Letter From The Headmaster
A very happy New Year to you all and I hope the first week of home learning went well in your households. Although we would all rather be in school, the feedback I have had this week has been very positive, so thank you for your support in helping to get remote learning underway in your homes - particularly for the Year 7s who are going through this at Princethorpe for the first time.
It has certainly been an interesting week in school. On Monday we had a staff training day and were getting ready to open the Asymptomatic Testing Centre for mass testing of the whole school on the staggered return, only to find that later in the day we were into another national lockdown and the GCSE and A-level exams were cancelled.
We have formulated a very good plan for the Year 11 and Upper Sixth over the weeks and months ahead and if you didn’t have a chance to join the live assemblies I gave today (Friday 8 January), you can watch them here:
Upper Sixth Assembly Recording
During the latest period of Home Learning we will try to keep as many of the normal school routines and events as possible. We have re-jigged a number of assessment, reporting and parents’ evening dates following the enforced changes. These can be found in Dr Reddish’s Flagpole article under Academic – please do read this carefully and make a note of the relevant changes which affect your family.
From next week as everyone is working online we will also be removing the split lunch and break times. All tutor times will be 10.35am to 10.55am and all lunch times will be 1.05pm to 2.00pm.
No matter how good Home Learning is, we know it is better to have the children in school and we are looking forward to this – we are hoping it will be after February Half Term but will have to wait and see. In the meantime, a key part of the strategy for getting pupils back into school is the Asymptomatic Testing programme so if you are still to register your consent, please can I ask you to do so as soon as possible to help our planning. An email was sent to all parents today from Mrs Sharpe with a video about how we are running the test centre and a link to the consent form for those who have yet to complete it.
Finally, a reminder that if you or you children need any support, please do get in touch with us so we can focus extra help where it is most needed.
With all best wishes for the term ahead,
Ed Hester
