PRINCIPAL’SMessageDear Parents and Guardians,

Welcome to the new Autumn Term at Uppingham Community College. Once again, it has been a busy start to the year – beginning with excellent GCSE results for the Year 11, 10 and 9 students at the college. We remain significantly above the national average in many areas and this year increased our results to 84% with 5 or more GCSEs and 65% including English and Maths. Maths in particular performed exceptionally well with 81% of the students gaining a Grade C or better. Also all the vocational students passed their courses and all students have gone on to A Level college courses or apprenticeships of their choice. So well done to Year 11 2013. They will return to collect their certificates and prizes in November.

Year 7 have settled in well and it is a very full year group. We welcome several new staff this year – Mrs Cooley, Head of Maths, Mr Cowley, Lead Practitioner in Maths and Mr Jones, teacher of Maths. Miss Craven and Miss Hodgson both join the PE department and Ms Maloney is a new English teacher. Ms Hirst joins the IT and Business Studies team and Mr Rhodes is the new Head of Year 8.

There have been a number of individual outstanding achievements over the holidays, some of which are mentioned in this newsletter. Particular congratulations should go to the PE staff and all the students who contributed to the sports fixtures last year as UCC is the Melton and Rutland Varsity Champion as we were top of the league.

There are several very important pieces of information in the documents which accompany this letter and I would be grateful if you could read these carefully.

We currently have one vacancy for a parent governor. If you are interested in standing as a governor I would be grateful if you could contact Mr G Thompson the Chair of Governors, as we have found that a meeting to discuss the expectations of a governor in a secondary academy is extremely helpful. You could contact Mr Thompson via principal@ucc.rutland.sch.uk or a letter addressed to him sent into school.

I wish all our students and yourselves a successful and exciting term.

RegardsJan Turner

IN TERM ABSENCES

We ask parents to make every effort to avoid disruption to their children’s education through term-time absence. However, we recognise that sometimes there are exceptional circumstances which necessitate the removal of your child from school during term-time. Requests for holiday absence do not normally fall into that category.

The Keeping of Pupil Regulations Act 2006 took away the right of parents to remove their children for family holiday during term time other than in exceptional circumstances. All absences, other than illness, must be requested PRIOR to the date of the absence and will be considered by the Principal. The form, to be completed by Parents/Guardians and returned to Student Services at least 10 days prior to the requested period of absence, can be collected by students from Student Services.

Warning: A fixed penalty notice may be issued by the local Authority if you choose to take unauthorised term time holiday. Each parent may be liable to a penalty of £60 if paid within 21 days and £120 if paid between 22-28 days for each child registered at the College.

Uppingham Community CollegeA Specialist Technology Academy

Newsletter: September 2013

New Head Girl aNd Head Boy: reBecca Salt aNd aNGuS NicHolS

IMPORTANT TERM DATES

SEPTEMBER

9th-13th

MuSic leSSoNS Start tHiS week

11th

yr 7-10 pHotoS

13th

yr 9 StoMp workSHop

14th

BuSBy SiNGerS at rutlaNd day

17th

yr 9 freNcH excHaNGe pareNtS’ eveNiNG

18th

opeN eveNiNG

20th

yr 11 GcSe GeoGrapHy field trip

25th

tHeMe day

yr 8 trip to Natural HiStory MuSeuM

poSt 16 eveNiNG

27th

europeaN day of laNGuaGeS

27th-4th october

yr9 freNcH excHaNGe StudeNtS to ucc

OCTOBER

3rd

yr 8 GirlS Hpv iMMuNiSatioNS

10th

deSiGN veNtura trip

13th

priMary G & t : play iN a day

16th-18th

HiStory trip to BerliN

21st-1st

autuMN Break

30th-6th

yr 11 SpaNiSH excHaNGe StudeNtS to ucc

NOvEMBER

4th

terM StartS

18th September 20137pm – 9pm

The staff and governors invite you to visit the College and experience the opportunities offered for your child’s future success.

OPEN EvENING

SUCCESS!INTERNATIONAl SChOOl AwARD

We are delighted that Uppingham Community College has been successful in being reaccredited for the International School Award for three years from 1st September 2013 to 31 August 2016.

The assessor commented that our application was particularly impressive, ‘demonstrating your commitment to internationalism, particularly your Spainish partnership and Chinese Connecting Classrooms activities which provided your students and their fellow international partners with real opportunities to explore relevant international themes. Keep this level and standard up as well as embedding your activities into your curriculum. Well done.’

Our congratulations go to Mr Duffin and the MFL staff on working so hard to co-ordinate such an impressive range of work. They are a credit to the school and the wider community.

STUDENT SERvICES

ABSENCESPlease remember to telephone us first thing in the morning if your child will not be in school for any reason. Alternatively you can e-mail: absences@ucc.rutland.sch.ukThis e-mail address can also be used to advise of absences in advance or to clear outstanding absences.

PARENT GATEwAyLast year we launched an exciting new development designed to improve communication between home and school and many parents are already finding it

very useful. Everyone who has applied should have access by October half-term. If you haven’t already applied, please complete the application form on our Website.

PAyMENTS INTO COllEGEFor security reasons we recommend that all payments into College are made by cheque. In addition, for your convenience, we will be introducing more options for online payments on Wisepay in the future. We do not advise bringing in cash but if this is necessary a receipt should be requested at the time.