously writing letters of application for our student leadership team. Today we also hosted a visit from Buttershaw College as we look to support other schools and academies with school improvement. The visitors were very impressed with our progress, but most importantly with the behaviour and respect that our students demonstrate.

Next week looks equally as busy. We have a visit to Leeds University, young journalist training, a 'Made in Yorkshire' challenge and fixtures in Football for Y8 and Y10 vs our local rivals and Netball for Y11. Our community hub remains open every Friday morning so beat the January blues and come and join us! 

On Tuesday we are holding our postponed recognition evening at school. If you've received an invite it would be great to see you there to celebrate your child's success from cycle one. 

You will be receiving some information in the coming the days regarding the Y7 and Y9 assessments and some revision materials / topic lists. These will be pushed out via social media and on the website. Please do support you child with their revision and if you need any support please get in touch with your child's class teacher via the normal channels.

Finally, we know that attendance is a priority for us and those students who attend every day generally go on to achieve better. Of equal importance is attending on time. It's important that students arrive by 8.18am every day. The reason we say 8.18am is because it takes 2 minutes from the door to the furthest seat in Morning Meeting where hands go up at 8.20am. Students who arrive after 8.18am receive a 30 minute correction and a late mark, but most importantly miss out on learning. Any students that arrive after 9.00am, under the government guidance, receive a 'U' mark. This U mark statistically means that that student has an unauthorised absence for the morning session. Again, more importantly this means students are missing out on key learning. We have worked hard to improve the quality and consistency of teaching and learning at DUA - this only benefits our young people if they attend on time. If you require any support with your child's attendance, please don't hesitate to contact the attendance team.

That's all for this week, see you in the next one!

Mr A Jacobs