Welcome to our June newsletter.

Firstly, I would like to express my sincere appreciation for your support and understanding as we made the decision to close the school on 24 and 25 June, and when we reopened on 26 June. I do not make these decisions lightly and there are always a variety of opinions when such decisions are made. I very much appreciated the emails of support. I would like to publicly acknowledge the work of both teaching and support staff who enabled us to manage the process so efficiently and continue provision of Free School Meals and remote wellbeing checks for a significant number of our students.

On Thursday evening (25 June), we were unable to hold the New Year 7 Parents’/Carers’ Information Evening in person due to the school closure.  This event is normally when parents and carers of the Year 7 students who are starting in September get their first chance to come into school.  As we were only able to provide this information remotely, we are very much looking forward to seeing the new Year 7 students on one of the two Induction Days (1 and 2 July), when they come in for an exciting day of sample lessons. We have communicated with families directly to inform them of their specific induction day. We look forward to greeting parents and carers at the start and end of the day.

Our Year 11 and Year 13 students have now finished their GCSE and A Level exams.  It was lovely to see many Year 11 students and their families at their leavers’ service on Tuesday 22 June in St Mary Redcliffe Church. It was a wonderful celebration of their time at SMRT. We also held our Year 11 Prom that evening and Y13 Prom on Wednesday 24 June.  Both events were super occasions. Thank you to everyone who made these events such a success.

Next September

The school will be closed to students on Thursday 3 and Friday 4 September for a Staff INSET day. The school will welcome Year 7, and Year 12 and 13, students back after the holidays on Monday 7 September.  The other year groups will return on Tuesday 8 September.  These days are a period of induction for students who are new to the school, and an opportunity for us to set out our expectations for the year ahead for the whole school community.

School of Sanctuary Status

Well done to Mrs Duzniak (Assistant Headteacher Community, Faith, and Disadvantage) in leading the school through its successful application for School of Sanctuary Status.  The panel said that they thoroughly enjoyed reading the SMRT application and learning about the work taking place across our school. It was clear to them that a great deal of thought, commitment, and collaboration has gone into creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for all members of our community. This award is a testament to the dedication of staff, students, governors, and the wider school community. I am very pleased that we have secured this award which publicly conveys our heart to welcome our neighbours.

BS1 Alive Cradle to Career Hub Update

This time last year I shared information about our partnership with the Reach Foundation and the establishment of our BS1 Alive Cradle to Career Hub. There have been a range of huge successes as we seek to ensure our school and locality are places where young people experience lives of choice and opportunity. I have decided to save the updates until the July/end of year newsletter as I have submitted an application for BS1 Alive to become a Cradle to Career Accelerator Partner Hub. This would make BS1 Alive one of only 10 Accelerator Hubs nationally. The accelerator status would be recognition of the work of BS1 Alive over the last two and a half years and the potential for the BS1 Alive to be an example for other hubs locally and nationally. The accelerator status would also lead to significant support to enable us to accelerate our work and impact. Watch this space!

GCSE and A Level Results

Our exams team will be contacting parents/carers with details for the release of GCSE (20 August) and A Level (13 August) results to students.  The information will also be on our website.

Please encourage your young people to collect their exam certificates when the time comes.  These are extremely important and useful documents and can be very expensive to replace.  We get many emails every year from ex-students who need their certificates for further/higher education courses or job applications and have either misplaced them or never collected them.

Friends of SMRT 

Friends of SMRT is the name we give to the equivalent of the PTA you might be familiar with from your children’s Primary Schools.  Everyone has automatic, free membership!  The committee meets termly, and all are welcome to attend.  The committee are elected in Term 2, at their Annual General Meeting.  You can find full details on our website here, and the meeting dates are in our school calendar.  The group’s primary function is to support the school socially, financially, and educationally.  They run the School Support Fund, details of which can be found here.  Please consider whether you are able to donate to this worthwhile fund.  There are a number of ways you can actively contribute to the work of Friends of SMRT.  I am sure the group would be delighted to welcome new faces at their next meeting!

Community News

Congratulations to Michael in Year 7 who has a place on the Cardiff City Football Academy trial programme starting in July.

Congratulations to our new Sixth Form Senior Students for 2026-27.  They are Mia K, Zoe C, Ayman M, Josephine P, Naimah D, George C, Willow T, Eleanor S, Nathaniel T, Zipporah S, Chloe B, Dominic M, Jasmine K, Leona V, Elijah C, and Mabel L.  There is always lots of interest from students in taking on this important role, so these students have done very well.  Thanks go to all those who put themselves forwards.

We wish Ms Sainsbury well (Head of Year 11) with her new baby, who arrived last weekend!

