This week Year 9 and Year 10 watched The Drummer Boy, a play by Rob John written for schools and produced with the INK Festival. It was developed with Suffolk County Council Public Health and the Suffolk Safeguarding Partnership as part of a programme that uses live theatre to open honest conversations with young people about mental health, emotional wellbeing and the importance of asking for help.

It is not an easy watch, and it is not meant to be. It is honest about how hard things can get for a teenager and how much difference one conversation can make. Our students watched in silence and talked afterwards, which is exactly what it is for. Staff were in the room throughout and the pastoral team followed up with form groups.

Tomorrow is World Mental Health Day. If you take one thing from the play, take this: if your child is struggling, they do not have to carry it alone, and neither do you. Your child can talk to any adult in school. You can ring the Head of Year, or use the services below, any of which will talk to a worried parent as readily as to a young person.

Thank you to the Year 11 families who came to Parents' Evening last night, and to those who went on to the East Norfolk Sixth Form College Open Evening afterwards. The evening set out what the next eight months look like: the mock exams that start on Tuesday 3rd November, how Period 0 and Period 6 work, what revision looks like week by week, and how to help at home without it turning into a fight.

If you could not be there, you have not missed it. Both documents from the evening are here to download. The Raising Attainment booklet has the key deadlines, revision techniques, how parents and carers can help, exam stress and wellbeing, useful contacts and a page for your child's action plan. The JCQ exam information and mock timetable has the full November mock timetable, paper by paper, and the exam rules every candidate has to know.

The one thing to do this weekend: find your child's mock timetable in the second document and put it on the fridge.

Download the Raising Attainment booklet Download the mock timetable and exam rules

Something exciting is coming to Cliff Park this November.

For one week, Years 7, 8 and 9 will be working alongside professional performers, choreographers, vocal coaches, film makers and theatre technicians from Perfect Productions Ltd, a company that has been making professional shows for over thirty years.

Each year group gets a full day of hands-on training in school, choosing between singing, dance, film and television, or theatre lighting and sound. Then on the evening of Thursday 19th November, our students can take to the stage of the Britannia Pier Theatre in Great Yarmouth, performing in a full professional show alongside a professional cast, some of whom have West End credits.

Every student who takes part will be given the opportunity to be on that stage. Every role counts, whether it is on stage, on the spotlight, behind a camera, or on the sound desk.

Students will hear all about it in assembly on Tuesday 20th October, and a sign-up form and full details will follow straight afterwards. Tickets for the show will go on sale soon, so keep the evening of 19th November free.

We are very proud to be the first academy in the Ormiston family to offer this. More soon.