Dear Parent/Carer,
As you will already be aware from the latest Gosforth Group update, we are now in a position to begin the process of re-opening Jesmond Park Academy. This is some welcome positive news in what has been an extremely difficult time for us all. We are continuing to do everything that we can to return our students as safely as possible to their learning on the school site.
The programme of works taking place on site will allow us to return students to school in a phased approach that mirrors those remedial works. We will begin the process with the return of Year 11, 12 and 13 students on Thursday 16th November. It is vital that we prioritise and return our examination classes to school as quickly as possible to minimise any further lost learning. On top of this, we will be inviting into school students in other years who have Educational Health Care Plans or who are on Child Protection plans. The staff are very much looking forward to seeing their students again.
Students must enter the school at the normal morning arrival time of 8.20am via the Newton Road front entrance only and gather in the area immediately outside main reception. They will enter the school via main reception and proceed to the Maths, Humanities and MFL wing where they will be based for the day. This wing of 36 classrooms, along with main reception, designated dining facilities and the south main street corridors, will be the only areas of the school that students and staff will have access to. Staff will come to students for their lessons in classrooms. This will limit access to practical facilities in some lessons and, whilst we will try to mitigate the impact of this as much as we possibly can, some disruption is inevitable. Students will be given instructions on their timetabled room changes during registration time on Thursday.
There are some specific Year 11 vocational groups who are travelling to Callerton Academy or North Gosforth Academy at the start of the week as they have coursework deadlines which are fast approaching.
We are aiming to have additional classrooms available to us on Monday 20th November. Please note that this availability is subject to the programme of works proceeding as planned and without any disruption. At this point, we will be planning to invite Year 10 back into school.
We will be in touch about specific arrangements for the return of additional year groups as soon as we have confirmation that the required work to facilitate their safe return has been completed. Similarly, as further work is completed around the site, we will inform you as soon as we can about the next steps towards the full return of students to the school site. Remote learning will continue for any students not in school.
A reminder that the school closure - information and updates page on our website contains all of the latest closure information and updates. You can access this directly from the website homepage using the first "pip" button. The page contains the latest update from the Gosforth Group, these Principal's letters and a link at the bottom to our remote learning advice and guidance section of the website. We will also continue to keep you updated using text messaging and social media with any further information as soon as we are able to provide it.
Remote Education
We have received lots of really useful feedback from parents about the delivery of Remote Learning and how challenging it is. We are incorporating that feedback into our plans.
Our approach means that each student should get a mixture of live lessons, narrated resources with clear instructions, and assignments to complete. That being said, now staff training has been conducted and all staff have access to laptops (which many did not previously) there will be more live lessons than previously was the case. The balanced hybrid approach best mirrors what would happen in school e.g. students would, across the school week, be expected to complete independent tasks and assignments
Key Stage 3 students will be expected to attend approximately 10 live lessons each week: 2 in the Core Subjects (Maths, English and Science) and one in the Foundation subjects (Geography, History and Languages). For exam classes the students will have smaller group sessions, as far as possible, in their timetabled slots with their teacher present. Year 13 and 11 will have approximately a minimum of half of their learning delivered live by their teachers. A timetable of live lessons for Years 7-10 will be shared weekly via the students' email to allow students to plan their time out effectively. There have been some clashes between live lessons, which I know is extremely frustrating, and for that we apologise. To ensure that students don't miss out in the future, the teachers will share the resources when they send out the live lesson link and, in many cases, share the recording of the session in the next assignment so that students can access it. We hope the number of clashes will be really small but there may still be a few due to the complexity of the timetable and other staff commitments.
In addition, to ensure students get feedback on any misconceptions or misunderstanding, all staff have been asked to assign tasks that will allow formative feedback to be provided. Again, students need to check their Frog accounts for access to any assignments and feedback provided by the teacher. Feedback could be verbally recorded or written.
Although there will be a period of consolidation on our return to school, any written work that the students have completed needs to be retained and they will be added to the students exercise books for teachers to provide feedback on.
We would encourage your child to contact their teachers or their year teams via email if they have any questions about the work or are finding it difficult. All we ask is that they try their best under really difficult circumstances and work during the normal school day, plus any additional time that would normally be set aside for homework.
Finally please reassure your child that upon return to school that-children will be given praise for the work that they complete, not planner comments for incomplete or missing work.
Student Wellbeing and Safeguarding
We continue to support students welfare through a number of strategies. Currently, pastoral staff are performing home visits to some key students, as well as some families receiving welfare calls. In addition, students on the Special Educational Needs register are being given 1:1 TEAMS based meetings at the end of the school day. Furthermore, students that work with Pete Hardaker or Rosie Hutchinson are receiving their usual 1:1 support via TEAMS.
Through the range of contacts and approaches we are using, we are checking on our key student’s welfare, making sure that these students can access their work and signposting parents to external agencies that can provide further support for them.
These different contact mechanisms are only available to limited number of students and we have prioritised students to receive contact from school for those who are given additional support via pastoral staff in school or who are on the SEND register. However, we are planning to increase the number of students who receive welfare checks next week. In the meantime, if a student does have a concern and does need support, they can contact the school via the HARP (Help, Advice and Reporting Page) on the school VLE.
Once a HARP alert has been received by the school, pastoral staff will respond to the student by the end of the day. We are hoping that the majority of questions that students have will be answered via their morning assemblies and their teachers during their live lessons. Alternatively, parents can email the year team if they feel their child would benefit from a welfare call.
Vulnerable Provision
Starting next week, we are providing an extended provision for vulnerable students. The selected students will be invited into school to work with support staff and will be following their remote learning curriculum.
Recovery Programme
As I have said in my previous letters, there has been a lot of learning time that has been lost
but there has been a lot of work already completed on the plan on how we can recoup the time. This will involve using our Period 7 programme extensively but we might extend this further to make sure that all students are fully prepared. We will outline these plans later in the term.
I hope that we will see all of our students back in school shortly and thanks again for your support during this difficult time.
Warm regards,
STEVE CAMPBELL
PRINCIPAL