20^th January 2021

 

Dear Parents and Students,

I hope you are keeping well and safe as we head into the third week of the term. I appreciate that working at a screen all day is quite hard and it is most important that you try to use the breaks between each lesson to walk away from the screen and give your eyes a rest. Your teachers are also finding this as well so we are looking to see what we can do to give a little more down time from the screen without compromising your learning.

 

Don’t forget that your PE teachers have put ideas for exercise in the working at home folder and this would be a very good use of the time on your timetable when you would be doing PE.  Try to get some fresh air every day even if it is just standing outside for a few minutes, although I appreciate that the weather makes this more difficult at the moment. Having battled my way through Couch to 5k last term I am trying to maintain a 5k run 3 times a week but just recently it might have been easier to do it in a canoe!

Congratulations to those of you who have signed up to the Winter Reading Challenge and well done to Ethan for being the first to tell me. Please keep the ideas for a good place to read coming in. We will share your ideas in the coming weeks.

Next week you will be receiving all the government information about the lateral flow testing that will take place once students return to onsite learning. I am afraid there is quite a lot of paperwork that we are required to share with you, along with a consent form. This is a voluntary process and no child will be prevented from returning to school if you do not wish to participate in this process. Thank you to my colleagues who are putting in many hours of additional work to get this up and running.

The school is aware that there are now concerns about the testing in schools but we will send out the paperwork and ask you to return the consent form. This will allow us to start the testing immediately the students return if this is still required. If the testing is cancelled we will make sure that all consent forms are disposed of according to GDPR regulations.

We will still require students to self-isolate if they have symptoms or are in close contact with someone who has symptoms and is waiting a test result.

I have a number of communications to share with you, one of them year specific.

A message from Miss McMahon

On the 17^th January, it was national World Religion Day. This was started by the Baha’i faith in 1950 and the sole focus was to bring religions together and work on restoring peace and harmony. The RE department decided to celebrate this and set a whole school RE challenge. Students were asked to complete an ‘A-Z of Religion’. This involved asking students to find different religious words, ideas/concepts for every letter of the alphabet. Students could and can still take part in virtual tours around different places of worship. A real chance to see how different religions and cultures can come together!

A message from Mrs Lewis, Social Inclusion Officer

We have also updated the Parent Support pages on the school website. It now gives a little information on each of the services available to you outside of school. A Schoolcomms will be going out shortly which has all the information and will direct you to the correct support network.

Year 9 Teenage Booster Vaccines- 4^th and 5^th February

Following information sent out last week by Mr Applin we are pleased to be able to continue to hold these important vaccinations (Diphtheria/Tetanus/Polio and Meningitis) for all students in Year 9. For further information and booking an immunisation slot please visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/year-9-teenage-booster-vaccines-tickets-136278618015.

Please ensure you are following all of the guidance to ensure these immunisations can take place safely for everyone involved.

The Scholar’s Programme is getting under way this week with twelve Year 8 students attending the live launch which will be streamed from Robinson College, Cambridge on Thursday. Students will be studying under a PhD tutor on the subject of the French Revolution. We are very excited to get started.
Well done to Ruby in Year 7 who raised over £100 for refreshments for NHS staff. Victoria from the ‘Cup and  Saucer’ was so impressed that she had gifted Ruby and her family an afternoon tea as well as an apron and utensils for Ruby to continue with her recipes.

This brings me to this week’s recipe which is for egg rolls, thank you Mrs Denman, and this can be found in the recipe folder of the work at home section on the school website.

And finally, my new lockdown project. I am avoiding the saw, hammer, nails and paint for the current lockdown, much to everyone’s relief.

So I have decided to make a patch work quilt for the bed using scraps of fabric and a helping hand from a fabric supplier (my first ever purchase from ebay!). I am going to hand sew each piece so this weekend I spent time cutting out templates in preparation for making the individual pieces. I like the fact that I can do this and still listen to the radio or music, or watch the television. My favourite piece of music at the moment is from a CD I received as a Christmas present. It is Vaughan Williams ‘Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis’ and I highly recommend it for a stress busting, soothing 15 minutes that will bring some calm and tranquillity to the day.

If you have started a new project or a hobby as a result of lockdown do let me know. It would be lovely to have a lockdown positive page to share with everyone.

With my best wishes to you and your family,

Miss Hearle

Headteacher