A Challenge Partners Quality Assurance Review in November 2022 has resulted in St John’s being named as a ‘Leading School’. The team of inspectors was impressed with the quality of leadership at St John’s and with the teachers’ excellent subject knowledge and their high expectations of students. St John’s students were also praised, and the report commented on the exemplary behaviour shown by students throughout the inspection, stating “Students are polite, open and articulate, making it a pleasure to engage with them. Excellent relationships between teachers and students contribute to students growing in confidence in their learning”.

St John’s focus on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion was also noted, and a student comment that “It is OK to be different in our school. Some of our friends attend a LGBT+ club which supports their well-being” was included as an example in the inspectors’ report. Read more and download the report here: https://www.stjohns.excalibur.org.uk/st-johns-named-as-leading-school/

ImpactEd

For two years St John’s has partnered with ImpactEd, an organisation which aims to improve student outcomes and life chances by helping schools evaluate the impact they are having. It has helped the school know whether its programmes and interventions are effective and whether it is spending time and resources on the right things.

Two areas where St Johns has proven its impact are:

• Wellbeing sessions with a group of our Year 9 girls with high anxiety
• Life skills booster sessions with some of our Year 11 students who were at risk of becoming NEET (young people not in education, employment or training)

It has also been using the ImpactEd tools to measure the wellbeing, anxiety, metacognition, and inclusion of all its students. As a result, it has identified students and group of students who need more support. It is also monitoring how the wellbeing of its students changes over the course of an academic year as well as when they move through the school.

To hear more about St John’s experiences of ImpactEd visit https://www.impacted.org.uk/ or contact St John’s on [email protected].

Teacher Development

St John’s runs a School Direct Teacher Training programme, enabling Excalibur to have direct involvement in training secondary teachers across a range of subjects. Its PGCE students spend at least one placement, and sometimes two, in Excalibur schools, as well as weekly Professional Studies sessions at St John’s. It is proud to have trained so many outstanding teachers over the last few years, several of whom have subsequently been employed in EAT schools. The programme is open to graduates and is run in conjunction with Bath Spa University.

It is currently recruiting for the 2023/24 PGCE cohort. To find out more about the training programme, including the generous bursaries available in many subjects, visit https://www.stjohns.excalibur.org.uk/about-us/recruitment/train-to-teach/

Teaching Internships

Complementing the School Direct Programme, St John’s also leads the Excalibur Teaching Internship programme. This is a paid internship programme it has run since 2019, funded by the DfE for current undergraduate students wishing to find out more about teaching careers in Science, Computer Science, Maths and, in 2023, Languages. The three-week programme runs from 19 June – 7 July and pays interns £300 per week. There is a varied programme including time at St John’s and John O’Gaunt.

Any interested undergraduate students should visit: https://www.stjohns.excalibur.org.uk/about-us/recruitment/train-to-teach/teaching-internships/

The Arts at St John’s

St John’s has been well known for many years for the high production quality of its summer musicals, and this year’s is set to outdo them all with its epic Les Misérables on 10 – 14 July in the St John’s Theatre.

The student cast and production team are meeting and rehearsing regularly, and are appealing to colleagues, parents and friends for help with the elaborate list of props for the show. If anyone can loan a wooden cart, scythe, rubber chicken or gunpowder barrel or anything from the extensive list on our website: https://www.stjohns.excalibur.org.uk/les-miserables-not-long-now/ please email [email protected] with a message to Miss Kirby, St John’s Head of Drama.

Everyone is welcome watch the production; tickets will be on sale on Ticketsource very soon!

St John’s updates its online Art Gallery showcasing student work every term: https://www.stjohns.excalibur.org.uk/curriculum-home/subjects/art-design-curriculum/art-galleries/

Check out its report from Christmas https://www.stjohns.excalibur.org.uk/christmas-2022-at-st-johns/ including the infamous “Christmas on the Hill” show, which included a spectacular demonstration of synchronised swimming from a select group of staff. The challenge being to recognise any familiar faces?

Keep in touch with all of St John’s news via:

Latest News: https://www.stjohns.excalibur.org.uk/communication/latest-news/

Termly Newsletters: https://www.stjohns.excalibur.org.uk/communication/newsletters/