Key Information

Welcome to the Key Information Page. Here, you will find everything you need to support your child's journey at Barclay Academy. 

If you wish to contact us, please click here. 

School Day

School opens at 8.00 am and all students are expected to be on site no later than 8.25 am.

Breakfast Club	8.00am - 8.25am
Period 1	8.30am - 9.20am
Period 2	9.20am - 10.15am
Y7/Y8 Break Time Y9/Y10/Y11/6th Form Tutor Time	10.15am - 10.35am 10.15am - 10.40am
Y7/Y8 Tutor Time Y9/Y10/Y11/6th Form Break Time	10.35am - 11.00am 10.40am - 11.00am
Period 3	11.00am - 11.50am
Period 4	11.50am - 12.45pm
Lunch Time	12.45pm - 1.25pm
Period 5	1.25pm - 2.15pm
Period 6	2.15pm - 3.10pm
Co - Curricular Clubs	3.15pm - 4.15pm

Pastoral Care

At Barclay Academy, we take pride in an environment that facilitates the highest expectations of behaviour, attendance, participation, and learning. We recognise that each student is an individual, and we endeavour to protect their welfare and provide the support they need to flourish and succeed. We are proud of our knowledge-rich curriculum, but we recognise that academic development is not the sole aim of school, and that without supportive networks and pastoral care systems in place, our students’ learning would be compromised. We therefore have the highest standards of behaviour, attendance, and participation for our students, because having such standards creates an environment in which students are ready and best able to learn.

Creating an environment where every student is valued, enabled to flourish, and given the confidence to know they can achieve is at the heart of Barclay Academy. We believe care and support are fundamental to students achieving their best.  We are experts in understanding the challenges students face as they grow up. We understand their needs, their friendship dynamics, and their ambitions. Our pastoral system is devised to support and empower students to encourage confidence and self-esteem.

Driven by our principles and high standards of behaviour, attendance, and punctuality, we place an emphasis on respecting and valuing every individual. Our pastoral system also promotes student leadership, participation, community awareness and charity work through tutorials and assemblies, whilst being central to the home – school partnership. It is not just staff who care but all our students show great kindness and compassion for one another. This is what makes Barclay Academy very special indeed.

Reporting a Safeguarding Concern

If you are concerned about a child or young person outside of school hours please contact Hertfordshire Council on 0300 123 4043 immediately.

Designated Safeguarding Lead

•   Mrs M Charlwood - m.charlwood@barclay.futureacademies.org

Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads

• Mrs N Blackburn - n.blackburn@barclay.futureacademies.org
• Mrs C Smith - c.smith@barclay.futureacademies.org
• Mr A Crawley - a.crawley@barclay.futureacademies.org
• Mr J Dawe - j.dawe@barclay.futureacademies.org
• Mrs R Buttress - r.buttress@barclay.futureacademies.org

How to contact

safeguarding@barclay.futureacademies.org (outside of school hours or during school holidays). 

Inclusion

At our academy, we believe in creating inclusive environments that aim to meet the needs of all students.

We want to ensure that our Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) provision offers appropriate support for those facing barriers to their learning.

We provide support within all four broad areas of SEND: 

• cognition and learning
• communication and interaction
• sensory and physical
• social, emotional and mental health

Our school SENDCO leads on the provision for students with SEND, and Gary Aubin oversees provision for students with SEND across Future Academies, to ensure that it is of the highest standards. Contact our SENDCo. 

Home Learning

We believe that home learning is an important part of students’ education, extending and reinforcing work done in school.

Home learning is any work or activity which students are required to do outside of lesson time and tasks can include reading, revising, researching, planning, designing and sketching in addition to written work.

We believe that home learning is important because it helps students:

• Learn how to plan and organise their work
• Learn how to work on their own
• Learn how to use time effectively and meet deadlines
• Practise what has been introduced in class, or undertake background work that will help enhance understanding
• Use resources other than those available in school
• Involve people outside school in their work.

