The Flagpole

As ever, we continue to monitor our home learning experience for our pupils. All pupils are currently completing their pupil survey so that we can further understand what learning online is like from an academic and pastoral point of view.

We would also like to gain knowledge from parents and therefore we have created a short questionnaire. Your viewpoints and ideas are a significant part of our constant review of home learning and we would appreciate your participation.

Please follow this link for the Parental Survey

Many thanks

You will no doubt be aware that Ofqual and the Department for Education have issued some outline proposals for the examinations this summer. We anticipate detailed instructions being issued in February following the results of the consultation, but we welcome the outline proposals in so far as they fall broadly in line with what we anticipated and planned for and are what we believe is the right approach for our pupils.

The proposals broadly state that teachers would be asked to provide Teacher Assessed Grades (TAG) and would be supported in that by being provided with externally set papers and mark schemes to be sat, probably, in mid-May to early June. These tests would form a very important part of the TAG but not determine it entirely. This is very much what we had in mind with our proposed Final Internal Assessments.

These new tests would come with the advantages of being centrally set, benefitting from exam board guidance and having the additional quality assurance of random sampling across all schools in the country. Given that we will all hopefully be back in school by that point, they should also be able to run in proper controlled conditions.

We will wait to find out the specific details of the tests and their content and then look to amend our current proposals. The Final Internal Assessments would most likely be removed though, if we do have more detail on the nature and content of the exam board tests, we would certainly look to give the pupils the opportunities to practise similar tests before the real ones. As soon as we have that detail and have worked through the amended plans we will of course update you as soon as possible.

Ofqual and DfE have invited feedback on their proposals. You can find details of the proposals here and enter your feedback here.

Whilst we do understand that this is an extremely unsettling time, we are confident that our pupils are very well placed when compared to the picture nationally. We will continue to do all we can to ensure that the pupils are fully supported and prepared in order to get the best possible grades they deserve.

Please also see the links below for the FAQs we have sent our to Year 11 and Upper Sixth parents and pupils this week for your reference.

Thank you as always for your support.

Michael Reddish
Deputy Head - Academic

Ed Hester
Headmaster

Progress Reports for Year 9 will be published today, Friday 22 January 2021, and will be available to view on My School Portal.  

Dr Michael Reddish
Deputy Head - Academic 

Year 8 parents will have received a communication from me setting out the options choices available to their child for Year 9.

Please make your choices by completing the survey by 9am on Monday 25 January 2021.  The survey can be accessed here.

Dr Michael Reddish
Deputy Head - Academic

Year 11 Mock Exam Reports will be published to the parent portal on Wednesday 3 February 2021. Once published, you will receive an email notification advising that the reports are available to view on My School Portal.

There will be an opportunity for parents to discuss their child’s report at the forthcoming Year 11 Virtual Parents’ Evening on Thursday 4 February 2021 (please note date change from Tuesday 26 January 2021).

We look forward to seeing you then.

Dr Michael Reddish
Deputy Head - Academic

Thursday 4 February 2021 - 6.00pm to 8.30pm

Please note that the date of Year 11 mock exams Parents' Evening has changed from Tuesday 26 January and will now take place on Thursday 4 February from 6.00pm to 8.30pm. It will be hosted virtually through of a series of Microsoft Teams meetings with your child's teachers. Meetings will be booked online in five-minute slots. Further details will follow on how to book the appointments.

Please be aware that for subjects where teachers teach more than one set, teachers may be in contact with you via email before the Parents’ Evening to update you as to your child's progress as there will be more pupils than available meetings.

You can find a list of your child's teachers under Teacher Contacts on MySchoolPortal.

Dr Liz Pyne
Assistant Head - Teaching and Learning

Upper Sixth Mock Exam Reports will be published to the parent portal on Friday 5 February 2021. Once published, you will receive an email notification advising that the reports are available to view on My School Portal.

There will be an opportunity for parents to discuss their child’s report at the forthcoming at the Upper Sixth Virtual Parents’ Evening on Thursday 4 March 2021 (please note date change from Thursday 18 March 2021).

We look forward to seeing you then.

Dr Michael Reddish
Deputy Head - Academic

It has been wonderful to see pupils enjoying their Bookbuzz books and discussing them with each other.  Volunteers from Year 7 and 8 will shortly be creating quizzes and other activities based on the books in order to keep the conversations going and promote the active reading strategies that are so important across the curriculum.  If your child has not yet finished his or her Bookbuzz book, it would be great if you could encourage them to do so over the next couple of weeks, so that they can get the most out of the follow-up activities we will do.