Update regarding Friday early finishes

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I am writing to update you regarding Friday afternoons for pupils.  This year and for much of last year, we took the decision to close to pupils early on Friday due to a severe shortage in staff / inconsistency of staff due to Covid 19 isolation and / or illness and to enable our teachers to take their statutory planning and preparation time without leaving the classes short or needing unfamiliar staff to cover the classes.

While we thankfully have had no new cases of Covid in the school community for a while now, we are still feeling the after affects.  We have had several members of the team resign with reasons attributable to the pandemic and a number of staff still recovering, along with occasional self-isolation.  This means we are still struggling to maintain consistency and the reliability within classes to ensure safety and supervision and we have also seen a high number of our pupils struggling with the transition back into school and / or increased days.

We do want to have our pupils back to 5 full days as early as possible, however after careful consideration, we believe that we need to carry on with the current plan until the end of this academic year.  

We have been very successful in recruiting to a number of permanent Teaching Assistant posts (6), Teachers (3) and I am delighted to announce that Beth Brookes has been appointed to the position of Assistant Head.  Recruiting to these key roles is an essential part of our recovery for September.

The safety and wellbeing of our pupils are at the front of our minds when making these difficult decisions and we ask for your continued support and understanding as we support the whole school community to recover over the rest of this term, ready for next year.

Very best wishes,

David