Configur Academy - Summer Term, Week 8

Dear Parents,

This is Orgesa from Configur Academy, and what a week it has been, with our first ever market behind us and both clubs back in the room. I have quite a lot to share with you this time, so do settle in with a cup of tea, and I will start with Young Founders House.

And then there was the market. I want to start by saying thank you, properly, to every one of you, because the support you gave our first ever Young Founders Market is the reason it went the way it did. It was a success in every way I had hoped for, the feedback since has been wonderful, and so many people came through the door across the afternoon. The best part for me was watching the children; they were so happy and so proud of what they had made and sold, and that came from you, from the parents who got them there and stood behind them, so thank you.

Our first session back was not really a lesson at all; it was a conversation. We sat together and talked about how the market had gone, what they had loved and what they would change, and before long, they were planning the next one themselves. It was lovely to see how excited they are about making their own money and about what they want to do with it.

Behind the scenes, I have also been building something I am very excited about, something that will help the children all the way through their journey with our clubs and make it far simpler for you to keep track of where they are and to keep everything in one place, but that is for another day, and I will tell you all about it when it is ready.

For now, I have made them a webpage to work out their profit from the market, called My Market Money, and you can find it here: money.configuracademy.com.

It does not collect or save any information at all; it is simply there for you and your child to use together. You put in what they took in cash and on card, then their costs, either itemised or as a single total, and it works out their profit and shares it across the 4 jars that we will be talking through with the children over our coming sessions. For now, if you are able to, please keep their 10% charity contribution, the Give Pot, to one side, and I will let you know how and when to send it on after our August market. This time, I would simply like the children to enjoy the profit of their labour and not have to think about anything else, and I will take them through each jar with them, stage by stage, and keep you in the loop as we go.

The Big Ideas Draw

One last thing from the market. Over on our arts and crafts table, we had The Big Ideas Draw, a box where the children could design their own big idea and post it in, and I promised I would read every single one and pick a winner. I am very happy to tell you that the winner is Jonah. I will be in touch with the family directly to invite them to collect their prize at our market on Sunday 5 July. The Big Ideas Draw is going to be a monthly fixture from now on, so do come along and design your big ideas for some great prizes every month, and thank you so much to everyone who took part this time.

This week in Rise to Lead we slowed right down and gave our time to the part that matters most, the structure of their speeches and how they open them, because the opening is the bit that makes people want to keep listening. Every child wrote, and they have all handed their papers in to me, which I have now read through properly at home. On Monday, I am going to sit with each of them in class and give them their feedback one by one, and from there, we will spend 10 to 15 minutes in every session quietly finishing our presentations, so that by the showcase, they are ready and they feel ready too. I have to tell you, the children are so looking forward to presenting for you, and a few of them have even started preparing to act theirs out, so I think you are definitely in for a treat. 😀

The workshop part this week took us into a piece of a talk we had not touched before, the middle, which sounds minor but is where most talks quietly come undone. I explained to the children that when we reach the middle, most of us start listing, one fact and then another and then another, and that is the precise moment a room stops listening, however politely it sits there. So rather than telling people 10 things, I showed them how to take 1 thing and make it so clear that everyone can picture it. To make it stick, I gave them the same idea in 2 ways. They each took the idea straight into their own talk afterwards, hunting for the 1 true moment from their own life that only they could tell, because that one real moment is what turns a nice speech into the one you are still thinking about on the drive home.

Rise to Lead Final Showcase

Both parents are very welcome, grandparents and siblings too. If your circumstances change closer to the day, do let me know. We will work it out.

Young Founders Market

That is everything from this week. As always, if you have a question about either programme or if there is anything you would like to talk through, you can reply to this email or message me directly on 07414 962803.

If you have missed any of our previous newsletters, you can catch up on them all here:
https://newsletter.configuracademy.com/

Have a lovely week.

Orgesa
Founder,
Configur Academy
Wesbite: www.configuracademy.com
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