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Letter to Parents September 2nd 2022 - Arrangements for September 6th and Beyond
September 2nd 2022
Arrangements for September and Beyond
Dear Parents
We are very much looking forward to welcoming the students back to school next week and settling them back in to what I hope will be an excellent school year.
Students should report to school as follows and report to the room number shown for period 1 on their timetable.
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Tuesday, September 6th 2022 |
Years 7 & 12 |
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Wednesday, September 7th 2022 |
All Years |
As well as our strong focus on students submitting their personal best class and homework assignments, enrichment activities at and away from school are so vital for young people’s development, and these will resume quickly this term. Please do encourage your daughter or son to join a lunchtime or after school club, as these give the opportunity to try something new, explore an interest with friends and even make new friends beyond their social group.
Clearly, we are thinking ahead to later in the autumn term and winter and will provide a full secondary school curriculum to all our students throughout the coming school year, whatever challenges may arise along the way.
Our approach will be cautious and we will stand ready to follow any advice from Public Health England and re-impose or tighten restrictions in the school should infections amongst students or staff increase.
Please spend time going through the content of this letter with your daughter or son, so they have a good idea of what to expect and what we will expect of them. None of the arrangements should be a surprise to them but your reinforcement and reminders that it is important we all remain cautious will be very helpful, as we go forward into what we hope will remain a more ‘normal’ future and school environment.
We will maintain some of our by now very familiar routines for everybody’s protection as we move forward.
Each day students start their day with their Daily Tutor period from 8.30am until 8.55am, which will be continue to be delivered by their subject teacher for period 1 on that day. Literacy, Numeracy, PSHE and matters relating to Careers will continue to be delivered in this Daily Tutor period. Students’ Thursday Daily Tutor will be their Academic Tutor for the coming school year.
This avoids unnecessary movement on the site and the unnecessary mixing of Year Groups, whilst allowing students to access their full curriculum in specialist accommodation.
Health
Students must not come into school if they have COVID-19 symptoms or have received a positive test result and need to self-isolate under any prevailing Gov.uk guidance or NHS advice.
What to do if you have Coronavirus (COVID -19) or symptoms of COVID -19
If a symptomatic student attends school, parents will be contacted and the student will be isolated until they can be picked up. We do not currently intend to test year groups in school for COVID-19, but if the situation changes and / or there is a requirement to do we will rely on previous consent for this. As stated in previous correspondence it is possible to withdraw consent from testing.
Please discuss the following recommended hand and respiratory hygiene habits with your daughter / son.
Guidance for students
• Frequently wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds and dry thoroughly (NHS guidelines), or use alcohol-based hand sanitiser to cover all parts of your hands.
• Clean hands on arrival at school, before breaks, after breaks, before and after eating, and after sneezing or coughing.
•Do not touch your mouth, eyes and nose.
• Use a tissue or elbow to cough or sneeze, and use bins for tissues.
•You will be expected to sanitise your hands at regular points during the school day: in the morning at the beginning of Tutor time, as well as before and after break and lunchtimes and when entering a specialist teaching room (Music, Computer Studies, Science, DT, Changing Rooms).
• You must bring own personal learning equipment e.g. pens, pencils, rulers and calculators (see list below).
Attendance
All students are expected to attend school. If a student is self-isolating or unwell, parents please contact the school by 8.30am on every day of absence. Please do not be offended if the office staff ask for details of symptoms and instruct you to access a test for your daughter or son.
Equipment
Equipment must not be shared, so please ensure that your daughter or son brings their own personal stationery, including: Pens & pencils (including highlighters), glue stick, eraser, pencil sharpener, ruler, protractor, compasses, calculator
Year Group Arrangements
Literacy, Numeracy, PSHE, Careers and the Weekly Quiz will be delivered by students’ Daily Tutor, who will then teach them their period 1 subject lesson. Students will therefore report for morning registration and Tutor period in the classroom and with the teacher, who will teach their first subject lesson of the day.
This means that, as far as possible, students will still only mix with their own year group, once in school.
In the Sixth Form this also means that as far as possible, students will continue to mix only with students taking the same subjects as them, once in school.
In Years 7 & 8 students will remain in the same teaching group throughout each day with the exceptions of Mathematics and Design Technology.
In Years 9 - 13, students will move between lessons and mix with other students in order to experience the full curriculum and benefit from specialist facilities.
We aim to manage the number of student contacts in classrooms via our use of identical seating plans across as many subjects as possible, and where this is not possible, for the seating plans to be as similar as possible.
Movement between lessons and around the site
To avoid congestion in corridors we will continue to operate a strict one way system in buildings and around the campus between lessons. This one way system has greatly improved the ‘flow of traffic’ as we all move around.
We will maintain synchronised departures from and arrivals to lessons and teachers at doors releasing classes on pips and then receiving them in close cooperation with each other.
Your daughter or son’s Guidance Manager will remain your primary point of contact and students will retain their Academy identity.
Buildings and washing facilities
Students now make regular and frequent use of the extra outdoor hand washing facilities around the site. Works to improve ventilation in buildings remain ongoing and will form part of a bid for funds to the DFE. We will continue to open windows in all classrooms for maximum ventilation, whatever the weather. Students and staff are now well used to just putting their coats on, where necessary.
Sixth Form arrangements
Sixth Form students will not be permitted to leave the school site during the school day. Sixth Form students will be expected to register in the Sixth Form Area for any non-taught study lessons and then undertake private study in the Sixth Form Area. Students should maintain social distancing as far as possible in the Sixth Form Area.
Travel to School and the Starts and Ends of school days
At the end of the day, students will continue to board buses in Year Groups.
