Welcome to the Eastern Learning Alliance (ELA) Autumn Term 2021 newsletter, which brings you the latest news and updates from across the Trust.
Welcome to our latest newsletter. I hope you enjoy reading the exciting updates from our family of schools and on behalf of everyone in the trust I wish you a restful holiday when term ends.
Lucy Scott
CEO of the Eastern Learning Alliance
News from our family of schools
Athena
Sixth Form
College
Reflection Room
We opened a new Reflection Room thanks to Year 13 boys Joe Metcalf, Sam Randall, Szymon Grabinski, Tyler Clark and Jensen Kaveney. The students painted the walls and refurbished the room in general. Students who need time to reflect, some quiet time, some peace, can book the space out.
Enrichment
We have had some interesting guest speakers to enrich our students and add some interest to assemblies. Suffolk University delivered a presentation on life at Suffolk and more. Our very own Miss Lonsdale came and delivered an energetic and important assembly as part of our PSHE curriculum.
Swan Project Visit
The amazing ladies from the Swan Project came to remind us all of the great resource that is on our doorstep and in return, Jen Neale, Loulabelle Gooch and Kiera Tozer kindly ran a campaign across Athena to collect for the project. The ladies took away a carful of donated essential items.
Year 13 Student Helpers
Thanks to our Year 13 helpers – Year 11s had a very lively assembly to showcase Athena at its best. Liam Leonard and Lydia Winskill sported Athena tee-shirts and were ready with answers to any questions that came their way. More Year 13 students will be helping Helen Daw next week, to deliver a provider’s fair morning up at DMA in the hope that many more Year 11’s are encouraged to join us at Athena next year.
Cambridge
Mathematics
School
Opening in September 2023!
The Cambridge Mathematics School – a new specialist sixth form being developed in partnership with the University of Cambridge – will open on Mill Road, Cambridge in September 2023 with a focus on pioneering learning and increasing diversity in the field of maths.
As well as bringing together a community of the region’s top-performing maths pupils to study an enhanced curriculum in Cambridge, the School will work with students across the whole of East Anglia as part of an extensive outreach programme, sharing tools and knowledge, and nurturing mathematical and scientific potential.
Chesterton
Community
College
Remembrance
This year the British Legion is marking 100 years since the nation’s collective Remembrance traditions were first brought together. Wearing of the poppy, two-minute silence, Armistice Day, the service for the Unknown Warrior, and the march-past at the Cenotaph are traditions that millions participate in every year. This year Chesterton Community College paid its respects, by displaying 300 hand knitted poppies around the Chesterton site. The idea was one that begun as a lockdown project. The poppies are all individual and kept Mrs Askham, Mrs Williams (and their families) creative when during the COVID lockdowns over the past 2 years.
Side Hustle Competition
Earlier this year two groups of students from Chesterton Community College entered the national Side Hustle competition and put forward two separate ideas for new businesses in a bid to win a share of £10,000 towards setting up their idea. The entries were:
Cereal Mania by Cameron. A cereal take away service where customers can choose from a range of cereals, toppings and milks.
New Beginnings by Hawraa and Ameera. A digital platform for newly arrived teenage refugees with advice and information given by the two sisters who came to Cambridge as refugees themselves.
The competition was sponsored by finnCap and ACCA, both groups were selected for the final and travelled to London to pitch their ideas in front of a panel of judges, the other teams and an audience of finnCap and ACCA staff members. It was a very competitive but our students gave an excellent account of themselves.
When the results were finally announced….
Cameron received the runner up prize of £500 for Cereal Mania. The judges thought it was an excellent idea and wanted to give him a contribution to getting started.
Everyone was moved by Hawraa and Ameera’s story. So much so they inspired the sponsors finnCap to set up a new bursary for young people wanting to set up a social enterprise. As the first recipients of the bursary Hawraa and Ameera will receive a £3000 bursary each year for three years in order to set up their idea to help teenage refugees settling in the UK.
