Dear Parents/Carers
As we near the end of a very successful fortnight back at school, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support. Attendance in all year groups has been excellent. Our students clearly want to be here and they have been very mature and sensible at following the new updated protocols and procedures. They have all been very patient and understanding and it’s great that they are all so positive about being in school. I have spent time visiting lessons and talking to students and they have shown themselves to be a real credit to their community.
Covid Protocols
Although there is a sense of a return to normality, with students moving around the building and accessing their full curriculum, I would like to reassure parents that there are still a large number of controls in place to protect our staff and students. We have facilitated an intensive programme of two LFD tests for students on their return to school. There was good engagement from students in the testing programme. We have officially recorded with the local health protection team 10 Covid-19 cases (9 student cases and 1 staff case) since the start of this term, and this seems to be below the national average at this time.
Further controls include:
- Maintaining good hand hygiene and general hygiene – continuing with regular hand sanitising and washing
- Maintaining our enhanced cleaning routines – with additional cleaners working around the building
- Retaining the option for classroom social distancing – personal choice for staff to stay at the front of the room
- Retaining the option to wear a face covering – personal choice for staff and students
- Promoting good natural ventilation in all spaces – keeping windows and doors open
- Having separate break times and lunch times for each year group.
- Continuing to promote the catch it, bin it, kill it culture – keeping up the advice to students on this, as required
- Encouraging ongoing LFD testing in staff and students – promoting the logging of results with the NHS on the gov.uk website
- Controlling potentially positive/confirmed positive cases – following established procedures for this
- Working with NHS Test and Trace and PHE – in regular dialogue with the local health protection team
- Having clear option for outbreak control/management – we will work closely with public health to control any outbreak and implement recommended measures
Covid Vaccine Update
I realise that there is concern amongst parents with the news coverage concerning Vaccinations. Whilst there have been reports in the press that agreement has been reached within government that the vaccination programme will be extended to 12-15 year olds, we have yet to see what precise role there will be for schools and colleges in this process. All we know is that the programme will be led by Public Health Teams, not schools. As such, it would be inappropriate to provide assurances or otherwise when at this time we await further clarification. As always, we will act in the best interests of the children in our care and work with parents at all times, providing updates when more information is available.
Parent/Carer Information Evenings and Parent/Carer Consultation Sessions
You may have seen on our website details of key contacts and key dates and events for the academic year. The link to this document can be found here:
https://www.jesmondparkacademy.org.uk/_filecache/29a/c16/4435-key-dates-and-contacts-2021-22-final-version-v2.pdf
We hold a number of parent/carer information evenings, ('How To Support Your Child', 'Year 9 Options Evening' for example) and parent/carer consultation sessions (where you have the opportunity to speak to your child's teachers directly to discuss their progress in their particular subjects) throughout the academic year. These events will either take place virtually or face to face in school depending upon the nature of the event and we will contact you well in advance with the specific detail of how the evening is going to be held. It is anticipated at this stage that all of our parent/carer consultation sessions will take place virtually via the software SchoolCloud which many of you will be familiar with. Again, we will write to you well in advance of each evening or event with the specific detail of how these will take place and we will, of course, endeavour to provide any support required to enable all our parents and carers to access these evenings.
After School Sports
We have been delighted by the large number of students who have been attending the after school sporting clubs this year. As a school, we value the importance of sport and physical activity in terms of students’ wellbeing and fitness and of course, the most important thing is that the students really enjoy the sessions. If you would like your children to attend, the activity menu is as follows:
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Sport
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Year Group
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Location
|
|
Sport
|
Year Group
|
Location
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monday
|
|
|
|
Badminton
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KS3
|
Sports Hall
|
|
Tuesday
|
|
|
|
Basketball
|
Open
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Sports Hall
|
|
Wednesday
|
|
|
|
Football
|
7
|
North Field
|
|
Football
|
8
|
South Astroturf
|
|
Football
|
9
|
North Astroturf
|
|
Football
|
10
|
North Astroturf
|
|
Thursday
|
|
|
|
Basketball
|
Open
|
Sports Hall
|
|
Friday
|
|
|
|
Fitness
|
Open
|
Fitness Suite
|
More sports will appear over the course of the year and we will be delighted if we can maintain the current interest throughout the year.
Finally, I hope that the weather remains fine and that you have a restful and enjoyable weekend.
Yours sincerely
STEVE CAMPBELL
PRINCIPAL