Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Student Travel

  Thu 29 Sep 2022

  16-25 Student Railcard

   

  Given the current cost of living crisis, Trainline have put together a guide to the 16-25 Railcard (also known as the Young Persons Railcard) to help students save money on travel around the UK. Please click here for more information.

• Congratulations to all our students on your well-deserved results

  Thu 25 Aug 2022

  Our Year 11 students have achieved some exemplary GCSE and other Level 2 results, once again demonstrating their dedication, hard work and focus on their studies. 

   

  There are too many individual successes to be able to include them all here, but the highlighted names below deserve special mention:

   

  • Congratulations to the following students, who achieved exceptionally high grades across all or most of their subjects: David (achieved Grade 9 in eight subjects), Jack, Aodhan and Thea (achieved Grade 9 in six subjects).

  • We also celebrate our students who made exceptional progress compared to their targets when they started the course, including: Diya, Kent, Christy, Tia and Caitlin. These students achieved on average more than two grades higher than expectations across all their subjects.

   

  Well done to all of our Year 11 students for your hard work and your marvellous success this year.

  

• Congratulations to all our students

  Thu 18 Aug 2022

  On behalf of our staff, we congratulate all of our Sixth Form students for their examination results, which were published today.

   

  We are delighted to report that the majority of our students have achieved high A Level grades or equivalent across the three subjects they have studied, with almost one in three entries achieving A*-B grades. As a consequence, the majority of our students have secured their first-choice places at university, in apprenticeship or in employment. 

   

  Today we celebrate much more than the students’ academic success. The pandemic has had a considerable impact on this cohort of students nationally who were not able to sit their GCSE examinations two years ago, when centre-assessed grades were used. As a consequence, these students were sitting their first ever public examinations this summer. In spite of this our students showed enormous fortitude and self-belief during their Post-16 studies. We are extremely proud of how each of our students faced adversity and displayed grit and resilience to achieve their goals. In addition, beyond their academic success, all our students contributed so much to the wider life of the school and the local community during their two years in the Sixth Form. A huge ‘well done’ to all our students and we wish you the very best as you move on, whether this be to continue your education or in employment.

   

  There were many outstanding individual achievements, too many to list here, but worthy of special mention are six students who achieved three or more A Level grades A* or A. Our high achieving students include: Tom who has achieved a place at Durham University to study Social Sciences; Eve who will study Speech and Language Therapy at Reading University; Louise who has achieved a place at Cambridge University to study Law; Finley who will study History and Politics at Cambridge University; Phillip who has achieved a place at Lancaster University to study Linguistics and Philosophy and Isabelle who will study Law at Liverpool University.

   

  Well done to all our students, be proud of everything you have achieved and we wish you the very best for your futures.

  

• GCSE Certificate Presentation

  Thu 21 Jul 2022

  On Friday 15 July, we were delighted to host our 2021 Year 11 GCSE Certificate Presentation for subjects they completed last Summer.

  We welcomed the year group and their parents to enjoy an assembly, where we announced the prize winners, along with our Key Stage 4 Special Awards. Well done to all those who were presented with a trophy and certificate. You should be very proud!

  

• Summer A Level Art & Design and Photography Exhibition

  Tue 14 Jun 2022

  Please book your free ticket through Eventbrite

  

• Ice Photography

  Tue 17 May 2022

  OBJECTS IN ICE PHOTOGRAPHY

  Here is a selection of photographs created by our talented Year 10 photography students. They froze objects in different containers and captured the stages of the ice melting. Such beautiful work. Well done to all the students involved.

  

• School garden

  Tue 17 May 2022

  They say honesty is the best policy. Honesty is also a beautiful flower that is a magnet for bees and butterflies.

  Here is some of our work we are promoting as an Eco school. Two of our Year 11 students have also been working on observational drawings of the wildflowers in one of our pit stops for pollinators plots.

  

• Dalek Club

  Fri 01 Apr 2022

  The Dalek continues to grow

  In Dalek Club, our very keen group of engineers have continued to work hard as they aim to build a full-size working Dalek by the end of this academic year.

   

  You may recall that in an earlier newsletter we showed photographs of their work so far. By November last year, students had managed to create the head dome, the voice changer and they had cut out and taped together the panels to make the skirt. Since then, the students have made steady progress and we now have the bare bones of the full-size Dalek from the Doctor Who TV series.