City of London Pageant
During October half-term, 3 members of Chesterton Youth Theatre performed principal parts in a council-funded pageant in the City of London, which marked 400 years since this event first took place on those same streets. Their speeches were written by the Renaissance dramatist, Thomas Middleton (he wrote ‘The Changeling’). Holly and Charlie from Year 8, and Quinn from Year 9, more than rose to the occasion, under the expert direction of local theatre artist Sam Plumb. They were the highlight of the event, which took place on Cheapside, East London. Their costumes were also glorious, with Quinn wearing an ornate mask as Aries; and Holly and Charlie wearing the kind of robes that appeared as original garments of the time. The 3 Chesterton students had to perform the pageant 3 times during the course of one afternoon, through rain and sunshine, There were moments when the air seemed to sing with voices of the past and present colliding as one, as they celebrated London, its Lord Mayor and the very virtues of humanity itself.
BBC Film
This term, Head of Drama at Chesterton, Suzy Marston, has enjoyed acting as ‘Casting Agent’ for the BBC in collaboration with Econ Films in their series ‘Lessons with Laureates’. A small group of students in years 10 and 11 were selected to audition to be presenters of an episode from this educational series, for which they had to create self-tapes and showcase both their skills as communicators and their knowledge of Science. The BBC chose Kyani from Year 11 and Ben from Year 10 as actors from this pool, and both students happily accepted their offers to become Presenters for a day! Kyani described it as a ‘truly amazing day’ in which she and Ben interviewed Venki Ramakrishnan, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009 for his research into RNA. This distinguished figure is currently working at the MRC laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and the filming took place at a local athletics track. The two actors had to employ their improvisation skills to form questions and give natural responses to the interview. We are extremely proud of them for representing Chesterton in this project and we look forward to seeing the episode.
Festivities
Students and staff at Chesterton Community College have been enjoying the festive season with a variety of different activities:
- Each day in December everyone in school has been able to open an electronic festive calendar door to reveal some festive fun. Calendar doors have revealed competitions, sweet treats, charity events and even a musical number performed by the staff.
- At the beginning of December year 7 students enjoyed a trip the pantomime, Cinderella, at Cambridge Arts Theatre…oh yes they did!
- On 9th December the school held its annual carol concert in the breath taking setting of St John’s College in Cambridge. Festive music, song and readings were enjoyed by all.
- Towards the end of term the drama department showcased two fantastic productions, the pantomime Dick Whittington scripted by staff and students and the second ‘Yo-Ho’ a moving production exploring the issue of homelessness raising money for Centre Point.
Chesterton
Sixth Form
... A new sixth form in the north of Cambridge!
Back in September we were delighted to have the official sign off from the Department for Education to open Chesterton Sixth Form in September 2022. Our vision is to provide an exceptional, individualised and wholly academic A-Level offer for students in the north of Cambridge city. We’ve enjoyed a busy term getting everything in place for our launch: developing an expert-led curriculum offer across an extremely broad range of subjects; publishing our prospectus; hosting our inaugural open evening; visiting local schools’ post-16 events; launching our student voice working parties, and much more. We’ve also been looking closely at producing a broad and exciting enrichment offer for all students, and are looking forward to partnering with Impington International College on our trips and visits programme. We can’t wait to meet all our applicants in the spring term to start the process of working with them to provide a truly bespoke sixth form experience. Please visit our Chesterton Sixth Form website to find out more.
Downham Market
Academy
Allotment
Matt from the Papillon Project and the student “Green Society” have been busy digging foundations for the polytunnel where we will be growing all sorts of vegetables and flowers ready for spring in our new allotment. We will be repurposing old gym equipment including the original box horses into raised beds in our polytunnel.
A visit from the Foreign Secretary!
We welcomed the new Foreign Secretary and our local MP, Liz Truss to the Academy last half term. She met a group of Year 10 and 11 students who asked a range of searching questions including:
- How we in South West Norfolk are supporting Afghan refugees to settle in the UK
- What she is doing to ensure international cooperation to reverse climate change
- Should England follow Scotland to provide free sanitary products for women
- The differences in schooling around the world
- Having met both, did she prefer Donald Trump or Joe Biden!
The Foreign Secretary shared her early experiences of politics and how she first became involved. She also shared stories about her international travels and challenges of the new role that she has taken on.
Having the fourth highest ranking politician in the country being so open and forthcoming and to ask their opinions on international relations with the USA, Russia and China was a great opportunity for our students and we hope that she returns very soon to meet more of our young people.
Life drawing
Students from Year 9 to Year 13 have participated in the second of a short series of Life Drawing workshops in the Academy. The session was facilitated by Neaco, an organisation which aims to encourage students to access Higher Education in Norfolk.