It will soon be time to say goodbye to those members of teaching staff who are retiring, leaving us for new promoted posts, or posts elsewhere, or whose temporary contracts are coming to an end.  There will be a summary of those who are leaving in the final newsletter of the year, and we will introduce our new staff early in September.

Del Planter

Headteacher

1.  Exam Season and New Beginnings

   • Give thanks that the exam season has gone well and pray that our students would know God is with them as they take their next steps.

   • We also give thanks for the joyful end-of-school celebrations, including the Year 11 and Year 13 proms, and pray for God's guidance over the future of all our leavers.

2. Day of Prayer – Tuesday 30th June

   • Pray for our whole school community as we gather for our Day of Prayer.

   • Ask that students, staff, governors, and families would all be lifted up in prayer, and that God's presence, peace, and blessing would be known throughout our school.

3. Activities Week and Culture Day

   • Pray for the many opportunities that Activities Week and Culture Day will bring.

   • Ask that these events would strengthen friendships, celebrate the richness of our school community, and create lasting memories for everyone involved.

4. Our Partnership with Ikoba School

   • Pray for our partner school, Ikoba School in Uganda, and for all who learn and work there.

   • As we raise money through our non-uniform day, pray that our support would be a real blessing and encouragement, strengthening the partnership between our two schools.

Contents

As we enter the last few weeks of term, we start to look forward to next year and look back on the current year. 

Looking forward for the current Year 9s, we are at a point now where almost all of the options choices have been confirmed and they have been sent out to students to be checked for accuracy. Over the next week, we will send an email to parents and carers confirming those choices and outlining the process for any student who wishes to request a change to their options. We will try our best to make those changes but are constrained by group sizes and the timetable.

Looking back over past year in Maths, we have just received an impact report from Sparx Maths about what our students have achieved using this excellent learning resource over the course of this year. As you might imagine, it is all about the numbers! Our students have managed over a million correct answers this year and between them have completed over twenty thousand hours of Maths activities, completing nearly two hundred thousand separate activities in the process. This represents a significant achievement by our students and whenever I drop into Maths classes I am struck by the purposeful atmosphere in lessons and the commitment to high standards from students and staff. 

As we enter the final weeks of lessons it is important to keep those standards high to ensure that we finish the year as we intend to start the next as fully Alive empowered learners.

Mr Taylor

Following stakeholder voice over the use and relevance of School Planners we have decided to replace Planners with Handbooks next year.  In September, students will be issued timetables on paper, followed by smaller laminated ones after timetables have gone through the first few weeks.  These will be reissued at the start of Spring and Summer terms.  The Handbook contains all the essential information a student needs to know at the start of the year and to refer to throughout the year.  Homework is now on Bromcom and the website holds key information about the year, such as term dates and Inset Days. 

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. Thank you. 

We communicated that House Ties are to be part of the compulsory school uniform from September to help build a stronger sense of House identity.  They cost £10 and are now available for pre-ordering through our uniform supplier Monkhouse.  They should be available for collection from the week commencing 20th July.  Please refer to the letter you were sent in May for further details. 

June is the month when we hold our annual Pentecost Service at St Mary Redcliffe Church.  Our theme for this service always centres on global Christianity and that we have many different countries and cultures represented within our school.  The service began with a flag procession with over thirty year 8 students carrying a flag that represented their country in procession.  The same students ended the service by carrying their flag back and waving it throughout the last song. 

During the service we heard our readings in different languages including: Cantonese, Czech and Yoruba.  We also heard the Lord’s Prayer in Greek.  All of these readings were by different students in the school.  Every student who took part did a brilliant job with so much confidence reading and participating in front of the whole school. 

This month is also the month in which we have our Year 11 Leavers’ assembly at St Mary Redcliffe Church.  It was a joy to see so many students with their parents and carers at the service.  A number of students participated with readings, prayers and sermons.  We look forward  to seeing many of them on Results Day and wish them a safe and restful summer break.

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 are grateful for our partnership with Ikoba Girls Secondary School in Uganda.  This month we launched our fundraiser to build a wall with a non-uniform day. Thank you to everyone who contributed.  The total is £711 - but we are still counting the cash donations so it will be higher than this!  We have a student group who are generating ideas for other fundraisers so watch this space!

Chaplain Fred recently got in touch to say that they have had a number of confirmations at Ikoba school and the Bishop came to their school to do the confirmations.  They were very honoured to welcome him.  They also prayed for our school during our prayer day this week.

Mrs Duzniak

We're very proud  of Year 10 student Karina who has worked as part of a Young Curators group at Watershed, co-developing their next gallery exhibition. SENTIENTS is a collection of groundbreaking video games and virtual reality that invite you to see through other eyes. Discover wild imaginings, animal visions and adventure into strange lands. The exhibition is open 18 July to 13 Sept and we would love for you to visit. More info and ticket booking here: www.watershed.co.uk/sentients

Mrs Hale

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

We are really looking forward to supporting students to access all school opportunities from sports day to day trips.

