Ninestiles News at Nine December 2019

Welcome to our December newsletter
Dear Parents and Carers
It’s my great privilege to be able to write to you at
the end of another busy, eventful and greatly
fulfilling term for everyone at Ninestiles. As you will
have seen from our weekly bulletins, we have had a
packed autumn term, offering a wide range of
exciting opportunities to students. We’ve also
undertaken considerable work to ensure we have a
curriculum which is broad and balanced whilst also
stimulating and full of rich learning experiences.
This curriculum, allied to our focus on reading and
literacy, is allowing us to raise our aspirations for all
students. Our commitment is to work in
partnership with all parents and carers to provide
our students with a high quality education that
allows them to leave Ninestiles, An Academy as self
-respecting, global citizens. It was fantastic to see
our Year 11 high attaining students return in
September and receive the accolades from Jess
Phillips, MP, which their high accomplishments
deserve. Look out for their Hall of Fame appearing
soon at the front of school.
A huge thank you to all those parents who support
us by ensuring their child is in school as regularly as
possible. High attendance is very closely linked to
attainment and outcomes, and I am delighted to be
able to say that we still have over 400 students with
100% attendance this school year.
For those that have fallen short of our 97% target,
then a prolonged period of attendance and the
commitment to not taking holidays during the
school year will help to reach the heights.
Unfortunately, some parents have received penalty
notices from the local council through their Fast
Track process. Please work with us to ensure this
isn’t you!
As we approach the festive period, my thoughts
always turn to the students and families in our
community who find this time of year challenging,
and need support to ensure it is an enjoyable and
restful time. I’ve been delighted by the way our
staff and students, supported by local charities such
as the Acocks Green Lions, have come together to
provide for our most vulnerable. It is a real sign of
the respect that students have for each other and
the community that so much has been donated and
given to families and shows the strength of
commitment we all share to our local area. This
term has also seen extensive work with our Young
Carers. We have over 30 students in this group and
they handle the day to day of school life alongside
the added responsibility of being a carer
magnificently. We’ve
been able to support
them with day trips,
support and
counselling and a
special Principal’s
Afternoon Tea; they
are a truly inspiring
group.

We were delighted to welcome a team of Ofsted
Inspectors into the school at the start of
December. The whole staff body at Ninestiles is
dedicated to ensuring we deliver a high quality
education for your children and so were very
grateful to receive and act on the feedback given.
We are committed to the constant improvement of
everything we do and look forward to sharing the
full report with you when it is published in early
January.
The end of term of this term sees two colleagues
heading to new pastures. I wish Mr Mendonca well
in his new role and Mrs O’Grady a long and action
packed retirement.
Term starts again for Year 11 on Tuesday 7 th
January and for all other year groups on
Wednesday 8 th January. I look forward to seeing all
our students return in full school uniform,
including black shoes, and with the necessary
equipment to be successful in the new year.
Have a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New
Year; I look forward to working with you all in
2020.
Best wishes,
Alex Hughes
Principal
Our final students of the week for 2019
The following students will be enjoying hot
chocolate and doughnuts with Mr Hughes and our
Vice Principles on the last day of term.
Congratulations to them all for their efforts.
Year
Student
7 Roop Rehal
7 Mashkoor Labid
8 Malaika Waqas
8 Divine Munhuashati
9 Reayah Sarwar
9 Alasan Njie-Morgan
9 Alfie Redmond
10 Elliott Clifton
10 Aisha Tabassum
10 Chelsea Marshall
11 Raafay Irfan
11 Humaira Choudhury

