19 June 2020

Dear parent/carer

This week we have welcomed Year 10 students back into school for face to face sessions in English and maths.   After a slow start on Monday, numbers picked up quickly and overall 72% of Year 10 students have taken advantage of the opportunity to come into school during the week.   This is encouraging and I hope that at the next opportunity even more students will attend.   Students arrived in groups and followed all the measures we had put in place for them.   The provision was planned so that it is possible for everyone to practise social distancing and all of the students behaved impeccably in school.    I managed to visit every group and it was really good to see more students and colleagues back in school albeit in a very different environment to usual.   They were taught in groups of up to 10 students in a room with seats 2m apart.      Each class had a specialist teacher and those who attended were appreciative of having some help with their work.

Next week it is the turn of Year 12 students to come into school and I hope that they will attend in even bigger numbers than Year 10 have.   They will be able to have a session for each subject they are studying and session about planning their future and university applications.   Information for parents about the control measures being implemented in school is still available on our website along with a risk assessment and various other documents which have been prepared as part of the planning process.

In addition to more students attending school there have been more staff in school as well.   Some have been delivering sessions to students and others have been making phone calls.   We have called Year 10 students who have been invited in and not attended and continued to call students in Years 7 to 9.    The staff making calls have reported that they continue to be well received although some students are a little quiet!   If you miss an unexpected call from school then this is probably what the call was for.  Don’t worry, we will try to call back later.

Teachers are constantly reviewing and changing their approach to how they are setting work to keep things fresh and engage their students.   They are using external resources like BBC Bitesize, online quizzes and Google forms as well as modelling videos and voice overs.    It is difficult to get responses from some students and I would like to ask you to encourage your child to respond to questions from their teachers and to the questions and quizzes.   They will be using information from this to plan for next year and how to best support with catching up when we return to lessons in school.

The school closure has left us unable to discuss the recent news and in particular the death of George Floyd and subsequent rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and protests.  We believe that society must learn from the mistakes of the past, understand the impact of the past on the present and move forward to a world in which all are respected for who they are.  These are certainly values that Aldridge School promotes.    Although we do not currently have the opportunities for discussions in school, we have provided some information through form groups in the last week which your child may wish discuss with you.

I will send another brief update next week to let you know how things have gone with face to face sessions for Year 12.

With best wishes

Ian Bryant

Headteacher