Headmaster's Message

Letter From The Headmaster

The Headmaster sent the following message by email to all parents on Thursday 25 February.

I am delighted to be writing to you to confirm that following the Prime Minister’s recent announcement Princethorpe College will be opening for all pupils on Monday 8 March. This letter gives you details of how we will manage this as safely as possible.

Asymptomatic Testing

As I am sure you are aware, the government strategy of re-opening secondary schools is based on a foundation stone of mass asymptomatic testing of pupils; the tests are to be undertaken initially in school and then at home. 

This additional control measure, along with our extra cleaning measures, additional handwashing, wearing of masks and social distancing will help prevent the spread of the virus and reduce the risk of us having to send large numbers of pupils home from school to self-isolate. As such, we fully support the lateral flow testing and are very grateful to parents for your help and support in this matter. Although the tests are not compulsory, we strongly endorse this approach to help keep pupils and staff as safe as possible.

The guidelines from the DfE are that pupils need a negative test result before returning to the classroom, followed up by two further tests in school each within 3-5 days of each other. For more information about the DfE mass testing programme, please click here.

To conduct these tests, we do need parental permission. Whilst the vast majority of parents have filled in the consent form, there are still a few outstanding. If you have not yet filled in the form, please can I ask you to do so now by clicking here.

To facilitate the above and a crisp return to the classroom for all year groups on Monday 8 March we are planning to perform the first test for each Year Group as follows:

Year Group First Test Date Testing Times
Upper Sixth Friday 5 March 11.30am - 1.30pm; arrive no later than 12.45pm
Lower Sixth Thursday 4 March 2.00pm - 4.00pm; arrive no later than 3.15pm
Year 11 Friday 5 March 2.00pm - 4.00pm; arrive no later than 3.15pm
Year 10 Thursday 4 March 11.30am - 1.30pm; arrive no later than 12.45pm
Year 9 Thursday 4 March 8.30am -11.00am; arrive no later than 10.00am
Year 8 Friday 5 March 8.30am - 11.00am; arrive no later than 10.00am
Year 7 Saturday 6 March 8.30am - 10.30am; arrive no later than 9.45am


The two further tests which are required will be performed during the week beginning Monday 8 March during the school day with minimum disruption to learning and we will also be using Saturday 13 March (please note this date was incorrect on the original email) for most year groups. Further details with all three testing dates and times will be sent through early next week.

If you have any concerns about the above, or there are any changes to your home circumstances, or you feel that your child may not be able to return to school on Monday 8 March, please can you contact Mrs Sharpe directly at bethsharpe@princethorpe.co.uk

Key School

Key School will remain open until Thursday 4 March, due to the time needed for preparation for the reopening of the school we will not be able to offer Key School on Friday 5 March. 

Staff preparing for pupils’ return to the classroomAs previously advised, we will use Friday 5 March as a training day for teachers in school to ensure we are fully prepared for the pupils’ return and also to perform a COVID test for our staff. There will therefore be no live lessons on Friday 5 March although the pupils will have work set to complete.

School shop

Parents wishing to update any uniform items before Monday 8 March, should contact the uniform shop directly as soon as possible at uniform@princethorpe.co.uk. New school uniform orders will be prepared and available for pupils to collect on Monday 8 March when the shop will be open as normal at break and lunchtime for pupils. Pupils are expected to wear Princethorpe uniform each day except for the day they have Games afternoon when they can wear their Princethorpe games kit to school.

School Routines from Monday 8 March

All “normal” routines as per last term will operate from Monday 8 March. We will be operating a full after-school co-curricular programme following government guidelines, which will be sent to you by Friday 5 March.

Bus Services will resume from Monday 8 March and bus users will be sent an email with details of their child’s seat allocation next week.  It is most important that pupils sit in their allocated seats and the wearing of face masks whilst on the bus is compulsory, unless there is an exemption.

Catering services will also resume as per last term and we will be operating split lunches as before.

Preventative Measures and Contact Tracing on Return to School

Once we are back at school, all the now-normal routines and safety measures will again be in place. These include year-group bubbling, distancing pupils and staff, one way-systems, the wearing of facemasks around the campus and enhanced cleaning regimes.

If we do have a positive case in school then, as last term, we will perform our own contact tracing, with close contacts being sent home (the government has dropped the idea of regular testing for close contacts in school) and the requirement is now to self-isolate for 10 days.

Face Coverings

There has been one major change to the guidance on face coverings which now states:

“face coverings should be worn in classrooms or during activities unless social distancing can be maintained. This does not apply in situations where wearing a face covering would impact on the ability to take part in exercise or strenuous activity, for example in PE lessons”.

This means that for most lessons now, pupils will need to wear a face covering. We are expecting this to be a short-term measure until Easter.

Public Examinations

Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education, made a statement today in the House of Commons and, as I write, Ofqual has just issued guidelines for schools on the awarding of GCSE and A-levels. They appear to be very much in line with what we anticipated but we will read the guidelines very carefully and prepare plans for their implementation over the coming days. The guidelines reference further detailed guidance yet to be published so we look forward to receiving that to aid us in finalising those plans. We will contact parents and pupils directly about this next week.

Whole School Assembly

All parents are invited to the live on-line Whole School Assembly at 10.35am on Monday 1 March when I will give more specific information and guidance on all the above. The live assembly can be accessed by clicking here.

Finally, many thanks as always for all your support and kind words which are hugely appreciated. We are all very much looking forward to seeing the children back in school.

Ed Hester