Director of Year End of Term Updates
Year 7—Miss Simpson
Year 7 students have had a fantastic start to their
first term at Ninestiles. They have been extremely
busy exploring new surroundings, forming new
friendships and being immersed in a broad and
exciting curriculum.
Following on from a successful Parent/Tutor
meeting in September, parents and carers, along
with students, were invited back to school in
November to celebrate Year 7 Achievement at our
Celebration Event. It was a perfect opportunity for
teachers to recognise students in their classes who
are committed to learning and achieving their best.
Subject departments created some eye catching
displays of outstanding work produced by the
students, and everyone enjoyed some tasty
homemade refreshments, made by the students
themselves.
Year 7 are currently leading the way for their
attendance at the extra-curricular clubs on offer at
Ninestiles. Many students have been attending
more than one after school club so far this term,
making sure that they are tracking their progress in
their Enrichment and Healthy Active Lifestyles
passports. This is a huge credit to them and will
continue to be beneficial to their overall health
and wellbeing. This was clear to see from the
commitment shown by our SEND Athletics team,
who were awarded gold medals for their
participation in a recent athletics meet.
Congratulations must go to the Debate Mate
students who participated at a debating event at
Birmingham University in November. They
continue to go from strength to strength with the
support of Mr Talib and Mr Kemp.
Year 7 also had the opportunity to explore
Birmingham with the Geography department.
Students spent a morning exploring the
Birmingham Museum, wandering through the
Christmas markets and admiring the architecture
inside Grand Central, all whilst completing field
work at three key locations en-route.
In January we look forward to welcoming David
Graham, who will perform an interactive show for
Year 7 called Natural High.
As Director of Year 7, I am extremely proud of
what students have achieved so far this year,
especially as they are only at the beginning of
their school experience. I look forward to guiding
and supporting them further in the new year,
watching them build self-confidence and exceed
our high expectations.
Year 8—Miss Ferguson
Year 8 students have had a steady start to the
school year. Our focus this term has been ‘Basic
Expectations’ where students have been
encouraged to do the right things at the right
time, and to make the right choices when faced
with decisions. Their tutors have been amazing at
helping to support Year 8s with this, and I’m
delighted that the vast majority of students are
managing this with ease, whilst the remainder
are working well to achieve this.

Next term I hope to organise some ‘Parent and
Child’ subject specific sessions and other
opportunities where parents can come into school
and access help and support in order to help their
children. Thank you to all parents and carers for
the work that you are doing to support us.
Year 9—Mr Payne
My name is Mr Payne and it’s with great
enthusiasm that I’d like to introduce myself as
Director of Year 9. The year group has had a good
start to the year with lots of exciting activities
happening. It was pleasing to see so many of the
year group take the opportunity of visiting a
university this term. We had visits to Cambridge,
Oxford, Birmingham City, Worcester,
Gloucestershire, and Birmingham universities over
the four days. I hope that this experience has given
students some aspirations as to where they would
like their Year 10 option choices to lead them in the
future. New opportunities such as the Duke of
Edinburgh Award and visits to the nursing home
have been well attended by Year 9, which is lovely
to see. I can also see Year 9 are making great
strides forward in reading and maths in time for
starting the GCSE content this year. I would like see
Year 9 students really knuckle down and focus on
being ‘GCSE ready’ in time for the Options process.
Some key dates I would like to draw your attention
to:
Tuesday 4 th February: Options Information
Evening (5-7pm)
Tuesday 28 th April: Parents Evening
Year 10—Miss Wright
Year 10 have had a busy start to the academic year.
Students have been receiving extra English provision
during tutor time, and many have found this
extremely useful; it is therefore imperative that
students arrive to school on time.
A number of students have been selected for a
variety of activities throughout this term, including
“Restart a Heart” CPR training, and workshops from
“Prison Me, No Way” and HM Royal Marines. We
hope that students can use these opportunities to
think about their future and make informed life
choices.
Work experience continues to remain the main
focus for all Year 10 students- well done to those
who have already secured a placement! Work
experience starts on 11 th May 2020. It is important
that those who are yet to secure a placement do so
quickly, as other school students will be applying,
and competition will be fierce!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank those
students who have consistently had impeccable
behaviour and uniform, and a strong work ethic. You
continue to make staff at this school extremely
proud and I’m sure the commitment you have
shown towards your studies will be rewarded.
Wishing you all a safe and happy holiday.

