Accessibility Tools
All admissions are managed by Cambridge County Council.
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Cambridge Admissions Team, OCT1221, New Shire Hall, Emery Crescent, Enterprise Campus, Alconbury Weald, Huntingdon, PE28 4YE |
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0345 045 1370 |
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01223 727 941 |
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Appeals Website: |
Please see our Admissions policy available for download below.
Most people will be familiar with the feeling or temptation of needing to check your phone when an alert comes through. Just imagine what this is like for a young person in a secondary school, and the impact these small distractions can have on their learning, social development, and their mental health and wellbeing.
Current research suggests that young people are spending an increasing amount of time on screens and mobile devices, and the Department for Education has linked this to a range of challenges, such as higher levels of anxiety, self-esteem issues, social and behavioural development, and lower levels of attention. We also know that nationally the rising use of mobile devices is parents’ top concern for their child’s mental health and wellbeing.
While students should not be using mobile phones in the classroom at Abbey College, we know that it can still be too easy to be quickly look at a notification or be distracted by notifications going off. With this in mind, we have been working closely with students, parents and staff to explore and trial ways to help remove the distractions of mobile phones from our classrooms.
From the second half of Summer Term 2025 we will be rolling out a pilot of using HuSH pouches with students in Years 7 to 9 and New Horizons. The HuSH pouches have already been trialled at other schools in our region with success and good feedback from their students.
The HuSH pouches will give our students a phone-free school experience while they are at school – meaning they are guaranteed at least six phone-free hours a day to support their wellbeing and concentration.
What is the aim of this scheme?
At Abbey College, our aim is to provide our students with the best possible environment for learning. As a ‘phone-free school’, we are aiming to counter the impact that rising mobile phone usage is having on mental health, wellbeing and concentration, and create a better environment for learning, social interaction, and the development of character.
The use of HuSH phone pouches will support this by:
Schools that have adopted this policy have been extremely pleased with the outcomes; pupils are showing greater levels of independence and less anxiety. Schools who have been using the phone pouches for a while have identified the following progress:
What is a HuSH pouch and how will it work?
A HuSH pouch is a lockable protective pouch that mobile phones and other smart devices can be placed into. Each student will be given a HuSH pouch to use each day at school.
When students arrive at school, they will be asked to turn off their phones, place their phones inside their HuSH pouch, and lock it. Members of staff will greet students as they usually do as they arrive at school, and students will quickly show our staff that their HuSH pouch has been locked. The HuSH pouches can only be unlocked using specific devices that members of staff will have access to and will be made available to students at the end of the school day.
During the school day, except for in emergencies or exceptional circumstances, the pouches will remain locked, meaning it will not be possible be tempted by the distractions and notifications from the phone. In line with our current processes, parents should contact the school office if they need to contact their child or make alternative urgent arrangements during the school day.
As students leave school, they will quickly press their HuSH pouch into one of the unlocking devices and be able to take their phone out and use it again.
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| pdf HuSH pouches FAQs | Download |
It is easy to apply for Free School Meals. Guidance and information on how to apply for Free School Meals can be found on Cambridgeshire County Council's website here. The application form is easy to complete, but please contact us if you would like further assistance.
Pupils who receive free school meals have £2.35 placed on their canteen account every school day. This can be spent at break or lunchtime in the canteen. The process is private and the pupil cannot be identified as receiving Free School Meals when they use their biometric identity.
When you register your children for Free School Meals, the College will receive a sum of money from the government for each child. This is fund is called Pupil Premium.
If eligible for Free School Meals, families can save around £450 a year per child.
The Government believes that Pupil Premium (PP) funding, which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the underlying inequalities between children who are eligible for free school meals (FSM), or who have been eligible in the last 6 years, and their peers.
