Dear Parents and Guardians
You will have by now seen the updates from the Government regarding the return of schools in the new year.
As you know, we had already decided to delay our return date for face to face learning to Monday 11th January to try to reduce transmission of the virus after the Christmas period. We intend to continue with the planned arrangements for the first week back (5th - 8th January). This means the majority of lessons will be delivered via OneNote and the expectation is that your daughter’s teachers will be in email contact to explain to your daughter what work is to be done. Please assure your daughter that she is welcome to contact any of her teachers if she needs any additional support during this period.
The school will be open for the return of our international boarders and key worker children as planned from Monday 4th January and the students living on site during this period will access their lessons in the same way as students who are off site. We expect all other boarders to return on Sunday 17th January or Monday 18th January, please could you ensure your daughter’s House parent is aware of their return arrangements.
From Monday 11th January, the government has decided that only the examination year groups should return to face to face learning. The U5 and U6 year groups will therefore be able to return to school for face to face learning from Monday 11th January and the U6 will commence their mock examinations on Monday 11th January as planned. We will need to commence the COVID testing regime with these students before they return on 11th January and they will be required to visit the school test centre, which we are in the process of setting up, between Wednesday 6th and Friday 8th January. Further details on when and where to report for this test will be sent out on Monday 4th, or Tuesday 5th January to these individuals. We are also planning on testing as many as possible from the other year groups before their return on Monday 18th January. Details of this will also be sent out between Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th January.
All other lessons during the week of 11th January for the remaining year groups will be delivered remotely with classes following their normal timetables. Boarders who are in school at this time but not in the face to face teaching groups (i.e not in the U5 and U6) will be able to access the remote learning from their boarding houses.
From 18th January the school expects to be allowed to open fully to all year groups, subject to any changes announced by the government in the meantime. We will be testing students before they return to the school site and you will receive further details on this procedure and the timings for your daughter during the week of 11th January.
Please be assured that we continue to engage in very high quality hygiene procedures throughout the school throughout the day. We will continue to use a one way system around the school and bubbled groupings and will also encourage the girls within the bubbles to socially distance, following strict hygiene procedures and wear face coverings in corridors and other communal areas.
For those students expecting to take public examinations this year, we continue to follow closely the situation with OFQUAL and the examination boards. Currently, the information states that public examinations will run as planned in England, with reduced content in some subject areas and a slightly later starting date for the examination period. We will keep you informed of any further information or changes as it becomes available.
We are very aware of how difficult this time is for our students and you as families. BrainCanDo has prepared a series of workshops to help your daughters to deal with the inevitable anxiety and uncertainty that we all currently face and I hope that she will find this helpful. You can find these on the BrainCanDo website here. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like any further information on this. We will also be running sessions for parents over the course of the next few weeks so that you can gain greater insight into the changes in the adolescent brain in general and how the current crisis will be affecting this in terms of mental health and well being.
With very best wishes at this difficult time.
Sincerely
Julia Harrington
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