Fundraising
Students and staff have raised nearly £3000 already this term that has been donated to charities including Children in Need, Macmillan, Save the Children and Papyrus. Papyrus is a charity very close to the hearts of the DMA community – it raises money to prevent suicide in young people. One of our ex students, Emily, tragically took her own life last year and current students raised lots of money to donate to the “3 dads walking” appeal where Emily’s father completed a charity walk that was featured on the BBC news.
Girton Glebe
Primary School
Christmas Performances
It has been a busy and fun-packed half-term at Girton Glebe! The children and staff have all worked exceptionally hard with their learning whilst also put on a Nativity, KS1 Production and songs to share virtually with parents.
EYFS Update
Ash Class have really enjoyed their ‘Dazzling Darkness’ curriculum theme, before embarking on their ‘Crazy about Christmas’ learning! As part of ‘Dazzling Darkness’, the children have been learning about nocturnal animals, with a specific focus on hedgehogs, owls, foxes and bats. During Forest School, they have learnt to safely use secateurs to cut sticks to create hedgehogs!
KS1 Update
KS1 one have been busy with their topics of ‘Dinosaurs’ and ‘Marvellous Monarchs’. This half term saw Year 1 have their first class trip to The Sedgwick Museum to see the dinosaurs; it was a roaring success! They held a real T-Rex tooth and a fossil iguanodon tooth. They also found out how big the dinosaurs footprints are. 8 children fitted in a T-Rex footprint!
Year 5 Update
For the past 10 weeks, Year 5 have been lucky enough to participate in the Music Service’s Stage & Screen Project, in which the children of Willow Class wrote, rehearsed and performed their very own version of Cinderella – the pantomime. In their modern version of this classic tale, Cinderella’s dress was delivered via Amazon Prime and she flew to the ball in a helicopter! They performed their production (complete with singing, dancing and lots of traditional pantomime humour) to a wonderful Year 3 audience. All of the class worked incredibly hard to learn lines and create costumes and props and we couldn’t be more proud of their performance on the day.
Year 6 Update
This half term, Year 6 children have written some wonderful pieces of writing. The children’s carefully-constructed newspaper accounts of the evacuation of Dunkirk were a pleasure to read, showcasing increasingly imaginative vocabulary use and the contrast between formal and informal styles of writing. They are currently working on finessing some tense, moving and powerful adventure narratives about a homeless child and a cat. They have also performed wonderfully in their production of Goodnight Mr Tom this half term. They really owned their characters and, despite minimal rehearsal time, the performance was powerful and polished, with the children delivering their lines with confidence and aplomb.
Impington
Village
College
UKMT Challenges
Problem solving is at the heart of Mathematics. The UKMT Challenges provide opportunities for students who excel in Maths to develop their mathematical abilities.
IVC are exceptionally impressed with the way many students have risen to the challenge of completing the UKMT competitions this term, many of whom received certificates for their achievement and / or were invited to the follow-on rounds of the Kangaroo or Olympiad.
Of particular note we would like to congratulate the following students who have performed exceptionally well in the Girls, Junior and Senior Olympiads over the last term: Peter B, Jonathan K, Neve E-K, Fin S, Freya W, Kat G, Viola B & Caroline S
Sports Update
The Autumn term has seen much sporting success for the Impington Sports Department. Both our staff and students are pleased to see the return of fixtures and sporting events.
A particular highlight for our students and Sports Leaders was the first ever District Colour Run at Milton Country Park. This event was a huge success and enjoyed by nearly 50 of our students in years 7, 8 and 10. We hope to see a return of the event in future years to come.
Our Year 10 sports Leaders have taken to their new roles fantastically, they have represented IVC at the primary school cross country, District Colour Run, Panathlon and Primary football tournament. The sports leaders are looking forward to more opportunities to lead and represent IVC next term.
Some of our Year 8 students attended the Panathlon that was held at IVC. They competed against 6 other teams in a range of adapted sports including indoor curling, cricket bowling and indoor athletics. Our points were tallied from each event that lasted 7 mins each and we came out on top! With this win, we will soon be competing in the regional finals, for a chance to go national!
