Headmaster's Message

Headmaster's Message

Dear Parents

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2021. We had worked so hard planning for a safe return to school this week only for everything to change overnight with the announcement on Monday. This left us with a mountain to climb getting everything ready for home learning and key school provision. The fact that we were able to roll this out in full from Wednesday is a result of a tremendous amount of hard work from all of the team here. Many thanks to everyone involved.

I hope that home learning has got off to a good start for you and your children. As an administrator, I am able to view all of the lessons that are set and although I don't endeavour to watch each one I'm able to dip in and out and get a taste of what is going on. The sheer variety and accessibility of the sessions that have been provided is wonderful to see and I hope that your children are enjoying all of the learning opportunities that they provide. It has also been good to see plenty of Teams meetings taking place as these provide an extra string to the bow for the teachers and provide personal contact for the children as well. We continuously monitor our home schooling at school and review our practise on a day to day and week to week basis. At this stage, I would only say, an excellent start has been made.

This is effectively the third lockdown we have been in during the pandemic and the second time we have had to provide key school provision for critical workers. Since the last pandemic the criteria for eligibility for this has broadened significantly and this week we have been taken by surprise by the high level of demand. I would also point out that all of the families accessing key school have provided full evidence of their eligibility.

Of course, this increased demand is a reflection of the vitally important work that many of you do as parents, but inevitably it puts a strain on us here as we juggle with providing onsite provision as well as home learning. At the same time, I am always mindful of the additional risk to staff and children that any additional contact brings. For this reason, I would ask all critical worker parents to do what they can to keep their children at home, where at all possible.

After a very, very busy week, I'm looking forward to a little downtime this weekend with my family. With few social options on offer, we will plan for some nice long walks in the frozen countryside, plenty of fresh air and perhaps a takeaway (highlight of the week!) on Saturday night.

I do hope you are able to enjoy your weekends as well.

Joe Thackway
Headmaster