Year 10 and 12 Lessons
After very successful face to face meetings with our Year 10 and 12 pupils we were able to offer a series of sessions last week in core subjects for Year 10 pupils in college which have been very well attended. We have held a mixture of face to face and Zoom sessions for Year 12 pupils with all their subject teachers.
Our staff said to see so many of their faces was great and it is clear from their level of engagement with the sessions that they have missed school and have a real thirst for getting back to “normal” learning. These sessions will continue this week. Thanks for your support with this.
Key Stage 3 Progress and Aspiration Zoom sessions
We are very conscious that the limitations on numbers allowed in college has meant that we have not been able to invite our Years 7 to 9 pupils into school. We have been keen to find a way to see them before the summer holidays and to give them the chance to see some of their classmates. Last Friday we were able to set up virtual Progress and Aspiration Time sessions on Zoom and again the feedback has been extremely positive. We will have a further session this week.
End of Year Reports
We are currently working on End of Year reports for each subject. These will be more text based than the Progress sheet reports that you have been used to receiving. In response to many parents requesting why we cannot make them available online rather than incur the delay and cost of posting, we have set up a new system which will allow you to do this.
You will be getting personal login details and password in a letter that will go out to you later this week. If you are unable to take advantage of this facility it will still be possible to request a hard copy of the report.
Contact details
The last few months have reminded us all how important it is for us to have up to date contact details and wherever possible your email addresses.
We have had increasing numbers of you registering your Parentmail account which, when fully up and running, will enable us to get messages to you much more quickly and save money on post. This will mean we can spend more money on learning resources for your children. Please make sure you register your Parentmail account before the summer holiday.
End of term arrangements
We usually finish our College Year with a wonderful Celebration Mass but as you might expect this will not be possible this year. Instead we will be posting an End of Year Reflection and Celebration video on our social media accounts and website. In keeping with our end of year traditions we shall finish our college year at 1pm on Friday and teachers will not be available after that for engagement with your child’s remote learning.
Year 9 into 10
We are very proud of the curriculum offer we have in Key Stage 4 and the steps we take to make sure as many pupils as possible get their option choices. Each year this requires some adjustment to the grouping of pupils to make this happen. We will write separately to our current Year 9 parents to confirm if these changes affect their child in order that they are aware of any significant changes before they return in September.
Summer Examination Results Days arrangements
We will be writing separately this week to Year 11 and Year 13 families about the arrangements for results days this summer.
Uniform
We have had some queries regarding whether uniform requirements will change at all in September. The most recent government guidance says there is no reason why pupils cannot wear full uniform and wash it regularly, as would be the case normally. Full uniform requirement details are on the college website and I will remind you about this again in my end of year letter.
Great news – Wider Opening in September
As you will have heard in the news we had the fantastic news that we will be able to plan for all our pupils to return full time in September.
Last Friday we received more detailed guidance as to what needs to be in place to ensure that this is does as safely as possible. This will require us to make some adjustments to the routines of our day and we are currently finalising the details of this which we will share with you later this week.
As you would expect we will have our plans scrutinised by our external health and safety experts. Currently our plans are for school to start and end at the same time i.e. pupils to arrive for 8.30am and to have left by 2.50pm although we may stagger the exit in particular over a few minutes at the end of the day.
We are excited at the prospect of having all our pupils back in September but can promise you we are in no way complacent about the need to take the measures necessary to keep everyone safe on the journey to and from school and in their time in school.
Look after yourselves and your families
Kind regards
Tony Boyle
Headteacher
