Dear Parent / Carer
I hope you have all had a lovely weekend, despite the cooler temperatures compared to the baking heat we had last week! I am pleased to be able to provide some further updates on where we are with the school building, and to share some further details on our phased approach for getting students back into school. We are extremely grateful for your understanding and patience during this time.
Firstly, parents and carers of those in year 11 will have received a message via MCAS outlining the next steps we are taking to support students after the May half term holiday. After the half term, students will be in school for bespoke revision sessions to help them prepare for their GCSE and BTEC exams. We hope the details in this message will help you plan effectively for each exam, and to help you understand when your child should be in school. Where sessions are not applicable, students will not be required to stay in school. However, we will be offering a study space for those students who wish to remain in school to support their revision. Attendance at each revision session is compulsory.
Over the past week and a half, the team have been working incredibly hard to prepare and plan for the return of year 10 students. We are pleased to confirm that year 10 students will return to school full time from Monday 12th May. Students will need to be in full uniform. Students will have an assembly in the Lecture Theatre at 8:30am to go through the site expectations and to provide them details of where lessons will be taking place. Students will also be introduced to the STARR Card which has been a huge success with year 7 students. After the half term, we are mindful that year 10 students have several busy weeks of mock exams and work experience, and we will explore ways to ensure how we can best use this time to enable other year groups to return to school. More details will follow on this in due course.
With year 10 students returning to school next week, I know that parents of students in years 8 and 9 will be wanting to know when their child can return to face to face learning. Having completed the plans for year 10 to return, we can now move to the planning stage for year 8 and 9 students. Our intention is to have students in school for several sessions prior to the half term where we can deliver face to face lessons to students. Inbewteen these days, students will continue with remote learning. Following the half term, we will be able to increase the amount of time year 8 and 9 students are in school as both year 11 and 13 students will be finishing their courses and more space will become available in school. I will continue to provide updates on this over the coming weeks.
With regards to the condition of B Block, there have been several developments with our plans to make the building safe. Work on the indemnified scaffolding plans to secure the panelling has been completed and we will be able to proceed with the installation of this structure as soon as possible. When we have further information about timescales, and what this means for the reopening of the building, we will of course keep you posted.
Please continue to check your MCAS account, school website, and our social media channels for further developments.
We hope that you have a lovely weekend, and we look forward to seeing year 10 on Monday, and years 8 and 9 very soon!
Yours sincerely,
Mr J Firth
Principal
