I hope that you and your families remain safe and well.
We have had yet another hectic few weeks as we head towards the summer break, with no let up for our students or staff. Thankfully, the awarding of grades for Year 11 and 13 students was completed by 18th June and this week we saw the first steps of the external quality assurance process as the awarding bodies requested evidence for a small sample of subjects. I would like to thank our amazing staff team for their hard work in dealing with this and in supporting our students so competently.
Many of our students have been involved in internal examinations and assessments, which will help us to diagnose gaps in their learning. We can then continue to identify opportunities for catchup and recovery, which will be commonplace for some time. Not least because we continue to feel the impact of Covid in our community as students lose school time and are forced to self-isolate as close contacts of positive cases. I am sure like me you are wholly frustrated by this process and will have heard the calls this week for a different solution to avoid yet more significant disruption for our young people. We shall await the verdict from the government and hope that it is in good time for us to act on.
On a similar note, it is with regret that we have been forced to cancel the face-to face transition day for our new intake of Year 7 students. Dr Justin Varney who leads Birmingham Public Health has directed all Birmingham schools to move to a virtual solution in the interests of public safety, due to the rise in local cases of the Delta variant. We look forward to welcoming our new intake in the building at some point in the future, hopefully when we host our Summer School in July but if not then in September after the summer break.
I would urge parents and students to continue to test twice weekly up to and over the summer using the LFD testing kits. If a student does exhibit symptoms then they are advised to go for a PCR test rather than conduct an LFD. It is also worth familiarising yourselves with the latest update on what symptoms Covid can present by clicking the link below. If we do have students attending with these symptoms we will be recommending that they are sent home to acquire a PCR test result.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57467051
Finally, I would like to finish on a positive note by saying how proud I have been over the last week or so to have received emails and messages from members of the public about some of our students who have been helping others in the local community. It is always a pleasure to hear about good deeds that our students are responsible for and I will share more about this in our end of term newsletter. In the meantime…
Take care, stay safe and thank you for your continued support.
Mr Farr
Headteacher