  Doctor Who fans out there will recognise that this will be a New Series Dalek from the 2005 TV series.

   

  The Club students have now managed to get the Dalek skirt constructed and mounted on its wheels; they have made the gun box, the neck and the head dome does rotate from side to side. Given that students are only able to work on the project for two short lunchtimes each week it is really pleasing to see just how far they have managed to come. Soon they will be working on the decoration of the skirt to include the iconic dome shapes and then it will involve a great deal of filling, sanding and painting to hopefully get the Dalek to be fully functioning.

  The students have also given the Dalek a name and we look forward to seeing ‘Cornelius’ become fully operational in the near future.

  

• St. Simon Stock Governance Committee

  Fri 01 Apr 2022

  St. Simon Stock Governance Committee would like to invite applications to join the

  Committee as either a Parent or a Foundation Committee member.

   

  Members need to have a keen interest in the Academy and be prepared to play an

  active role in the Governance Committee’s work, but no special qualifications are

  needed as the relevant training will be supplied.

   

  If you have between 20 and 25 hours a year that you would like to spend supporting

  the Academy, please send an expression of interest (no more than 250 words) to the

  Clerk for the Governance Committee to: mboxall@kcsp.org.uk

  

• Science Week 2022

  Fri 01 Apr 2022

  On 17 March, as part of National Science week, the Science department and 170 intrepid Year 7 students headed to the Observatory Science Centre at Herstmonceux. It was great to be on a school trip and students and staff were also fortunate to be blessed with excellent weather for the day's activities.

  Whilst at the Centre, students competed to see which team could build the highest tower and who could work the best as a team to both build and disassemble a bridge. Congratulations to group 8, with Mr Smith, who built the bridge in the fastest time and group 10, with Miss Swyny, who built the tallest tower. Group 1, with Mrs Smith, took the overall prize with a score of 20 points from the two team challenges. Mrs Hobbs’ group, and group 12 with Mrs Cardwell, came a very respectable joint second place with 18 points each. It was wonderful to see the students work together with purpose and a very competitive spirit!

  All the students got involved in the experiments and during the Science Show they were entertained by scientists who encouraged audience participation. The theme for this year’s show was space travel and students learnt how astronauts use the toilet in space and what happens when it escapes. Plus, they also found out what happens to the human body when it goes into space – demonstrated using a marshmallow version of Tim Peake.

  Once again, astronaut food was a popular item purchased in the shop by students. The water area was enjoyed by all and the outdoor area provided some entertaining moments, especially when the students tried to balance on the giant balance board.

  Mrs Cardwell is pleased to say that the staff at Herstmonceux commented on how 

  Science Week 2022

  On 17 March, as part of National Science week, the Science department and 170 intrepid Year 7 students headed to the Observatory Science Centre at Herstmonceux. It was great to be on a school trip and students and staff were also fortunate to be blessed with excellent weather for the day's activities.

  Whilst at the Centre, students competed to see which team could build the highest tower and who could work the best as a team to both build and disassemble a bridge. Congratulations to group 8, with Mr Smith, who built the bridge in the fastest time and group 10, with Miss Swyny, who built the tallest tower. Group 1, with Mrs Smith, took the overall prize with a score of 20 points from the two team challenges. Mrs Hobbs’ group, and group 12 with Mrs Cardwell, came a very respectable joint second place with 18 points each. It was wonderful to see the students work together with purpose and a very competitive spirit!

  All the students got involved in the experiments and during the Science Show they were entertained by scientists who encouraged audience participation. The theme for this year’s show was space travel and students learnt how astronauts use the toilet in space and what happens when it escapes. Plus, they also found out what happens to the human body when it goes into space – demonstrated using a marshmallow version of Tim Peake.

  Once again, astronaut food was a popular item purchased in the shop by students. The water area was enjoyed by all and the outdoor area provided some entertaining moments, especially when the students tried to balance on the giant balance board.

  Mrs Cardwell is pleased to say that the staff at Herstmonceux commented on how polite and well-behaved our students were all day and they were amazing ambassadors for our school. The Observatory at Herstmonceux is a fantastic place to visit for all the family. Evening sessions are available where you have the opportunity to look through the telescopes for a spot of stargazing. If you would like to find out more about the observatory, please follow this link: https://www.the-observatory.org/

   

  Well done to all the students who wrote about their day at Herstmonceux. Here are a selection of the best entries from each class: