October Half Term Newsletter
Posted 24th October 2025
We have had another action-packed half term here at TLA!
GCSE success
Over the summer holidays, our class of 2025 Year 11s received their GCSE and BTEC results. There were so many wonderful success stories, and our students have now gone on to colleges, 6th forms or Post 16 apprenticeships! We are so proud of each and every one of them!
Swimming at TLA
This half term, we welcomed our very own pop-up swimming pool, and worked with Swim Ed to provide intensive swimming lessons every day. Year 4 made fabulous progress – they soon grew in confidence and loved their lessons. They have been very successful, and we are very proud. We also had after school clubs too, bringing splash sessions and water polo to our list of clubs. Not only did our school use the pool, but we also worked with Meadowfield Primary School to ensure that their Year 4 children also benefitted from this. We will be using the same approach next year, so there will be more swimming success in the future.
Excellence Week
In the first week back in September, we held our annual ‘Excellence Week’. This included a Careers Fair for Years 5 to 11, as well as their parents, to have the opportunity to speak to local businesses and find out more about what they offer, and which careers they may wish to pursue in the future. A huge thank you to all the incredible businesses, educational institutions and apprenticeship providers who joined us! Our Year 10 and Year 11 students were also given the opportunity of some formal interview practice from external volunteers, including members of our Local Governing Board, senior colleagues from across our Trust, and other community representatives. Whilst this is always a very daunting experience, it is one that our students embrace and gain so much from.
Sport Superstars
Our Year 9 and 10 netball teams began the season this half term and got off to a flying start; with the Year 10 girls beating the Co-op Academy 14-1 in their opening game! Our football teams have also taken part in several fixtures this half term and are doing incredibly well!
TLA Musicians
At the end of September, some of our Year 5 children were lucky enough to take part in a Hip Hop, Open Mic event in school. We were joined by all of the Red Kite Trust primary schools for the workshops. The children all had a great time and learnt the key parts of hip hop culture as well as having a go at breaking (dance moves), learnt a rap and created their own raps about themselves - then performed to each other. The final took place here at TLA on 10th October, which was a fabulous day!
TLA celebrated National Poetry Day on 2nd October, where students took part in activities across school aligned with our CORE values!
Student Principals
We voted for our new Student Principals and Deputy Student Principals in the Secondary phase this half term. The competition was fierce, and every staff member and student vote counted! Primary House Captain elections have also taken place. The discussions, speeches and team spirit was fantastic to see during all of these elections. Continuing the theme of democracy, Years 5 and 6 experienced a live, virtual session with the House of Lords, where they had the opportunity to ask a real Lord Bishop (David) any questions they wanted. Our children were incredibly articulate and asked some really excellent, thoughtful questions.
Open Evening
We held our annual Open Evening in September, as we welcomed our potential new September 2026 Reception and Year 7 cohorts to TLA. As part of the evening, several of our current students and some visiting children, embarked on a large-scale piece of Red Kite artwork, using the four house and school badge colours! This was completed by our TLA Art Club, and now takes pride of place in the diner of our school!
Big Decisions
Post 16 visits have continued this academic year to support our Year 11 students with their decision making about their future. Some students also attended the Leeds Digtial Careers Fair at Leeds Arena, as well as vistis to open days at Notre Dame, Leeds City College and Leeds College of Building.
Restart a Heart
Restart a Heart day took place at TLA on 16th October. The whole of Year 7, plus our Year 10 Child Development students, all took part in workshops over the course of the day to learn life saving CPR skills! This is also part of the Personal Development curriculum.
Motorsport UK
On 2nd October, 12 of our Year 9 students had the fantastic opportunity to take part in the Race for Diversity Motorsport UK programme – sponsored by ex-world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton! They enjoyed an action-packed day that included go-karting, a pit stop challenge and learning about careers in motorsport and STEM. A huge thank you to Motorsport UK for inspiring our students and showing them the exciting possibilities within the industry. The icing on the cake was winning the 'School of the Day'. We are really proud of our students and the way they engaged and conducted themselves throughout the day.
Celebrating Achievements
Primary students have continued to showcase their excellent work every Friday at the Headteacher’s Awards, when children are invited to have juice and biscuits with Mrs Clark and Miss Durn – and special guest Amber - our reading dog!
Our Artists of the Week have also continued to shine every Friday – with some excellent pieces of art being produced by our Secondary Phase!
Careers Week
Towards the end of half term, we celebrated Careers Week across our Secondary Phase. Throughout the week, students explored careers linked to each subject in their lessons, discovering how what they learn every day connects to the world of work. Their assemblies focussed on career pathways and current labour market information, helping students think about their future opportunities. We also welcomed local businesses into school to work with our students – thank you to everyone who gave up their time to support this!
Battlefields Trip
Our final trip of half term was our Battlefields trip, taking our Year 10 and Year 11 History students to France and Belgium! We hope you all have a fabulous time!
Attendance
As you are aware, attendance is our number one priority as a school. This is because attendance is the main barrier to your child achieving their best and being able to succeed during their time here at TLA from Reception to Year 11, and in their future careers. The reason why we want to keep your child’s attendance above 95% is because we want to prevent your child from missing key learning points that they will need in future to continue to build on their understanding. This is like missing an episode here and there in a TV series or soap – it can make it difficult to understand what is going on!
We are keen to support you in making sure your child continues to attend school every day. Please check the below advice from the NHS carefully about when your child can come into school when they are feeling unwell. Please be reassured that we will always care for your child, and contact you if they are too unwell to remain in school.
Last year, TLA children who attended 95%+ of the time were far more likely to achieve age-related expectation at each stage than those who attended less than this.
As well as helping your child achieve, attending every day means that your child can feel confident in their successes, spend time with their friends, and take advantage of all the opportunities TLA can offer them - such as trips, visits, and extra-curricular activities. We don't want them to miss out! We are always here to help support you with your child's attendance so please contact the Attendance Team on the school number with any queries or requests for further support.
We look forward to welcoming all children back to school on Monday 3rd November, and in the meantime, I hope that you all have a wonderful half term break. Please also remember that school will close at 12:45pm on Friday 19th December for the Christmas break.