With the new arrival of Miss White, our girls’ u13 football team has really taken shape, the girls have shown great dedication to training and this paid off at their recent tournament. The U13 girls competed in the EFL girls football competition (6 a-side) at Newmarket Town FC. The girls played 4 matches in their group stage and won 3 of these games and drew one. The girls advanced to the semi-final without conceding a goal and scored 8 goals in total. They played Castle Manor in the semis and were strong 3-0 winners to move through to the final. They played well in the final against a talented Comberton team, however after many chances and hitting the bar twice we couldn’t score during normal time. The game went straight to penalties where we managed to win the match with an excellent save from the goalkeeper. The girls now go through to the regional finals after Christmas. The winners of this will have the chance to play at Wembley stadium.
Our u16 netball team represented IVC at the County netball tournament at The Perse school, the girls dominated many of their matches, putting up a good contest against our local private schools and Hinchingbrook. The U16’s came 3rd place in the tournament, narrowly missing out on a qualifying position for the regional tournament. It was great to see our year 11’s do themselves and IVC proud before they move on this year.
Showtime!
The IVC Performance faculty are working hard on their whole-College production of Annie. The show involves students from Year 7 to Year 13 and will be performed in the Gropius Hall from 8-10 February 2022. The musical set in 1930’s New York, tells the story of orphan Annie (played by Emily Maynard) and her hard knock life. It is a feel-good family show exploring the theme of optimism and determination. After the challenges that the Arts have suffered because of the pandemic, we all need to be told ‘the sun will come out tomorrow’. Tickets will be on sale in January 2022.
Impington
International
College
UCAS destinations
As we are reaching the deadline of the 2022 UCAS application, it is a good time to look at some of our students’ ambitions and the offers that are already coming through!
This year is a particularly strong cohort for Impington International College in terms of Oxbridge applicants, with ten applicants choosing either the university of Oxford or Cambridge. Students are wanting to read a range of subjects – from linguistics, PPE and computer science and maths to medicine.
Pre-interview tests have been sat and invitations to interview are now coming in quickly with seven of the ten being invited so far! Mock interviews are underway and students are enjoying sharing their passions with the academics we are fortunate to have within our local community.
As always, as a college with sports and performing arts scholarships, it is also a pleasure to see our students aiming high within their fields, applying to institutions such as Hartpury University, Leeds University and Loughborough for sports related subjects and top drama schools Rose Bruford, Bird College and Urdang for performing arts.
The rest of our cohort are an equally competitive bunch with, as ever, Russell Group universities being the most popular choices. Students are applying to places such as the universities of York, Edinburgh and Durham alongside UCL, SOAS and Kings College London. It is great to see the diversity of subjects students are wanting to follow, from artificial intelligence to biomedical sciences and history; studying an International Baccalaureate Programme really does leave students with the greatest possible routes of progression.
Sports Update
The IIC rugby team, The Vipers, has come on leaps and bounds this term. The season had a difficult start due to injuries meaning we didn’t have enough for a 15-man team. In our first game against Henley College, we had a completive start to the game, but without subs we were all tired from the level of rugby. By the end of the game, we came away with a loss, which meant only one thing, we had to get better. This was shown in the next game against Samuel Whitbread, we all took this game seriously because we knew we had to perform at 100% to get the win we wanted. With conceding in the first minute, our heads were down but with a few words from the coaches we went back at them. The game stayed at this score until the last few minutes, this is when we scored, but the game wasn’t over yet. With some brutal defending we held up several try scoring opportunities. We managed to hold them for long enough to win the game 14-8.
Our third game was away at The Leys, we knew the players and we knew they would be ready. Going two tries down, we thought it would be a running down for us, but through hard work we brought it back. The game was very level, big hits from The Leys, but bigger tackles from the Vipers and we scored! Leaving the score at 19-19. I think we will only perform better next term, with lots of training, we will become a cohesive team.
Our IIC Netball team have demonstrated great resilience and determination in a tricky season. The girls have shown great dedication to training and a real enthusiasm for support one another on and off the court. During their most recent match, the team domination with a 49-5 win! We look forward to more fixtures next term.
Our IIC Girls Football term have been working really hard this term, their efforts on the training pitch are starting to show in their matches. We had a fantastic cup game which the girls really got to showcase themselves. We’ve had a couple of new additions to the squad since term start which has been great. It’s been a pleasure for us to coach them so far this season and we hope for a positive start to our winter term after Christmas.
