Dear Parents / Carers / Students

Having successfully navigated the first week of the school closure, this is the start of Week 2.  We continue to educate and look after the children of Key Workers and Vulnerable children.   This is going well, and I am indebted to the staff who have come in to help myself and other senior colleagues. 

We have had some very positive feedback from parents and students about their on-line ‘homework’ and we have also listened to suggestions to improve things further.  These include setting less frequent short-term tasks for more open-ended work with longer deadlines.  We have also noted that some parents with children who have Special Education Needs are finding some of the work challenging without having a teacher by their side.  So, we will try to set a variety of work with different levels of challenge.  Students can also communicate directly with their teacher through Show My Homework or by email. 

We are awaiting confirmation from the DfE about the timescale and methodology for awarding Year 11 and 13 students with the grades and levels they deserve, and I will write to you again when I am clear on this.  We are intending to be open over the Easter Holidays to ensure Key Worker children can come into school to allow their parents to help our excellent NHS who will need every help they can over the next few weeks.  We are also continuing to produce face visors for NHS staff in our local area and supporting schools elsewhere to do the same thing – so much so that the story is being covered on the Steph Show tomorrow (Channel 4 at 2pm) if you’re interested.

For our students,  we know that there will be a lot of things that you will miss by not coming to school – but hopefully there will be some new opportunities as well, being based at home.  I am uncertain as to when Birchwood will re-open and this will be dictated by the DfE – September is an obvious target – if we open sooner it will be because the curfew measures we are working under have worked.

We should know in the next 2-3 weeks whether these drastic measures are helping – current statistics are really a marker of where we were 2-3 weeks ago. By keeping apart, keeping hygienic and following guidelines, we will beat Covid-19.

Dr Ingate

Principal