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Welcome from our Principal, Mr Hacker

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Dear parents and carers

Welcome to our latest newsletter, I hope you all had a wonderful bank holiday weekend.

We are now just a few days away from the beginning of the formal written GCSE examination season and I want to take this opportunity to wish all of our Year 11 pupils the very best through all of their exams. It's a pressurised and stressful time, but they have worked really hard for it and deserve every success. I want to thank the parents and carers of Year 11 pupils for all your on-going support too, it's not easy being a parent and especially so when children are embarking on exams which are important for their futures!

I want to update you with respect to staffing in our Safeguarding team. Recently, our Designated Safeguarding Lead - Miss Peet, moved into a Regional safeguarding role within the Co-op Academies Trust. As such, she will still be working with our school, specifically with myself and our new Designated Safeguarding Lead - Mrs Beattie. Mrs Beattie has been at Walkden for many years as Deputy DSL and will now take on the main role. Pupils are well aware of Mrs Beattie anyway, but it is important that all of our parents and carers know about this formal change too. We wish her every success in this role, to which she brings vast experience.

Huge congratulations to our Key Stage 3 football teams who have been really successful in the recent Salford Schools Championships, with all three teams bringing home a winning cup or shield.  Well done to them all, doing themselves, us and you very proud indeed!

Best wishes

Matt Hacker

 

View our website

Noticeboard

Who to contact at Walkden

Please see the linked document for who to contact at Co-op Academy Walkden.

Communications

Please note the academy will be closed over the Easter break and all emails will be responded to on our return.

Attendance information

Pupils can see privately what band they currently sit in.  This helps pupils and parents to have a clear visual for attendance expectations. This also helps pupils set achievable short term targets to move into a higher band, and helps us to celebrate this when they do.

For more information about the attendance process and expectations, please see below.

Read more

 

To report your child as absent, please use ONE of the available options below.

  • You can call our Academy to report absence 0161 8501625 (Option 1).
  • You can now use the 'log absence' function on your Arbor app. You can find this by going to Dashboard - Menu (three lines) - Attendance - Log Absence.

Please NO NOT use the in-app message function to report absence, as this will not be recorded.

For any pre-planned absences or appointments, please email our Attendance Team.

walk-attendance@coopacademies.co.uk and include an attached appointment card or letter as evidence of the reason for the planned absence.

Whichever method you choose to use, please do this each day that your child is absent from school before 8.30am.

As a helpful reminder, we wanted to share the below information that is useful to know when it comes to attendance.

The school bell is at 8.25am and students are expected to be in lessons ready to be registered by 8.30am.

Students who arrive late between 8.30am and 8.50am will be given a late mark; however, this does not affect their overall attendance percentage.

Students who arrive after 9am will be given a U code (unauthorised absence) on their register which equates to a half a day of absence, this does affect their overall attendance percentage.

The day is split into two halves with a morning attendance mark and an afternoon attendance mark, students must receive both marks to be registered in school for the full day.

Please note that medical appointments and authorised absences are marked differently and to authorise one of these absences or to make us aware of any exceptional circumstances please email our attendance team with prior notice where possible walk-attendance@coopacademies.co.uk

Thank you as always for your support.

Parent Pay guidance - Lunch payments

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We wanted to share a couple of reminders and options regarding your ParentPay account for breakfast/lunch payments.

If your child purchases meals at Co-op Academy Walkden, please ensure funds are topped up via ParentPay in advance of the week ahead. If a pupils has zero funds, our kitchen staff will ask them to go to Student Services for a note which enables them to get lunch and prompts us to contact you to request payment is made. Ideally we would prefer not to send a pupil away for this note so please ensure funds are topped up, you can ofcourse contact us if you need support with this. ParentPay has the function to set yourself an alert for when funds are getting low, if you would like this reminder please follow the process below

  • - Log into your ParentPay Account
  • - Click the three lines at the top left of the screen
  • - Communications
  • - Alert settings
  • - Balance alerts
  • - Set threshold per student
  • - Tick email (email is free to use / text messages can be set up, however there is a charge for this)
  • - Save

All students are offered a free bagel with spread during breakfast service, which runs between 8am - 8.25am.

Other breakfast items are also available to purchase during this time as well as during morning break at 10.30am.

Breakfast items range from 29p - 99p per item.

At lunchtime, students can purchase a meal deal which consists of a main meal and a dessert for £2.20

Please see our menus here

We encourage students to bring a refillable bottle as there are water fountains positioned in each zone of the academy. If your child would prefer bottled water, these can be purchased for 85p.

We believe that £5 is the most any student should need to spend on food/drinks throughout the day, which is why all students' daily spend is capped and will not let them spend more than £5 a day at school. If you would like this cap to be increased, then please let us know via this link Any changes can take up to three days to show on the catering system.

If your child is entitled to free school meals, they can have a free bagel at breakfast like all other students and then, when they put their PIN number in at the till for lunch, they can order a main meal and dessert (meal deal).

ParentPay log in details are sent via email to one parent/carer for each child at the beginning of each school year. If you have forgotten your password, you can select 'forgotten password'. If you believe you do not have an account set up for your child or if you have any queries about ParentPay and lunch payments, then please let us know via the same form here.

All students require their catering PIN number at the till when getting breakfast and lunch. If your child is entitled to Free School Meals, they still need to use their PIN number to get the meal. 

 

What's on at Walkden

Club/activity Where and when
Chess  Every break and lunch outside G9
Homework club Every Monday lunchtime with Mrs Davis - D1
Space Club Every Tuesday 3-4pm with Dr Gardner - D8
British Sign Language Every Tuesday 3-4pm with Mrs sayer - G3
Expressive Arts Club Every Wednesday 3-4pm with Miss Wharton - Drama Studio
Year 11 Revision Every day 3-4pm (check specific subject timetables)
Coming soon Every Tuesday and Weds lunchtime - Multi-Use

See below for all of our extra-curricular clubs

Extra-curricular Timetable 

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National Year of Reading

In this National Year of Reading we wanted to share with you one of our pupils' book reviews below.

We will share a new review each fortnight. 

Book Review

 

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Walkden Wire

Some of our Year 7 pupils have been working hard to create a news page, with photos and details about what is going on in and around our academy. You can take a look at their news page at the link below. 

Walkden Wire

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Important upcoming dates

End of Summer Term 1
All Day
22
May
Start of Summer Term 2
All Day
01
June
Year 7 Progress Review Evening - Time TBC
All Day
11
June
Expressive Arts Show
5:00pm – 6:00pm
17
June
Year 11 Prom - Salford Community Stadium, criteria and invitations TBC
All Day
19
June

Latest stories

30 Apr 2026
Walkden Wire 30th April 2026 Edition
This is our pupil lead Walkden Wire page, dedicated to connecting the community with our academy.  Here you will find our Co-op Values in action!
Read more
16 Mar 2026
Being Walkden Newsletter
Read our Being Walkden Newsletter here  
Read more
11 Mar 2026
Attendance & Punctuality Update March 2026
Please see below letter from Mr Hacker regarding punctuality.
Read more

Check out our social media pages for daily updates.

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