Excited to share we’re a Leeds Year of Culture partner school.  Thanks to the British Council and
Institut français, our students will work together with a partner school in France on a joint online project.

Leeds has been twinned with Lille for more than 50 years, and during that time the two cities have worked closely on a range of arts, education and business projects. As part of the Year of Culture, British Council, LEEDS 2023 and the Institut Français are linking schools in Leeds and Lille to work together on an international project.

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Thursday November 2023

Busy day at Co-op Academy Leeds! We are delighted to have received some of our French partners from Lille-Leeds cultural exchange! 

We discussed project opportunities for our students to gain cultural capital and learn more about French society! Our students and staff impressed the French and the British Council consultant with their enthusiasm and passion for the school!

Miss Jones’ Black History Month Competition

Open to students across the Co-op Academies:

• Take a photo or share a photo of a woman of colour who inspires you. 

• They can be famous, a family member, somebody in school, somebody in the community. They just have to be inspirational to you!

• Submit 100 words explaining why they inspire you.

There will be a prize for Co-op Academy Leeds winner and we will be making a big display of them in the library. The trust will also share a selection of them on our website and social media, so everyone can read the tributes of women that inspire us!

Email Miss Jones if you are interested! natalie.jones@coopacademies.co.uk

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Maya Angelou

Miss Jones

The world would be a darker place without the iconic Maya Angelou. Her words and her wisdom are profound and far-reaching. 

Angelou was an American writer and civil-rights activist who published seven autobiographies,countless poems and three books of essays. Angelou published her first autobiography,  I know why the Caged Bird Sings, in 1969 and her poem Still I Rise is outstanding. 

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Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

 

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

 

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

 

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

 

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

 

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

 

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

 

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

 

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

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Read more about Maya Angelou here:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/maya-angelou

Please can Year 7 use the back gate on Beckett Street from Monday 9 October. Thank you.