School Update - COVID 19 (Coronavirus) - 18/03/2020
Following on from my letter of yesterday (17 March 2020), we have decided to extend the partial closure of the school to Year 8 from tomorrow for the foreseeable future, due to staffing levels. Work will now be set using Show My Homework for Year 8 as well as Year 9. Students should stay at home or at another suitable place of safety. Under no circumstance should they be on or near school site and they should be observing social distancing advice.
A lot of planning has taken place today, looking at probable staffing levels moving forwards. We are as confident as we can be that we can provide a good education for the rest of our students in school for the next 4 days (Thursday 19 — Tuesday 24 March). Therefore, school will remain open for at least the next 4 days for Year 7, 10 and 11. We will review provision towards the end of this period.
During this time, we project we will be able to have subject specialist teachers leading teaching and learning in classrooms for all but about 5% of classes. This is important for all three year groups, but particularly for Year 11.
Of course, this 4-day plan is dependent on a national decision about whether schools should close in the meantime - we will have to wait and see. However, to aid your planning as well as ours, we thought it sensible to have a strategy that took us into next week.
Please note that whilst we will be providing work for Year 8 and Year 9, teachers are unable to provide individual work to self-isolating students in other year groups. These students should access SAM Learning, Show My Homework and other online resources. Year 11 self-isolating students should focus on revision using resources already provided.
Once again, my apologies for the inconvenience this will cause and my thanks for your understanding and support.
Yours sincerely
Alan Doust
Headteacher