Dear all,

We have reached (with some relief!) half term. This has, without doubt, been the most challenging half term I've ever experienced, but it has been made much more manageable by how calm, mature and optimistic your children have been. Even as I write this at 15:45, Year 11 are still working hard in Period 6, albeit with a surprise pizza delivery as a thank you for all their efforts! I'm very grateful to all students, and to our parents and carers too, for the support you've all shown the school.

This week's letter contains important news about our new parent app, and some COVID-19 updates, so please do take a couple of minutes to read through!

My main update is that we will be launching our new parent app, Edulink next week. We've decided to do this because it will help us communicate through one, single portal. You can access Edulink directly from your browser, or by downloading the app on iPhone or Android. Initially, it will allow you to view key information like your child's timetable, attendance and even what they're purchasing in the canteen! Over time, we will switch to Edulink for most communication, allowing you to report absence, receive updates and alerts from the school, book parent evening appointments and so on. 

You should receive an email next week with details on how to activate your account. Please do consider using the app - we hope to start using it as our main communication channel from January so we are keen to get as many parents signed up as possible! For more information, please click here. 

Moving on, I'm pleased to be abloe to report that the week has passed without any further COVID-19 cases this week. We have made some tweaks to our protocols based on our experiences last week - most notably in how we track who students have interacted with. This will hopefully mean that if we do have another confirmed case, we are less likely to have to send a full year group home - although of course every case is different, and we will always err on the side of caution if we feel there is a good reason to isolate a whole year group. A big thank you must go to our Year 7 parents for supporting their children so well with home learning. Year 7 have done brilliantly online, but we can't wait to have them back after half term!

One other small change for next term; we have had some useful feedback around students not having the right equipment in the morning. As you know, last year we started each day with line up, where students could access the school shop and sort out any equipment uniform lessons and speak to their Head of Year before registration. We removed this due to COVID-19 as we didn't want the whole school congregating in each area. This has caused a few snags, so after half term we will be reintroducing line up the start of the day - but this will now be in bubbles. I'm confident this will make for a more positive start each morning!

Some positives to end on:

First, congratulations to Meteor house, who have clung onto their house competition lead, finishing the term just 6 points ahead of Typhoon. All Meteor students received a gift on their way out today - but the main prize is still to play for!

And second, our Year 13 Photographers have just completed their group photoshoot assignment, and I've shared the photographs below; a fitting set of photos for what looks like a rather wet and blustery half term!

Best wishes,

Mr Farmbrough
Headteacher