We will have a skeleton staff in learning support but largely we will be supporting students to be included in as many opportunities as possible. If you are at all worried about support, then please do use the learningsupport@smrt.bristol.sch.uk.

It's been a tough week for all in this weather. Please see the link for ideas for keeping cool: Keeping Your SEN Child Cool in the Hot Weather: Practical and Comforting Ideas - Makewell Health and Wellness Clinic

We will be sad to say goodbye to students at the end of term. The holiday can be particularly challenging for parents of all children trying to make plans and keep children active. Please see the link for some inspiration over the break. Top 10 things to do this Summer! - Acorn  Summer Holiday Activities For Children With SEND - Positive Young Minds

We are so proud of all students that completed their Y11 and Y13 exams, this took a huge amount of effort and resilience, they did it! A big thank you to all those staff that supported children and their families throughout.

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.

WuW Link

Dear Parent/Carer,

As we approach the summer term and beyond, there is often an increased risk of young people getting into life threatening situations when swimming in rivers, canals and open water. This is particularly true when there is hot weather.

Please could you remind your children that these bodies of water are not safe for swimming in and potentially very dangerous.

Below is some key information from the Rivers and Canals safety organisation that highlights those risks and how to reduce them. Please use this resource in any conversations with your children.

Water safety information for young people of secondary school age

As young people become more independent it’s even more important that they are aware of how to stay safe near water.

Being a strong swimmer may not save you if you fall into cold water. Knowing how to behave can save lives.

Learn the Water Safety Code

• Stop & Think
• Stay Together
• Call 999
• Float

Unseen dangers

From the safety of a canal bank, water can look extremely inviting. But every year young people get into trouble as a result of dangers they cannot see.

• Low water temperatures can cause the body to go into cold water shock and can claim your life in minutes, even if you are a strong swimmer.
• It’s difficult to estimate the depth of the water. It may be much deeper or shallower than expected and cause serious harm if jumping in.
• There are often no suitable places to get out of the water due to steep slimy banks.
• The ground shelves away very steeply so you can quickly become out of your depth.
• There is no way of knowing what lies beneath.
• Reeds and other plant life can get tangled around your limbs and keep you in the water
• Mud makes it difficult to walk even if you can stand up.
• Litter and waste such as pipes, shopping trolleys, sharp metal or broken bottles can trap your feet as well as cause injury.
• There may be underwater machinery to help operate the locks, for example sluices.
• Swimming in open water can expose you to serious disease such as Leptospirosis (Weil’s disease).
• There may be hidden currents. Flowing water can be especially dangerous and when the locks are in operation the water flows extremely fast.

Knowing what to do if you get into danger in the water

Low water temperatures cause the body to go into cold water shock and even hypothermia.

Know how to fight cold water shock

If you were to fall into cold water, you are likely to be confused and frightened and your natural instinct will be to fight the water – to swim hard. But the cold water will make you gasp uncontrollably, your heart will beat really fast, you’ll lose energy quickly and breathe in lots of water, and eventually your muscles will become paralysed. You need to fight your instincts.

Float to live - be a starfish

If you float on your back you can keep your airways clear, control your breathing and allow the cold water shock to pass. Then you can call out for help, and you will have a much better chance of surviving.

Knowing what to do if someone else gets into danger

Never get into the water, even if you are a strong swimmer. Instead:

• Stay calm. Always think before you act.
• There may be other people around, so shout for help as loudly as you can.
• Dial 999 and ask for the Fire & Rescue Service. Explain your location clearly – use road names, bridge numbers and describe any landmarks. Use What3words if you can.
• Keep an eye on the person, keep talking to them and stay near them. Encourage them to float on their back in a star shape.
• If you can, throw a safety line or rope to them. Otherwise lie down to make yourself more stable and use a tree branch, stick or an item of clothing to reach out to them.
• If your dog goes into the water, don’t jump in after it. Instead, encourage it to swim to the edge

We will reiterate this next week during tutor times.

Many thanks

The Safeguarding Team

St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School.

A big thank you to the Friends for all you do – this has been quite a year. There are no more meetings scheduled for this academic year. We will publish the new meeting dates for the next academic year in the July newsletter.

https://firebirdstudios.co.uk/firebird-band-camp-2026/

 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5xw8221fmpzqkjujf238h/Firebird-Band-Camp-FINAL-small2.pdf?rlkey=snhkjafgllnkg53rx5iqzsjtw&st=lpxmawkz&dl=0