Year 11—Miss Kaur
This half term:
References are currently being written by form
tutors which will then be sent to college
placements.
Students have started to apply to colleges and
have been given deadlines for grammar school
applications which are this side of Christmas and
some in January. All the others will be in January/
February. A handful of our students have already
had successful interviews, demonstrating their
proactiveness.
Careers Interviews: All of our Year 11s will
eventually have a careers interview with our
careers advisor, Debbie Perry. A significant number
of students have already had their interviews and
have found the information useful.
Prom: we will be booking the venue after
Christmas so all deposits MUST be in by January
10th 2020. We have a Prom Committee; the
members are: Chloe Clarke, Zarah Ahmed, Charlie
Jones, Katie Wilcox, Georgie Ryatt, Arooj Shoaib,
Manasveer Kainth, Vaishali Shingadia and Aswin
Kumar.
Our Head Boy, Aswin Kumar, had a talk with an
ex-student, Haroon Irshad, about an amazing
opportunity to join the UK Youth Parliament last
week.
Please note: Year 11s have their PPEs in January so
teachers are preparing them for these; students
have access to revision guides and material and a
personal exam timetable has been issued.
Book of the Week
Christmas Stories—Scholastic Classics
A heart-warming collection of
classic Christmas tales. Perfect
for curling up with on a cold
December night. Great festive
traditions brought alive by top
writers.
Gifts, snow, elves, acts of
kindness - all the joy of Christmas, from sleigh
bells to ballet trips, captured by the world’s
greatest authors.
Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan
Doyle, Kenneth Grahame, E. Nesbit, Hans
Christian Andersen and more.
Year 11 Poetry Lectures
All Year 11 students have been invited to attend
university-style poetry lectures in the Hall every
Monday. Lectures have taken an in-depth and
contextualised approach to poetry. There has
been an excellent turnout of students, who all
listened attentively and made diligent notes.
These will continue next half term where we
hope to see as many Year 11 students as
possible.
Monday 13 th January
Monday 20 th January
Monday 27 th January
Monday 3 rd February
Monday 10 th February
Tissue: Mr Bond
Storm on the Island:
Ms Nelson
The Emigree: Ms Price
War Photographer:
Mr Flowerdew
Ozymandias: Mrs Raja

Geography Updates
This half term, Geography have been busy
providing extra curricula activities for our Year 7
and 11 students. We have taken out two very
successful trips looking at regeneration.
Year 7 have been learning about the local area, in
particular, Birmingham. We have covered
numerous aspects from the history of migration
to the UK, which has made it the diverse
multicultural city it is today, to what it will look
like in the future, with the regeneration of
Digbeth and its change to Smithfield. Year 7 were
taken out to look at regeneration across
Birmingham and all completed a pedestrian
count, field sketch and an environmental quality
survey. As they had a little time left over, they
managed to squeeze in a visit to St Martin’s
Church or St Phillips Cathedral and also a trip to
the German market. Children used their
knowledge when they were back in lessons and
created and completed statistical analysis.
Our Year 11s travelled further out into Greater
Birmingham and visited Coventry city centre. As
part of their GCSE studies, students are asked to
conduct a research project looking at
regeneration. Students dived into the tasks well,
despite the cold and rain. Outstanding behaviour
was seen on the trip and all students thoroughly
enjoyed their research. Through completing
questionnaires, our students gained confidence in
themselves. They have since been back in lessons
creating radar graphs, pictograms and complex
bar charts to enable them to reach a results
analysis, conclusion and evaluation.
British Sign Language Club
Ninestiles’ British Sign Language Club started this
term and has been a huge success. We hope to
fund members to take an Entry Level course in the
new year.
Merry Christmas from Ninestiles’ British Sign
Language Club!
Parent Forums
Please see below the dates for the parent forums
for the rest of this academic year. We do hope you
come along and give us your views on various
topics related to your child’s education and
wellbeing at Ninestiles:
Monday 13th January
Monday 2nd March
Monday 27th April
Monday 8th June
All forums start at 5.30pm. Please email
principal@ninestiles.org.uk if you would like to
attend.