Kate Beytell, year 12 student at IIC has been selected, after gruelling trials in Nottingham, to represent the English Colleges Hockey Team. Kate will have weekend training camps and matches against a variety of prestigious teams.
AR Building
We are celebrating the first term in our brand new building! The AR building, named after our late Chair of Governors and British Antarctic Survey scientist Alan Rodger who sadly died in 2020, has given IIC some much needed new facilities and a great base for students. The new building has large classrooms, a seminar room and air-conditioned common room, with an outdoor area that provides a dedicated space for socialising and relaxation between lessons. Students can access the building from their own entrance separate to the main College.
Another celebration for IIC are our new courses for 2022. Already offering in excess of 30 different subjects, we have now added BTEC Art and Design to broaden our popular IBCP course. Combining both the practical skills BTECs are famous for with an excellent grounding in a variety of techniques and media, BTEC Art and Design is an exciting course and our extremely talented Art Faculty are looking forward to beginning it with our September 2022 cohort. IB Music will also go back on to our offer and we are delighted to be able to run it again after a break for the last couple of years.
The
Cavendish
School
New building!
Work is nearly complete on our bespoke building. We are initially moving into the ground floor, with the first floor being available shortly afterwards. We start a little later than some of the other schools in Cambridgeshire to ensure that our spaces are ready and we have successful transition days for families at the start of the year; we are eager to have everyone join us in the building, it is clear already that we have an amazing school community!
We're open!
This term has seen us open our doors, albeit in temporary accommodation to our first pupils.
We feel extremely honoured to have had an amazing first term at TCS, the first of our pupils have settled into their new home and are really championing our school values. The school values, derived from the IB learner profile are really important to our school ethos and ensuring that everybody feel safe and able to grow.
Pupils have met with Lucy Frazer (MP) and local news outlets to give their views on our school. One of our pupils said “This is the best school ever, I have real friends and I feel safe enough to tell people how I am feeling”.
Children In Need!
We may only have been a small cohort for Children In Need, but that didn’t stop the children from getting stuck in and raising loads of money for a good cause. Our most popular activities were penalty shoot outs and flouring the teachers. Mrs Smith and Mr Allcock took the worst of it, but good fun was had by everyone! According to our pupils, getting the teachers mucky should be a highlight every year – the messier the better – especially when Mrs Smith had to sit in a meeting with flour in her hair!
Naming classrooms
We sent out on our social media channels a competition to name our classrooms after famous neuro-diverse people. We had some excellent entries with compelling arguments as to why we should chose the celebrity.
Our classrooms will each have a name which the class based in the room will use whilst they are there. This allows for pupils to make connections with where classes are within the space and supports independence within the building.
Our Horticulture room has been named Packham after Chris Packham, Our Life Skills flat has been called the Jackson flat after Luke Jackson the autistic author, our art room is named after animation youtuber odd1sout along with others who will be revealed in our classroom reveals for our pupils and on social media.
Why have we chosen these classroom names? “Enabling-the-self” our mission has at it’s very heart the knowledge that neuro-diversity is something to be celebrated and provides our world not only with a rich tapestry of character but also insights, achievements and impactful contributions to society. It is important therefore that we offer our pupils access to other successful neuro-diverse people and lived ethos of belief and high expectations for them to make decisions without feeling limited.
Witchford
Village
College
12 hour Danceathon raises the roof!
Over 65 WVC students who took part in a 12 hour Danceathon to raise money for Children In Need, the students displayed enormous amounts of commitment and determination to keep dancing for 12 hours.
With the aim of raising money to contribute to make a difference and improve the lives of young people they set a target of raising £500 for Children in Need but blew the roof of the target by raising a staggering £1,550.
The Danceathon started at 8:30am and with a positive buzz of energy in the school. The energy remained high throughout the day with the school community encouragement and support. Greatly motivated by staff dropping in to take part. Miss Theobald, Dance lead at WVC , kept the 12 hours alive with a jam packed program.
As the 12 hours passed students were keeping an eager eye on the justgiving page which motivated our students to keep going through the high’s and the lows.
The Danceathon students were incredibly grateful for the donation of £50 from Waitrose, Ely, which they tucked into at 6pm to keep them going through the last few hours.