For the academic year 2023-24 the government is also adding a ‘Recovery Premium’ to help schools meet the demands of ensuring all pupils catch up after the Covid pandemic. The Recovery Premium provides additional funding for state-funded schools in the 2023 to 2024 period and, through building on the Pupil Premium, this funding will help schools to deliver evidence-based approaches for supporting disadvantaged pupils, but it is not solely to be used on disadvantaged pupils.
The Recovery Premium is calculated on a per pupil basis and all mainstream schools will get £276 for each eligible pupil in mainstream education. Very much like the pupil premium, schools can:
Schools also receive funding for: children who have been looked after continuously for more than six months and students who are were looked after and are now no longer in care. Students who are the children of either currently serving member of HM forces, or who have retired on a pension from the Ministry of Defence qualify for ‘Service Premium’ is not classed as Pupil Premium but is allocated to help with pastoral support.
The Pupil Premium (PP) and Service Premium currently stands at:
The PP funding is used to help fund a range of educational benefits for pupils across the school such as targeted small group interventions, additional pastoral support, or inclusion in school activities such as extra-curricular clubs, school trips and music lessons.
It is a requirement for the academic year 2023-24 that the school publishes both how the money was spent in 2022-23 and how it is going to be spent in the coming year 2023-24. The coronavirus has, for the past 2 years, interrupted a considerable number of planned activities for pupils in receipt of PP funding but there have still been considerable efforts made to ensure that those in receipt of PP funding have received additional support.
There are several activities outlined in ‘The strategy document’.
There is much evidence to suggest that those in receipt of Pupil Premium funding do not always experience a rich set of activities and opportunities which broaden their outlook and perspective. Therefore, a significant strand of the Charter focuses on giving pupils a set of experiences and memories they will never forget. We encourage all pupils, but especially those in receipt of Pupil Premium Funding, to extend the boundaries of learning and take part in school trips, visits and to live a broad range of childhood experiences offered by our Offers and Opportunities Programme (OOP).
The impact of activities outlined in the strategy document above, are reviewed throughout the academic year both internally by the school, as well as through external quality assurance visits.
We are delighted to share with you that the process of transitioning to Bromcom as our new Management Information System (MIS) will complete on Friday 28th February at 3pm. We are joining other schools within Meridian Trust in adopting Bromcom as our single MIS provider. This transition marks a significant step forward in enhancing our communication channels with you, our parents and carers.
Steps:
Login Details: Create a password, at least 8 characters minimum, include uppercase, lowercase, number, special character (such as:@£$%&+-).
For the first few days, you will only see a limited number of functions: including your child’s class timetable, homework and behaviour points. Behaviour points collected during this transition week will be transferred over and visible on MCAS soon.
Visit www.meridiantrust.co.uk/mcas for a step-by-step video guide.
The Parent's Forum was set up in December 2020 to provide an additional space for parents and carers to have the opportunity to feedback on school provision, offer a parent/carer perspective on current policy and share ideas about future projects.
A message from our Chair:
I'm Charlotte Downing a Community Governor and chair of the Parent's Forum. The Parent's Forum meets once every half term for an hour (max) on Teams and provides our parent community an opportunity to engage with school staff in a relaxed and informal setting. We discuss several different topics each time from behavior policy and communication to enrichment activities and fund raising via our pre-loved uniform shop.
This is not a version of a primary PTA, we won't sign you up for running a tombola or facepainting, we just welcome your voice and input into how we can continue to improve our school and enrich the education of our young people.
If you are unable to attend, you can still have your say. A survey is sent out each half term asking for your feedback and suggestions, these survey results are reviewed and fed into the Parent's Forum agenda. Why not come along and see what it’s all about!
We have a parent who is kindly going to lead on fundraising – we’d love some more volunteers and more parents on the committee.To join the Forum, volunteer for fundraising, or suggest a theme for a future meeting, email:
The date of the next meeting will be Wednesday 5th February 2025. The meeting agenda will be available in the documents section of this page a week before the meeting. Please email if you would like details to join the Teams meeting.