Maths News
This has been another
exceptional term of
Mathematics at
Ninestiles.
Pupils across all year
groups have been
working hard to answer
as many questions as possible on Hegarty Maths,
with an average score of 200 questions per student
across the school. The top pupils in each year group
were: Adam Hussain (Year 7, 1220 questions),
Fatima Noman (Y8, 1699), Wajihah Kadiri (Y9,
1613), Rukhsar Chandni (Y10, 934) and Mohammed
Alam (Y11, 6566). Pupils in Year 7 have also been
working towards earning their Rock Hero
certificates, which can be collected from their form
tutors once they reach this target.
Year 11 pupils have represented the school in the
Mathematical Olympiad for Girls (Hinaa Ladha,
Vaishali Shingadia, Eliza Nisar, Muntaha Ali), Senior
Team Challenge (Alex Brogan, Musa Idriss, Hinaa
Ladha, Manasveer Kainth) and Senior Mathematics
Challenge this term. Silver certificates were
awarded to Alex Brogan and Musa Idriss, while
Hinaa Ladha, Manasveer Kainth, Javed Shajahan,
Anika Fahmida, Alaadin Ali, Subhan Ali, and Aman
Mohammed all earned bronze. Congratulations to
everyone who took part!
Urban Artwork
Well done to Year 8 students, Abir and Aamina, on
their fantastic Urban artwork. These pieces,
produced in the style of the artist ROA, show their
commitment and skill in art and design.
Drawing by Aamina Bibi—Year 8
Drawing by Abir Ahmed—Year 8

News from the MFL department
September saw the launch of our new Japanese
Club, which students have been attending regularly
in the mornings before school. They have been
exposed to the Japanese culture and are now able
to introduce themselves confidently, with some
excellent pronunciation! December also saw a visit
to the University of Birmingham for current Year 10
GCSE students, who were given an MFL
masterclass. The afternoon included a lecture
about the benefits of speaking another language as
well as taster sessions in Russian and Japanese.
Students thoroughly enjoyed trying new languages
and enjoyed visiting the Russell Group university's
beautiful campus.
Some images from Japanese Club on 12th December.

Women in History
In Year 8 History, we have been looking at
significant women in history and this has really
helped our students to see just how important
these women were and how they overcame many
challenges to achieve the things they did. We have
been learning about Cleopatra, Joan of Arc,
Elizabeth I, Pocahontas, Mary Seacole and
Margaret Thatcher. This has also got students
thinking about other groups of people who may be
missing from history and how there are still many
gender inequalities in the world today.
Acocks Green Lions
We are very grateful to the Acocks Green Lions for
the support they give our school. They very
generously donated £250 towards our school food
bank. Some of our students went out to support
them with their Santa Sleigh in the week before
Christmas.
Cleopatra,
c. 69BC to 30BC
Joan of Arc, c. 1412 to 1431

Ninestiles Foodbank
Thank you to all staff and students who have very
generously donated food, toiletries and gifts to our
foodbank.
We have given food parcels to 14 families so far,
helping out 57 individuals for whom Christmas can
be a really tough time. We hope it’s one less
challenge for them over the holidays.
Thank you to the Acocks Green Lions for their very
generous donation.
Maple Dene Care Home Visits
As part of our Enrichment programme, on a 6
weekly rota, a number of our students travel on a
weekly basis to Maple Dene Care home in
Birmingham, to visit residents and provide
company and entertainment.
The staff at Maple Dene have been really
impressed by our students, especially Year 9
student, Alfie Redmond, who has really supported a
small group of residents, whose faces light up every
time they see him return.
This week our choir visited them to sing Christmas
carols and enjoy a party with residents.
Thanks to Miss Blaney for organising the choir,
Miss Turton and Miss Fisher for running the club
this term, and Mr Hunt for supporting with the
transportation on a regular basis. Our students
have got as much out of these visits as the
residents, possibly more.
Christmas Card Winner
Congratulations to Tegan Hinckes in Year 9 who
designed the winning Christmas card in this year’s
competition.

