This week is Children's Mental Health Week.  Set up in 2015, this year marks the 11^th year of Place2Be raising awareness of mental health in young people.  

The theme this year is "Know Yourself, Grow Yourself" and encourages children, young people and adults to embrace self-awareness and explore what it means to them.  This will help them to grow and develop resilience to cope with whatever life may throw at them.

Here at Smestow Academy, we promote positive mental health by celebrating our top tips of Be Active, Connect, Give, Keep Learning and Take Notice.  Pupils will be exploring these in lessons this week, talk about importance of Children's Mental Health Week in assemblies (led by Heads of House), complete mindful colouring at lunchtime and also be given "time to talk" at lunchtime with members of our Mental Health Team in School.

We will be sharing images of our active citizenship opportunties to raise awareness of Children's Mental Health Week over the next few days but also want to share this sheet from Place2Be for our families too.

If you are concerned about your child and their mental health, please take a look at our mental health support flyer (signposting to support online) or contact your child's Head of House at school.

#SmestowAcademy #SuccessAchievedTogether #CMHW25 #knowyourselfgrowyourself #MentalHealth #tellingschool

Our careers programme here at Smestow Academy is underpinned by the Gatsby Benchmarks. As part of our commitment to fulfilling benchmark 7 (supporting our pupils in years 8-11 accessing further education providers), we were delighted to host Georgia from Walsall College and Sam from Dudley College this morning in school.

Both colleagues delivered assemblies to year groups and talked about the variety of opportunities available at both providers, including accessing apprenticeships.

Thanks to Georgia and Sam for their time this morning and for helping our pupils.

Year 7's took part in a stem day workshop which involved them designing a station of the future and constructing a tunnel which will withstand the weight of 1kg of sand. 

It was a brilliant day and all pupils showed fantastic teamwork and leadership skills.

Well done year 7 and a massive congratulations to the winning team

#engineers #stem #successachievedtogether 

Mr Bryan is incredibly proud of how his Year 11 Art  group have been taking full advantage of our teaching principle of "review" this week: 

"This week, we have been taking a holistic approach to whole class feedback. As a teacher I can easily see how my pupils are progressing as a whole. In turn, they can see how well their peers are performing, leading to organic conversations between them as to how results are achieved. Best of all, they can all visibly see how they're doing on a week by week basis and take pride in what they've achieved together"

On Wednesday 29th Janurary, we held auditions for Matilda JR. and were thrilled to see 33 incredibly talented pupils audition for a role in the musical. Over the past week, they’ve been putting in a tremendous amount of effort, learning their scripts and songs. During the auditions, it was truly heartwarming to witness the spirit of collaboration as students supported and rehearsed with one another, perfectly embodying our Smestow value of a 'Welcoming and Caring Environment.' Miss Field and Mr. Stephenson were absolutely blown away by the talent on display, and we’re beyond excited to have such a gifted cast. We can’t wait to showcase their incredible abilities in this unforgettable production!

This week, Smestow Academy was proud to host the Wolverhampton PSHE Leads Network meeting for both primary and secondary colleagues.

The sessions were delivered by Amanda Evans who is the PSHE Advisory Teacher in Public Health at the City of Wolverhampton Council. PSHE Leads from schools across the city attended to hear updates with regards to Personal, Social, Health and Economic topics, find out about new resources that are available and network with other members of staff from across Wolverhampton. These events really do support our personal development curriculum in school and are crucial in being able to keep up to date with regards to what is happening in our city.

We were able to showcase our wonderful school to our visitors and it was a pleasure to have them join us. 

Thank you to Amanda for delivering such a great event.

Smestow Academy are delighted to have received a plaque this week from @TheFA commending us on providing equal access and opportunities for girls to play football whether it be in the curriculum and through extra-curricular provision. This is delivered through the #BarclaysGirlsFootballSchoolPartnerships to ensure that all girls can participate in our national sport.

Smestow are proud to have received this as we really value every sport and giving all of our students equal opportunities, and promotes our value of ‘equality and respect for all’.

M Harris and S Christie, pictured with the reward, are just two of our students that have been inspired by the @Lionesses triumph in 2022; being crowned European Champions. These two girls have been a part of fantastic opportunities this year including being a valuable part of our team at the trust football competition last week.

We ensure that all girls can dream of one day being a Lioness by having this opportunity to play at school.