Dear Parents and Carers,
This bulletin contains important information about the start of next term. Please read it carefully.
Testing
Before we welcome students back to school in September, we are required to ask them to take two lateral flow tests. We will ask students to come to school to take their first test, then go home and return to school for lessons, assuming the test is clear, the next day. The reason for that is that if we have to ask students to stay on site, socially distanced, for thirty minutes while we wait for the test results, we can only test a certain number of students a day. If they go home straight after the test, we can test much more quickly and ultimately get all students into lessons sooner. We have tried to prioritise sensibly by focussing on the youngest students and those beginning exam years. We have also mixed ages because older children tend to complete tests more quickly, so doing two younger groups on the same day doesn’t work well. The order of testing and beginning lessons is as below.
|
Day |
First Test |
In Lessons |
|
Monday 6th Sep |
Year 7, Year 11, Year 13 |
|
|
Tuesday 7th Sep |
Year 8, Year 10, Year 12 |
Year 7, Year 11, Year 13 |
|
Wednesday 8th Sep |
Year 9 |
Year 7, Year 8, Year 10, Year 11, Year 12, Year 13 |
|
Thursday 9th Sep |
All years |
Each tutor group will have a specific time to come in for their first test. It would be very helpful if we could stick as closely as possible to those times. Those times are as follows.
|
Date |
Year Group |
Tutor |
Time |
|
Monday 6th Sept |
7 |
D1 |
8:55am |
|
D2 |
9:10am |
||
|
B1 |
9:25am |
||
|
B2 |
9:40am |
||
|
C1 |
9:55am |
||
|
C2 |
10:10am |
||
|
C3 |
10:25am |
||
|
Monday 6th Sept |
11 |
D1 |
11:10am |
|
D2 |
11:25am |
||
|
D3 |
11:40am |
||
|
B1 |
11:55am |
||
|
B2 |
12:10pm |
||
|
B3 |
12:25pm |
||
|
C1 |
12:40pm |
||
|
C2 |
12:55pm |
||
|
Monday 6th Sept |
13 |
Sa |
1:50pm |
|
Sb |
2:00pm |
||
|
Sc |
2:10pm |
||
|
Sd |
2:20pm |
||
|
Se |
2:30pm |
||
|
Sf |
2:40pm |
|
Tuesday 7th Sept |
8 |
D1 |
8:55am |
|
D2 |
9:10am |
||
|
B1 |
9:25am |
||
|
B2 |
9:40am |
||
|
C1 |
9:55am |
||
|
C2 |
10:10am |
||
|
C3 |
10:25am |
||
|
Tuesday 7th Sept |
10 |
D1 |
11:10am |
|
D2 |
11:25am |
||
|
D3 |
11:40am |
||
|
B1 |
11:55am |
||
|
B2 |
12:10pm |
||
|
B3 |
12:25pm |
||
|
C1 |
12:40pm |
||
|
C2 |
12:55pm |
||
|
Tuesday 7th Sept |
12 |
Sa |
1:50pm |
|
Sb |
2:00pm |
||
|
Sc |
2:10pm |
||
|
Sd |
2:20pm |
||
|
Se |
2:30pm |
||
|
Sf |
2:40pm |
||
|
Weds 8th Sept |
9 |
D1 |
8:55am |
|
D2 |
9:10am |
||
|
B1 |
9:25am |
||
|
B2 |
9:40am |
||
|
B3 |
9:55am |
||
|
C1 |
10:10am |
||
|
C2 |
10:25am |
||
|
C3 |
10:55am |
Hopefully you will be able to arrange transport for those days when your children are coming to school for a test then going home again. If this is going to be a problem for you, please contact Dr Geall at kgeall@samuelward.co.uk and we will see if we can help. He will be able to deal with those queries from Thursday 2nd September.
If you have already given consent for your child to take a test here this year, we will continue to use that. If you have given consent but wish to withdraw it, you can do so by contacting Mrs Singleton at jsingleton@samuelward.co.uk , again from Thursday September 2nd.
If your child in joining us for the first time in September, you will need to give consent by completing the form here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/QKR9F8D
You do not have to give consent for your child to be tested and if they don’t take a test, they will still be allowed to attend lessons as usual. However, participating in testing helps to keep everyone safe and their education uninterrupted.
Other precautions
In addition to testing, I’ve been considering the relaxing of the guidance for schools on how to manage covid. We are starting from the principal that the restrictions across society will have been removed. We don’t feel it is time to completely remove our precautions, but we want to start down that road because there are some things children have missed out on this year.
- The main change is that we will no longer have to ask groups of children to isolate if one child tests positive. That is going to make a real difference to all of us.
- We will no longer ask children to buy and eat their lunch from a particular servery – they will be free to go where they like. We are going to continue with the arrangement that C-Block breakout is reserved for Year 11 because it has worked so well.
- We will no longer require student to wear masks in school but they may do so if they wish. The government have very quickly changed their minds on the wearing of masks on school transport, so we will continue to ask students to wear masks on school buses and mini-buses.
- We will no longer ask teachers to teach from the front of the room and avoid being within a metre of any student for a minute or more, though they may still wish to do so. Where individual members of staff or students are extremely clinically vulnerable, we will continue to offer personalised approaches to safety.
- We will continue to ask students to wear PE kit on PE days for at least the first half term, but it is my intention that in the fullness of time we will return to the normal system of changing for PE.
- We will start to hold face to face assemblies again.
- We will leave all of the sanitisers in place and continue to ask students to use them on entering any classroom.
We’re taking an optimistic but cautious approach and we’re ready to adjust it as necessary. None of us have enjoyed having all of the restrictions in place this year, but we’ve done well to limit the spread of covid. I’m very grateful for all of your support with that this year.
I’m sorry to end the year with so much about covid when there have been so many positive, exciting events to celebrate recently. It has been wonderful to welcome the new Year 7 students to school this week for their transition days. The concert on Tuesday has been seen nearly 1,000 times already, and we will all be watching it tomorrow during period 5. If you would like to see it, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN1zWz51_fM
We’re looking forward to seeing Year 11 again tonight for their leaving celebration, and to coming in tomorrow for the final day of the year when we will hold extended assemblies in which we give our colours to those students who have earned them. That is a non-uniform day for all.
A visitor to the school remarked to me last week that he felt a sense of warmth and community around our school which he rarely felt in other schools. I think that’s a great thing to be able to say about a school. Your children are polite, sensible, curious, funny, considerate and mature and they make this job a pleasure.
I hope that you and your children have a very enjoyable summer and look forward to seeing all of our wonderful students back again in September.
Andy Hunter
Headteacher