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.

This week we have been raising money for our house and 6th form charities.  Not only did we have a football tournament earlier in the week, but today we have had a samosa sale and the chance to "soak a teacher!" at breaktime.
Our Heads of Houses are the best and have put themselves in the stocks to raise money for all our good causes!

On Thursday 25^th April pupils in 7X1, 8X1 and 8X2 took part in the UK Junior Maths Challenge. Pupils were presented with 25 challenging mathematical problems to encourage problem solving and reasoning skills. Pupils only had 60 minutes to complete the task and they needed to apply their knowledge of the maths curriculum to interesting and unusual problems. We look forward to receiving the results in a few weeks.

Year 9 had another opportunity to take part in a STEM Day project, pupils showed fantastic team skills by planning and designing a HS2 tunnel bridge. It was a great day where pupils had the opportunity to show their creativity and leadership skills. Well done to all pupils who got involved and a big congratulations to the winning team (F. Mohammadzai, S Singh, M Michalak, O. Olawale Lawal)

Also a big thank you to Andy Bruno from small peice trust for hosting the stem day and to smestow staff for getting involved !