Welcome to our May Newsletter.

Year 11

Our Year 11 students enjoyed their ‘dress up day’ and had a shirt signing event on the last day of Term 5.  This was the last ‘normal’ day in school before their exams start and from the start of next term, students are expected to be in school, in normal uniform, only when they have an exam.  Their leavers service is on Monday 22 June in St Mary Redcliffe Church, after the exam period has ended, and we look forward to celebrating with them then.

Year 13

We wish all the Year 13 students well in their exams and will support all our students into whatever pathway is the best one for them.  Their last day in school was Friday 15 May, and they had a lovely leavers service at St Mary Redcliffe Church.  My thanks go to everyone who attended and made this such a special occasion. Special thanks to Mr Shaw and Miss McLean and the wider Sixth Form pastoral team for organising this event.

Exams

Exams have got off to a well-ordered start.  It is good to see the students arriving on time and with the correct equipment.  Thank you to parents/carers for your support and encouragement of your young people, at what we know can be a stressful time. I am asking all parents and carers to remind their children about the rules that will have been shared with them about mobile phones. Having a mobile phone in the exam venue will almost certainly lead to all marks for the examination being lost. Please do remember that we are here to support in whatever way we can and are holding our students and their families in prayer.  

Attendance and Leave of Absence Request

Thank you for your continued support of our attendance procedures. Attendance continues to be strong, however, there is a trend of attendance levels falling in Term 6. It is vital that we work to main high levels of attendance and maximise learning time through to the end of the academic year. Please note that any request for Leave of Absence must follow the official process which is detailed on our website here.

Government legislation includes the fact that Headteachers’ will not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances. If there are exceptional circumstances, parents/carers will need to complete a Leave of Absence request form in advance, so this can be considered by the school. Unauthorised absence can lead to a penalty notice in line with government guidance

Uniform

Please ensure that students come to school dressed correctly.  We are now in our ‘summer uniform’ period.  Blazers remain optional all year round, and our school jumper is currently optional, but a tie must be worn at all times.  If a student does not have a tie, then they must wear a school jumper.

House Ties

Please ensure that you read the information in this newsletter from Mr Morgan (Deputy Headteacher) which provides an update on the introduction of House ties. This change will take effect from September 2026.

Year 7 to Year 8 Transition

We are already approaching the point where Year 7 will be transitioning to Year 8 and will be leaving their Tutor bases in the Ikoba building to make way for our incoming Year 7! The year group have settled into SMRT well and been so willing to contribute to the life of the school. Special thanks go to the Miss Ford and the Year 7 pastoral team.

Calendar for 2026-2027

The production of our 2026-2027 calendar is well underway and will be shared with parents and carers in Term 6. The term dates and September INSET days for 2026-2027 are on our website and can be accessed here.  We will update the INSET dates as soon as these have been agreed.

SMRT Breakfast Club sponsored by BS1 Alive 

We are now in the third week of our eight-week trial of the new Breakfast Club format. We are delighted to be able to offer this provision. Key points to note are: 

1. The breakfast club is open to all SMRT students including students who are taking their exams and are on study leave. 
2. During the trial period the breakfast club is open and supervised from 7.45am rather than the usual 8.10am start time.  
3. The breakfast cost is subsidised so that the cost is £1 per day. This is taken from each student's Scopay account in the normal way every time they order a breakfast.
4. If parents/carers would like their child to attend between 7.45-8.10am we must be notified in advance so that we can put them on the register.
5. To register your child please send an email to BS1Alive@smrt.bristol.sch.uk providing the student's full name, year group, tutor name, and which days of the week you would like them to attend (if it is not every day). 
6. Once they are on the register, they will be able to attend the breakfast club at the earlier time. 
7. There is no need for students to be registered if they will only be attending after 8.10am. These students will still have access to the subsidised £1 price that we are offering during this trial period.
8. Although we have already heavily subsidised the price, we do not want cost to be a barrier. If the £1 price is proving difficult please email us at BS1Alive@smrt.bristol.sch.uk explaining the situation. This will be passed onto a member of the School Leadership Team who will review it to see if and how we can support. This will be handled sensitively and in confidence.
9. The breakfast club closes at 8.20am daily to give students time to get to their tutor room for registration at 8.25am.

We will carry out a full review at the end of the trial period (3 July 2026) to assess the impact of this provision, and consider plans for the future. From 6 July the breakfast club provision will return to the pre-trial arrangement until further notice.

 

Sporting Success

I was very impressed to hear about student Kiril’s (Year 7) success in Kick Boxing.  He recently won gold in the UK and the English Open Championship for the 12-13 age group and has taken part in a European competition held in Barnsley.  I know that competing at this level requires a lot of training and dedication, so congratulations to him for all the work he puts in.

Prewett Street and Redcliff Mead Lane Traffic Calming Scheme Consultation Update

We communicated with you about this scheme in our last newsletters (March and April).  We can confirm that the Bristol City Council Engagement Team online survey will be open from 26 May 2026 and close at midnight on 23 June 2026.  Here is the website link http://www.bristol.gov.uk/making-local-roads-safer.  You will be able to find the survey here once it goes live on 26 May. We aim to hold an in-person consultation here at SMRT and will share details after the half-term break.

 

Community News

There will be a number of changes to the pastoral leadership structure in Main School and Sixth Form for 2026-2027.  Most Heads of Year, Deputy Heads of Year, and Learning Mentors will move with their current student group.

