On Thursday 9th January, a small group of pupils from across the Gateway Learning Community visited Yes Futures. The visit gave our pupils the opportunity to take part in a range of engaging activities and workshops, designed to enhance their leadership skills, boost their confidence, and broaden their aspirations for the future. Yes Futures is a charity dedicated to empowering young people, providing pupils with a platform to explore new personal and academic pathways, helping them realise and unlock their full potential.

I love the quote from Charles Payne that was shared with teaching staff early on in the term. The part I like best, of course, is this. ‘Expose [children] to as much as you can, especially the arts.’

All four of our GLC primary schools are now signed up to Music Mark and their poster gives us a really good summary of the things that our music education offers to children, our school community and our own lives. Finding the music you love is a great thing and helps us all with our own mental wellbeing as well as bringing us fun, excitement and a soundtrack to our lives.

There is always new music to discover and be inspired by. I had great feedback last year when one of our listening pieces was ‘Stand Up’ by Cynthia Erivo, who wrote and sang the song. Many had not heard of her and now here she is starring in the film version of Wicked and reaching a whole new audience. What an inspiration!

This term we have been thinking about Influential People and I hope you will have seen our 10 influential musicians posters on display. It was incredibly hard choosing just 10 musicians and I’m sure everyone will have their own 10 that they would have chosen. I tried to get a broad representation of people, with each one hopefully offering some inspiration to our students.

Anne- Marie - a local girl who has become a successful singer, The Beatles who were trailblazers of a new musical era, Ravi Shankar who brought his country’s music to the world, Evelyn Glennie - a world famous percussionist despite being deaf, Mozart - who started writing music as a child and whose music is still famous 250 years later, Sheku Kanneh-Mason - an inspiring young black British cello player, John Williams - composer of some of our most iconic film music, MC Grammer - using music for education and inspiring children at the Young Voices concerts, Bob Marley - bringing reggae to the world and Miles Davis - taking jazz to a new level.

Take a look at what has been going on across The Gateway Learning Community throughout Autumn 1.

Please take the opportunity to visit The Gateway Learning Community primary academy's Reception Open Days. One of them could be the perfect start to your child’s educational journey.

Full details are below:

The GLC directors and governors came together on the evening of Monday 30th September to discuss the current structure of governance which followed feedback from governors and staff.

The aims were to:

• To revisit our mission, motto and values;
• To revisit the current structure and rationale for change; 
• To ensure clarity about responsibilities;  
• Explore possible models and make recommendations to the board;
• To agree the name of the ‘body’ and ‘people’;
• To find out about your skills and interests.

Many interesting conversations were had and the group will come back together again later in the autumn term for the next steps.

On Tuesday 17th September, selected GLC leaders from the #WeWill All solving our problems action group met with the fantastic people at Kinetika. They worked alongside professionals in the creative industry to discuss their ideas, decorate silk squares and explore the flags and garden where the plants for natural dyes are grown. Overall, the students and pupils had a fantastic day.

Check ou the reel:  https://www.instagram.com/reel/DADbloBt6iS/?next=%2F