Year 10

Contacting the Team

If you have any questions or concerns about your child, please don’t hesitate to contact a member of the Year 10 team by leaving a message with Reception or by emailing our enquiry address with, for example, ‘FAO Mrs Oakley’ as the subject.

We aim to respond to phone calls & emails as quickly as possible, & certainly within 48 hours. Please bear in mind that members of staff may have a day of teaching & may not be able to respond to non-urgent matters until the end of the Academy day or the following Academy day.

          By telephone:      0121-464 2737 (main school switchboard)

          By email:              enquiry@harborneacademy.co.uk

Vision

Year 10 is a very exciting year to be a part of as it represents the beginning of KS4 and all that comes with it! Students have selected their options and are beginning their pathways towards their careers. There is definitely a maturity surge when students hit year 10 and they realise that they are in control of their futures and this journey is fantastic to be a part of.

As progress leader of year 10 I have several aims. I want to ensure that all students are on the correct pathway and are comfortable with their chosen subjects, I want to be sure that they have made the right choice for themselves. To investigate this I begin to ask students to really consider the career that they want, we support this at Harborne Academy through careers fair that year 10 will be invited to. We also support this through working closely with The Diana Trust who offer mentoring sessions linked to places of work as well as ensuring that we organise and run a very successful work experience programme. A further aim of mine is to encourage all students to consider a wide range of career options and sometimes thinking outside of the box. We encourage this through our planned PSHE days where we have a variety of people in to showcase their careers to year 10. This helps our students see endless possibilities as well as the importance of making correct choices for themselves. My final aim is to begin to prepare them for the rollercoaster of year 11. I remind year 10 on a regular basis the difficulties that year 11 brings and how they could help themselves much more now with focus and a determination to succeed. I truly believe that once each student has a good idea of their career then this will help motivate them through our final 2 years at Harborne Academy, I remind them to keep things as simple as they can and once they have worked hard then they are opening up a world of opportunities for themselves.

Mrs Oakley

Year 10 Inspirational Quotes

•    “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Then somehow know what you truly want to become.” Steve Jobs.
• “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” Abraham Lincoln.
• “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m Possible!” Audrey Hepburn

 

Attendance & Punctuality

At Harborne Academy we expect students to be present in school every day. They should only be off school if they are very ill. A cough or cold is not a reason to not attend school. We are happy to offer support to overcome barriers to good attendance, please contact Miss Malpass if you have any concerns.      

Attendance figure	Year 10	Whole School
This academic year	(This table will be populated at the end of each half term.)
Last half term

Pastoral Student Voice Results (Summer Term 2019)

Question	Strongly agree	Agree	Disagree	Strongly disagree
I enjoy coming to school.	0%	100%	0%	0%
I feel safe & happy at school.	53%	47%	0%	0%
I know where to go in school if I need to talk.	80%	20%	0%	0%
Bullying is rare at Harborne Academy & when it does happen, it’s dealt with quickly.	40%	53%	7%	0%
Staff treat all students equally regardless of their sex, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation or disability.	67%	33%	0%	0%
The school teaches me how to keep healthy.	47%	53%	0%	0%

Student Council Representatives

The Student Council meets with Senior Leaders of the School on a weekly basis to share suggestions, questions & concerns with them. Students are encouraged to share their ideas with the representatives for their year group.

The Year 10 Prefects are:Alhagi, Israel, Molly, Omar, Oskar, Rachael, Ria, Tyler, Virgil, Jessica and Salimatu.

Events/Important Year 10 Dates for this Year

Date	Event
26/09/2019	International Languages Day
10/2019	The Big Draw
03/10/2019	National Poetry Day
18/10/2019	Charity Non-Uniform Day
24/10/2019	Y10 reports issued
15/11/2019	PSHE Day 1 – Health & Wellbeing
w/c 18/11/2019	Student Pastoral Voice Survey
w/c 16/12/2019	100% attendance celebration
19/12/2019	Y10 reports issued
15/01/2020	House Party
6th - 10th/07/2020	Work Experience

Previous Events with Year 10

Big Physics Quiz 2019 Birmingham University

Wrote by one of our students -

‘‘We headed out onto our long and less than amiable path. It was a pleasantly cold January morning, but we did not care for the cold, seeing as how were too busy exchanging our ideas on how the day would go and who would come out on top, which leads me very well to my next point.

My school was one of 40 that decided or rather were invited to take part in the competition. My classmates and I were (as is custom with teenagers looking to prove themselves the best at anything) ready for the challenge ahead and judged, rather biasedly, that there was no way we could do anything but come first, showing up everyone else and thus glorifying us in the history of our school.

When we eventually got to our destination, we were greeted by the shadow of a rather large and rather eye-catching clock tower. We walked right underneath the great structure and decided that we should take a picture ahead of the start of the quiz. After a few failed photo shoots, and a couple of minutes waiting for the sun to show its beautiful beaming face again, we finally settled on a picture on the steps to the reception of the university.

Walking into the main room, we were almost instantaneously struck by the rain bowed grace of the stained glass that was situated at the front and centre of the great hall. Our seats were shown to us and one after one, our would-be opponents slowly filed into the hall as we completed a word search to pass the time.  After everyone sat comfortably, we were introduced to the professors who would be hosting the competition.  We sat in anticipation as they said their names and professions and got our pens ready for the challenge ahead.

 

Throughout the rest of the day, we went through a range of topics from energy and famous science celebrities to a lecture about a certain device called the Antikythera Mechanism and the eventually break where we hungrily wolfed down our provisions. After this small feast and stroll, we were welcomed back to two more quizzes and then waited whilst the winners of the quiz were called out.  We did not win but we didn’t really care after all, we just had an amazing day of laughter and also managed to learn a lot in the process and for that, I thank the University of Birmingham. We are still winners because were in 5th position from a total of 40 schools!”              

TSA Mentoring Graduation

This year a small group of students were selected to be part of a mentoring course that supports ensuring all students achieve their full potential through the use of sport. They had both classroom and practical sessions with their mentors over a 12 week period. They then were able to take part in a graduation ceremony at Edgbaston Cricket Ground with a tour of the ground. Once this had finished they played an indoor tournament against the other participating school and managed to finish 3^rd overall!

Girls’ Self Esteem Workshop

Last year, some of the Year Group’s girls had the opportunity to take part in a workshop to build self-esteem and confidence within their education. This was led by students from the University of Birmingham and was very successful. Each week they had a different topic of discussion and was able to share their own experiences and challenges.

Birmingham Schools’ Games Table Tennis Tournament

Some of our talented boys went to represent the school in the Birmingham Schools Games Table Tennis Tournament at Kings Heath Boys School. They did very well and won some of their games and was able to place third but unfortunately missed out on qualifying for the finals.

World Book Day

This year, Harborne Academy staff and students celebrated their biggest and certainly best ever World Book Day with a number of wonderful activities and events taking place.  From our Big Booky Breakfast, to poets, cartoonists and even a staff and student fancy dress competition, we hope the day provided our students with a reminder of how books inspire us.

Red Nose Day 2019 

The student council were asked to come up with some fundraising ideas for Red Nose Day, these included a campaign to ‘Soak the Teacher’! Much to the students delight, the Progress Leader and SLT link for each year group were nominated and on Red Nose Day the students and staff had until lunch time to add their money to the cause, the staff who received the most donations were soaked by the students!