School will close for Christmas at 12:30pm on Friday 17th December 2021 and reopen on Tuesday 4th January 2022
Thank you to everyone involved with our school for your continued support over the winter term. We have continued to review and adapt our plans in response to the Covid pandemic and the emerging guidance from the NHS and Department for Education. Following the latest announcements by the Prime Minister, there is a raised level of risk associated with the latest variant of the Covid virus and we are unable to predict what may or may not happen during the Christmas and New Year holiday period in terms of the government’s response. However, we expect school to reopen fully to ALL students and staff on Tuesday 4th January 2022 and to operate a normal five lesson day commencing at 8:40am.
When we return to school:
Face masks will remain compulsory inside of our school buildings for all staff and students.
Regular testing will remain an important part of keeping our school safe. All students are asked to test before starting back at school in January. All students will be given a box of 7 tests before Christmas and another on return to school.
Hand hygiene will continue to be promoted and required as students and staff enter rooms.
Windows and doors will remain open to assist ventilation and students may wish to consider extra layers of clothing underneath school uniform.
Seating plans will continue to play an important part in our internal track and trace procedures.
We will issue an update to all parents and students on Thursday 30th December 2021. Updates can also be found on the school website.
Getting students back on track
During the first term of the school year we have maintained a series of covid safe behaviours and we are conscious that we have gone beyond the minimum expectations required of us as a school. We have asked for the support of our parents in doing so. We set out early on our intention to stick as closely as possible to a five lesson day with the right teachers in the appropriate classrooms which we see as essential to giving our students as normal a school experience as possible.
With this in mind we have put together a few pieces of information that we hope will give some confidence that the measures we have in place to keep our community safe are also the measures we need to continue with to enable teaching and learning to continue.
In the four months since we returned from the summer break we have:
Covid safety - distributed over 25,500 face coverings with a peak of 532 face masks in one day. Fitted 150 hand sanitiser units using 500 litres of sanitizer fluid, Worked through 75,000 pairs of latex gloves, 200 gallons of bleach and disinfectant spray. We have supervised over 4,000 individual LFT Covid tests and distributed over 40,000 test kits, spoken to hundreds of families and given out countless pieces of advice both covid and general health focussed, dealt with 137 students and 24 staff who tested positive for Covid and supported in school vaccination days for both covid and flu.
Teaching and Learning - Taught 13,000 face to face lessons in 30 different subjects at GCSE and A level, invested £500,000 in the development of a new Learning Resource Centre, awarded more than 200,000 achievement points, set and marked around 5,000 separate items of homework, held on-line parents evenings in all year groups and marked more than 2,000 mock exam papers.
Normal school experience - Spent over 400 hours providing pastoral support and care for our students, provided over 50,000 hours of learning support, over 400 hours of specific pastoral support and care, over 500 extra curricular sessions including after school PE, served over 70,000 meals and snacks, carried out form and year group assemblies, held a Winter Festival and had countess positive conversations and interactions with students and families
Not all plain sailing - collected 4 tons of rubbish from the school grounds, repaired 42 toilets and hand basins and removed graffiti from toilet walls.
We look forward to welcoming all staff and students back to school on Tuesday 4th January 2022 when we will approach the next school term with the same objectives of getting all of our students back on track with their studies with as normal a school experience as possible. All students are asked to take an LFT test within 48 hours of being due to return to school and to register the results at testregister.co.uk
Useful contacts
For issues relating to COVID-19 including advice and information please contact us by email at: Nocv19@hccs.info
Free any questions about free school meals: financeteam@hccs.info
All other general enquiries please contact us by email at: office@hccs.info