Activities Week is a vital part of the Academy calendar. The week gives our students the opportunity to develop their skills and experiences beyond the main curriculum. We aim to help students develop vital skills, such as:

• Listening
• Presenting
• Problem Solving
• Creativity
• Staying Positive
• Aiming High
• Leadership
• Teamwork

These are skills which form the foundation of success for all learners. We address them in our lessons and our extra-curricular programme, but Activities Week gives our students the chance to push themselves further in new contexts, and new experiences.

After two disrupted years, with no Activities Week in 2020 and a scaled-back model in 2021, we have been delighted to get closer to “back to normal” in 2022. There haven’t been as many trips abroad as usual, due to the COVID pandemic being unpredictable at the time of booking. But we have got the Sicily trip away, and introduced some great new UK-based residentials, as well as a huge range of day trips and school-based activities.

At the time of writing, many of the activities are still going on, but here are some of the photo highlights of the week so far!

We will publish a full gallery on the Academy website when all the trips have returned.

It’s a huge responsibility taking students off site and returning them all safely, especially on a residential trip. Our staff do it willingly because they know how much the students benefit from it, and we know that staff benefit too from getting to know the students in a different context and seeing them taking on new challenges. I’d like to thank all the staff involved in putting the activities on for students, and especially the team behind the scenes who work on all the bookings, payments, risk assessments, travel arrangements, liaison and problem-solving that a week like this brings – we literally couldn’t do it without you!