Dear Family,
We hope your child is excited and prepared as they start Year 11 with us at St Edmund’s Catholic Academy.
We are writing to inform you about the support opportunities that we have carefully planned and set up for our Year 11 students. We are proud to say that we have a whole host of excellent academic support initiatives on offer for our students to help prepare them through this vital year in their education journey.
This academic year we are introducing a ‘Passport to Prom’. In order to earn their prom invite this year, students will need to either:
- Have 97% attendance, 97% positive ratio on Arbor, and have zero suspensions.
- Receive 200 prom stamps before the prom date.
Stamps will be awarded for attendance, with bonus stamps for 100% attendance, 100% positive behaviour, attendance at after-school intervention sessions, improvements in mock grades, plus bonus opportunities to receive stamps for engagement in in-school interventions, completing excellent work in lessons, or producing independent revision materials. Basically – anything that will help them be successful!
The passport is a digital passport and not a physical one and students will accrue stamps via the merit system. Each stamp (merit) named ‘Passport to Prom’ will hold a value of 1. Students will be able to view how many stamps they have achieved via the school website homepage when they log in.
Students were introduced to the Passport to Prom at the end of last term, and we hope that it will encourage and enable all of our learners to be successful in Year 11, as well as gaining the opportunity to celebrate at our end of Year 11 Prom.
For those parents who have already paid for or are paying for the prom ticket for their child; buying your child’s prom ticket now helps us book the venue and plan the event. The 200 stamps on their Prom Passport are just a positive way to encourage them to stay focused and do their best in their GCSEs. We fully expect every single student to get all their stamps and come to prom! If your child, for whatever reason, does not reach 200 stamps and is unable to attend, you will get a full refund.
Underpinning this entire journey are our school’s CARE Values (Calm, Aspirational, Respectful, and Engaged). We encourage our Year 11 students to remain Calm as they navigate exam preparation, stay Aspirational in setting high goals for their future, maintain a Respectful attitude toward staff, peers, and their learning environment, and stay fully Engaged in every lesson and support session. Embodying these values daily will not only help them earn their prom stamps, but will also set them up for success beyond Year 11.
You have recently received information about after-school intervention sessions. These will take place starting at 3pm and finishing at 4pm. Each will be run by subject experts, and all students have been allocated subjects to attend.
The first set of mocks will start during the week commencing 16th November 2026. The second set of mocks will take place during the week commencing 25th January 2027.
We hope that your child makes the most of these many opportunities and knows that we will do everything we can to support them through this important, final year at St Edmund’s Catholic Academy.
It must also be mentioned that whilst we have a host of academic support on offer, we will also continue to support your child pastorally. If they have any concerns or worries, they must speak to their tutor or trusted adult, and we will act and support accordingly. Year 11 can be a stressful time for some students; however, there will be plenty of advice and care offered every day in order to minimise this. We know that this year’s Year 11 has great potential to do well not only academically, but will also leave our school as kind, respectful, and honest young people who will go on to make a great contribution to the world we share.
We look forward to working alongside you in this, your child’s final year at St Edmund’s Catholic Academy.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries, questions, or concerns.
Kind Regards,
Mr Sohker – Head of Upper School
Mrs Letheren – Vice Principal