Dear parents and Carers

Thank you for all the support you have given school during this first week of remote learning. I know that there have been some issues relating to Teams and Class Charts this week and I appreciate this is frustrating for everyone involved.  There may be issues again nationally when even more students join the platforms online for remote learning and I would ask that whilst the issues are resolved at a national level that you encourage the children to log back on again if their signal drops out.

Remote Learning

A timetable will be sent out for the remote learning scheduled for next week for years 7 to 13.  All students will have advisory each morning.  During the first week students will have an assembly with their Head of Year who will reinforce the expectations and check that all students are prepared and ready for their remote learning that day.  It is important that all students are logged on by 9.15am to connect into their advisory and this is when the first attendance check will be taken.  Students will then either log into class charts or Teams if they have a live lesson.

If a student does not attend the remote advisory time, this will trigger attendance calls by their advisor, head of year or a member of the attendance team.  If a student is ill and unable to attend the remote learning sessions, it is essential that parents or carers contact school to report attendance in the usual way.

In addition, students will be set tasks that will need to be uploaded to class charts or completed during the live lessons.  It is again important that students not only attend sessions but that they are fully engaged with the sessions.  School will be reporting attendance and level of engagement to Consilium Trust on a weekly basis and as staff we are extremely keen that students complete all set work so that our young people do not fall further behind due to the restrictions implemented as a result of the pandemic.

Examinations year 11 and year 13

Parents and carers of students in year 11 and year 13 will be aware that as a school and across the Trust we have taken the decision to cancel the January module examinations.  This was left as a decision that schools were required to make on an individual basis.  As the government has cancelled the summer examinations we felt that to support the well-being and health and safety of all students and staff involved that once there was an option, that it was sensible to cancel the remaining January examinations.  This will in no way be detrimental to the final outcomes for students and hopefully will be a welcome relief after all the uncertainty caused by the late decision made by government to cancel exams.

Although we do not have details yet, the government has announced that student results this year will be in the form of centre assessed grades based wholly on teacher assessments.  Last year there were problems caused by the examination boards applying algorithms to the teacher assessed grades which then led to results being changed causing considerable stress to young people, especially those in year 13, this will not be the case this year.

I will of course update you when I know more, but it will be essential that students remain engaged throughout this period in their remote learning to enable them to achieve their very best in on-going assessments.  These assessments and previous assessments will contribute towards the final centre assessed grades which will then be used to determine their GCSE and A Level grade.

We appreciate that not everyone has access to a device or the internet.  We are continuing to work with the DfE to support  with this wherever possible.  We appreciate your patience as we move forward with this.

Finally, I hope that you and your families remain safe and positive at this difficult time.  Your support means an enormous amount to the staff team.

Staff have enjoyed working with the students in upper school on the live lessons this week and look forward to working the rest of the year groups next week.

Have a restful weekend.

Yours sincerely,

Allie Denholm

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