CALLING ALL DAME ELIZABETH CADBURY SCHOOL ALUMNI

If you’re a former student of Dame Elizabeth Cadbury School, we want to hear from you!

Your experiences since leaving could help to motivate and inspire our current students to feel more confident in making decisions about their future. We’d love you to join our Alumni Network and stay connected with the school.

We’ve partnered with the national education charity Future First, who specialise in helping schools like ours to stay connected with their former students. 

You can choose how and when you help – perhaps you can act as a career and education role model, provide work experience or become a mentor in person or online.

To sign up, just follow this link and fill in the online form – we promise it will only take a couple of minutes

https://www.futurefirsthub.org.uk/register/dame-elizabeth-cadbury-school

We look forward to hearing from you.

National Apprenticeship Week 5^th -11^th February 2023 

As part of National Apprenticeship Week next week, we’d like to draw your attention to “The Parent Perspective” which is an exciting podcast series for parents and carers, helping you to support your children with careers advice and guidance. We want to make sure that we are supporting parents to feel informed and confident in providing careers support and guidance.

The podcast offers a fun and informative space for listeners to:

• Explore which careers are available today
• Showcase the experiences of interesting and diverse role models
• Provide real-time insights into how the world of work is changing

The podcast is a great way to help you and your child make informed decisions on those all important next steps. Find it here https://amazingapprenticeships.com/the-parent-perspective-podcast/. 

On Monday 5^th February we start our Valentines themed attendance incentive – ‘Love Attendance’ week. During the week we have issued the challenge to all pupils to achieve 100% attendance by attending school, arriving on time, every day. 

Recently the Department for Education released the staggering statistic that on average the last week of a half term reduces in attendance by 15%. This is a large portion of the academic year totalling 30 days, equating to 150 lessons. With courses and curriculum content and skill heavy, it is important that pupils understand why attendance matters across the year. Therefore, we encourage our pupils with our incentives and promote the importance of excellent attendance at every point of the year.

As you will be aware, the best way for your child to maximise the opportunities available at school is for them to be present each and every day. By being in school they are exposed to our enriched curriculum that ensures each and every pupil makes progress and prepares them for a successful future.

The incentive will begin on Monday 5^th February. This will culminate on the final Friday where those with 100% attendance will receive a Valentines treat and a lucky raffle winner in each year group will receive a pancake stake with toppings of their choice at lunch. 

Improving attendance is one of our key priorities and incentives and competitions are just some of the strategies we are using to do so. For each week in a half term that our pupils attend every day, they receive an entry into a half-termly raffle. Recognising 100% attendance across a week, as well as across a whole term or academic year, allows us to reward excellent attendance whilst recognising that sometimes an absence simply cannot be avoided. 

The following pupils were the winners for Autumn 2 and won a One4All gift voucher:

Yr 7 – C’jae 

Yr 8 – Amelie 

Yr 9 – Harvey 

Yr 10 – Ezekiel 

Yr 11 – Layla 

Yr 12&13 – Syed 

We would remind parents and carers that each child enrolled at our school is expected to attend every day, on time so that they can achieve their full potential. All medical appointments should be made before or after the school day where possible. 

The Early Careers team at Irwin Mitchell is hosting a webinar during National Apprenticeship Week 2024 to provide insights into the legal and non-legal apprenticeships available with us for 2024.

Date: Wednesday 7 February 2024

Time: 6:00pm – 7:00pm

This event is open to students, teachers, parents, and other key influencers. We’ll discuss what an apprenticeship is and what opportunities we have, to help students decide whether an apprenticeship is right for them. We’ll answer questions, provide an insight into our recruitment process, and advice that’ll set students up to succeed. At this event, you will hear directly from our apprenticeship manager, Lorcan Seery, and current apprentices about their experience at Irwin Mitchell.

We would be grateful if you could share this email with your students and colleagues. Attendees can sign up to attend here –  Apprenticeships at Irwin Mitchell

Applications for our September 2024 intake open on Monday 5^th February. We have the following apprenticeships available:

• Paralegal 
• Solicitor 
• Business Administration
• Tax
• Finance 

You can find out more about our apprenticeships here – Apprenticeships, Legal, Business & Accountancy Apprenticeship Jobs | Irwin Mitchell

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) stands as the cornerstone of progress, innovation and problem solving in our modern world. Its importance resonates across various aspects of our lives, driving advancements that shape our future. During STEM club this past term we have focused on extending the problem-solving mindset beyond the classroom. Students have been encouraged to work collaboratively, creating bridges between science, technology, engineering and maths.

In the realm of discovery and curiosity our Science Club has soared to new heights. With each experiment, we’ve started to unravel some of the mysteries of the world, celebrating the triumph of knowledge.

Some of the experiments we have looked at this past term have included; making exploding volcanoes, scribble bots powered by a motor, looking at the best design for a parachute to safely land an egg and even making our own indicator using purple cabbage!  

Thank you to everybody that has and continues to attend as we have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the wonders of science together. If you’re interested in attending STEM club then it is held in G2 on a Monday afternoon; we look forward to seeing you!

Do you have a special talent you wish to showcase at our next big live event.  You will have the chance to perform on stage Infront of a live audience in Birmingham in a state-of-the-art theatre Millennium Point on Thursday 18^th April 2024. Whether it be singing, juggling, stand-up comedy or anything in between, we want to see all your wonderful talents. Unfortunately, we cannot accept Dance entries this year due to the size of the stage. 

How to enter:

• Have one of your performing arts teachers record your performance (or film it yourself and email to your teacher). 
• A snippet of your performance can be submitted, please do not worry about submitting a performance in its entirety. 
• Your teacher will be able to submit your performance video to the Matrix judging panel.
• Finalists will have the opportunity to perform at our next big trust event and some school events this year.
• Solo entries and group entries are welcome.
• Submit your entry by 4pm on Friday 23^rd February 2024.