A special recognition must go to the Year 10 GCSE Dance students who not only brought great energy to the event but were outstanding roles models for our younger students.
Our students finished feeling exhausted but proud and left the school entrance to hear a rapturous round of applause from parents and carers waiting to take them home.
In total, including non-uniform day, our full contribution to Children in Need was £2300
To quote a Year 7 student:
‘It was tough but was great fun to be part of and makes me so proud to say I go to witchford Village College , can we do it next year?’
Year 8 Debating with Lucy Frazer QC MP
In November, our local MP for South East Cambridgeshire, Lucy Frazer, visited the school to judge our Debate Club. Y8 students took part in an excellent debate regarding prisons and the need for reform. This debate was thrilling, exciting and full of excellent speeches from both sides. Lucy was extremely impressed by the persuasive and charismatic nature of the speeches and provided feedback to all the speakers that took part. Lucy was also extremely impressed by the level of questioning that was also asked throughout the debate by other students which really challenged the speakers to think on their feet and produce intuitive and detailed replies.
This debate was part of a national competition in which school children will take part in a debate at the House of Commons next year. Two of the speakers, Roxie and Rhys, were chosen to be the representatives for Witchford Village College and take part in the competition next year.
Special thanks must also be given to Mrs Dowman who facilitates the Debating Club and who worked hard to ensure the students were prepared for this occasion.
Overall, it was an impressive show of debating and critical thinking by our Y8 students and congratulations to all those that took part. Best of luck to Rhys and Roxie in the competition in the new year.
After school options with Session 4
We believe strongly that students benefit from a broad and diverse enrichment program. To support this, we have redesigned our school day, extending the day to 4pm, known as session 4. We used student voice and staff specialisms to create a program of exciting options for our students to broaden their involvement beyond the school day, creating a community of activity from 3-4pm.
Activities range from choirs, ukulele, dance, German, Latin, Witchcrafty, Eco club, History club, translation Bee, to debate club to name but a few. In total we have 35 options for students across the school week. the school library opens every day offering ambassador, leadership roles as well a reading café and support with homework.
Students are also offered a wide range of sporting teams, matches and activities, or the opportunity to keep fit in our gym
We feel strong that these are opportunities that make a difference to a student’s wellbeing, encouraging our students to become active citizens. It is also a time that reinforces positive relationship across our school community
Restorative Approaches
Members of or newly appointed Senior student team have taken the first steps towards becoming fully trained in an resolution approach called restorative justice.
Our students spent a day training with Soham Village College.
Restorative justice has been proved to make communities stronger, create opportunity for meaningful dialogue and a timely resolution. It creates a safe space for students to put incidents behind them and move forward.
Here is a summary of the day from Oliver Dowden:
Restorative justice is a way of dealing with conflict that does not focus on giving out sanctions and punishments, but on reconciliation and recovery. It works as it does not simply punish wrongdoing, but helps to prevent it from reoccurring, and can often even make things better than they used to be.
Hearing all of the stories during our training was extremely inspiring, as it shows just how impactful this can be, and I feel that it will make a huge improvement in the way that our school resolves disputes. I also think that it will prevent resentment forming and allow conflict to be resolved in a way that benefits everyone.
Our first meetings take place this Friday, and I think they will be hugely useful to all students who use them.
This initiative will be led by Oliver D, Megan G, Lucy B, Robin H, Jessica F, Abigail H and we wish them every success.
News from across the Trust
CSC IVC WVC
Sport Centres
Charity Assault Bike Challenge
At aged 22, Emily Parsons was diagnosed with a rare, highly aggressive, malignant and currently incurable, spinal cord tumour, which she sadly passed away from in May 2021.
During her most difficult time, Emily began fundraising to support a project currently taking place within the Cancer Research UK’s (CRUK) Children’s Brain Tumour Centre of Excellence at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge.
Starting with a target of £10,000, Emily’s tireless efforts saw donations raise to £50,000. In May 2021, Emily’s family continued the work started by their incredibly brave and courageous daughter, and within 12 months of the JustGiving page opening have amassed an inspirational £100,000!
In support of Emily’s fight, on Wednesday 22nd December, three of the Impington Sports Centre Fitness team, Chris, Josh and Ryan will be taking on a 12-hour Assault Bike challenge with all donations being added to this already unbelievable effort.