Ms Sainsbury (Head of current Year 11) will be starting her maternity leave towards the end of the academic year, and Mr Fewell (current Deputy Head of Year 10) will be taking on her role (as Head of Year 7) now that the Year 11 students have ‘left’ us for their exams.  Ms Foster (Head of Year 13) will also be going on maternity leave very early in September, and Ms Rigby, who is currently her Deputy Head of Year, will be stepping in to the temporary Head of Year role.

I hope you have a great weekend and a refreshing Bank Holiday.  The forecast, as I write this, is currently very good!

Del Planter

Headteacher

• Exams
  • Give thanks that exams have started well, and that students are doing really well.
  • Pray that God would be with them throughout this season, giving them peace in their hearts, clarity in their minds, and confidence to do their best.
• Those Facing Difficulties
  • Pray for those who have walked through a difficult term.
  • Ask that they would know God’s kindness, faithfulness, comfort, and strength in the challenges they face.
• Pentecost
  • Pray for Pentecost and for our Pentecost service.
  • Ask that we would all catch a glimpse of what God has done, and continues to do, through the pouring out of His Holy Spirit.
• Half Term Rest
  • Pray for a restful and safe half-term for students, staff, and families.
  • Ask that everyone would return refreshed and ready for Term 6, our final term of the school year.

Contents

We are now at a point where we have clarity about staffing and classes for next year's GCSE groups. The computer has now allocated subjects to option blocks and students to groups in a way which gives the highest possible number of students their first choice of options.

I am currently in the process of meeting with the small number of students whose subjects "clashed" because they were in the same option block and so the lessons would be happening at the same time, making it impossible to study both subjects.

Over the first couple of weeks of Term 6 we will be finalising the groups and then I will send out the options for students to check before sharing them with students and their parents or carers to provide a final confirmation. After that we will be able to consider any requests for students who wish to change their choices. We will do our best to make any changes but there are some practical considerations around group sizes and timetabling which mean this is not always possible.

I am aware that some students are already thinking about requesting changes but, while we finalise the options, we can not make any changes until after final confirmations have been shared with students, parents and carers by email towards the end of June.

Mr Taylor

Just over a year ago, we explained our mobile phone policy to students, staff, and parents/carers that came into force in September 2025.  We have seen a significant impact on behaviour through phone-related incidents and been impressed with the degree of compliance shown by the vast majority of pupils.  There have been some exceptions, of course, but overall, the impact has been visibly strong on a day-to-day basis.  Now that we are in the latter stages of the year, we would be grateful for some stakeholder feedback from our Parent/Carers.  We will also be asking students and staff for their views and will share feedback in due course.  Here’s a link to a short survey, please take a minute to fill it in. 

Last year we undertook a full review of our uniform policy to ensure we were responding to stakeholder voices and also Government guidance that comes into force in September. We promised no significant changes to the year 2026-27, with only one known exception: House Ties.  This is an important feature in terms of our House ethos, culture, and student belonging. A letter has been sent with the full details. Please check your emails for full details.

We are continuing to work towards the end of year service in which the overall House winner will be crowned. Houses are accumulating points for most Alive Points, best attendance and most improved punctuality. Points are also being assigned for House competitions, and we are excited about forthcoming events, including inter-house football, Sports Days, and a Yr 7 and 8 Spelling Bee. Currently, the points difference between Houses is small, so there is still potential for any House to be the overall winner.  

Mr Morgan

This term has been all about the start of exams for year 11 and year 13.  We have a staff team who regularly pray for our students as they go through their exams.  We have been starting all of the big year 11 exams with collective prayer to help settle nerves and create some calmness. It has been really well-received by our students, and we will continue to keep them in our thoughts as they revise over the half-term break.

Our Art chaplain, Asha, finished with us this week as she is relocating to London.  She has been a real asset to the school working with small groups of students to help them grow in confidence.  She will be greatly missed.  We are hoping to recruit a replacement next term.

Mrs Duzniak

Every week we run a worship session in our tutor groups, and make these available on our website for parents and carers to view.

Each newsletter will feature a Weekly Worship we would like to highlight from the previous month.

We had a fantastic poetry competition on Thursday 14 May. A great turnout of students all read out brilliant poems based on the theme of 'Hope'.

In a wonderful atmosphere in the library, the students listed below all expressed their thoughts and feelings about hope and how it shapes their lives.

Maryam H
Isaac R
Oliver K
Austin M
Ellie G
Karel L
Christy T
Maya J
Della B
Olive T
Imogen W
Estie D
Seren T
Norah K
Ethan D

This was a great occasion, and we look forward to next term's event.

Mr Boswell

Our amazing Year 7 and 8 students sat the Junior Maths Challenge, each of them straining their brains to puzzle through problems like: in how many ways can all the digits 1 to 9 be placed in a 3 × 3 grid so that the sum of the numbers in each row is even and the sum of the numbers in each column is odd?

Each earned a certificate, with a record nine of the twelve gold students qualifying for the follow-on Kangaroo - particular well done to each of them!

Kangaroo qualifiers

Kaelan D, Ruben D, Noah L, Hui G, Ellie G, Justin H, Oliver K, Noah P, Nadia R

Mr Cross

The house point totals as we reach the end of this month are as follows:

Each fortnight we send a 'Wake Up Wednesday' (WuW) safeguarding update to parents and carers. These cover a range of topics and themes that empower and equip parents and carers with the confidence and practical skills to engage in conversations with young people. We also make WuWs available on our website.

Here's the WuW update we are highlighting this month.

Click to read the WuW

Our next Friends meeting will be on Thursday 11 June at 7pm.  The meeting will be hybrid so you can either join online or come into school and meet in the library.  See you there.

Mrs Duzniak