Dear parents and carers,
As we reach the end of another term and another school year, it gives me great pleasure to attach our final Pillars of Excellence Newsletter. Despite the current heat, I do hope you’ll find the time to take a flick through and enjoy some of our students’ most recent achievements from across our Multi-Academy Trust.
This academic year has, again, seen us face many challenges together as a Trust community. Although, for the first time in three years, we have not faced national lockdowns, we are still very much dealing with the aftermath of COVID and recovering as a community. Not to mention, of course, the war in Ukraine and the ongoing cost of living crisis, which continues to prove so challenging for so many.
In the midst of all this, however, our young people continue to shine and our facilities continue to grow. Through everything, our students inspire us with their resilience and brilliance in all that they do. This term, amongst many wonderful achievements, we have had our Trust performances of ‘The Addams Family’ at The Gulbenkian Theatre, which were magnificent! We had our Summerfest and Sports Day, when fortunately the weather wasn’t too hot; we hosted a variety of Platinum Jubilee celebrations, including a concert with The British Legion; and our Under 18 cricket team at The Canterbury Academy are the first non-selective, non-fee paying school, to have won both County competitions. They are also in the NATIONAL final (wow!!), having comfortably beaten Winchester College in the semi.
Over the summer, work will continue on a new teaching block on our main campus, alongside Lifestyle Fitness replacing the Multi-Use Games Area with a brand new, 4G surface, for use from September. These will be facilities that we hope will benefit generations of our students in the future.
Our City View Pre-Schools and Nurseries continue to have waiting lists; The Canterbury Primary School and The Canterbury Academy remain full and oversubscribed in every year group and, such is the popularity of The Canterbury Academy Sixth Form, colleagues have already begun the enrolment process for September.
As you will have seen, our Youth, Community and Extended Services Team will be running a comprehensive programme of summer activities across both the Canterbury and Ashford Districts; we hope that as many of our young people as possible may be able to get involved. We also look forward to welcoming a large number of our new Year 7s to a transition Summer Camp in August, where they will spend time getting to know each other, our campus and some of their teachers, before they start with us ‘officially’ in September. Likewise, we are very excited to have just signed an agreement to begin running the Duke of Edinburgh Award from September, with more news to follow on this at the start of next term.
I wish all of our Class of ’22 graduates the very best of luck for the future and next steps on their various life journeys. For those that will graduate from Nursery into Reception; for those that leave Year 6 to begin their secondary education; for those progressing from Year 11 into post 16 education; and for those whose journey with us ends from Year 13, as they move into the world of work or university education. For our Year 11 and 13s, I hope that you will all achieve the results that you deserve come August. For all those students who will be returning to our schools in September, please follow the information provided already by our Heads of Schools in their end of term letters. For us, as parents and staff, we reminisce about when we were at school (and just generally younger), how quickly that time passes, and how much we wish we were back there now!
With that said, as always, my final word is for you, our parents, carers and wider Trust community. On behalf of all of my colleagues, I thank you most sincerely for all of the work that you do with us to try and make The Canterbury Academy Trust, and all of its component parts, the best that it can be for our young people. When you feel we get things wrong, you challenge us; when you feel we get things right, you thank us; you talk with us, you are open with us and you always work with us. But, above all else, I thank you for your unwavering support of our ethos and belief in our vision; that is what drives us forward, and that is what will always see us united in working together to provide our students with ‘schools for all the talents,’ a ‘wealth of opportunity’ and ‘as much as possible, as often as possible, for as many as possible.’
With my every best wish for the summer,
Jon Watson
Executive Principal