We believe that parental support and encouragement in ensuring that home learning tasks are done conscientiously and without distraction is crucial to our students’ learning. Students are encouraged to seek advice from their teacher if they are having difficulty with their home learning, or are finding that it is taking a much longer time than expected.

For recording students' home learning tasks, Barclay Academy uses My Chat At School (MCAS), an online homework information platform.  All students and parents have individual user accounts which enables them to see what tasks have been set and can be easily accessed at home on all electronic devices.

Learn Like a Champion

Our fantastic staff put a lot of effort into preparing lessons and planning to 'Teach like a Champion'.  As such,  our students experience high quality teaching at Barclay and Learn like a Champion is designed to train pupils to respond effectively to our teaching to promote learning and progress. Teacherspractise different teaching techniques to ensure our pupils get the highest quality lessons every day of the academic year. We  believe it is important that all of our pupils understand these techniques so they can fully support their teachers and take an active part in their learning.

Learn like a Champion is delivered as a weekly form time activity and puts the emphasis on the pupils and their vital role within the learning process. It involves sharing with pupils the teaching strategies we use and explaining why we use them in the classroom. Teachers train our pupils in how they respond to these strategies to promote effective learning.

Learn like a Champion is designed to use the language of ‘we’ which indicates that both pupils and teachers are behind great learning. It is a two-way street, together we achieve. This allows our pupils to understand why we teach in a certain way and then practice responding to these strategies to improve their learning.

Learn like a Champion creates active, effective learners who are enthusiastic and curious about their learning.

Mental Health and Wellbeing

At Barclay Academy we aim to promote a whole school ethos whereby emotional wellbeing and mental health is embedded throughout our community and is accepted as the responsibility of everyone within our community. We aim to provide our students, staff and wider community with a continued and consistent approach to maintaining good emotional wellbeing and mental health through a variety of mediums, using our whole school approach, universal services or more targeted interventions utilising local support accordingly.

Working together with our students, staff and families we can ensure a holistic approach is maintained creating opportunities for successful outcomes and continuing on our journey to help end the stigma which is often attached to mental health.

We have developed opportunities within the curriculum to teach our students about wellbeing and mental health, promoting self-awareness, self-care and positive mind-sets. We understand that life can sometimes be tricky and developing the skills to respond to these times builds resilience, enabling our students to learn and grow on their own personal journeys. We believe in all of our students and we aim to provide an environment where they can thrive both personally and academically, no matter what circumstances they may be experiencing.

Our Mental Health Lead has completed extensive training which is government approved, every Head of Year is Mental Health First Aid trained and each member of the Pastoral Team are dedicated and committed to continued professional development within wellbeing and mental health. Click here for mental health and emotional wellbeing services.

MCR Pathways

Young Herts Talent is a mentoring programme from MCR Pathways designed to help young people unlock their potential.   

By providing weekly group work sessions for selected students in Year 7 and Year 8 and taking the time to carefully match students in Years 9-13 with their very own mentor based on interests and career aspirations, we help young people to realise their skills and progress onto a positive destination after leaving school.   

Mentors visit students in school once a week and commit to at least one full academic year of mentoring.  As long as both the student and the mentor are happy to do so, the mentoring relationship is able to continue until the student leaves school in Year 11, or Year 13 if staying on in the Sixth Form.  This ensures that students receive encouragement and support to succeed for the entirety of their Barclay journey.

Personal Development 

All students at Barclay Academy study Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE), which is delivered as part of the tutor programme. The PSHE curriculum complements the programmes of study for all other subjects and aims to help our students develop key skills and acquire the knowledge, understanding and attributes they need to manage their lives now and in the future. It aims to introduce our students to the concept that they are part of a wider community as global citizens now and in their future roles within a global community.

Through our PSHE curriculum we aim to help build confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives and enjoy learning. We want our students to become responsible citizens who make positive contributions to society. Our PSHE curriculum is underpinned by British Values as well as Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural (SMSC) developments.

