Newsflash – Friday 11th December 2020

11 Dec 2020

Message from Mrs Din

End of Term Arrangements

Despite our best efforts to communicate to parents our plan for the end of term early, we received an email on Tuesday, 8 th December at 2:20pm from the Department of Education with strong advice suggesting that schools take the decision to close on Friday, 18th December. We have made the decision to follow this guidance to give families the best possible chance for a healthy Christmas to spend with loved ones.

Staff will have an alternative working day, working from home or in a school, planning and preparing for the new term. In order to make up for lost curriculum time, we will make use of Lesson 7 for Year 11; later in the year we aim to deliver similar provision for Year 10. We will be adapting our curriculum plan for Years 7-9 to ensure that they too do not miss out on any curriculum time due to this decision. Senior Leaders and support staff will also continue to be available from Friday, 18th December – Wednesday, 23rd December with their work on contact tracing to support the national effort to limit the spread of the virus, (this will include the weekend). Further details will be provided in next week’s Newsflash on how families alert us of a positive Covid-19 test.

Finally, we were delighted this week to receive a lovely message of thanks from a parent who wrote: ‘I would just like to thank Mr Marshall and all the staff for the excellent response and measures put in place during these challenging times. Both our children have not had to miss a single day since school resumed and they have felt safe and comfortable with the new way of working and the standard of teaching has been fantastic. The communication has been excellent as usual and we really appreciate the effort and work that all staff have undertaken.’