Emily’s JustGiving can be found here (donations no longer accepted)
For ways to donate please follow our updates on Facebook.
Gym for a quid!
This December, we are offering you the chance to use the fitness suite at Impington and Chesterton for just £1! With an extensive range of cardio, resistance and free weights, this offers a great value way to get ahead of the January rush. Quote ‘ELA Christmas Offer’ at the sports centre Reception to claim your discounted rate.
For those looking for an extra special Christmas present idea, why not treat your loved ones to a Fitness Suite Block Card. Available for use at either Chesterton or Impington Sports Centre, this 12-session card is valid for 3 months and provides unrestricted access to the sports centre fitness suite for just £80.
Signing up is simple, just drop into your chosen sports centre Reception to complete an application form.
Please note: Christmas opening hours will be in place from 24th December to 3rd January. Please check the sports centre website before visiting.
Monstrous Fun Holiday Club
Monstrous Fun is back at Impington Sports Centre this Christmas with four fun-packed days of activities for children aged from 5 to 11 years.
The popular Ofsted accredited holiday club will be running at Impington Sports Centre from Monday 20th December to Thursday 23rd December. Providing a full day of childcare (8.30am – 5.30pm) for just £30, it offers a wide range of activities including swimming each day, arts and crafts, parachute games, bouncy castle sessions as well as indoor games and sports activities.
Chesterton and Impington will also be offering their usual mix of family activities over the festive period with both centres holding family fun and inflatable pool sessions in the run up to Christmas.
Football holiday camps are also available at both sites with Chesterton hosting tennis camps over the week before Christmas.
Please check your local sports centre website for full holiday activity details, updated pool session times and online family fun session booking.
Swim Assistants Wanted
We are seeking outgoing and enthusiastic students to support the swimming teaching staff on our term time swimming lessons scheme after school from 3.45-5.45pm. This rewarding role is an excellent opportunity to gain valuable work experience, working with children 3yrs+. This would also be a great opportunity to volunteer as part of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme.
If you are 14-16yrs old, we will offer you a Gym and Swim Fitkidz membership as a reward for your help. For applicants aged 16yrs+, you will be paid for your time. Support will be given for the right student and opportunities are available if you want to progress to being a lifeguard or Level 1 swimming teacher.
For further information and to register your interest, please email Stephen Greenwood Sports Centre Manager before the 17th December 2021 “
Alongside the swim assistant positions, we also looking to recruit lifeguards for both Impington and Chesterton on a casual basis with two permanent full-time positions also available.
Alliance Estates
The Trust central team have been working hard over the last term across all the schools in the trust. Some of the larger projects they have been involved with are:
- A program of science Laboratory renovation is in progress at Impington Village College. The planned works would include the complete renovation of four of the oldest labs. The first of the science Labs P9 has been completed.
- A program of roof works has started across the trust, the first roof to be replaced was that above the P science labs at Impington.
- The windows in the main building at Athena College have undergone restoration to bring them back to their former glory.
- An unused caretaker’s bungalow has been transformed into an Alternative provision building at Downham Market Academy.
- Girton Glebe hall floor at GG to be replaced as part of insurance claim over the summer holiday
Alliance IT
We’ve migrated all iPads at DMA and CCC onto Lightspeed Filter, a next generation global content filter powered by the most comprehensive database of online content in the industry from 20 years of web indexing. The filter leverages advanced artificial intelligence to automatically block millions of inappropriate, harmful and unknown sites, images, and video.
Other highlights
- Started a new interactive replacement programme at IVC with 10 new Promethean boards installed already this year, and the next 20 already on order.
- We are getting all the technology ready for the opening of The Cavendish School in January.
- We are rolling out the new Chromebook offering to IIC to support any student accessing our learning platform.
Further reading on our family of schools
► Hear more from our parent community on how we tackled the challenges of online learning in lockdown – Multi-academy trust rises to the challenge of Covid-19 safety and online learning
► Exciting developments are progressing at The Cavendish School, Cambridgeshire’s first special free school for young people with autism with the appointment of a new Deputy Headteacher
Opportunities with Eastern Learning Alliance
There are a number of vacancies across our family of schools, including exciting opportunities to join The Cavendish School’s governing body.
Find out more about our current vacancies by visiting our website – easternlearningalliance.org.uk/vacancies/