Our PSHE curriculum aims to help students:

• develop positive personal attributes such as resilience, self-confidence, self-esteem, and empathy
• develop skills and strategies to live healthy, safe, fulfilling, responsible and balanced lives
• form positive relationships
• explore, clarify and if necessary challenge, their own and others’ values, attitudes, beliefs, rights and responsibilities
• respond to challenge, making and acting upon informed decisions
• communicate effectively
• be an active partner in their own learning
• be active citizens within the local and wider community.

 Reading

Barclay Academy employs a multi-layered approach to promote a love of reading and to improve literacy levels amongst all our students. We understand the importance of a pupil being able to read well and its correlation with their success in life. Our approach evolves and develops pupils' reading skills, whilst ensuring they have exposure to a wide breadth of texts both in the classroom and when reading for pleasure.

We endeavour to ensure we close any gaps where a pupil's chronological age is higher than their reading age. We test pupils in term 1 and term 6 using the New Group Reading Tests and send the data home to parents to open conversations around the importance of reading. We have a robust intervention programme where pupils are selected to be put on to a range of targeted programmes to help close any gaps, including Lexia, Arrow, Fresh Start and Rapid Plus. 

We have a well-stocked library with an experienced librarian who helps pupils select the right reading materials for the pupil's age and interests. Books are constantly being added to keep the library updated and we are able to order in books that pupils request. We communicate new additions to pupils via posters round the school.  Our library has a range of displays that promote reading around specific topics, non-fiction and books over pupils suggest. Staff also have their chosen book on their doors to open discussions with pupils around recommended reads. Pupils have one timetabled 50-minute lesson per week where they can read for pleasure. Within these lessons we hold competitions to help motivate pupils to read more with prizes such as a trip to Harry Potter Studios. Our sixth form pupils support with these sessions and hear their peers read on a rotational basis. We are proud of the reading culture we have established at Barclay, with pupils being consistently exposed to challenging academic texts in the classroom alongside a culture of reading for pleasure outside of it. 

Reading strategies in place:

• Targeted interventions across KS3 and KS4 to close gaps; Arrow, Lexia, Rapid Plus and Fresh Start
• Read aloud as a whole school teaching strategy
• Challenging reading-based curriculum (average reading age 17) but comprehension questions used to check understanding. Adapted to suit class needs 
• Specific reading lessons in the library- 50 minutes per week
• DEAR in tutor time
• Library with a wide range of genres open before, during and after school
• Sixth form library
• Sixth form helpers in library lessons
• Competitions as incentive
• World Book Day- whole school focus
• Library displays and feedback
• Reading Cloud
• English tutor for intervention work
• Reading posters on staff doors
• New to the library posters
• Bi- weekly newsletter focus

 Relationships & Sex Education

At Barclay Academy we aim to provide a balanced sex and relationships education programme which combines the emotional, physical, moral, legal and social aspects of sex and relationships.

In addition to the National Curriculum requirements in both Science and Religion, Philosophy and Ethics’, we deliver sessions through the tutor programme as well as timetable drop down days. Material covered includes healthy relationships, sexually transmitted infections, contraception and pregnancy, and the safe use of social media.

We encourage the students to explore their own attitudes and values providing them with the skills to manage their relationships in a responsible and healthy manner. As we seek to prepare our students for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life, we regard sex and relationships education as an important part of their learning.

If for any reason you wish to excuse your child from receiving sex education at school please contact the relevant Head of Year.

Student Leadership

The Student Council represents the views of students from across the school.  It is led by the year 11 representatives and there are members from every year group who are elected on an annual basis.

The Student Council meets every two weeks and students discuss a wide variety of subjects suggested by both staff and the students themselves. The School Council plays an important role in the recruitment of new staff as they  to ask in-depth questions about elements of the role that they find important.

Student voice is greatly valued at Barclay Academy and the Student Council makes a valuable contribution to many aspects of school life.  The students are trusted to co-ordinate other leadership roles in the school such as Learning to Lead teams.  The Student Council is given an annual budget that can be used to make a difference to aspects of their day to day experience of school life, and the role of Student Council representative enables students to develop valuable communication skills as they work with different members of our school community.

The Student Council members take great pride in their school and in their ability to play a significant role in its life and development.