Summer Break 14th-28th August

Summer Break

14TH-28TH AUGUST

Our summer break is coming up in a couple of weeks, so a couple of quick reminders before then…

Out-of-office

I’m planning on being pretty much off-grid during that time for some much needed R&R, so likely won’t be responding to any emails or messages until the 29th.

Adults Training Session – Tuesday 29th

As always on a bank holiday week, we’ll not be in on the monday, but will have an extra open training session for the adults on Tuesday from 8-9pm after the kids classes.

Junior Black Belt Applications

Please remember, the absolute deadline for applications is Thu 31st, and late applications will not be accepted. If you miss that deadline, you’ll have to wait for the next grading so please don’t leave them to the last minute.

Remember, all goals etc must be discussed and agreed in advance of the application. Your training plans etc will depend on those goals, so it’s essential you discuss these with us before the break as I won’t be around to do so during the two weeks we’re off!

Reminder – Black Belt Applications

Black Belt Applications

As mentioned in the news email after graduation, we’ve shifted our autumn Black Belt grading to december, so if we have any current junior members wishing to be assessed this year, the deadline for applications is fast approaching!

DECEMBER 2023

Applications Due by 31st August
Juniors (11-15): Applications must be agreed and submitted by end of August. Pre-grading assessment phase is September-November.
I highly recommend you get these sorted before our summer break (14th-28th August) as I will NOT be available during that time to deal with admin) and it’s important to remember that goals etc. must be agreed in advance and training plans submitted WITH your application so don’t leave them to the last moment!

MARCH 2024

Adults: Application deadline end August
Juniors: Applications due in November
Remember – if you’re looking to test for black belt, we expect YOU to take the initiative and be pro-active about your application etc. we don’t expect to have to chase up black belts!

Grading Results – June 2023

Grading Results June 2023

43 students assessed in total


BLACK BELT TRAINING COURSE

  • 31 BBTC students were promoted
  • 10 ‘A’ passes, 10 ‘+’ passes
  • 7 students achieved ‘A+’ – WELL DONE!!
  • 3 students with ‘L’ passes (see instructor for advice on what’s expected at next grading)
  • 3 eligible students did not apply for the grading
  • 3 students did not attend due to other commitments and were awarded baseline promotions based on pre-grading week assessments only.
    (Please note: A/+ grades are only available to those who attend the final session or book a private grading)


LITTLE NINJAS

  • 12 Little Ninjas promoted this time
  • 2 ninjas invited to move up to Juniors early

GRADUATION – THURSDAY 29th JUNE
at the CHANTRY CENTRE

Reminder – Junior Black Belt Applications…

A little reminder folks -If you’re hoping to test in September, then you have a week to get your applications in – the deadline for completed applications is the end of May.

Don’t forget that goals etc. must be agreed in advance and training plans submitted WITH your application!

Bank Holidays

Hey team,

Just a quick reminder that we don’t train on Bank Holidays, so no adult classes on 1st May (May Day), 8th (Coronation) or 29th (Spring Bank Holiday).

BUT as always, we’ll put on an additional adults session after the kids classes on Tuesday evening, so that’s 8-9pm for all adults to ensure you can both enjoy your long weekend and still get a couple of classes in for the win/win!

Graduation – Stars / Certificates

Cut-off date
Could we please remind everyone that the cut-off for stars/certificates etc. is the last lesson before the grading as the plan is always to do all the admin for graduation on the Monday morning after the grading.Certificates
If your child has collected either four stars of one colour, or one star of each colour then they can get a certificate for their achievement, but you’ll need to let us know as above as they won’t be issued automatically.

Stars for Attendance
Sometimes we’ll have people query attendance stars citing they’ve attended ‘nearly all the classes’ but please remember these are are for really outstanding attendance, so the criteria is that a student has attended 90% or more of classes – including the grading examination and graduation events.
Late arrivals (without prior agreement) will only be counted as half a session, and the graduation event counts as two sessions so these will often have an impact on eligibility.

Facebook Messenger

Can I please remind people to please refrain from using FB messenger to contact me for anything relating to the Academy as I won’t see the messages!

Other than to access this group and to admin the Academy page, I don’t use my personal FB for anything ‘work’ related at all, and I want to keep that as the one space which is reserved purely for my closest friends and family. As such I have the privacy settings set to only allow messages through from a very small list of people.

If you’ve sent something and it looks like I’ve not seen it or read it, that’s because I haven’t! If you’re not on that list, the messages will go off to some kind of Facebook black hole and I won’t see them.

Please don’t take it personally!
It’s really not – but for all kinds of reasons I do need to keep my personal life separate from my coaching etc.Also, because of both safeguarding guidelines and my Police role I am expected to be quite strict with social media etc., hence why I don’t add students or other coaching clients to my friends list unless we are actually friends socially outside of the Academy.

There are plenty of other ways to contact me.For most Academy things, email is preferable (please remember to use an appropriate subject rather than simply replying to some old irrelevant mail!).

When reporting absence from class, please remember that the only messages which will get checked at the school are regular text messages or emails to the Academy account, both of which I check before classes begin.

Ta!Master O.

Black Belt Applications

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Adult Classes on Thursdays

Had a couple of questions about timing of the thursday sessions for adults, and the schedule needs updating again to reflect what we actually do now as when we originally shifted back to ou pre-covid schedule we didn’t really originally expect everyone to show up, in reality 95% of the experienced students always turn up for the whole session :-)

So, ongoing we’ll assume that basically, it’s ALL adults from 7:30, experienced only from 8:15. It’s been working out really well like that and it means you can get a lot more training in and we can cover a lot more interesting stuff later on. The first session will still concentrated on foundation level training appropriate to all members, and then the beginners will leave at 8:15 and we’ll focus on the more advanced / fusion topics in the later one.

 

Important Note: If you’re one of the very small minority who only turn up at 8:15, then please be aware, we’re not going to stop and to another warm-up, so we’d ask you to get in 10 minutes earlier and warm yourselves up, or, better still, just show up at 7:30 with everyone else! 😉

Class Schedule Update

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