Dear Parents, Guardians and Friends
We hope that you and your children have got into the flow once again of their on line lessons.
Our teachers are happy to report excellent attendance to, and engagement in their lessons. We have also been overwhelmed with kind comments and feedback about the work being set, be it live or remote. This is really pleasing to hear and has been the result of some fantastic training that our staff have undertaken led by Mrs Smith and the Teaching and Learning Team.
Here are some key updates for this week
Key workers/vulnerable/SEN student provision
We have a number of students working in school supervised in Year group bubbles. If you are a key worker or your daughter/son is vulnerable/has SEN and is unable to work unsupervised from home, then please contact keyworker@holt.wokingham.sch.uk to request a place. However, please note that we are unable to offer key worker supervision over half term.
Lateral Flow Testing (LFTs)
Thanks to Mrs Martin and Mrs Maynard for setting up and rolling out the LFT programme. Whilst school is closed, only students in key worker supervision and any staff on site will take part. Parents of these students will have received the information and the consent forms. Please can you return these promptly if you have not done so already.
GCSE and A level exams
We still await the formal outcome of the consultation regarding how GCSEs and A levels will be graded following the DFE’s announcement of the cancelling of the exams. The media are of course speculating several different options, but once we know officially, we will be in touch with this information. We really appreciate how difficult it is for our Year 11 and 13 students at the moment and of course our Year 10s due to sit their POR exams in the summer. We need to continue as we are doing to complete the specifications and NEAs and to keep their revision ticking over for PPEs.
Live/remote lessons on line behaviour
Mrs Martin has updated our IT Acceptable Use Policy to reflect the use of Teams and the on-line etiquette required. There has also been an addendum to the Behaviour for Learning policy on the website to sit alongside this. Your daughter/son’s Head of Year will be sending this out as a survey for your daughter/son to read, complete and submit in order to acknowledge the messages within it.
Year 9 options evening
This event will take place as planned tomorrow, Thursday 14th January as a remote event. The link will be posted on the website in one of the “call to action” boxes at the bottom of the page and will go live by 6.30 pm. The link comprises a talk by Mr Adams, to share the process and timeline along with videos made by our departments to share information about their subjects at GCSE. Year 9 students will then have an options interview by a member of SLT to help guide them and take any questions before they make their final decisions. These interviews will be on Teams and more information will follow.
Have a good week and we will send another update next Wednesday
Take care
Anne Kennedy and Katie Pearce
Co-headteachers