Message from the Principal
Friday, December 18, 2020
Update
Dear families,
Sorry to be writing to you again – I should have expected the last minute ridiculous request from the Department for Education at the very end of term!
Yesterday afternoon, when many schools had already finished for Christmas, they gave schools the choice over whether they want to close to students in Years 7-10 for the first week back after Christmas, and only have Year 11 students in for lessons so that we could carry out mass COVID testing in schools. We have no plans to do this and as such will proceed with our calendar as scheduled, with an INSET day on Monday 4th January and ALL students returning on Tuesday 5th January 2021.
The reasons for this are as follows:
· We are a school and place of learning, not a medical facility
· Plans will further disrupt learning when students and their families have already had enough of this
· I do not feel comfortable as an employer, asking staff to conduct medical tests on students without appropriate training, supervision or experience
· I do not feel comfortable as a parent, asking any of my children to be tested in this way
· We currently have enough local testing capacity for everyone to access when they need it. If families want to get their children tested then they can do so at any point, by qualified personal
· As it was communicated with only one working day to put plans in to action, we do not have the time or capacity to do this
· Students have missed enough school and as such we will be open as planned
· It is not fair on families to ask them to find childcare for a week when it is totally avoidable
· The solution to this virus is mass-vaccination, not testing. We will happily support any roll-out of vaccinations to school staff and students, and/or the local community, when this is ready to go
As with governmental announcements with regards to schools, these plans are vulnerable to change! I will write to you if anything changes, but please prepare your children for returning to school on Tuesday 5th January 2021.
Best wishes (again!)
Gregg Morrison
Principal
