Dear Parents and Carers,
You may have seen in the news that following the announcement of the new four-week restrictions, the government released some new guidance for schools. The new guidance will have very little impact for most students. We are already wearing masks in public areas, so there is nothing to change there. We are not running any after-school activities apart from homework club, so again, there is nothing to change there.
There will be an impact on some classes as a small number of staff who are clinically extremely vulnerable will need to work from home. Our intention is that they will continue to teach their lessons by live link, technology allowing.
There will also be a small number of students who are clinically extremely vulnerable and will need to study at home. We have been very successful in allowing students to join the majority of their lessons via a live link, so I’m hopeful that will be able to continue. We have a considerable amount of IT equipment prepared and ready to be lent out to any student who needs it to be able to access their learning. We will contact those parents who are affected, but if for any reason you need a laptop to enable your child to study from home and we haven’t offered you one, please let me know. That includes families where parents are working from home and there is equipment, but not enough to go around. No student need be at home unable to work.
During the last lockdown, we were able to help a number of families who needed us, not only with IT equipment but with all sorts of other things too. If there is anything we can do over the next four weeks, however small, do please get in touch and ask.
I wrote last time about the new curriculum guides on the website. I hope you’ve managed to have a look at some of them. They explain in some detail what students will learn, when. I’ve reproduced part of the maths one below. The image is too small to read easily, but if you click on it, you’ll be able to see the full maths curriculum map for all years.
I’m sending this on a Thursday because tonight is the last chance to watch the school show, Little Shop of Horrors. It’s a good thing it has been on this week because I don’t think it would have been allowed next week. You can find it on our you tube channel. It starts at 6.00pm. I mentioned in my last bulletin my desire for us to be excellent in all we do. I don’t know of any other secondary school which has managed to put on a production in the current circumstances. I’m very proud that we have been able to. My thanks go to all those staff, students and parents who have made it possible.
Finally, a reminder about Parent View, a system to capture the views of parents on schools. I would appreciate all of your views, but if you think we’ve done a good job of keeping things running smoothly over the last few months that I’d be especially pleased to see your response. Rather like Tripadvisor, school surveys tend to capture the views of those who are especially pleased or, more commonly, those who have a grievance or complaint. I’d like to know what you all think. You can find the survey here.
Best wishes,
Andy Hunter