PARENT/CARER UPDATE - END OF TERM ARRANGEMENTS - 09/12/2020
As you may know, the Department for Education contacted schools yesterday afternoon permitting an adjustment to the end of term for Public Health reasons. In our case, it provided us with the scope for term to end on Thursday 17th December as opposed to Friday 18th December.
One purpose of this would be to enable our Noadswood community's six days' worth of potential contact tracing to end on Wednesday 23rd December as opposed to Christmas Eve, should someone test positive for Covid-19 beyond the last teaching day of term, as per Government guidance. As an Academy, we then have at our disposal two options regarding how to do this without adjusting down your children's teaching time across the year.
One is to convert Friday 18th December in to a colleague INSET day, and therefore cancel a later INSET day we have already calendared, and the other is to add a further teaching day to another term during this academic year. We have reflected carefully over the last 24 hours, consulting with Trustees, and we have determined it would be in the Noadswood family's overall best interests to indeed end term on Thursday 17th December for Public Health reasons including the one stated above, and I will outline the timings for this below.
We will not convert Friday 18th December in to an INSET day, however - INSET days are events we plan carefully with a range of learning and other activities linked to School Improvement Objectives, and we cannot do that justice with 7 school days to plan one from the day we were informed we could do so.
What we can do is add an additional teaching day to the end of the Summer Term 2021 - so we will now finish for the Summer on Friday July 23rd 2021 as opposed to the published date of Thursday July 22nd 2021.
TIMINGS FOR THE END OF TERM - THURSDAY 17TH 2020
The day will start at the usual staggered times.
- Lessons 1,2 and 3 will run as normal
- Canteen will be open for each break
- 12.20pm - all students will return to tutor bases
- 12.20-12.50pm - house assemblies will be shared online- led by House Leader, these will include the House Cup results and my Headteacher's message to the students
- 12.50pm - Year 9,10 and 11 will leave site
- 1.00pm - Year 7 and 8 will leave site
These are the same timings as we would have observed had we ended on the Friday, and are our customary times for the last day of this term.
We appreciate we are making a very late change to the date, however, which may place some of you in a real childcare difficulty, exacerbated by not being able to mix bubbles to share the load of this. So if you need your child to remain in school until their usual finish time, all you need to do is complete the online form (click link) to that effect, and we will make safe provision for them, of course.
Should the state of play regarding Covid-19 confirmed cases alter between now and the end of term, we will advise you of any changes to these published arrangements immediately we know of any, which would only ever be with Public Health advice and Trustee agreement.
I would like to thank you once again for your phenomenal support and communication with us - please keep using health@noadswood.hants.sch.uk with any questions, concerns or worries including about the contents of this update.
Look out for our end of term newsletters next week, and wishing you well until then,
Kathryn Marshall and the Noadswood Leadership Team