Ninestiles Student Union
We have three students, who are part of the
Ninestiles Student Union, who would like to join
the UK Youth Parliament.
An ex-student, Haroon Irshad, came into school to
speak to the students about this fantastic
opportunity, as he too has been part of the
process and even got to speak in the House of
Commons.
The three students are Abdihafid Ahmed, Demi
Leigh-Jones and Sofina Hussain. They are currently
writing their manifestos on issues that they care
about most, and the school will need to vote for
one candidate after Christmas. They are also
thinking about their campaign and how they
intend on getting votes!
Students from across the UK will be taking part
and we really hope a member of our union gets
voted into the parliament. Good luck to them all.
Young Carers
We have been celebrating and supporting our
Young Carers this month, in recognition of the
work they do at home, on top of their school work.
They enjoyed a trip to Cadbury World at the start
of December, and were invited to a special tea
party on 17th, with Mr Hughes, Mrs Beech and our
Safeguarding Leads. It was lovely to see them
relax and enjoy themselves together. We have
around 30 Young Carers in school, and they are a
fantastic bunch.
Birmingham City Council SEND Youth Forum
Information for Parents and Carers:
Birmingham City Council is in the process of setting
up a Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
(SEND) Youth Forum. Children and young people
have the right to be involved in decisions that affect
them and this helps to ensure that services
provided are relevant to their needs.
We want to make sure that the voice of our young
people with SEND is at the heart of the work that
we do. This is an exciting opportunity for 12 of our
young people to shape and influence SEND in
Birmingham schools.
We welcome applications from secondary aged
young people with SEND who attend a mainstream
Birmingham school.
If you know a young person who is interested in
being part of the forum and you would like to know
more, please email the project team at:
youthforum@birmingham.gov.uk and we will get
back to you and discuss further.
Mary Poppins
Tickets for our production of
Mary Poppins will go on sale
after Christmas. There are two
opportunities for parents and
the public to see this fantastic
event on Tuesday 11th and
Wednesday 12th February
2020.

Debate Mate
Debate Mate started in earnest after half term and
it has been a great success. Students from across
Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 have been taking part in the
weekly club and learning valuable debating skills. A
dozen students have also taken part in our Debate
Mate Accelerate programme which is an extra
lesson a week of debate. There are over 50
students taking part in some form of debate every
week.
We are looking forward to next term when students
will be able to test their new found skills in various
competitions. Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 will be taking
part in the Urban League debate and Ninestiles will
also be hosting the prestigious ESU Public Speaking
Competition in January, for which our Year 11s are
busy preparing!
BBC Young Reporters
This term, students in
Years 7 to 10 have
taken part in BBC
Young Reporters,
which gives students
the opportunity to write for a real
audience. Students have been busy learning
journalism skills such as finding sources,
interviewing, and writing articles, amongst others.
In March, Ninestiles, along with hundreds of other
schools across the country, will take part in the BBC
Young Reporters News Day. We look forward to
seeing what stories make it to our news deadline in
March. We welcome new members; please speak
to Mr Collins, Mr Flowerdew, or Ms Nelson if you
would like more information about joining.
Responsible Parking
Please ensure that
when dropping off
and picking up
your child from
school, you park
safely and
responsibly.
Student safety is of
paramount
importance to us,
and we need your
support to help
keep them all safe
outside of school.
If you need help over Christmas
There may be times over the Christmas holiday
when families need to access additional support,
and a number of agencies will be able to help. On
the Safeguarding page of the school website,
there is a document called ‘How to get help,
advice and support when you need it most’. This
is for parents and carers as well as young people.
It includes details of how to seek support for
mental health worries, young suicide and
domestic violence. It also has the contact details
for ChildLine (0800 1111). All of these services
have a variety of ways in which you can access
them and obtain help, advice and support.
Other agencies such as Health and the Police will
also be able to support over this period and have
other services that they can refer you to as well.
If you need additional advice and support over
Christmas then never do nothing and always ask
for help.