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About Consilium

Consilium Academies is a multi-academy Trust working across the North of England. It has nine academy schools located in Yorkshire, the North West, and the North East. Consilium is dedicated to enriching lives and inspiring ambitions for both students and colleagues.

Parent/Carer Update 05/01/2021

Dear Parents and Carers

Happy New Year and I hope you all managed to enjoy Christmas even if it was different to the celebrations we normally expect.

You will now all be aware that the Prime Minster has announced another national lockdown and that schools are now closed, except for children of critical workers and vulnerable children.

I appreciate that this will cause considerable concern and worry but I will try and clarify as much as possible in this letter.

Attendance and Remote Learning

5th-8th January – Year 11 and Year 13 students attending Heworth Grange School are expected to attend live lessons planned this week, and all students Year 7,8, 9, 10, 11 and 13 should log into Class Charts to complete work available on line.

11th January onwards – All students will be given an online “live lessons” timetable.  Students will be expected to log into these live lessons on “Teams”.

Due to staffing arrangements not all lessons will be live and the rest of the timetable will be online learning through “Class Charts” that students log into and complete.

Staff are currently creating the “live lesson” timetable for use from the 11th January and this will be published shortly.

Students will also be expected to log into a “live advisory” session in the morning where their advisors will check they are set up for the day.  Any students not logging into the advisory, live lessons or Class Charts, will be followed up through normal absence procedures.  Students, as we know have already missed a considerable amount of schooling and therefore it is essential that they engage in the remote learning to avoid missing out on any more learning time.

We know that there have been national issues with Teams and Class Charts due to the volume of users but we know providers are trying to resolve these ahead of next week, and we will keep you updated on this and apologise for any concern caused by this issue.

IT Provision

Prior to the holidays we contacted parents and carers to establish provision for remote learning.  The laptops provided by the DfE have to be reformatted as they have a particular shelf-life.  Our technicians are currently carrying out this work and laptops will be ready to be handed out again from today.  The admin team are

contacting parents and carers to see if your position has changed over the holidays so that we can endeavour to provide IT resources for any new needs.  I ask that you are patient with us whilst we work through this process.

Year 10 Travel and Tourism Exam

This exam was due to take place on the 8th January, however, due to the circumstances and in consultation with the Travel and Tourism teacher, students will not sit this exam on the 8th January and will sit the exam at a later date in the next round of exams.  This will not cause any detriment to any future exam results for these students.

Year 11 and Year 13 January Exams

There are a number of vocational examinations taking place in January beginning tomorrow, the 6th January.

All students have had their timetables previously.

These exams will go ahead as planned.  Timetables have been sent out and students should arrive on school site at 8.30am for morning exams where they will be met by staff, and 1.00pm for afternoon exams.

The only Year 11 exams taking place in January are on the 11th January for students studying Creative Imedia.  There are no other exams in January for Year 11. Further details will follow about revision sessions and arrangements for the exams.

Year 11 and Year 13 Summer Exams

Currently we do not have the full picture regarding summer exams but we know they will not go ahead in the usual way.  The government is liaising with Ofqual to determine what the arrangements will be but there will be some kind of replacement to the usual examination process.

It is therefore vital that students continue to attend all “live lessons” and complete all remote learning online to the best of their ability, so that if required, students will achieve their best possible grades in any assessments that might take place.  To reiterate, however, we do not know currently what this will look like and the government is liaising with Ofqual to determine this.  I will update you as soon as I am able.

Finally, in closing, may I thank you again for your patience with changing plans and technical issues that undoubtedly will cause stress.  The most important thing we can all do at this moment is to support one another so that we are in the best position to support the young people.  I cannot imagine how this is impacting on our students once again missing out on school and seeing their friends, and in particular, our students taking exams.  Please can you pass on best wishes from the whole staff team here at Heworth Grange School, and we will continue to do our very best to support our students as well as you as parents and carers.

Yours sincerely

Headteacher