Dear Parent/Carer
With transmission and infection rates exponentially increasing across our region and nationally, we are writing to you today with some contingency plans should they need to be actioned. The reason for doing this is to give you as much lead in time as possible should we need to send year groups home due to staff shortage.
The rate of staff and student infection and absence continues to rise on a daily basis and as such it is our professional opinion it is highly unlikely we will get to the end of term without having to put some form of contingency in place.
Post 16 students can work independently and are the most accustomed to lended/remote learning. They are also the oldest and we are most confident that they will cause least impact to family working arrangements. As a result, they will work from home starting on Monday 20 December for the final few days of term.
Work will be on Google Classroom and some lessons may be live dependent on staff availability and if they are not covering other years and absent colleagues.
We are hopeful we will not need to send any further groups home. However, with only a few days left, should staff absence increase any further we will send home year groups in the following order:-
Year 9, Year 8, Year 10, Year 7 and finally Year 11.
As referenced in last week’s correspondence, the DfE has insisted that attendance is compulsory right up until the end of school’s scheduled end date, which for us is Wednesday 22 December. To reiterate our stance, we are well aware that there are some fears amongst families about Christmas plans being adversely affected by sending their children into school. As such, we would like to reassure you that any students who are not in school during that final week will not be disadvantaged, as we will ensure all content from lessons is on Google Classroom.
This contingency plan is for December and we will reassess for the spring term after the new year and any further likely government announcements.
If you have any questions, please contact your child’s Achievement Leader or Assistant Achievement Leader.
Yours sincerely
Mr S Huntington and Mr M Jones
Executive Principal and Senior Vice Principal