POSITION STATEMENT AT THE START OF THE AUTUMN TERM

In March the government announced the closure of all schools to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and our Academies closed their doors to all but the children of key workers and vulnerable students. On June 15th 2020 we re-opened our Academies more widely to offer face-to face weekly provision for our Year 10 students and from 29th June 2020 we made face-to-face provision each week for another Year group. We have focused on supporting self-management, well-being and study skills and in getting our students ready to return full time in September. During the summer staff have been working to look at how they will deliver the curriculum and help students to catch up on missed learning or further build on what they have done at home.

Throughout the summer we have been very conscious of the challenges and concerns around wider opening and have invested considerable time and effort in preparing for this. We have worked to health and safety advice from H&S experts and from guidance issued by the government, NHS and the unions which support our staff.

We know that many parents, students and staff will be anxious about a full return in September , but we equally know that we are public servants committed to educating young people – we want to support their learning and do our best to help them catch up on their time out of school. We are very much looking forward to seeing our students in our academies again in September.

We have developed a central and Academy specific planning framework for responding to COVID-19 which we continue to work to and develop constantly and which is robust and detailed. Please see below our current Risk Assessment documentation and Equality Impact Assessment documents for your reference and reassurance. We have followed all updated government guidance for schools in finalising arrangements and have kept staff, students and parents updated as we have made our final preparations for the start of term. We understand that the coming term is likely to throw up a range of, as yet unknown, challenges and do appreciate that the community of the school will need to pull together and show resilience, co-operation and determination. By doing our best to support one another to be safe and vigilant we can follow our systems of control, and, by doing our best to support learning we can help students prepare for making progress and doing well in assessments.