Key Information

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

If you wish to contact us, please click here.

Reporting a safeguarding concern

If you have concerns that a child or children are being harmed, are at risk of harm, or receive a disclosure, you must report it to us immediately, and we will take appropriate action.

To contact the safeguarding team, please email using the details below. You can also report concerns in person by speaking to a staff member at the Academy. Provide as much information as possible, including your name, so we can respond quickly.

Designated Safeguarding Lead: Ms Staff, email l.staff@watford.futureacademies.org.
Mr Holloway, email: l.holloway@watford.futureacademies.org.
Mr Fox, email: s.fox@watford.futureacademies.org.

You can also discuss an issue with any member of our school staff, who are trained to report this to the appropriate people in school. You can also call the school on 01923672964.

SEND

At our academy, we are committed to creating an inclusive environment that meets the needs of all students. We believe that every student should have access to everything our academy has to offer, including our knowledge-rich curriculum. We strive to ensure that our Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) provision utilizes the right information and data at the right times to provide the appropriate support for those facing barriers to their learning.

We collaborate with a range of individuals and organizations to support our students with SEND, including:

Students and Parents: Engaging directly with students and their families to understand their unique needs and preferences.
DSPL9 and Hertfordshire SEND Teams: Partnering with local authorities and specialized teams to enhance our support services.

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, Mr Marc Faccini, leads the provision for students with SEND, ensuring they receive the tailored support they need to thrive. To contact our SENDCO please email: m.faccini@watford.futureacademies.org. For further information, please read our SEND Report.

Mobile Phones

Throughout history, successful individuals have demonstrated the ability to engage in deep concentration, thoughtful reflection, and positive face-to-face interactions. Mobile phones, by design, are addictive and interrupt these essential skills. As a school, we are dedicated to fostering these abilities in our students to ensure their future success. Therefore, mobile phones fundamentally contradict our educational mission.

For this reason Mobile phones are banned from site and cannot be seen or heard. Therefore, we request parents and carers to support our efforts in creating an optimal learning environment, we ask parents to choose one of the following three options:

Option 1: No Mobile phones in school. Support your child by not allowing them to bring a mobile phone to school. All necessary communication with home can be facilitated through your child's year team office. Help us make the school a mobile-free site.
Option 2: Basic phones only. If you are uncomfortable with the first step, please provide your child with a basic phone that can only send and receive calls and text messages (e.g., early Nokia models). This will minimize interruptions to your child's learning. If they bring this to school they should be turned off and placed in their bag until the end of the school day.
Option 3: Smartphone policy. If you insist on your child bringing a smartphone to school, please ensure they understand that phones will be confiscated for 24 hours if seen or heard on school premises. If they bring this to school they should be turned off and placed in their bag until the end of the school day. This policy applies to all students (Year 7-13).

Thank you for your support in helping us create a focused and conducive learning environment for all students.

School Day

Many young people come to school early to enjoy breakfast together or participate in extra revision sessions. Porridge is free at the school, and pupils who are entitled to free school meals have one pound added to their card each morning to buy extra provisions like croissants and bacon rolls. This money does not roll over into break time if it is not used.

Additionally, our school day often extends beyond period 6 for intervention, enrichment activities, or clubs. The overall structure of the day can be seen below. Pupils are expected to be ready for line-up by 8:25 AM, which means most pupils arrange to be at school by 8:20 AM at the latest.

Breakfast/Homework Club: 7:45 AM - 8:25 AM
Reset/Line Up: 8:25 AM
Period 1: 8:30 AM - 9:20 AM
Period 2: 9:20 AM - 10:10 AM
Break Time: 10:10 AM - 10:30 AM
Reset and Tutor Time: 10:30 AM – 11:00 AM
Period 3: 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM
Period 4: 11:50 AM - 12:40 PM
Lunch Time and Reset: 12:40 PM - 1:25 PM
Period 5: 1:25 PM - 2:15 PM
Period 6: 2:15 PM - 3:05 PM

Reading

The Importance of Reading at Future Academies Watford

At Future Academies Watford, we believe that fostering a love for reading is one of the most impactful ways to support your child's educational journey. Reading not only enhances academic performance but also nurtures knowledge, empathy, and critical thinking skills. We understand that many families have established positive reading habits, such as reading together before bed or setting aside dedicated reading time. We encourage all parents to continue these practices throughout their child's time at our school. Consistent reading routines contribute significantly to your child's overall success and development.

To support you in this endeavour, we have provided a list of recommended age-appropriate texts. These resources are designed to help you integrate reading into your family’s routine, whether you are continuing an existing practice or starting a new one.

Our reading curriculum can be found here.

Reading Strategy:

As well as promoting reading for pleasure, Future Academies Watford encourages reading to develop knowledge and has a range of strategies in place for those who need support with their reading. This can be seen in our Reading Strategy.

