In preparation for the 80^th anniversary of D Day on Thursday 6^th June, year 9 have taken part in a live interactive session from the National Archives and hosted by historian Dan Snow. During this session, students were lead through some activities by Mrs Pinches to help them recall previously taught knowledge from their Second World War unit and then handed over to Dan Snow who spoke to the students about the importance of commemorating D Day and the sacrifices made by allied soldiers during this campaign.

D Day is widely considered to be the turning point of World War Two, with the Allied forces successfully invading the beaches of northern France and gaining a foothold in Europe, it was the largest naval, air and land operation in history. D-Day was an international effort and included soldiers from Great Britain, France, USA, Canada and many more. On Thursday the whole school will have the opportunity to commemorate the 80^th anniversary of D Day with a special Personal Development session scheduled in the morning.

On 21^st May, Year 8 & 9 girls took part in their first rounders fixture at home against Wednesfield Academy Year 9 students. The game was made up of two, ten minute innings. Smestow won the toss and chose to field first. The team quickly adapted to new fielding formations having not played together before. The connections between back stop and 2^nd post were particularly fantastic, with accurate throws and safe catches which resulted in Wednesfield often being stuck at 1^st post, unable to score. Brilliant decisions were made by deep fielders, making the hard choice whether to throw to 2^nd or 4^th post. We covered ground well and understood the batters capabilities to change our positioning appropriately. When batting we made some good hits and ran excellently to 2^nd post, quickly adding up half rounders. 

The first innings ended an exciting draw 5 ½ - 5 ½ .

During the second innings fielding was still strong. The batters were slightly more inconsistent but there was a lot more power in the shots, leading to multiple rounders scored. The running also put a lot of pressure on 2^nd post and missed catches by Wednesfield meant we kept adding ½ rounders to the scoreboard. Most impressively the students positioned themselves towards the edge of the box tactically which meant they also scored additional half rounders from no balls at the body. 

The second innings ended a close 7 - 6 ½ to Smestow! The final result was 12 - 12 ½ to Smestow Academy.

Well done to the following students for representing our school and winning their first rounders fixture:

A L Steadman

T-J Smallwood

K Wunganai

Y Gaillard

H Stanley

E-M Fox

F Heath 

F Zirta-Gimbien

Batter of the match – A L Steadman

Fielder of the match – K Wungunai

This week at Smestow we have been celebrating ‘Mental Health Awareness Week’. Ensuring our pupils are aware of how to look after their mental health and wellbeing is one of our key priorities here at school! As one of our Mental Health top tips is to ‘Be Active’ down in the performing arts department we have completed a ‘Be active at break’ challenge. This involved a variety of activities such as stretching, body combat, just dance and yoga. The pupils involved have all thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the activities this week, demonstrating our Smestow values ‘Making a difference everyday’ and ‘Striving to improve and be your best’.

Well done to all involved!

We are excited to launch a new pupil leadership opportunity in school!  Our PD Ambassadors will champion all of the exciting events that are taking place in our school to help us develop into young people who make outstanding contributions to modern British society.

If you are interested, make sure to let your Form Tutor know - the deadline for this is Friday 24^th May 2024.

The week after half term brings the Scholastic Book Fair to school.  The Library will be open to all pupils to visit the book fair from Tuesday 4th June until Friday 7th June, before school, break time and after school.

 Scholastic will be providing a fantastic selection of classic and newly released books at discounted prices for pupils to purchase and keep. And every book you purchase helps raise funds for the school library.

 We have 5 £5 vouchers to give away to spend at the book fair, all pupils that complete an Accelerated Reader Quiz or submit a book review to the library will be entered into a draw to win a voucher, the more quizzes you take or reviews you submit, the more chancres you get to win a voucher!

 Pop into the library to find out more.

We are very proud of M Harris Year 7 who won the trust wide Pi Day competition. Pi day is the 14^th March (3.14) and is celebrated worldwide to make maths more fun and relatable. This year Matrix Academy Trust asked it’s pupils to “bring pi to life”. M Harris created a beautiful poster based around the popular you tube video helping pupils memorise the digits of pi. She was awarded a £30 voucher for being the best entry across the whole trust!

Our year 10 and 11 Duke of Edinburgh students have began their preparation for the expedition coming up in June, working towards their bronze award. We will be venturing into the wilds of Cannock Chase for a walking and camping expedition, and have been working on map skills, cooking and putting up tents in preparation. A great spirit of teamwork and togetherness was demonstrated and we look forward to a successful bronze expedition.

The exam season has begun and all pupils have been given a copy of the Year 11 collapsed timetable showing the exams and exam preparation sessions.

All pupils should use the following exam tips to help them prepare for their exams:

• Pupils need to be in school at 8.30am at the latest, the canteen is open from 8am.​
• A free breakfast on exam days will be available from 8.30am. ​
• Breakfast exam preparation sessions begin at 8.45am.​
• Morning exams begin at 9.30am.​
• Afternoon exams begin at 1.30pm.​
• After the breakfast exam preparation session pupils need to make sure they go to the toilet.​
• Make sure pupils know their seat number for each exam.​
• Before the exam line up in the canteen in the correct row their seat is in.​
• Remove everything from their pockets and put it in their bag – all they need are two black pens, a pencil, ruler and a calculator.​
• Make sure their mobile phone is turned off and inside their bag.​
• Enter the exam hall in silence, place their bag at the side of the hall and take their seat.​
• Take a deep breath, relax and do your best!

We wish all of our pupils the very best of luck!

In March, pupils across Matrix were invited to enter a Maths competition to celebrate Pi Day. Pupils were asked to use their imagination to bring Pi to life and to illustrate a real life example of Pi. We received entries from Smestow Academy, Etone College and Turves Green Boys School. M Harris from Smestow was our overall winner and has received a £30 Amazon voucher. C Bettison from Etone College and E Keegan from Turves Green Boys' School received a £10 Amazon voucher for runner up prizes.

Huge congratulations to all three pupils!

This week, during progress assemblies, pupils in year 7 to 10 were awarded Sparx maths badges. A Sparx maths badge is awarded to a pupil who achieves at least 2 levels within 1 school term. This means that they have gained over 20,000 XP on Sparx maths. Pupils who achieve this have shown a huge commitment to, not only completing their weekly homework but, completing additional targeted tasks and independent learning. Pupils have dedicated time to improving their mathematics on a regular basis and their teachers have seen noticeable improvements in their mathematics both in class and in their assessments.