Please avoid dropping your child off or picking them up at school if this is at all possible. Neither the school site, nor the surrounding roads can support current traffic levels at drop off and pick up times, so please expect to be delayed and remain patient, both with our site staff and other drivers, as well as pedestrians.
On two occasions last school year our staff and the children witnessed or even were subject to very poor behaviour on the part of adults, who simply became impatient at the amount of traffic. We always report such incidents - and whenever our site staff instructions are disregarded - , provide CCTV footage and, where possible, identify perpetrators to the Police. We hope very much this will not be necessary during the 2022– 23 school year.
Face Coverings and PPE
We will not require our students and staff to wear a face covering in school. However, we will expect staff and students to maintain social distancing, wherever this is possible.
We will fully support those members of staff and students, who wish to wear a face covering.
Where staff and students opt not to wear a face covering we will ask that they are sensitive to social distancing, particularly in respect of those who do.
We will / would review this position and revise our Risk Assessment and practice in the light of any increase in infections at school or in the community and Gov.uk Guidance or advice from Public Health England.
Social distancing however is simply not possible in classrooms of 30 or 32 students and Gov.uk continues to recognize face coverings provide a measure of protection both to the wearer and those around them. If they choose to wear a face covering, students must not touch the front of the face covering during use or removal of a face covering.
Catering
We will maintain our increased Break Time food offer, so it more closely resembles the Lunchtime offer, to limit congestion in the Terrace Restaurant and Saga Café.
We maintain the extra serving point in the Terrace Restaurant to speed up service.
We will limit the number of students sat in the Terrace Restaurant or Café as necessary.
Please top-up your son/daughter’s keyfob account from home to reduce queuing at payment points.
All of these measures will ensure that break and lunch times are as safe as possible.
We will continue to provide a free breakfast from 8am – 8.20am.
Cleaning
We will continue our all day cleaning arrangements with our cleaning company.
After school activities and clubs
We will run a full programme of year group-based and possibly remote extra-curricular activities from the early part of the autumn term.
We will offer after school revision sessions to Year 11 and Year 13 in all their examination subjects from early in the autumn term. Most sessions will be on site but some remote as we have found this method of delivery highly successful, and it has overcome the barrier to participation of very many students posed by transport. Please do encourage your daughter or son to attend these sessions regularly.
Meetings in school and school events
Meetings will continue to be conducted by telephone or face-to-face via Webex until further notice. Please do not attend school, even to make an appointment with any member of staff.
Parents’ Subject Consultations will continue to take place remotely via School Cloud.
Student Welfare
We will continue to work hard to identify and respond to emerging student need as we reach forward to the next phase of each child’s education. Please enable us to do this most effectively by ensuring your child’s 100% attendance to school.
Curriculum 22 - 23
Our Subject Leaders and teachers will work hard to support every student in every subject, so all students access the widest possible coverage of their full curriculum. Every Year Group and every child will be our priority.
Students will receive plenty of whole-class feedback and personalised electronic feedback through Google classroom., in addition to marking of exercise books and written assignments.
Most Homework tasks will be set via the Google Classroom, and we will also strongly encourage students to read daily!
Dance, PE and Music
Music
We will continue school choir rehearsals using a mix of social distancing, with some rehearsals taking place outside and / or students practicing in Year groups. Music Lessons that involve singing, chanting and shouting will remain limited.
Students will still wipe keyboards before and after use and sanitise hands before and after use.
Peripatetic lessons will take place on site.
PE – We continue to maximize use of our beautiful outdoor environment at Brockhill as far as the weather allows. We will continue to maintain distance between students as far as possible.
Dance - We will maximize use of our beautiful outdoor environment at Brockhill as far as the weather allows. We will minimize contact between students where possible.
We will update our practices in these subjects as Guidance evolves and / or we receive specific advice from Public Health England.
School Trips
We will continue to seek to provide students with ‘A Window to the World’ through our University Collaborative Project, which provides a wide range of opportunities for students to participate in projects and events brokered by the universities.
We will continue with a range of School Trips not only in our beautiful local area but now also further afield in the UK.
External Education Professional Support Services
On site delivery has resumed, though some delivery may continue to be virtual for reasons of convenience. We will offer all providers a Lateral Flow Test on arrival.
Remote Learning Contingency Plan
In the event of any full or partial school closure we will activate Remote Learning overnight, set work through Google Classroom and move overnight to 100% live face-to-face lessons with teachers via Webex or Google Meet, as per student timetables.
Summary of key safety measures
A full, updated Risk Assessment will be placed on the school website before September 6th.
The protective measures include:
Voluntary use of face coverings by students and staff
• Social Distancing wherever possible.
• Tutor Work to take place in Year Group based teaching groups.
• All teaching in Year Groups.
• Management of movement via one way systems and synchronised departure and arrival to lessons.
• Limited staggering of lunches in September.
• Hand sanitizing. Dispensers are located in every teaching room.
• Regular reminders to wash hands.
• Regular reminders about the importance of physical distancing.
• Restrictions on sharing of equipment.
• Enhanced cleaning during and at the end of the day.
• PPE available for first aiders and / or all staff.
• Ventilation of rooms by opening of windows.
Gov.uk Guidance may evolve as we move to autumn and then winter, and we will update our documentation and practices to ensure we adhere to this and / or to any specific advice from Public Health England or the NHS.
Please keep this letter to hand should you have any queries.
We very much hope this school year will be subject to minimal disruption but will ensure we operate ‘normally’ if this is not the case to fulfil our role in helping you and your children prepare their Future.
Thank you so much for all your support – we know it is vital!
Principal
Yours sincerely
Charles Joseph
Principal