Homework

At the academy, we believe that learning beyond the school day is an essential part of good education, enabling students to develop their independent learning and thinking skills. Homework not only reinforces classroom learning, it also helps students to develop skills and attitudes that they need for successful lifelong learning, such as creativity, application of understanding and enquiry, as well as reading, writing and numeracy skills. We also believe that we should provide opportunities for students to engage in reading for pleasure. Our homework and reading programmes go hand in hand to ensure students are confident and successful learners.

Our approach:

To help students learn our curriculum.
To help students to become increasingly independent in preparation for the next step of their education.

Alongside helping our students learn the curriculum, we see homework and study as a means for increasing independence. Part of growing up is to recognise the connection between hard work and positive personal outcomes. Therefore, we show children that hard work at home pays off as more success in school which boosts motivation. Part of growing up is also to take increasing responsibility for your own learning in anticipation of future independence. Therefore, we build towards complete independence as an end goal by fading away structure and support.

Key Stage 3 Homework

KS3 is an opportunity to build on the good work of primary and establish positive study habits in preparation for KS4.

Component	How does it work?	Why do we use it?
Sparx Maths	An online maths platform which offers personalised homework for each child specifically adapted to their level of confidence.	A simple and effective way to help children reinforce their learning at home through targeted practise of key knowledge.
Retrieval: Top Ten Tests, Quizzes etc	Using carefully prepared resources, students will be asked to revise key knowledge from the curriculum through a set of questions and answers. They will be quizzed on this content in school or online.	We show students how simple revision at home can boost their fluency with key knowledge and help to accelerate their progress in class.
Reading/Sparx Reader	We will work with every child to ensure they are reading an appropriate text for their proficiency and encourage them to read widely and often.	To build on the good work done at primary, our strategy is to continue to promote regular reading at home and foster a lifelong passion for books.

Key Stage 4 Homework

KS4 represents a progression from KS3 as students are now taught how to take more control over their own revision. We also introduce more discretion for teachers to set additional work where they see fit.

Component	How does it work?	Why do we use it?
Sparx Maths	An online maths platform which offers personalised homework for each child specifically adapted to their level of confidence.	A simple and effective way to help children reinforce their learning at home through targeted practise of key knowledge.
Top Ten Tests	Using carefully prepared resources, students will be asked to revise key knowledge from the curriculum through a set of questions and answers. They will be quizzed on this content in school or online.	We show students how simple revision at home can boost their fluency with key knowledge and help to accelerate their progress in class.
Discretionary Homework	Teachers may choose to give additional homework to help embed key learning from lessons.	It is important to give teachers the freedom to craft their additional work as they know their class best.
Supervised Revision	We will teach all children how to revise in preparation for their end of Y10 exams and operate a system of guided practice to ensure the new skills have been embedded.	Managing revision for eight or nine GCSEs. each with an abundance of content, is demanding and so we must help children to embed the most effective habits of study.

Key Stage 5 Homework

Given how KS5 qualifications are designed, quality work outside the classroom becomes even more important for our students. The GLH for each qualification are only a starting point for the necessary immersion with the subject material that ambitious children will require to achieve strong results. As a result, many schools use heuristics such as a 1:1 ratio for contact time and study so as to ensure children master the specification. Given how important work outside the classroom.

Component	How does it work?	Why do we use it?
Discretionary Homework	Teachers may choose to give additional homework to help embed key learning from lessons. This could include Uplearn where relevant.	It is important to give teachers the freedom to craft their own additional work as they know their class best.
Supervised Revision	We will re-teach all children how to revise in preparation for their end of Y12 exams and operate a system of weekly timetabled supervised revision for each individual subjects to ensure new knowledge has been embedded.	Managing revision for KS5 with an abundance of content, is demanding and so we must help children to embed the most effective habits of study.
Independent Study	We will expect children to study independently over and above the more structured components of their programme of work outside the classroom. This can be where students utilise their Cornell notes, pick up specific action points from teachers, time spent on Uplearn etc.	The ability to self-direct study and execute it effectively is essential for the next steps of a child's education and employment so this is the end goal. KS5 classes often have a spread of likely attainment so a one size fits all approach is not going to be sufficient in terms of homework, therefore, we need to work with each child so that they are capable of selecting and revising the right knowledge and skills.

Pastoral Care

Safeguarding and keeping children safe is of the highest priority, and we adapt and work to the changing needs of students in order to offer the best support. At the beginning of the year, every child names a trusted adult so that they know they have someone they can see and talk to. We want all of our students to know that, when they need support, it will be there for them, no matter what the concern; no child should ever feel alone or unsupported.

We are part of the Watford Mental Health Support Team, which provides us with resources and professional advice to support mental health, including having a one-day-a-week practitioner at the academy. All students are in a tutor group and see their form tutor in a daily 30-minute tutor lesson. Our students have weekly timetabled relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) sessions taught by specialist teachers.

Leading our team of form tutors are our Heads of Year who have oversight of all aspects of each child’s education: pastoral; academic; co-curricular; and attendance. Support from additional Student Support staff such as the Attendance Team, Medical Officer and non-teaching Assistant Heads of Year means that we have a pastoral support programme that has a significant impact on our students.